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Common vitamin may influence brain aging in ways scientists didn't expect
New Japanese research links higher vitamin C blood levels to better-preserved brain structure and stronger neural connections in older adults.
Scientists tried to fool bumblebees into avoiding a flower. They failed in the best way.
A new study proves bumblebees can problem-solve similar to big-brained creatures, showing just how smart the insects are.
“The Big Bang Theory ”cast: See Jim Parsons, Kaley Cuoco, and their brainy costars, then and now
The stars have continued to make waves in film, television, and theater — among other career milestones.
Janelia’s Two Big Bets: Decoding the Brain and Reinventing How Science is Done
HHMI’s Janelia Research Campus is launching a decade-long scientific effort to pursue two coequal goals: understanding how the brain generates complex behavior, and developing a new mode of scientific discovery in which biologists and AI work together as partners in discovery.
Health in a Handbasket: Food for brain health
The Link Between Vitamin C And Brain Health Just Got Even Clearer
An "exciting hypothesis".
This popular brain supplement was linked to shorter lifespans in men
A large-scale study suggests that men with higher levels of the amino acid tyrosine may have shorter lifespans, potentially losing close to a year of life expectancy. The finding is especially intriguing because tyrosine is commonly associated with brain health and is often used in supplements aimed at boosting focus and performance.
HMNC Brain Health announces $50 million first closing of Series B financing and a strategic partnership with MEDICE
Financing will accelerate the development of HMNC’s neurosciences portfolio, including Phase 3-readiness activities for Ketabon (KET01) and Nelivabon (BH-200)Agreement grants MEDICE exclusive European commercialization rights for KET01, with tiered double-digit royalties and significant milestone payments MUNICH, Germany, June 15, 2026 – HMNC Brain Health ("HMNC" or the "Company"), a clinical-stage neuroscience company, today announced the successful $50 million first closing of its Series B fin
Scientists Identify 2 Distinct Subtypes of Autism in The Brain
A potentially big step forward.
Scientists Identify 2 Distinct Subtypes of Autism in The Brain
A potentially big step forward.
The Muted Reaction to Siri’s New Gemini-Powered Brain
Your blood pressure reading contains a hidden number — and here’s why it matters
Pulse pressure, which can indicate how stiff your blood vessels are, provides a window into heart and brain health.
What an Ecotherapist Wants You to Know About Nature and Your Mental Health
From fractal patterns to cortisol reduction, here's what actually happens in your brain when you step outside—and how to bring those benefits indoors.
From rockets to brain implants, here's a look at Elon Musk's vast empire
Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and now first-ever trillionaire, controls a lot of different businesses.
Your brain can keep improving into your 90s, study finds
A three-year study of nearly 4,000 adults ranging from age 19 to 94 found that brain health can improve at any age, challenging the common belief that mental sharpness must decline as we get older. Participants spent just a few minutes a day on brain-training activities, and researchers found measurable gains across multiple aspects of brain health, including thinking clarity, emotional well-being, and sense of purpose.
Learning a musical instrument in your 70s could help protect memory
Learning a musical instrument later in life may help keep the brain younger for longer. In a four-year study, older adults who continued practicing maintained their memory performance and showed less age-related brain shrinkage than those who quit. The benefits were especially noticeable in brain regions tied to memory and learning.
Your brain can keep improving into your 90s, study finds
A three-year study of nearly 4,000 adults ranging from age 19 to 94 found that brain health can improve at any age, challenging the common belief that mental sharpness must decline as we get older. Participants spent just a few minutes a day on brain-training activities, and researchers found measurable gains across multiple aspects of brain health, including thinking clarity, emotional well-being, and sense of purpose.
Why summer flies by as an adult—but lasted forever when you were 10
Blame your brain's filing system.
Second Vanderbilt Health team wins NIH Replication Prize
Led by Simon Vandekar, PhD, a group of biostatisticians earned the honor for tools that help brain researchers tell strong, trustworthy findings from weak ones. Vanderbilt took two of 15 total NIH prizes.
Ancient DNA shared with Neanderthals may explain human language
A tiny set of ancient genetic “switches” may have played a surprisingly large role in making human language possible. Researchers found that these DNA regions, which act like volume controls for genes involved in brain development, have an outsized influence on language ability despite making up less than 0.1% of the genome.
When aerosol sprays become a deadly health hazard
Key Takeaways: Dusting or huffing is a dangerous trend where people use inhalants such as deodorants and hair spray to get high.The trend is popular on various social media channels.Inhaling these dangerous aerosols can cause brain damage, breathing and heart issues, and even death.Experts say it's important to have a conversation with your kids...
Tilly Edinger: The paleoneurologist saved by her science
Johanna Gabriela Ottilie “Tilly” Edinger dedicated her career to studying ancient brains. It saved her life
Your brain built a reality bubble. Literature, science, and philosophy can pop it.
Our brains give us a usable version of the world, not a complete one. A neuroscience and a physicist show why that gap matters for bias, free will, and the responsibility we carry into whatever happens next.
The midlife habits that could make or break your brain health long-term
Researchers increasingly believe your 40s, 50s and 60s represent a critical window for protecting cognitive health later in life.
Scientists Found That Bacteria Can Remember Stress Even Though They Have No Brains
Single cells used past nutrient shocks to change how they grew.
Scientists May Have Pinpointed Physical Evidence of Our Consciousness
New research on brainwaves in the thalamus shows patterns distinctly linked to conscious states.
I'm a neurosurgeon — 5 critical ways I keep my own brain healthy
A classic brain test exposed AI's biggest weakness
Researchers gave top AI models a classic attention test used in psychology and found a major flaw. While the models could correctly name colors in short lists, their performance deteriorated sharply as the task became longer and more complex. Some leading systems fell from over 90% accuracy to nearly complete failure.
Scientists mapped every neural connection in a fruit fly and found a surprise
A groundbreaking new connectome maps every neural connection in an adult fruit fly’s central nervous system, creating an unprecedented view of how the brain and body work together. The findings suggest that complex behaviors emerge from distributed local circuits rather than a single central controller, offering new clues about intelligence, movement, and brain function.
Oh, Thank God: iOS 27 Fixes the Liquid Glass Optical Illusion That Broke My Brain
Sanity prevails.
The 6 Best Foods for Brain Health
Leafy greens, berries, and fatty fish are especially beneficial for preventing cognitive decline.
