Understanding how information becomes conscious remains one of neuroscience’s greatest challenges. A large-scale study confronting leading theories reveals a more complex reality than expected. Consciousness remains one of the greatest challenges in neuroscience. Every day we see, feel, and think, yet explaining how a mental content becomes conscious continues to elude us. Neuroscience has made…
Between forgetting and transformation, memory does more than preserve the past, it reshapes it. Forgetting a painful memory on purpose has been a dream as old as memory itself. Since antiquity, humanity has sought in forgetfulness a way to ease its inner wounds. In Greek mythology, the souls descending into the Underworld would drink the…
Cognitive giftedness fuels many, often conflicting representations. Current research seeks to offer a more rigorous understanding. For a long time marginalized or dismissed as mere cliché, over-efficiency—whether manifesting as high intellectual potential (HIP) or very high intellectual potential (VHIP)—is now receiving renewed scientific attention. Recent research in cognitive neuroscience, neuro-psychoanalysis and clinical psychology converge to…
Rather than mimicking human performance, some researchers are focusing on its underlying mechanisms. Using brain data, they are paving the way for AI systems closer to human cognition. Artificial intelligence (AI) is advancing at breathtaking speed, but its foundations remain very different from those of the human brain. The most powerful artificial neural networks rely…
What happens when no thoughts seem accessible? The brain doesn’t simply stop. We often imagine our thoughts as a continuous stream of images, words, and memories. However, most of us have experienced a sudden inner void a moment when nothing seems clear, and no identifiable thoughts emerge. This phenomenon, known as mind blanking, has sparked…
Péguy’s Lucidity or the Enigma of Our “Guilty Absent‑Mindedness” The thinker Charles Péguy, in a sharply observed passage cited by Francine Lenne, pinpoints a fundamental yet widespread error of human reasoning:“Speaking of what one does not know (…) will always remain man’s favorite occupation.” With a clinical edge of irony, he notes that while the…
Can a simple word trigger an uncontrollable reaction? Some rare phenomena suggest that language can act far beyond its meaning. Some oddities slip into everyday life like flashes of absurdity. In Morocco, for reasons no one has yet explained, the mere mention of the word “honey” can trigger uncontrollable outbursts in certain individuals a phenomenon…
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…
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…
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…