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”.

Is brain activity different when reading direct vs. indirect speech quotes?

Bo Yao, researcher at the University of Manchester, published in the journal NeuroImage the latest findings of project 284/18 - Testing a neurophysiological model of inner speech processing, supported by the BIAL Foundation, in the paper Reading direct speech quotes increases theta phase-locking: Evidence for cortical tracking of inner speech? “Growing evidence shows that theta-band (4–7 Hz) activity in the auditory cortex phase-locks to rhythms of overt speech. Does theta activity also encode the rhythmic dynamics of inner speech? Previous research established that silent reading of direct speech quotes (e.g., Mary said: “This dress is lovely!”) elicits more vivid inner speech than indirect speech quotes (e.g., Mary said that the dress was lovely).

Paper published in high impact journal

In the scope of the research project 44/16 - Inducing and measuring plasticity in response control mechanisms in the human brain, supported by the BIAL Foundation and carried out by the principal investigator Alejandra Sel, from the University of Oxford, it was published the paper Increasing and decreasing interregional brain coupling increases and decreases oscillatory activity in the human brain in the high impact journal PNAS - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

The impact of neuromodulators on exploitative and exploratory actions

Dichotomous dopaminergic and noradrenergic neural states mediate distinct aspects of exploitative behavioral states is the more recent paper stemming from the research project 413/14 - The role of dopamine in behavioral exploration and action selection led by the principal investigator Aaron Koralek and supported by the BIAL Foundation.