Dietary Approaches to Support Brain Health in Aging webinar set for June 25
The Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service and OneOp will host the webinar, "Dietary Approaches to Support Brain Health in Aging," on June 25.
Understanding anorexia’s grip on the brain could unlock new therapies
One-third of people with anorexia nervosa don’t recover and treatment has remained stagnant for years. Now we’re beginning to understand how the condition takes over the mind
Scientists found a new Alzheimer’s trigger and a drug that stops it
Researchers have identified a new Alzheimer’s target and created an experimental compound that blocks a damaging process inside brain cells. In mice, the treatment slowed nerve cell loss, reduced Alzheimer’s-related changes, and even appeared to promote healthier aging.
How documenting everything changes your brain
Psychologists call it cognitive offloading, and it has upsides and downsides for your memory.
Beyond memory: FSU expert takes whole-body approach for Alzheimer's and Brain Awareness Month
June marks Alzheimer’s and Brain Awareness Month, an opportunity to foster public understanding for the most proactive brain health habits. A Florida
Beyond memory: FSU expert takes whole-body approach for Alzheimer's and Brain Awareness Month
June marks Alzheimer’s and Brain Awareness Month, an opportunity to foster public understanding for the most proactive brain health habits. A Florida
You could get some of the benefits of sleep without having to nod off
Mice seemed to reap some of the benefits of sleep by having their brain activity stimulated while they were awake, and the researchers plan to test the approach on people
The Probiotic Breakthrough for Natural Anxiety Relief and Better Mental Health
A surprising gut-brain discovery suggests that anxiety could one day be treated with specially designed probiotics. Could anxiety be shaped, at least in part, by tiny organisms living in the gut? Research from Duke-NUS Medical School and the National Neuroscience Institute of Singapore points to
Golden Knights director of entertainment experience cherishing role in Final
Ferraro grew up Hurricanes fan, brains behind elaborate pregame show since Vegas joined NHL
Your brain can start changing after just two minutes of this mental practice
New research suggests that if you hang in there for just a few minutes of meditation, your brain can start to shift in meaningful ways.
Bumblebees have tiny brains but they can solve problems like chimps and elephants
New research suggests the fuzzy insects may be capable of spontaneously solving problems the way animals with much larger brains do.
BEAM raises awareness of Alzheimer’s disease through community outreach, research
A UCLA club is partnering with local senior living homes and engaging in research to raise awareness about Alzheimer’s disease and dementia. Brain-Health Education and Advocacy Movement at UCLA works with the Mary S.
Need to recharge your brain? Stop swiping and turn a page
People are throwing parties in an effort to read more for fun. The meet-ups are more than a social activity or a way to recharge — they can help improve brain health.
Ultraprocessed Diets Linked to Dementia Risk | WSJ Health for June 5
Plus, new research on anesthesia and a brain tumor radiation device
A doctor and neurologist's staple routines for longevity: 'To protect the brain, you have to protect the rest of the body'
Keeping your brain healthy requires a holistic approach, says neurologist and longevity expert Dr. David Dodick. Here are his practices for optimal health.
E-bike safety; lung cancer treatment and prevention; keeping CMA Festival attendees safe; plus other stories with Vanderbilt Health sources
WKRN News 2 interviewed Jeffrey Upperman, MD, FACS, Professor and Chair of the Department of Pediatric Surgery and Surgeon-in-Chief of Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt, about e-bike related injuries following the recent death of a Brentwood High student and a proposal to require safety training before students could ride a bike on a school campus in Williamson County. Fabien Maldonado, MD, MSc,Professor of Medicine and Thoracic Surgery, was on WTVF News Channel 5‘s live studio show, “Openline,” with host Ben Hall, to discuss lung cancer, treatment and prevention. WSMV’s “Today In Nashville” program hosted Vanderbilt LifeFlight paramedic/flight nurse practitioner Tony Smith to talk about safety for the CMA Festival. The New York Times reporter Carl Zimmer interviewed James Crowe, MD, Director of the Vanderbilt Center for Antibody Therapeutics, for a story about the race to find vaccines and treatments as Ebola spreads. The Vanderbilt Health News release about the pilot clinical trial conducted by Vanderbilt Health and Cumberland Pharmaceuticals Inc., that confirms the safety of ifetroban and supports the further development of the drug to prevent cancer metastasis, was picked up by Reuters, Stock Titan,and others. Women We Admire has named Lee Ann Liska, President and Chief Operating Officer, to its list of top women leaders of Nashville for 2026. Radiology Business, Aunt Minnie, Bioengineer, and Imaging Technology News covered the study from Consuelo Wilkins, MD, MSCI, the Mildred Thornton Stahlman Professor in Rural Health and professor of Medicine in the Division of Geriatric Medicine, that found Black and Hispanic people, while known to be far more apt to have dementia, are significantly less apt than other racial and ethnic groups to show Alzheimer’s pathology on brain scans. STAT News interviewed Deva Sharma, MD, Transfusion Medicine & Hematology-Oncology, for a story about more patients requesting unvaccinated blood and what it means for the medical system at large. Yahoo! Health reporter Korin Miller interviewed Gitanjali Srivastava, MD, Director of Obesity Medicine, for a story about how semaglutide and tirzepatide compare. William Schaffner, MD, Professor of Preventive Medicine, was quoted by several news outlets about public health issues, including: NBC News (new COVID vaccinations); Medscape (pneumonia and sepsis); and CNN (protection from contagious viruses). Shelbyville Times-Gazette is repurposing Jessica Pasley’s July 2025 Vanderbilt Health News story on tick-borne illnesses as a front-page story.
Brain-Targeted Drug Discovery Barriers Drive Deep Science Ventures and Medicines Discovery Catapult Deal
According to the World Health Organization’s Global Status Report on Neurology, over 40% of the global population is living with CNS diseases.
Scientists are seriously asking if bees and ChatGPT are conscious
New studies suggest consciousness can't be judged solely by behavior, whether it's a chatbot discussing philosophy or a bee searching for nectar. Researchers are increasingly focusing on the internal mechanisms of brains and computers, concluding that today's AI is likely not conscious while leaving open the possibility for both conscious insects and future machines.
