Remembering everything, forgetting nothing… what if that ability isn’t a gift, but a burden? The rare case of hyperthymesia raises questions about the role of forgetting. On June 8, 2000, a letter arrived on the desk of Professor James McGaugh, a neuroscientist at the University of California, Irvine. It was from a woman named Jill…
What if well-being protects memory? A study suggests our psychological state may play a key role in cognitive aging. Preventing cognitive decline has become a major public health concern. As life expectancy increases, so do cases of dementia, pushing researchers to identify factors that could help protect the brain. Risk factors such as depression and…
What if some non-speaking autistic individuals can read but can’t show it? A study challenges how we assess language abilities. The absence of functional speech in some autistic individuals often leads to a general underestimation of their cognitive and linguistic abilities. This perception is rooted in a confusion between language and spoken output, as if…
When everything feels harder for no clear reason, it may not be a loss of ability but a shift in the brain’s priorities. Mental fatigue is one of the most universal experiences of modern life. After hours of focusing, learning, or handling repetitive tasks, a subtle heaviness sets in and motivation begins to wane. This…
What if some voices come from our own mental images? A hypothesis that challenges how we understand hallucinations. Every time he closes his eyes, the image of his father appears, a stern face etched into childhood memory. And with it, a harsh, violent voice. No one is speaking. He’s alone in the room. But he…
In Parkinson’s disease, treatments relieve but do not repair. A new approach now aims to directly replace lost neurons. Parkinson’s disease affects nearly 1% of people over the age of 60. It results from the gradual degeneration of dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra, a deep brain region involved in motor control. This neuronal loss…
We see the world as a whole… while the brain processes it in two halves. An illusion of unity orchestrated by our hemispheres. Our perception of space feels fluid and seamless. We instantly detect what happens on our left and right, trace visual trajectories, and identify objects in complex environments. Beneath this apparent unity, however,…
The return of the 90s isn’t just a trend, it reflects a psychological need in response to an uncertain present. The screech of a dial-up modem. The clinking of marbles in a schoolyard. A cassette rewound with a pen. These gestures and sounds, once commonplace, have vanished from our daily lives, only to return today…
ChatGPT’s arrival in teenagers’ daily lives is reshaping how they learn and raising questions about their cognitive development. Since November 2022, teenagers and young adults have discovered a new conversation partner, an inexhaustible, responsive, educational, and sometimes even comforting digital presence: ChatGPT. Whether at home, in class, on public transport, in the library, or in…
Rather than interrupting thought, sleep may reshape it and help new ideas emerge. Why do some ideas only emerge after a break, as if inactivity were the brain’s hidden engine? This question, though far from new, touches on one of the most subtle and profound mechanisms of human cognition. For decades, neuroscience has explored the…