Psychedelic Power of the Humanities
Professors explore psychedelic's possible connection with humanities education.
Why Kind Leaders Finish First (According to Science)
Leaders from academia and the private sector discuss how kindness is a strategic asset rather than a professional weakness.
Berkeley Talks: How Do We Make Better Decisions? (Revisiting)
UC Berkeley professors discuss how they view decision-making from their respective fields.
New Berkeley Study Examines How We Analyze Rooms
Some brains perform a complicated assessment, while others seem to take a shortcut.
Finch Chirps Are More Than Mindless Chatter
A Berkeley study dives deeper into the communication and interaction between zebra finches.
New Study Suggests Chimpanzees Might Be Rational Thinkers
Chimpanzees may have more in common with human thinkers than previously thought.
With These Devices, the Doctor Is Always In
Berkeley engineer explains how implantable and wearable technologies are redefining patient care.
Altered States of Mind
Explore the effects of psychedelics on the mind and the body.
Sleep Strengthens Muscle and Bone by Boosting Growth Hormone Levels
A new study reveals the complex brain circuits involved in growth, offering fresh insights into health and fitness.
Berkeley Talks: How Forgiveness Changes You and Your Brain
Psychologists explore what forgiveness is, how it works in the brain and the ways people can practice forgiveness.
Broad Use of Psychedelic MDMA Could Ease Psychological Trauma
New research proposes that use of the psychedelic MDMA could bring relief to millions of patients.
How Seeing the New Color ‘Olo’ Opens the Realm of Vision Science
UC Berkeley scientists tricked the eye into seeing "the greenest green" they'd ever seen.
A Stroke Stole Her Ability To Speak. Scientists Used AI To Bring It Back.
Learn how researchers at UC Berkeley and UC San Francisco were able to finally give a stroke patient a voice again.
Is the ‘Love Hormone,’ Oxytocin, Also the ‘Friendship Hormone’?
A UC Berkeley study found that social prairie voles lacking the receptor for oxytocin are slow to form friendships and less aggressive toward unfamiliar peers.
Scientists Uncover Neural Mechanisms Behind Long-Term Memory
For the first time, neuroscientists have recorded activity from hundreds of neurons simultaneously in bats, providing new clues into how memories are stored.
Are Groovy Brains More Efficient?
A new study finds that the depth of small grooves in the brain's surface is linked to stronger network connectivity and better reasoning ability.
Watch a UC Berkeley Neurologist Explain How Concussions Really Work
A neurologist explains the impact of repeated head blows.
UC Berkeley Professor Michael Yartsev Named Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator
Yartsev will join 20 other UC Berkeley faculty members whose salaries and a major part of their research are paid for by the HHMI.
UC Berkeley Launches Landmark Study: How Exactly Do Magic Mushrooms Alter the Brain?
"Researchers will use neuroimaging to observe how psilocybin alters the brain — the university’s first human study involving a Schedule 1 substance." This research was first reported on Berkeley News.
EAST BAY NEWS UC Berkeley researchers to have human subjects in psilocybin study
With a millennia-long record of ritual and ceremonial use, psilocybin's potential to treat certain mental disorders has seen new research interest.
Psychedelics Change How We See the World. A UC Berkeley study aims to find out why.
Researchers will use neuroimaging to observe the effects of psilocybin on the human brain — in real-time.
Can Psychedelics Improve Mental Health?
An in-depth interview with Gül Dölen, a psychology professor and researcher with the UC Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics.
Berkeley Voices: One Brain, Two Languages
A UC Berkeley sociolinguist and his research team has discovered where people who are bilingual store language-specific sounds and sound sequences in their brains.
What Bats Can Teach Us About the Evolution of Human Speech
Researchers have identified the part of the brain in Egyptian fruit bats that controls vocalizations and found that it contains very similar neural wiring to the part of the human brain that controls speech.
Are Stressed-Out Brain Cells the Root Cause of Neurodegenerative Disease?
UC Berkeley research suggests that constant stress triggered by clumping proteins is killing brain cells.
For New Professor, Psychedelics and Octopuses May Hold Keys to the Human Mind
UC Berkeley professor explores how the brain engages with the drug ecstasy and what it might mean for the future of psychedelic-assisted treatment.
Cell Types in the Eye Have Ancient Evolutionary Origins
UC Berkeley study finds that vertebrates vary widely in the number of retinal cell types in the eye, but most cell types seem to have a common origin.
Innovative Design Achieves Tenfold Better Resolution for Functional MRI Brain Imaging
The effort also results in an ultra-high resolution that is over 50 times more detail than current 3T scanners typically used in hospitals.
UC Berkeley and Harvard Jointly Launch Study of Psychedelics’ Influence on Art, History and Human Existence
UC Berkeley and Harvard researchers launch a study into psychedelics’ multifaceted influence on our society today.
Bat Study Reveals How the Brain is Wired for Collective Behavior
New study finds that the same neurons that help bats navigate through space may also help them navigate collective social environments.
Three Years In, ‘Uniquely Berkeley’ Psychedelic Research Center Looks to the Future
The UC Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics says a new — and free — online course and first-of-its-kind voter perceptions survey are just the beginning.
Novel Brain Implant Helps Paralyzed Woman Speak Using a Digital Avatar
Berkeley engineers explain how advances in AI could help restore natural communication.
Study Sheds Light on Where Conscious Experience Resides in Brain
New study reports on research on a region of the brain where visual images are retained even when we lack conscious awareness of having seen the information.
New Research Finds Deep-Sleep Brain Waves Predict Blood Sugar Control
Sleep scientists at UC Berkeley have discovered a potential mechanism in humans that might explain the link between certain types of brain waves and the body’s sensitivity to insulin.