Large indoor sports hub pitched for East Brainerd Road faces RPA pushback
A proposal for a new indoor sports and youth development center on East Brainerd Road is moving through the Hamilton County planning process, but the planning c
Does Salt Secretly Damage Your Brain? Scientists Finally Reveal the Truth - Futura-Sciences
The answer is not as simple as saying salt “damages” the brain directly. Current research suggests that excess salt may influence brain health indirectly, especially through blood pressure, blood vessel health, inflammation, and possibly the gut-brain connection. Why Salt Matters for the Body Salt contains sodium, a mineral the body...
How to Improve Your Gut Health (and Why It’s So Important)
Almost 40% of Americans say their daily lives are affected by their bowel habits so Dr. Trisha Pasricha, author and a director of gut-brain research, joins TODAY to break down why gut health is so important. She explains how your gut is responsible for regulating metabolism, immune health, and mood, highlights signs to know if your gut is healthy, and shares ways to improve gut health like eating more fiber.
Taking Action to Prevent Your Brain Health
Chartese Berry, Executive Director of the Alzheimer's Association joins Fox 5 DC.
Teddi Mellencamp reveals emotional health update on cancer battle
Teddi Mellencamp was diagnosed with stage 4 melanoma in 2022, and by 2025, the cancer had metastasized to her lungs and brain.
Leading Global Brain Science Conference OHBM 2028 to Be Held in Yokohama
YOKOHAMA, Japan, June 03, 2026--The 2028 Annual Meeting of the Organization for Human Brain Mapping (OHBM 2028) will be held in Yokohama, Japan.
Habits form far faster than science previously thought, research shows
Hopkins team studies whether a region of the brain plays a key role in developing habitual behavior, a discovery that could point to ways to alter entrenched habits
Scientists reverse anxiety by fixing a tiny brain circuit
A newly identified group of amygdala neurons appears to play a central role in anxiety and social behavior. Restoring normal activity in this tiny brain circuit reversed anxiety and social deficits in mice, revealing a promising new target for future treatments.
The cult of objectivity has broken consciousness science
With 22 competing theories and no consensus in sight, the science of consciousness is lost. In this exclusive IAI interview, Berkeley psychedelics researcher and bestselling author of a new book on consciousness Michael Pollan insists that even though consciousness lies beyond traditional forms of scientific investigation, we should resist becoming dualists who see it as something radically different from ordinary stuff in the world. Instead, he makes the case for reimagining science itself: it must stop reaching for objective descriptions of physical reality, and instead embrace subjectivity as the indispensable core of all inquiry. Alasdair Craig: How did your experiences with psychedelics get you interested in consciousness?Michael Pollan: One of the things that happens on psychedelics is that they foreground consciousness. What formerly seemed perfectly transparent and ever present—and yet, non-existent, as water is to fish—suddenly you see it. The metaphor I use in the book is that psychedelics sponge the windscreen. Suddenly you realize: wow, there’s a windscreen, there is this phenomenon that’s mediating my relationship to reality. This is not an unusual realization on psychedelics. I think a lot of people are called to think about consciousness after psychedelic experiences. So that was the proximate inspiration for A World Appears: A Journey Into Consciousness (2026).And then there was a more specific way in which psychedelics influence the book. That was a particular experience I had on psilocybin. I had the sensation that the plants in my garden were conscious and returning my gaze, with their own point of view and agency, and I got curious as to how to evaluate an insight like that. I mean, what’s the truth quotient of insights you have on psychedelics? And I was reading William James—who, of course, wrote beautifully about mystical experience—and he said, we can’t judge the metaphysics here, but we should pay attention to two criteria: (1) How useful is it to think this is true? He was a pragmatist, of course. And (2) can we subject it to other ways of knowing to validate it? Because maybe we should treat these insights as hypotheses. And that’s kind of how I approach psychedelics, as a great generator of hypotheses, but they need to be tested against other ways of knowing. And so that led me down this long path exploring the science of plant intelligence and plant sentience.AC: I love your phrase, “smudging the windowpane of conscious experience.” So do you now start to think, actually, even when I’m not on psychedelics, I’m just seeing a screen all the time, which is not reality, but rather is my conscious experience, behind which reality is hidden?MP: Well, you know, not when I’m brushing my teeth and making breakfast! But yes, in meditation, certainly. I mean, one of the things you realize is that my experience happens to be this way now, but it could be another way. And many things can affect it. My morning coffee changes the screen in various ways, sharpens certain things.___The only tool we have to understand consciousness is consciousness.___There’s this wonderful metaphor in Aldous Huxley’s book, The Doors of Perception, where he thinks we channel consciousness, and that what the brain does is edit it, and there’s a reducing valve. And psychedelics open the reducing valve wider. I don’t know that I’m ready to buy into the idea that consciousness exists outside brains, but I do love that metaphor because there are times when you are more conscious than others. I know I’ve switched from window pane to valve, but you know, a camera aperture can open wider or narrower. And I do have a sense of that. I have a sense of when I’m being less conscious, and when I’m being more conscious, by which I mean, you know, more present, taking in more sensory information. So when you start thinking about consciousness as a matter of degree, that changes things also.I think when we scroll on social media, obviously, we’re conscious. But minimally so, because we don’t have to generate our own thoughts. We’re basically taking these little hits from other people and thinking their thoughts.The process of writing this book made me kind of relativize everyday consciousness as just one type, which is exactly what William James said. Normal consciousness is one type, separated by the flimsiest of screens from the other types.AC: If we stick with the metaphor of the smudge on the window that you get when you take psychedelics, it seems like we’re saying that consciousness has become like an object that you’re looking at, right? You’re looking at the smudge and that just is consciousness. But sometimes we’ll talk about consciousness as a state that you’re in, rather than an object you can perceive. You’re either conscious or you’re not conscious. So it’s difficult to really know what sort of thing we’re talking about when we talk about consciousness, right?MP: Yeah. When you say that consciousness is an object, what’s the subject? Consciousness also? The only tool we have to understand consciousness is consciousness. So we’re in a closed loop and when we get a perspective on consciousness, we’re not achieving any distance from it. That’s one of the problems with studying consciousness. Science is predicated on an objective, God’s eye view of things, and you never get that. There’s no such thing. SUGGESTED VIEWING The brain filters consciousness With Àlex Gómez-Marín But, yeah, there is this sense, I think, that consciousness is something you can approach. Certainly, when you’re writing and trying to recreate a conscious experience, it’s a fiction, but you’re standing back from it, and looking at it. But there’s no real subject-object distinction.AC: That’s so interesting, because when philosophers start talking about consciousness, they often talk about what they call “qualia”, which is their word for the felt experience of, say, the color red. And I think that way of speaking often makes us think of