Both children and the elderly have slower response times when they have to make quick decisions in some settings. But recent research suggests that much of that slower response is a conscious choice to emphasize accuracy over speed. In fact, healthy older people can be trained to respond faster in some decision-making tasks without hurting their accuracy — meaning their cognitive skills in this area aren’t so different from younger adults.

Efforts to help people with learning impairments are being aided by a species of sea snail. The mollusk, which is used by researchers to study the brain, has much in common with other species including humans. Neuroscientists have used this animal model to test an innovative learning strategy designed to help improve the brain’s memory and the results were encouraging.

The quality of the emotional relationship between a mother and her young child could affect the potential for that child to be obese during adolescence, a new study suggests. Researchers analyzed national data detailing relationship characteristics between mothers and their children during their toddler years. The lower the quality of the relationship in terms of the child’s emotional security and the mother’s sensitivity, the higher the risk that a child would be obese at age 15 years, according to the analysis.

That cartoon scary face — wide eyes, ready to run — may have helped our primate ancestors survive in a dangerous wild, according to a new article. The authors present a way that fear and other facial expressions might have evolved and then come to signal a person’s feelings to the people around him.

Radiology researchers have found evidence that multiple sclerosis affects an area of the brain that controls cognitive, sensory and motor functioning apart from the disabling damage caused by the disease’s visible lesions.

Changes in social structure and cultural practices can also contribute to human evolution, according to a new study.

New research suggests that, in people who don’t currently have memory problems, those with smaller regions of the brain’s cortex may be more likely to develop symptoms consistent with very early Alzheimer’s disease.

A new study demonstrates several crucial advances in “brain reading” or “brain decoding” using computerized machine learning methods. Researchers classified data taken from people being scanned while watching videos meant to induce nicotine cravings and detected whether people were watching and resisting cravings, indulging in them, or watching videos that were unrelated to smoking or cravings.

We know a lot about the links between a pregnant mother’s health, behavior, and moods and her baby’s cognitive and psychological development once it is born. But how does pregnancy change a mother’s brain?

Where does prejudice come from? Not from ideology, say the authors of a new article. Instead, prejudice stems from a deeper psychological need, associated with a particular way of thinking. People who aren’t comfortable with ambiguity and want to make quick and firm decisions are also prone to making generalizations about others.