Dream and daydream: differences and similarities

Did you know that daydreams reflect events from the previous two days and “night” dreams resemble a fictional plot?

Does your dog have social skills?

A study suggests that viewing the owner’s face works as a positive social reinforcement for dogs. Learn more about this and other surprising results about “man’s best friend”.

What we read has any neurophysiological impact?

Alessio Avenanti, supported by the BIAL Foundation in the scope of project 347/18 – Driving synaptic plasticity in motor-to-visual neural pathways to enhance action prediction, concluded that reading negative action sentences (e.g. you will not appreciate a book)  provokes a decrease on motor excitability, when compared with reading positive action sentences (e.g. you will appreciate a book).

Can conscious visual perception be influenced?

In the scope of project 204/18 – Boosting WM capacity by strengthening the oscillatory functional fronto-parietal pathway, Vincenzo Romei et al published in the journal Current Biology, the paper Tuning alpha rhythms to shape conscious visual perception with the following highlights:

Auditory processing in the first month of age predicts language development at 12 months

Adriana Sampaio, supported by the BIAL Foundation in the scope of project 42/08 – Marcadores fisiológicos de processamento sensorial do recém-nascido, concluded that in 1-month-old children it is already possible to observe the P2 and N2 components for auditory stimuli. These results are consistent with the view that demonstrates the association between auditory processing and developmental outcomes. The paper Cortical auditory evoked potentials in 1-month-old infants predict language outcomes at 12 months featuring these results was published in the journal Infancy.