Thalamus

Eating ultra-processed foods may rewire your brain’s hunger and reward circuits

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A new brain imaging study reveals how ultra-processed foods reshape appetite circuits, raising concerns that these everyday products could be rewiring our eating habits from the inside out. Study: Ultra-processed food consumption affects structural integrity of feeding-related brain regions independent of and via adiposity. Image Credit: Rimma Bondarenko / Shutterstock A team of researchers at McGill University … Read more

Study reveals how the brain processes active and passive touch differently

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Though the sense of touch underlies how we and most other animals interact with the world around us, much remains unknown about how this sense is processed in the brain. Researchers from Heidelberg University and Ludwig Maximillan University Munich in Germany measured the neuronal activity differences between active touch and passive touch in mice. As … Read more

Thalamus Identified As a Hub for Memory and Brain Plasticity

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Summary: A new study reveals that the thalamus, long overshadowed by the cortex and hippocampus, plays a crucial role in shaping and updating brain connections. Researchers observed plasticity in thalamic neurons in response to visual experiences, independent of the cortex—an unexpected finding. These changes, especially pronounced during development but also present in adults, may offer … Read more

New research shows why limits on working memory exist

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Working memory is what allows humans to juggle different pieces of information in short-term scenarios, like making a mental grocery list and then going shopping or remembering and then dialing a phone number.  While scientists agree that the capacity of working memory is limited, they offer competing theories about how and why this is true. … Read more

Mapping cerebellar nuclei outputs in an autism mouse model

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The cerebellum plays a critical role in both motor and non-motor functions, and its dysfunction is linked to various mental disorders, including autism. This study maps the three-dimensional distributions of 50,168 target neurons of cerebellar nuclei (CN) in wild-type and Nlgn3R451C mutant mice. The researchers found that the Nlgn3R451C mutation differentially affects projections from CN to the … Read more