the qualia as an object, which you can see out there: the redness of red. But, as you say, we also want to collapse the subject-object distinction when we talk about consciousness. So there’s something strange going on here…MP: Oh, yeah, there are many strange things going on! *AC: Let’s talk about the varieties of consciousness. Apart from perceptions, there are, pains, emotions, thoughts, and so on. What is it that holds all this diversity together so that they all count as instances of consciousness? What is it that they all have in common?MP: Yeah, that’s a really good question. I mean, there is sensory information, right? Which we perceive coming from the world outside ourselves. And then there’s internal information, which is what’s called interoception. And this is very important too. This is where feelings come from—what are sometimes called homeostatic feelings—that are intended to get the brain to keep us in these narrow ranges of temperature and glucose and so on. That’s a very important part of consciousness. And according to some researchers, who I think are probably right, this is where consciousness begins, with these very primal feelings, like hunger and thirst and warmth and itch, and things like that. And then there’s this third thing, which is our thinking about thinking.And what holds all this together is, I think, the sense of self. Consciousness generates a self: it is probably an organizing principle. All this stuff is happening to the self. It’s a construct, I think, but it is very useful. It can connect all these different streams of consciousness to a single being or a place, metaphorically speaking.* AC: The first half of your book is about the science of consciousness. Is consciousness just another thing, like black holes or the origin of life, which we don’t yet understand, but which we should have every hope that science will one day get to the bottom of, or is there something special about consciousness that makes this unlikely?MP: It depends how you define science. As we define science now, it’s going be very difficult. Science since Galileo has had a set of rules or assumptions, which is that the proper remit of science is to deal with the objective, quantifiable, third-person world. And the physical sciences have done amazing work under that set of limitations. Galileo—for tactical reasons, not for philosophical reasons—said science should not deal with the soul, which at the time was what consciousness was considered to be. So what is subjective, what is qualitative, what is first person, we’re going to leave to the church, he said. And this was a good agreement, and it probably kept many scientists from getting burned at the stake. But it leaves science in an awkward spot, now that it wants to venture into that territory of qualities, of first-person experience. And I don’t think it has the proper tools. I think it will have to add to its toolkit in some way, and find a way to bring in phenomenology, or lived experience and introspection, which science is usually dismissive of.The challenge—we alluded to it earlier—is that the only tool you have to study consciousness with is consciousness. And what I mean by that is, the whole scientific enterprise is a manifestation of consciousness. As much as scientists like to flatter themselves with this idea that they attain a godlike perspective on what they study, when it comes to consciousness, there’s no such thing. And it’s fine for all the things you can step outside of and study from that perspective. But two areas it won’t work are consciousness and cosmology.___It could be that we live in this anomaly of not believing nature is conscious. And maybe psychedelics are teaching us something we’ve forgotten.___With cosmology, too, you have to study the universe from inside the universe. It’s not that cosmologists haven’t made progress. We know a lot about the age of the universe and expansion and things like that. But we can’t penetrate what happened before the Big Bang. We just don’t have the tools because we can’t stand outside.The fact that there are 22 full-scale theories of consciousness tells you all you need to know: we’re kind of lost. And I was surprised to find that we are more lost than I thought we were when I started this. I thought that there’d be leading theories, or that we had experiments that we could conduct that would nail some of this down. And the fact is, we don’t.So, I don’t know if science can solve it. But, of course, we can change the rules of science. A really influential book for me was a book called The Blind Spot, by two physicists, Marcello Gleiser and Adam Frank, and a philosopher, Evan Thompson. It’s a reminder that science is a social practice. It’s organized in a certain way and it can be organized in a different way. But it has this huge blind spot at the center of it, which is its failure to recognize that it is a form of consciousness itself, and it doesn’t have a good way of taking account of lived experience.AC: On the one hand, I think you want to resist traditional dualism, which would say that consciousness is something magical, something supernatural, right? But on the other hand, you’re accepting that there is this division in reality between the stuff that you can investigate objectively and measure, and so on—the stuff that science has been good at finding out about—and consciousness, which, for some reason, you can’t objectively measure. Some would take this to suggest that the dualism is actually right. Is there a way of reconciling these two strands of your thinking?MP: To call it magical is full of value judgement. I mean, you could just say immaterial. The interesting thing is, I think, that intuitively we’re all dualists. And I don’t know whether that’s because we’re children of Descartes and other cultures are less dualist than we are. Or it may be because that’s how consciousness feels. It feels different than the body. It feels separate from the body. But I don’t think we should trust that intuition.AC: So let’s think about ways that science might be changed to get at consciousness. I suppose the starting point would be the way that you begin the second half of your book. You have this nice line from William James, where he says, “We now begin our study of the mind from within.” Could you give us some sense of the ways of studying the mind from within? What does this involve?MP: I don’t know what that science looks like. But one of the points I’m making is that it depends on the humanities. I found that I learned as much, if not more, about consciousness, from reading novels and poetry. There is a sense of the fullness and complexity of consciousness that you don’t get in any scientific account. I interviewed this stream-of-consciousness writer and I approached her as an expert on consciousness, and she is. So I think that dialogue is really important.I’m reading Ben Lerner’s new novel, Transcription. Just read the first page of this novel: it’s a man falling asleep on a train, going to conduct an interview, and there is the experience of being in the train, facing backwards, there’s the view outside, but there’s a reflection of himself through which he’s seeing outside. There’s the memory of dropping his kids off at school. All this is going on in one moment of consciousness. Scientists aren’t going anywhere near that. But I think it’s useful for them to think about. That’s where we’re trying to go: like, how does such a layered experience happen? You know, it also makes you wonder, could a computer ever do this? And it gives you some doubt.