How do thoughts, emotions, memory and perception emerge? In this section, we unpack the latest discoveries in brain and neuroscience, offering new perspectives on how the mind works and how we experience the world.
Under extreme effort, the brain doesn’t just endure, it adapts by mobilizing its own reserves. What if running a marathon didn’t just drain your muscles, but also quietly reshaped the very structure of your brain? At the heart of this transformation lies a subtle but essential player: myelin. This sheath, which insulates nerve fibers, isn’t…
My doctor says it’s okay to exercise, but when it becomes a strain, you better quit. Mohamed Ali : Man, your doctor don’t know what he’s talking about. That’s what you want to do, strain. You want to run into the pains. You want to run until your throat feels like sandpaper. You want to…
Write without moving, speak without a voice… science is reaching a major milestone. Thanks to brain–computer interfaces, thoughts are gradually becoming a readable form of language. Every year, thousands of individuals lose the use of their limbs due to stroke, spinal cord injury, or neurodegenerative disease. When both speech and movement fall silent, communication becomes…
From ancient talismans to modern smartphones, we give objects a power they don’t have. A collective illusion that reveals how we make sense of the world. In a Yoruba village, deep in what is now Nigeria, an old man carefully carves a wooden figure, infusing it with all his knowledge and wisdom. He drives nails…
Getting dressed is never neutral. Between conformity and identity seeking, our clothing choices reveal far more than personal taste. It’s no coincidence that fashion trends spread like whispers, subtly shaping our clothing choices and sculpting the image we project to the world. This silent language, sometimes deliberate but often unconscious, influences not only how others…
Why do top players see what others miss? In chess, expertise isn’t just talent—it’s a different way the brain is organized. In 2004, in a quiet room in Iceland, a 13-year-old boy sat across from Garry Kasparov, then the world’s top-ranked chess player. The Russian grandmaster, undefeated for over two decades, now faced a calm-eyed…
What we see isn’t the world, but an interpretation. And sometimes, that interpretation breaks—revealing how strange reality really is. One evening, in the waiting room of a hospital, a ten-year-old girl clutched her mother’s hand with unusual insistence. She stared at her mother’s face, then quickly looked away, as if something no longer made sense.“Your…
Remembering with certainty… and still being wrong. False memories reveal a disturbing truth: memory doesn’t store the past, it rebuilds it. A word, an image, a glimpse of a familiar face in a crowd; sometimes, that’s all it takes for a memory to resurface. It emerges with the clarity and conviction of a moment truly…
Our most ordinary actions are anything but random. They reveal a brain mechanism both discreet and decisive. Why is it that, despite being fully aware of what is right, we so often fall back into the same patterns? Every day, we resolve to change a habit or abandon another, only for our brain to quietly…
How can you feel pain in a limb that no longer exists? Phantom pain reveals a disturbing truth: the body we feel is created by the brain. Mr. L., 56, lost his left leg in a motorcycle accident. Just days after the amputation, he began experiencing intense, localized pain in his left foot, a foot…