When we look at the world before us, we experience a unified scene of shapes and colors. But individual neurons in our brain do not. They are microscopic automata that can only emit electrical impulses when specific shape patterns appear in their little territory of... click to read more

We, human beings, are made in a way as to understand each other through external features, such as voice tone, facial expression and body language. All this information together with the natural context allows us to quickly and intuitively interpret the behaviour of others, their... click to read more

The hippocampus is a brain region tightly related to memory processing. This region hosts one of the most peculiar phenomena that occurs in the adult mammalian brain: the continuous generation of new neurons during a lifetime. This phenomenon is named adult hippocampal neurogenesis and is... click to read more

Imagine the following sequence of events. First, you walk through the tropical rainforests of Australia and hear an (unfamiliar) booming sound then see an (unknown) bird-like animal. Some days later, you see a photograph of the bird (the cassowary) with the caption "extremely dangerous". Finally,... click to read more

Few traits are as uniquely human as complex spoken language. Language, therefore, has interested evolutionary biologists and neuroscientists seeking to understand what makes us, and in particular our brains, distinct from other animals. The first major genetic break in deciphering the underlying biological architecture of... click to read more