*AC: Before we get to computers, perhaps we could talk briefly about plants. How did you come to feel that they are sentient?MP: Well, it was a psychedelic experience, and it’s not unusual on psychedelics. In fact, there’ve been studies about how people become animists during psychedelic experience. Their belief in animism arises after a single psychedelic experience.You know, most scientists would say this is all a myth. But we have only 400 years of the age of enlightenment and science. Before that, we were animists, and if you go around the world, most indigenous cultures are still animists, and children are animists, by and large, until they go to school. So it could be that we live in this anomaly of not believing nature is conscious. And maybe psychedelics are teaching us something we’ve forgotten.As I said, I wanted to test this idea, and see whether there was conventional scientific evidence for it. And there’s fascinating work going on in a field that calls itself—in a rather cheeky way—plant neurobiology. These are people who fully realize there are no neurons in plants, but they’re trolling conventional botanists! And they’re doing experiments that are demonstrating that plants can learn and remember, which is kind of amazing: how do you store a memory without neurons? They’re finding plants that can solve problems, that can hear and see. In fact, they have 20 senses to our five or six. For example, a bean plant looking for something to twine, and given a pole within eight inches or so of it, knows where that pole is and will aim its spiraling reach at that pole. What is that about? Is it bouncing signals off of it?One of the spookiest things is the fact that the same anesthetics that put us out put plants out. You might think that plants are already out, but they’re not. They’re just slow. If you take a plant with a fast behavior, like a Venus flytrap, and give it an anesthetic, it will stop reacting. So you have to ask yourself, what is lost when the plant is anaesthetized? Some state of alertness, of awareness, of its environment, of reactivity. I’m not prepared to call that consciousness, but maybe it’s sentience—which is a simpler form of consciousness, and involves the ability to sense what’s going on in your environment and assess what’s good and bad for you and act appropriately. That may be a universal quality of life.AC: Let’s turn from plants to AI. You point out that LLMs are trained on the internet rather than direct interactions with reality. You put this really nicely when you say the internet is not the world so much as a shadow cast by the world. So LLMs are living in this kind of shadow world, or in Plato’s cave, as you put it. What’s the significance of this for AI consciousness and moral consideration? And, to recall the beginning of our conversation, if we’re stuck behind a veil or screen of consciousness, are we also stuck in a kind of shadow world?MP: I don’t think they’re the same shadow worlds because our world includes nature and other people. And even if it’s mediated in some ways... There is a reality out there, and we are in relation to it, through consciousness. There’s friction with it. What’s missing from the LLMs is that friction with the real world. There’s more to the world than human representation, which is what they’re dealing with. And that means that so far, AI is a cultural technology for combining thoughts we’ve already had. SUGGESTED VIEWING Cracking the code for thought With Roger Penrose, Sabrina Gonzalez Pasterski, Max Tegmark, Güneş Taylor Genuine creativity is more than collage. A lot of what AI does now is tantamount to collage, putting this with that and you know, that’s part of art, certainly. But there are also genuinely new ideas that come into the world that don’t come in through manipulating the representations we already have. So it remains to be seen whether AIs can be truly creative in that more radical sense.But my arguments against AI becoming conscious have to do with the fact that the idea of AI consciousness is based on this faulty metaphor that the brain is a computer. There are dimensions in which the brain is like a computer—it certainly does its share of computation. But computers have this sharp distinction between hardware and software, and brains don’t. In a brain, hardware and software are identical. Every memory is a physical change to the brain. Brains are not interchangeable in the way computers are. So this idea that you could take the consciousness out and somehow run it on another substrate, a silicon substrate, seems foolhardy.Anyway, it’s a more extended argument, and I may be wrong. And when we move to computers that aren’t based on silicon—neuromorphic computers and things like that—all bets may be off.AC: Regarding your point about LLMs being stuck in the world of our representations—the internet or whatever—and not being able to interact with reality, are these representations, the world of the internet, themselves part of reality? We’ve created the internet, but it’s still a real thing that exists. And so while the LLMs may be trapped within that part of reality, they’re nevertheless within reality and interacting with it and so on. So it’s not obvious that there’s a barrier there to them becoming conscious and being creative.MP: Yeah, I mean, if our consciousness is built out of human culture, which is what we’re talking about with all those representations. But I tend to think consciousness comes a bit more out of nature and friction with the natural world, but...AC: So there’s a fundamental divide between the natural world and human artefacts?MP: And we lose track of that, and especially people in this computer world. You know, the people who are creating these AI systems, my guess is they’ve been into video games since the age of three, and they didn’t go outside a lot. And their own contact with nature is somewhat limited. I could be wrong, it’d be a very interesting thing to ask, all the wizards of AI, whether they like to go fishing and hiking and do things like that. Or were they on computers from a very early age? I interviewed Blake Lemoine, the Google engineer who came to believe that LaMDA, the Google LLM out at the time, was conscious and deserved personhood. It was very clear that he didn’t see a distinction between this bubble in which he lived and the real world. And I think we’ve all been distanced from the natural world, and this is taking us even further away. But it’s still there, you know, and we still have bodies, and we’re still mortal, and we don’t live in a simulation.AC: I think that’s a great place to finish. Michael Pollan, thank you very much!
We finally know enough about how the brain breaks to focus on fixing it, experts say
The Allen Institute in Seattle says scientists have now learned enough about how the brain works to start fixing it when it breaks.
A science powerhouse bets on genetic therapy to beat brain disorders
The Allen Institute in Seattle says scientists have now learned enough about how the brain works to start fixing it when it breaks.
A science powerhouse bets on genetic therapy to beat brain disorders
The Allen Institute in Seattle says scientists have now learned enough about how the brain works to start fixing it when it breaks.
A science powerhouse bets on genetic therapy to beat brain disorders
After spending two decades studying how the brain works, a huge team of scientists in Seattle is preparing to focus on treating brain diseases, including Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, using gene therapy.
Where biology meets behavior
The University of Utah launches a new undergraduate neuroscience major.
Why you need to future proof your brain in middle age and how to start
Ages 40 to 65 see a period of turmoil in the brain that has previously been overlooked. But identifying problems during this time can protect your cognitive health for decades to come
Your brain starts making social decisions before you do
Researchers found that social behavior begins in the brain before it becomes visible as movement. In zebrafish, a coordinated pattern of activity spread across the brain several seconds before the animals approached another fish. A higher brain region called the pallium played a key role, and fish with stronger neural signals were generally more social.
Air Pollution and Brain Health: What You Need to Know
Discover how air pollution affects brain health in children and adults. URochester Medicine researchers reveal links to learning difficulties, dementia, and Parkinson's—plus steps you can take to protect yourself and your family.
Deep Science Ventures and MDC partner to accelerate brain treatments
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O'Neill over Keane a 'no-brainer' for Celtic?
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This scientist learned he has a devastating brain disease. He set out to cure it.
