The first patch-clamp recordings from the dendrites of human neocortical neurons have recently been reported by Beaulieu-Laroche et al. and Gidon et al. These studies have shown that human dendrites are electrically excitable, exhibiting backpropagating action potentials and fast dendritic calcium spikes. This new frontier highlights the potential for interspecies differences in the biophysics of dendritic

Metacognition – the ability to represent, monitor and control ongoing cognitive processes – helps us perform many tasks, both when acting alone and when working with others. While metacognition is adaptive, and found in other animals, we should not assume that all human forms of metacognition are gene-based adaptations. Instead, some forms may have a social origin, including the discrimination, interpretation

Human action control relies on representations that integrate perception and action, but the relevant research is scattered over various experimental paradigms and the theorizing is overly paradigm-specific. To overcome this obstacle we propose BRAC (binding and retrieval in action control), an overarching, integrative framework that accounts for a wide range of seemingly unrelated findings by assuming

Learning based on reward prediction error (RPE) was originally proposed in the context of nondeclarative memory. We postulate that RPE may support declarative memory as well. Indeed, recent years have witnessed a number of independent empirical studies reporting effects of RPE on declarative memory. We provide a brief overview of these studies, identify emerging patterns, and discuss open issues such

Predictive Processing theories hold that the mind’s core aim is to minimize prediction-error about its experiences. But prediction-error minimization can be 'hacked', by placing oneself in highly predictable environments where nothing happens. Recent philosophical work suggests that this is a surprisingly serious challenge, highlighting the obstacles facing ‘theories-of-everything’ in psychology.

Recent experience-sampling studies by Blanke et al. and Grommisch et al. provide insights into how individuals regulate their emotions in daily life. The rich datasets accessible from experience sampling allow researchers to detect nuances in the relationship between emotion-regulation choice and psychological health that may not be observed in traditional laboratory studies.

The idea of resolving dispute through the exchange of arguments and reasons has been central to society for millennia. We exchange arguments as a way of getting at the truth in contexts as diverse as science, the court room, and our everyday lives. In democracies, political decisions should be negotiated through argument, not deception, or even worse, brute force. If argument is to lead to the truth

Faces and voices are of high importance in interpersonal communication, and there are notable parallels between face and voice perception. However, these parallels do not sit entirely comfortably with the full range of available evidence. In this review, we evaluate parallels between the functional and neural organisation of face and voice perception, while locating these in the context of ways in

Structure–function relationships are a fundamental principle of many naturally occurring systems. However, network neuroscience research suggests that there is an imperfect link between structural connectivity and functional connectivity in the brain. Here, we synthesize the current state of knowledge linking structure and function in macroscale brain networks and discuss the different types of models

What is the function of the insular cortex? Two recent studies (by Gehrlach et al. and Livneh et al.) offer new insight into how this enigmatic brain region integrates interoception and exteroception in the service of emotion. The findings provide much needed causal evidence for the nascent theory of interoceptive inference.

In the absence of a pharmacological cure, finding the most sensitive early cognitive markers of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is becoming increasingly important. In this article we review evidence showing that brain mechanisms of spontaneous, but stimulus-dependent, cognition overlap with key hubs of the default mode network (DMN) that become compromised by amyloid pathology years before the clinical symptoms

Currently, we understand much about how children’s brains attend to and learn from information presented while they are alone, viewing a screen – but less about how interpersonal social influences are substantiated in the brain. Here, we consider research that examines how social behaviors affect not one, but both partners in a dyad. We review studies that measured interpersonal neural entrainment

Theories of human cognition prominently feature 'Broca’s area', which causally contributes to a myriad of mental functions. However, Broca’s area is not a monolithic, multipurpose unit – it is structurally and functionally heterogeneous. Some functions engaging (subsets of) this area share neurocognitive resources, whereas others rely on separable circuits. A decade of converging evidence has now illuminated

People spend considerable time on digital media, and are thus often exposed to expressions of emotion by other people. This exposure can lead their own emotion expressions becoming more similar to those of others, a process we refer to as ‘digital emotion contagion’. This article reviews the growing literature on digital emotion contagion. After defining emotion contagion, we suggest that one unique

Accumulating evidence indicates weak correlations between self-report and behavioral measures of the same construct. We suggest that these weak correlations result from the poor reliability of many behavioral measures and the distinct response processes involved in the two measurement types. We also describe how researchers can benefit from appropriate use of these measures.

