Toffee and Risk: Scientists Discover Why People Who Crave Sweets Make More Impulsive Choices
Having a sweet tooth may be linked not only to eating habits but also to the way people make decisions. Researchers at HSE University have found that people with a preference for sweet foods tend to behave more impulsively—not because they want immediate rewards, but because they are less willing to tolerate uncertainty. These findings may help improve treatments for addiction. The study findings have been published in Frontiers in Psychology.
When Looking at Their Own Faces, Men Forget Everything
In an experiment involving 15 healthy men, scientists at HSE University investigated how different phases of the cardiac cycle influence the excitability of the motor cortex when participants viewed either their own photograph or the faces of strangers. The researchers found that when participants looked at their own image, the brain’s response to signals from the heart was weaker, meaning that the influence of cardiac activity on the motor cortex decreased. This finding came contrary to expectations, as self-focused attention was thought to enhance the brain's sensitivity to internal bodily signals. The study has been published in Frontiers in Signal Processing.
Connecting Space and Time: Bilinguals Associate Time with Space in Both Their First and Second Languages
An international team of researchers including scientists at HSE University investigated how bilingual individuals associate time with space. It turns out that in both their first and second languages, people associate the past with the left side of space and the future with the right. In fact, the higher the proficiency in a second language, the more pronounced this relationship becomes. The study findings have been published in Scientific Reports.
Foreign Languages Slow Down Brain Ageing
Medical advances are causing a gradual increase in average life expectancy. However, this comes at a price, as the number of cases of dementia and other neurodegenerative diseases grows with age. Researchers from HSE University (Russia) and Northumbria University (UK) have found that bilingualism can slow down and mitigate the course of age-related changes in the human brain. The study was published in Frontiers in Psychology.
Mine or Ours: The Brain’s Choice
Researchers from HSE University have shown how the brain works differently depending on whether a subject is dealing with common (shared) or private natural resources. The ventral striatum—the so-called pleasure centre—plays a significant role in this process. The study has been published by Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience.
Researchers Expand the Capabilities of Magnetoencephalography
Researchers from the HSE Institute for Cognitive Neuroscience have proposed a new method to process magnetoencephalography (MEG) data, which helps find cortical activation areas with higher precision. The method can be used in both basic research and clinical practice to diagnose a wide range of neurological disorders and to prepare patients for brain surgery. The paper describing the algorithm was published in the journal NeuroImage.