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Xbox fan backlash to "PlayStation logos in the Showcase" isn't about gatekeeping
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Wearable headband combines AI and mindfulness to alleviate car sickness
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Controversial Gene Therapy for Alzheimer’s Disease
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Biodegradable brain probes eliminate the need for risky surgical removal
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Bengals’ Best Move of the Offseason is a No-Brainer
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Quitting smoking could offer a major benefit beyond heart and lung health, study finds
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Crow Wing SWCD to host free soil health events
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Scientists found the hidden switch fueling alzheimer’s brain inflammation
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Eating ice cream too fast? Brain freeze says a surprising amount about your health
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Caffeine reversed memory problems caused by sleep deprivation
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Protein traffic jams may explain aging, memory loss, and Alzheimer’s
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Polish scientists and students rally in campaign for 3% funding target
Polish scientists and students have been flooding social media with calls on the government to raise research and development spending as part of 3% for Science, 100% for Poland, a campaign born earlier this month out of frustration with chronic underfunding in the academic sector. On May 27, thousands took the slogan on to the streets.The EU has been trying to convince member states to raise their R&D expenditures to 3% of GDP for more than two decades, but the idea has never gained traction in capitals. Finance ministers were too busy plugging budget holes created in the aftermath of the 2008 crisis, then the Covid pandemic, the war in Ukraine, and now the war in Iran.Critics say that countries missed or ignored the target because it is voluntary, but also because research communities have rarely raised their voice to put pressure on national governments. The European Commission hopes to make the target legally binding in the upcoming European Research Area Act, an EU-wide regulation that should be announced by the end of the year. Academia in Poland has been faced with a funding crisis for years, often leaving its members with no other choice but to work abroad in order to access better resources, or leave the sector altogether in the hope of earning a decent living. The risk, in the long-term, is that brain drain stifles local innovation capacity and technological competitiveness.In just a few weeks, the movement rallied nationwide support, including from major academic bodies and trade unions such as the Conference of Rectors of Academic Schools in Poland and the Presidium of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Its public petition collected more than 23,000 signatures. On May 27, it formed the first large protest for science in Poland, gathering thousands of people in front of the parliament building in Warsaw.Ilona Uryga-Bugajska, representative of the Marie Curie Alumni Association Poland Chapter, was there. “The protest was peaceful, with no incidents reported, and the entire event took place in a respectful and calm atmosphere,” she said. Banners she saw in the crowd carried slogans such as “A little longer and I’ll be teaching in a supermarket,” “National culture, starvation salary,” “Stop the destruction of science,” “Passion will not pay the rent,” “Without action, don’t expect a better future,” and “Pull science out of the hole.” She also observed a strong presence of young researchers, who are on the frontline of Poland’s academic crisis.“Academics are usually people who prefer discussion, analysis, dialogue and compromise. We are not a group that protests easily,” said Katarzyna Marzec, professor at the Faculty of Pharmacy of the Jagiellonian University Medical College and AGH University of Krakow, who also took part. “But many of us feel that we have been pushed against the wall.”Aleksandra Rutkowska, translational neuroscientist and research group leader at the Medical University of Gdańsk, agreed. “Frustration in the scientific community is very high,” she said. “Science is often used politically as a symbol of innovation and modernity, but the everyday reality inside many institutions is much more difficult. There is a large gap between the public narrative and the actual condition of the sector.”Maria Wiktoria Górna, head of the structural biology group at the University of Warsaw and one of the organisers of the movement, told Science|Business that the campaign would continue without proven results. This might involve another strike in the autumn, she said. “Empty promises are not enough by now.”Campaign demandsAccording to Uryga-Bugajska, the organisers officially presented their demands and concerns to representatives of the government present at the event. These included Marek Gzik, deputy minister of science and higher education, and Karolina Zioło-Pużuk, secretary of state of that same ministry.The headline demand, for the government to increase national spending on R&D to 3% of GDP by 2030, should be within Poland’s economic capacity, Rutkowska said. “The real question is whether there is genuine long-term political commitment to treating science as a strategic priority rather than a slogan.”In 2024, R&D expenditure in Poland stood at 1.41% of GDP, which is slightly above the average for central and eastern Europe, with countries such as Czechia recording 1.82%, Hungary 1.31% and Romania 0.46%. However, it falls noticeably short of the EU average of 2.24%, which just a handful of countries exceed, including Germany, Belgium and Sweden.Campaigners are also asking for fair wages for scientific staff, including PhD stipends and junior academic salaries, which are widely considered uncompetitive. Starting doctoral scholarships amount to some €843 gross per month, when the statutory minimum wage stands at €1,135. By pushing early-career researchers out of Poland, growing precarity has caused a generational gap in the academic workforce, with just 25% of lecturers aged under 40. In this context, the movement fears that scientific careers could soon be accessible to a privileged minority only.Grzegorz Spólnik is a case in point. After 15 years working in mass spectrometry at the Polish Academy of Sciences, he decided to leave partly “to earn enough money to live a normal life,” he said. “At that time, my earnings were similar to those of people working in grocery shops, and the work-life balance is something that does not exist in science, or is very hard to achieve.”Now a senior field service engineer for Polish laboratory equipment supplier Bioanalytic, he would consider going back to research, “but never in the public sector, maybe some start-up or a big private company with ambitious R&D.”The campaigners want to see more support for basic research and have called for €236 million to be added to the budget of the National Science Centre (NCN) in 2027 so that the average grant application success rate does not fall below 25%.“At the protest, there was a banner I particularly liked: ‘NCN is not a lottery.’ Unfortunately, for many researchers, it increasingly feels exactly like one,” Marzec said. “Personally, I am one of the lucky ones. I work at two of the strongest institutions in the country, where the research standards are very high. I know that in many other institutions, the situation is much worse and obtaining funding for research at an early-career stage is becoming nearly impossible.”Rutkowska also considers herself fortunate. After studying abroad and holding a postdoctoral position, she returned to Poland, where her pay was supported through an NCN-funded project linked to the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions. “This also made me very aware that good research conditions in Poland often depend on external competitive funding rather than on stable support from the system itself,” she said.Long-term strategyBeyond the lack of funds for both salaries and grants, scientists believe that the issue is structural. “The biggest problem at the moment is the complete lack of a clear long-term strategy for the development of science and research from the current government,” Marzec said. “Everything ends with declarations and promises that are never truly followed by concrete actions or structural reforms.”Rutkowska agreed, citing a lack of infrastructure, continuity and long-term institutional support.“Running a research group in Poland often means functioning as an entire institution at once,” she said. “I am a principal investigator, a mentor, a recruiter, a project administrator and, when needed, still someone who returns to the lab bench to help with experiments,” she went on. “This creates a large hidden workload that takes time and energy away from actual science. At times, it feels as though scientists are no longer expecting extra help; we simply hope the system will stop creating additional obstacles that make research unnecessarily difficult.”Related articlesStrategic thinking: Germany funds joint research with Poland and FrancePoland to transfer €30M of regional funds to boost Horizon Europe participationPoland is funding fewer basic research grants as high inflation hitsIn short, “academics are expected to teach, publish papers, apply for grants and conduct high-quality research, while funding and salaries remain very limited,” said Uryga-Bugajska, who returned to her home country after 13 years in the UK.According to Marzec, another issue is the way that research institutions are evaluated. Previously, this took place every four years, with a clear differentiation between stronger and weaker institutions. “The current government, perhaps to avoid political backlash, effectively concluded that everyone is doing well, so in practice no meaningful evaluation took place,” she said.But in her view, “some form of serious assessment is necessary” to ensure the excellence and international competitiveness of Polish institutions, and to determine how to best use public resources and where institutional structures need reform. “Some institutions may need to rethink hiring practices in order to attract ambitious young researchers who are capable of obtaining competitive grants and building internationally visible research groups.” Rutkowska has already had to adapt. “When hiring PhD students, I often have to combine different funding sources creatively to make positions attractive enough for talented people to stay in science,” she said. “Many young researchers do not see a stable future in academia in Poland, and that is deeply worrying.”
