Journal Club

Highlighting recently published papers selected by Academy members

Category Archives: Neuroscience

Friends appear to share patterns of brain activity

Posted on January 15, 2021 by Amber Dance

Great minds think alike, so goes the saying. Greatness notwithstanding, a study in PNAS finds that the minds of friends do appear to share patterns of activity. “A lot of us have the intuition that our friends are kind … Continue reading →

Study finds clues to Alzheimer’s disease onset in the aging female brain

Posted on December 11, 2020 by Stephen Ornes

In the United States, women make up nearly two-thirds of all diagnosed cases of Alzheimer’s disease. On average, women live about 5 years longer than men, but that life expectancy discrepancy doesn’t likely account for such a large, sex-skewed prevalence … Continue reading →

The hippocampus has brief but critical role in early task learning

Posted on September 4, 2020 by Amy McDermott

How the brain learns new tasks is among the biggest and oldest questions in neuroscience. A recent study in Nature Neuroscience offers a new, potentially key part of the answer: the dorsal hippocampus is involved in the earliest stages of … Continue reading →

Categories: Journal Club | Neuroscience | Tagged Alzheimer's disease, chemogenetics, decision-making, dorsal hippocampus, hippocampus, learning, memory, neuron | Leave a comment

Future choices may be guided by our memories of past ones

Posted on July 17, 2020 by Jill Sakai

When it comes to making choices, past decisions may play a surprisingly large role. The traditional view of decision-making is that our choices are guided by what we remember about the outcomes of previous choices we’ve made. But in recent … Continue reading →

Neurons in the hippocampus can make several different maps of the same environment

Posted on April 17, 2020 by Amy McDermott

Nestled deep in the brain, the hippocampus is the seat of spatial cognition. Specialized hippocampal neurons fire in consistent patterns thought to construct mental maps that help us navigate the world—in general, researchers believed there was one map for every … Continue reading →

Categories: Journal Club | Neuroscience | Tagged hippocampus, map, navigation, neuron, place cell | Leave a comment

Judging others based on the rewards they receive correlates with political leanings

Posted on March 15, 2020 by Amber Dance

Which employee deserves the highest salary? Should a professor receive tenure? Did my spouse do their fair share of the household chores? These types of questions all require people to pass judgment on the effort expended by others. According to … Continue reading →

Dopamine-making neurons, an ongoing mystery, play a bigger role in reinforcing learning than in initiating action

Posted on January 24, 2020 by Amber Dance

Deep in the midbrain, one type of neuron has two crucial jobs when it comes to acting while anticipating a reward—a state also known as Pavlovian conditioning. Called dopaminergic (DA) neurons, they can link a signal, such as a sound … Continue reading →

For choices involving uncertainty, the brain simplifies the math that drives our decisions

Posted on September 27, 2019 by Lynne Peeples

Every day, people make countless decisions, big and small: Should I buy that new house? Do I want chocolate or vanilla ice cream? A recent study suggests that when faced with uncertainty regarding a choice, how a person evaluates their … Continue reading →

Journal Club: Neurons fire in sync, helping elucidate the biological basis of learning

Posted on May 17, 2019 by Amber Dance

Our brains change as we learn. But how exactly does a cluster of neurons change their activity or connections? It seems the phenomenon is due, at least in part, to neurons starting to fire in sync, according to a recent … Continue reading →

Categories: Cell Biology | Journal Club | Neuroscience | Tagged learning, maze, memory, neurons, plasticity, prefrontal cortex, rat | Leave a comment

Journal Club: Newly discovered ion channel gene promises disease insights

Posted on May 3, 2019 by Amy McDermott

The molecular identity and precise function of a commonly expressed cell-membrane chloride channel has long been a mystery. A recent study in Science uncovers the gene responsible for the channel, potentially shedding light on its role in the body. Researchers … Continue reading →

Journal Club: Brain scans and behavior suggest oxytocin can change perceptions of fairness

Posted on April 6, 2019 by Amy McDermott

Some people are more generous in social situations—offering to cover the dinner bill for example. Others are more individualistic, preferring to keep resources for themselves. A recent study in Nature Neuroscience finds that perceptions of fairness vary from person-to-person based … Continue reading →

Categories: Journal Club | Neuroscience | Tagged amygdala, fairness, orbitofrontal cortex, oxytocin, prosocial | Leave a comment