We all have our varying mental emphases, inclinations, and biases. These individual dispositions are dynamic in that they can change over time and context. We propose that these changing states of mind (SoMs) are holistic in that they exert all-encompassing and coordinated effects simultaneously on our perception, attention, thought, affect, and behavior. Given the breadth of their reach, understanding

Theta frequency (4-8 Hz) fluctuations of the local field potential have long been implicated in learning and memory. Human studies of episodic memory, however, have provided mixed evidence for theta's role in successful learning and remembering. Re-evaluating these conflicting findings leads us to conclude that: (i) successful memory is associated both with increased narrow-band theta oscillations

Naturalistic observations show that decisions to avoid or escape predators occur at different spatiotemporal scales and that they are supported by different computations and neural circuits. At their extremes, proximal threats are addressed by a limited repertoire of reflexive and myopic actions, reflecting reduced decision and state spaces and model-free (MF) architectures. Conversely, distal threats

A traditional view of short-term working memory (STM) is that task-relevant information is maintained 'online' in persistent spiking activity. However, recent experimental and modeling studies have begun to question this long-held belief. In this review, we discuss new evidence demonstrating that information can be 'silently' maintained via short-term synaptic plasticity (STSP) without the need for

There has been growing interest in studying the temporal reconfiguration of brain functional connectivity to understand the role of dynamic interaction (e.g., integration and segregation) among neuronal populations in cognitive functions. However, it is crucial to differentiate between various dynamic properties because nearly all existing dynamic connectivity studies are presented as spatiotemporally

Forty-five years ago, the first evidence of near-death experience (NDE) during comatose state was provided, setting the stage for a new paradigm for studying the neural basis of consciousness in unresponsive states. At present, the state of consciousness associated with NDEs remains an open question. In the common view, consciousness is said to disappear in a coma with the brain shutting down, but

Gender identity is a core feature of human experience, yet our understanding of gender identity is shifting with broader societal changes in recognizing and understanding gender diversity. Here we discuss recent trends and upcoming directions for this burgeoning subfield.

New evidence reported by Solomon et al. that hippocampal activity tracks distance in semantic space during recall supports the growing consensus of a domain-general cognitive map. Nevertheless, are all inputs equally processed into a 'universal map', or are there input constraints (e.g., space, semantics) that lead to differentiated multiple maps across the hippocampus that have distinct properties

Can information that is processed during sleep influence awake behavior? Recent research demonstrates that learning during sleep is possible, but that sleep-learning invariably produces memory traces that are consciously inaccessible in the awake state. Thus, sleep-learning can likely exert implicit, but not explicit, influences on awake behavior.

One of the most difficult and important decisions in power analysis involves specifying an effect size. Researchers frequently employ definitions of small, medium, and large that were proposed by Jacob Cohen. These definitions are problematic for two reasons. First, they are arbitrary, based on non-scientific criteria. Second, they are inconsistent, changing dramatically and illogically as a function

What role does the hippocampus play in semantic memory? In a recent paper, Cutler et al. use a vector space model of semantics to characterize semantic search deficits in hippocampal amnesia. We relate their findings to properties of the hippocampal neural code and to controversies regarding hippocampal contributions to cognition.

People's beliefs about others are often impervious to new evidence: we continue to cooperate with ingroup defectors and refuse to see outgroup enemies as rehabilitated. Resistance to updating beliefs with new information has historically been interpreted as reflecting bias or motivated cognition, but recent work in Bayesian inference suggests that belief maintenance can be compatible with procedural

Sacrificial moral dilemmas are widely used to investigate when, how, and why people make judgments that are consistent with utilitarianism. However, to what extent can responses to sacrificial dilemmas shed light on utilitarian decision making? We consider two key questions. First, how meaningful is the relationship between responses to sacrificial dilemmas, and what is distinctive about a utilitarian

Consciousness remains a formidable challenge. Different theories of consciousness have proposed vastly different mechanisms to account for phenomenal experience. Here, appealing to aspects of global workspace theory, higher-order theories, social theories, and predictive processing, we introduce a novel framework: the self-organizing metarerpresentational account (SOMA), in which consciousness is viewed

The ratio of men to women in a given ecology can have profound influences on a range of interpersonal processes, from marriage and divorce rates to risk-taking and violent crime. Here, we organize such processes into two categories - intersexual choice and intrasexual competition - representing focal effects of imbalanced sex ratios.