Polish scientists and students rally in campaign for better conditions
Polish scientists and students have been flooding social media with calls on the government to raise research and development spending as part of 3% for Science, 100% for Poland, a campaign born earlier this month out of frustration with chronic underfunding in the academic sector. On May 27, thousands took the slogan on to the streets.The EU has been trying to convince member states to raise their R&D expenditures to 3% of GDP for more than two decades, but the idea has never gained traction in capitals. Finance ministers were too busy plugging budget holes created in the aftermath of the 2008 crisis, then the Covid pandemic, the war in Ukraine, and now the war in Iran.Critics say that countries missed or ignored the target because it is voluntary, but also because research communities have rarely raised their voice to put pressure on national governments. The European Commission hopes to make the target legally binding in the upcoming European Research Area Act, an EU-wide regulation that should be announced by the end of the year. Academia in Poland has been faced with a funding crisis for years, often leaving its members with no other choice but to work abroad in order to access better resources, or leave the sector altogether in the hope of earning a decent living. The risk, in the long-term, is that brain drain stifles local innovation capacity and technological competitiveness.In just a few weeks, the movement rallied nationwide support, including from major academic bodies and trade unions such as the Conference of Rectors of Academic Schools in Poland and the Presidium of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Its public petition collected more than 23,000 signatures. On May 27, it formed the first large protest for science in Poland, gathering thousands of people in front of the parliament building in Warsaw.Ilona Uryga-Bugajska, representative of the Marie Curie Alumni Association Poland Chapter, was there. “The protest was peaceful, with no incidents reported, and the entire event took place in a respectful and calm atmosphere,” she said. Banners she saw in the crowd carried slogans such as “A little longer and I’ll be teaching in a supermarket,” “National culture, starvation salary,” “Stop the destruction of science,” “Passion will not pay the rent,” “Without action, don’t expect a better future,” and “Pull science out of the hole.” She also observed a strong presence of young researchers, who are on the frontline of Poland’s academic crisis.“Academics are usually people who prefer discussion, analysis, dialogue and compromise. We are not a group that protests easily,” said Katarzyna Marzec, professor at the Faculty of Pharmacy of the Jagiellonian University Medical College and AGH University of Krakow, who also took part. “But many of us feel that we have been pushed against the wall.”Aleksandra Rutkowska, translational neuroscientist and research group leader at the Medical University of Gdańsk, agreed. “Frustration in the scientific community is very high,” she said. “Science is often used politically as a symbol of innovation and modernity, but the everyday reality inside many institutions is much more difficult. There is a large gap between the public narrative and the actual condition of the sector.”Maria Wiktoria Górna, head of the structural biology group at the University of Warsaw and one of the organisers of the movement, told Science|Business that the campaign would continue without proven results. This might involve another strike in the autumn, she said. “Empty promises are not enough by now.”Campaign demandsAccording to Uryga-Bugajska, the organisers officially presented their demands and concerns to representatives of the government present at the event. These included Marek Gzik, deputy minister of science and higher education, and Karolina Zioło-Pużuk, secretary of state of that same ministry.The headline demand, for the government to increase national spending on R&D to 3% of GDP by 2030, should be within Poland’s economic capacity, Rutkowska said. “The real question is whether there is genuine long-term political commitment to treating science as a strategic priority rather than a slogan.”In 2024, R&D expenditure in Poland stood at 1.41% of GDP, which is slightly above the average for central and eastern Europe, with countries such as Czechia recording 1.82%, Hungary 1.31% and Romania 0.46%. However, it falls noticeably short of the EU average of 2.24%, which just a handful of countries exceed, including Germany, Belgium and Sweden.Campaigners are also asking for fair wages for scientific staff, including PhD stipends and junior academic salaries, which are widely considered uncompetitive. Starting doctoral scholarships amount to some €843 gross per month, when the statutory minimum wage stands at €1,135. By pushing early-career researchers out of Poland, growing precarity has caused a generational gap in the academic workforce, with just 25% of lecturers aged under 40. In this context, the movement fears that scientific careers could soon be accessible to a privileged minority only.Grzegorz Spólnik is a case in point. After 15 years working in mass spectrometry at the Polish Academy of Sciences, he decided to leave partly “to earn enough money to live a normal life,” he said. “At that time, my earnings were similar to those of people working in grocery shops, and the work-life balance is something that does not exist in science, or is very hard to achieve.”Now a senior field service engineer for Polish laboratory equipment supplier Bioanalytic, he would consider going back to research, “but never in the public sector, maybe some start-up or a big private company with ambitious R&D.”The campaigners want to see more support for basic research and have called for €236 million to be added to the budget of the National Science Centre (NCN) in 2027 so that the average grant application success rate does not fall below 25%.“At the protest, there was a banner I particularly liked: ‘NCN is not a lottery.’ Unfortunately, for many researchers, it increasingly feels exactly like one,” Marzec said. “Personally, I am one of the lucky ones. I work at two of the strongest institutions in the country, where the research standards are very high. I know that in many other institutions, the situation is much worse and obtaining funding for research at an early-career stage is becoming nearly impossible.”Rutkowska also considers herself fortunate. After studying abroad and holding a postdoctoral position, she returned to Poland, where her pay was supported through an NCN-funded project linked to the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions. “This also made me very aware that good research conditions in Poland often depend on external competitive funding rather than on stable support from the system itself,” she said.Long-term strategyBeyond the lack of funds for both salaries and grants, scientists believe that the issue is structural. “The biggest problem at the moment is the complete lack of a clear long-term strategy for the development of science and research from the current government,” Marzec said. “Everything ends with declarations and promises that are never truly followed by concrete actions or structural reforms.”Rutkowska agreed, citing a lack of infrastructure, continuity and long-term institutional support.