Deep Sleep May Mitigate Alzheimer’s Memory Loss, Berkeley Research Shows
Deep sleep can act as a “cognitive reserve factor” that may increase resilience against a protein in the brain that is linked to memory loss caused by dementia.
Bringing Indigenous Knowledge to Neuroscience
The human brain has an immense power to change. Andrea Gomez wants to know how cells and molecules in the brain enable that flexibility and change— called brain plasticity.
Can Computers Speak for Us?
Gopala Anumanchipalli, a 2021 Rose Hills Innovator, is engineering systems that can give people with disease and disability a new way to talk.
New Approach Puts Brain Scans on the Witness Stand in Trademark Disputes
In trademark law cases, scientist at UC Berkeley propose using brain scans rather than opinion to assess brand similarity.
Food Insecurity Has Lasting Impacts on the Brains and Behavior of Mice
While food insecurity is a problem for a growing segment of the U.S. population — made even worse by the coronavirus pandemic — few studies have looked at the effect that feast or famine has on the developing brain in isolation from other factors that contribute to adversity. A new study by neuroscientists at the University of California, Berkeley, simulated the effects of food insecurity in juvenile mice and found lasting changes later in life.
Berkeley Talks: How We Learn Language Across Communities and Cultures
In Berkeley Talks episode 149, Mahesh Srinivasan, an associate professor in UC Berkeley’s Department of Psychology, discusses the importance of child-directed speech in language learning, how poverty may suppress parents’ speech to their children and how children learn language from overheard speech.
Scientists Work to Unravel Mysteries of How Anxiety, PTSD Affect Brain
A group of Bay Area scientists have unraveled some surprising secrets about post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD which one day could lead to better therapies and treatments. At UC Berkeley, neuroscientist Dr. Daniela Kaufer and now UCSF post-doc Kimberly Long along with UCSF and San Francisco scientists Radiologist Dr. Linda Chao and Psychiatrist Dr. Thomas Neylan may have provided a convincing reason why some people are resilient to trauma and others are susceptible. According to statistics, 70 percent of American adults experience at least one traumatic event in a lifetime. Twenty percent of those will develop PTSD, and their symptoms vary dramatically. In their research, the scientists made two important discoveries: that anxiety and traumatic stress are linked to increased myelin in a part of the brain where there is less myelin; and that where the increased myelin is found correlates to the particular symptom. For more on this, see our story at Berkeley News.
Research Shines a Light on Development of the Visual Cortex During the Critical Period After Birth
A new study from the labs of Professors S. Lawrence Zipursky (opens in a new tab)(UCLA) and Karthik Shekhar(opens in a new tab) (UC Berkeley) presents significant findings that shine an exciting light on our understanding of the influence of vision during the critical period of development in the mouse visual cortex.
Like Our Social Media Feeds, Our Brains Take a Little While to Update
Like our social media feeds, our brains are constantly uploading rich, visual stimuli. But instead of seeing the latest image in real time, we actually see earlier versions because our brain’s refresh time is about 15 seconds, according to new UC Berkeley research.
Anxiety and PTSD Linked to Increased Myelin in Brain
A recent study links anxiety behavior in rats, as well as post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in military veterans, to increased myelin — a substance that expedites communication between neurons — in areas of the brain associated with emotions and memory.
Low-Income Kids Use Different Brain Function to Ace Achievement Tests
A common stereotype is that growing up poor can stunt brain development due to adverse environmental conditions. But on a positive note, new UC Berkeley research suggests that children’s brains can adapt in different ways to socioeconomic challenges and excel.
New Study of the Brain’s Circuitry Will Track Parkinson’s Disease From Its Origins
Berkeley neuroscientist Yang Dan will help conduct an ambitious $9 million project exploring how the circuitry in the brain progressively goes awry in patients suffering from Parkinson’s disease.
Bat Study Reveals Secrets of the Social Brain
Whether chatting with friends at a dinner party or managing a high-stakes meeting at work, communicating with others in a group requires a complex set of mental tasks. Our brains must track who is speaking and what is being said, as well as what our relationship to that person may be — because, after all, we probably give the opinion of our best friend more weight than that of a complete stranger. A study published today in the journal Science provides the first glimpse into how the brains of social mammals process these types of complex group interactions.
Neuroscientists roll out first comprehensive atlas of brain cells
When you clicked to read this story, a band of cells across the top of your brain sent signals down your spine and out to your hand to tell the muscles in your index finger to press down with just the right amount of pressure to activate your mouse or track pad.
A slew of new studies now shows that the area of the brain responsible for initiating this action — the primary motor cortex, which controls movement — has as many as 116 different types of cells that work together to make this happen.
Rats prefer to help their own kind. Humans may be similarly wired
A decade after scientists discovered that lab rats will rescue a fellow rat in distress, but not a rat they consider an outsider, new UC Berkeley research pinpoints the brain regions that drive rats to prioritize their nearest and dearest in times of crisis. It also suggests humans may share the same neural bias.
Bats' brains are built for navigation
More than a thousand species use echolocation, but after billions of years of evolution, bats' brains are especially well optimized for navigation. A new paper released today in Science suggests that as bats fly, special neurons known as place cellslocated in their hippocampus, a part of the brain that controls memoryhelps them process key navigational information about their position not only in the moment but in the past and future as well. Using a combination of wireless neural data loggers and a motion-tracking system made of 16 cameras, Nicholas Dotson, a project scientist at the Salk Institute and the lead author of the study and his coauthor Michael Yartsev, a professor of neurobiology and engineering at UC Berkeley, observed six Egyptian fruit bats in two experiments meant to record bursts of neural activity. For more on this, see our press release at Berkeley News.