Cognitive Neuroscience and Brain Function
Research articles on cognitive neuroscience and brain function.
- Sleep Deprivation and Cognitive Performance
Williamson and Feyer (2000), in Occupational and Environmental Medicine, ran a deceptively simple experiment: they kept healthy adults awake for 28 hours and tested...
- Mindfulness and Cognition: What Controlled Studies Show
Does mindfulness meditation genuinely improve attention, memory, and cognitive performance? What controlled trials and meta-analyses actually reveal.
- Traumatic Brain Injury and Cognition
Every year roughly 69 million people worldwide sustain a traumatic brain injury (TBI), and the question survivors and families ask first is rarely about scans or scores...
- Loneliness and Cognitive Decline: How Big Is the Risk?
Does loneliness accelerate cognitive decline and dementia risk? What longitudinal evidence shows about the size of the effect — and the mechanisms behind it.
- Caffeine and Cognitive Performance
Caffeine is the world’s most widely consumed psychoactive substance — about 85 percent of American adults drink at least one caffeinated beverage daily, and global...
- Neuroplasticity: How the Brain Rewires
What is neuroplasticity and how does it work? A neuroscientist explains how the brain rewires itself through experience, learning, and recovery — and what this means for...
- Alcohol and the Brain: Effects on Cognition
How does alcohol affect the brain? From a single drink to chronic heavy use — what neuroscience reveals about alcohol’s impact on memory, cognition, and brain structure.
- Chronic Stress and Cognitive Function
How does chronic stress affect the brain? A neuroscientist explains the mechanisms of stress-related cognitive damage — from cortisol toxicity to hippocampal shrinkage —...
- Brain Foods for Students: Focus and Memory
What are the best brain foods for studying? A neuroscientist reviews the evidence on nutrition, cognitive function, and academic performance — practical dietary advice...
- Acute Cognitive Effects of Exercise
The claim that a single bout of exercise briefly sharpens thinking — walking before a meeting, cycling before an exam — is one of the better-supported findings in...
- GALAMM Models of Cognitive and Brain Development
The Sørensen, Fjell, and Walhovd (2023) Psychometrika paper introduces a model class—Generalized Additive Latent and Mixed Models (GALAMMs)—that occupies a...
- Eye Movement Models of Decision Making
Eye-tracking has become a quantitative instrument for decision research because where someone looks—and for how long—is structured by the same cognitive process that...
- Post-COVID Cognitive Deficits in Adults
Roughly four years after SARS-CoV-2 became a global event, the cognitive aftermath of infection has resolved into a quantifiable, replicated picture rather than a...
- Penicillin Exposure: Gut Microbiome and Brain Genes
By age two, the average child in high-income countries has received roughly three courses of antibiotics — most often a beta-lactam such as penicillin, amoxicillin, or...
- Gut Microbiota and Infant Neurodevelopment
Among infants in the Canadian Healthy Infant Longitudinal Development (CHILD) study, the bacterial composition of the gut at 12 months of age predicted cognitive,...
- Decision Acuity and Mental Health
The Moutoussis et al. (2021) Neuron paper proposes that variation in decision-making ability is itself a measurable individual-difference dimension—called decision...
- White Matter Microstructure and Cognition
White matter is the half of the brain that takes the headlines least often. Most popular accounts focus on grey matter — the cell bodies and synapses where neural...
- Depression and Memory: How Mood Affects Cognition
People with depression frequently report memory problems, difficulty concentrating, slowed thinking, and trouble making decisions. The empirical literature confirms...