“Running a research group in Poland often means functioning as an entire institution at once,” she said. “I am a principal investigator, a mentor, a recruiter, a project administrator and, when needed, still someone who returns to the lab bench to help with experiments,” she went on. “This creates a large hidden workload that takes time and energy away from actual science. At times, it feels as though scientists are no longer expecting extra help; we simply hope the system will stop creating additional obstacles that make research unnecessarily difficult.”Related articlesStrategic thinking: Germany funds joint research with Poland and FrancePoland to transfer €30M of regional funds to boost Horizon Europe participationPoland is funding fewer basic research grants as high inflation hitsIn short, “academics are expected to teach, publish papers, apply for grants and conduct high-quality research, while funding and salaries remain very limited,” said Uryga-Bugajska, who returned to her home country after 13 years in the UK.According to Marzec, another issue is the way that research institutions are evaluated. Previously, this took place every four years, with a clear differentiation between stronger and weaker institutions. “The current government, perhaps to avoid political backlash, effectively concluded that everyone is doing well, so in practice no meaningful evaluation took place,” she said.But in her view, “some form of serious assessment is necessary” to ensure the excellence and international competitiveness of Polish institutions, and to determine how to best use public resources and where institutional structures need reform. “Some institutions may need to rethink hiring practices in order to attract ambitious young researchers who are capable of obtaining competitive grants and building internationally visible research groups.” Rutkowska has already had to adapt. “When hiring PhD students, I often have to combine different funding sources creatively to make positions attractive enough for talented people to stay in science,” she said. “Many young researchers do not see a stable future in academia in Poland, and that is deeply worrying.”
The Poynter Institute launches fully funded fellowship for journalists covering brain health
From person-to-person coaching and intensive hands-on seminars to interactive online courses and media reporting, Poynter helps journalists sharpen skills and elevate storytelling throughout their careers.
Ozempic may be reshaping the brain, scientists say
The research has implications for addictive behaviors and diseases of aging such as Alzheimer’s.
Ozempic may be reshaping the brain, scientists say
The research has implications for addictive behaviors and diseases of aging such as Alzheimer’s.
Researchers block key protein that helps Parkinson’s spread through the brain
A newly identified protein called GPNMB may play a major role in helping Parkinson’s disease spread through the brain. Researchers discovered that immune cells release the protein in response to damaged neurons, creating a vicious cycle that speeds up brain cell degeneration. In early experiments, antibodies that blocked GPNMB stopped the toxic process from spreading between cells.
Scientists thought brain inflammation was driving long COVID but the scans told a different story
A new brain imaging study has found no evidence of widespread brain inflammation in patients suffering from prolonged symptoms after COVID-19 infection. Instead, the most severe long COVID symptoms were associated with increased brain activity in regions involved in mood and emotion.
New depression treatment targets the immune system instead of the brain
A surprising new approach to depression treatment is showing early promise — not by targeting brain chemicals, but by calming the immune system. In a small clinical trial, researchers found that an anti-inflammatory drug normally used for rheumatoid arthritis appeared to ease symptoms in people with hard-to-treat depression, while also reducing fatigue and anxiety and improving quality of life.
Brain health is shaped by the interaction of lifestyle, environment and social conditions
Why do some people remain mentally sharp into old age, while others experience cognitive impairments earlier in life? Two recent studies involving Forschungszentrum Jülich provide new answers to this ...
Heart-healthy lipid profile benefits brain health in adolescents, study finds
A new Finnish study shows that blood markers of dysfunctional lipid metabolism are associated with poorer cognitive function in 15–17-year-olds. The findings are significant because brain development ...
Emma Heming Willis on How to Prioritize Women’s Brain Health
Emma Heming Willis, author and co-creator of Make Time Wellness, along with Dr. Nicole Beurkens, psychologist and scientific advisor to her brand, join TODAY’s Jenna Bush Hager and Sheinelle Jones to talk about the importance of prioritizing brain health for women. They break down their five pillars essential for taking action on brain health, talk about how they teamed up to launch the brand, and give tips for maintaining consistency.
Emma Heming Willis on Bruce Willis, Brain Health, Caregiving
Emma Heming Willis, co-creator and chief impact officer of Make Time Wellness and caregiver to her husband Bruce Willis, joins TODAY with her brand’s scientific advisor, Nicole Beurkens, to share an update on Bruce and opens up about how her struggle with brain fog inspired her to educate women on prioritizing their brain health.
Scientists create supercharged vitamin K that helps the brain heal itself
Scientists in Japan have created powerful new vitamin K-based compounds that may help the brain regenerate lost neurons — a breakthrough that could one day change how diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s are treated. By combining vitamin K with components related to vitamin A, the researchers developed compounds that were about three times more effective at turning neural stem cells into neurons than natural vitamin K alone.
UC Davis Researcher Explores How Brain Development Shapes Teen Mental Health
Amanda Guyer, professor in the Department of Human Ecology and a faculty researcher at the Center for Mind and Brain, is helping uncover how brain development influences the way children and adolescents respond to social and emotional challenges. She is this month’s guest on Face to Face With Chancellor May.
20 foods that support brain health and function
The research on nutrition and brain health is more nuanced than most headlines suggest, and these 20 foods have the strongest evidence behind them