There is ongoing debate regarding the robustness and credibility of published scientific research. We argue that these issues stem from two broad causal mechanisms: the cognitive biases of researchers and the incentive structures within which researchers operate. The UK Reproducibility Network (UKRN) is working with researchers, institutions, funders, publishers, and other stakeholders to address these

Sometimes we accept propositions, sometimes we reject them, and sometimes we take propositions to be worth considering but not yet established, as merely possible. The result is a complex representation with logical structure. Is the ability to mark propositions as merely possible part of our innate representational toolbox or does it await development, perhaps relying on language acquisition? Several

Humans can imagine what happened in the past and what will happen in the future, but also what did not happen and what might happen. We reflect on envisioned events from alternative timelines, while knowing that we only ever live on one timeline. Considering alternative timelines rests on representations of temporal junctures, or points in time at which possible versions of reality diverge. These representations

In the visual world, attention is guided by perceptual goals activated in visual working memory (VWM). However, planning multiple-task sequences also requires VWM to store representations for future goals. These future goals need to be prevented from interfering with the current perceptual task. Recent findings have implicated neural oscillations as a control mechanism serving the implementation and

How and when infants and young children begin to develop emotion categories is not yet well understood. Research has largely treated the learning problem as one of identifying perceptual similarities among exemplars (typically posed, stereotyped facial configurations). However, recent meta-analyses and reviews converge to suggest that emotion categories are abstract, involving high-dimensional and

From the noisy information bombarding our senses, our brains must construct percepts that are veridical - reflecting the true state of the world - and informative - conveying what we did not already know. Influential theories suggest that both challenges are met through mechanisms that use expectations about the likely state of the world to shape perception. However, current models explaining how expectations

Sleep is a basic need. Mounting evidence suggests this is particularly true during adolescence, a developmental period involving substantial changes in the brain regions supporting cognition, learning, and emotion. Although sleep loss is a normative psychosocially and biologically driven developmental process, it occurs alongside behaviors that characterize adolescence, including deepening cognitive

Is how we control our thoughts similar to how we control our movements? Egger et al. show that the neural dynamics underlying the control of internal states exhibit similar algorithmic properties as those that control movements. This experiment reveals a promising connection between how we control our brain and our body.

Two recent studies (Farashahi et al. and Rouault et al.) provide compelling evidence refuting the Subjective Expected Utility (SEU) hypothesis as a ground model describing human decision-making. Together, these studies pave the way towards a new model that subsumes the notion of decision-making and adaptive behavior into a single account.

Fast Science is bad for scientists and bad for science. Slow Science may actually help us to make faster progress, but how can we slow down? Here, I offer preliminary suggestions for how we can transition to a healthier and more sustainable research culture.

The efficacy and reliability of using intranasal oxytocin (OT) to clinically enhance social functions remains undependable. We discuss the potential benefit of concurrent administration of OT and naloxone (NAL) to robustly modulate social behavior. We further suggest that combinatorial neuropharmacology approaches should exploit the interactions between OT and serotonin to regulate social functions

Understanding neurocognitive computations will require not just localizing cognitive information distributed throughout the brain but also determining how that information got there. We review recent advances in linking empirical and simulated brain network organization with cognitive information processing. Building on these advances, we offer a new framework for understanding the role of connectivity

Curiosity plays a fundamental role for learning and memory, but the neural mechanisms that stimulate curiosity and its effect on memory are poorly understood. Accumulating evidence suggests that curiosity states are related to modulations in activity in the dopaminergic circuit and that these modulations impact memory encoding and consolidation for both targets of curiosity and incidental information

The standard systems consolidation account posits that recently formed memories are initially dependent on the hippocampus and only gradually become instantiated in neocortical networks over a period of weeks to years. However, recent animal and human research has identified rapid formation of cortical engrams at the time of learning that can support hippocampal-independent memories within hours or

A new study by Kano and colleagues shows that great apes use their own visual experience to attribute perceptions and beliefs to another agent. Their results suggest that the way apes understand behavior is more similar to human understanding than was previously thought, and may be driven by representations of mental states.

Jonasson et al. investigated whether individual differences in human dopamine receptors (D2R) were related to cognitive performance before and after a 6-month aerobic exercise intervention (compared with active control). While D2R decreased (perhaps counterintuitively) with exercise, there was no relationship between D2R and working memory at baseline or following exercise.

A central goal in cognitive science is to parse the series of processing stages underlying a cognitive task. A powerful yet simple behavioral method that can resolve this problem is finger trajectory tracking: by continuously tracking the finger position and speed as a participant chooses a response, and by analyzing which stimulus features affect the trajectory at each time point during the trial