How does the brain respond to positive and negative stimuli?

Study demonstrates the brain's ability to constantly reclassify external stimuli based on previous experiences and adapt to new situations.

Are people who believe in the paranormal more vulnerable to stress?

A study of 3084 participants evaluated whether two types of belief in the paranormal might be associated with different levels of perceived stress.

Do we perceive the weight of our body parts and the weight of objects differently?

According to Newton’s law, weight is given by the product of its mass and gravity. How does the brain determine the weight of objects and body parts?

Can meditation change the way we face death?

The brain is constantly creating and updating models of reality, anticipating future events and adjusting to minimize surprises. Although this mechanism is essential for our adaptation, it can also lead to an unsettling awareness of mortality. To avoid this discomfort, the brain has developed automatic ways to distance death, attributing it to the "other" rather than oneself. A team led by Aviva Berkovich-Ohana investigated whether meditation could reduce this natural tendency to deny death. The study revealed that experienced meditators react differently compared to novices: instead of rejecting the idea of their own mortality, they seem to accept it more naturally. Thus, the results provide evidence that meditation can transform the way the brain processes death, shifting from denial to acceptance. Furthermore, this change was associated with greater well-being and advanced states of self-transcendence. This suggests that integrating meditation into clinical contexts could be a promising approach to dealing with the fear of death, complementing psychological and pharmacological therapies that more radically affect self-perception. This study was published in the journal Neuroscience of Consciousness, in the article Training the embodied self in its impermanence: Meditators evidence neurophysiological markers of death acceptance, as part of the research project 191/20 - Understanding the brain mechanisms of death-denial for fostering mindfulness-based existential resilience, supported by the BIAL Foundation.

Did you know that some studies supported by the BIAL Foundation are among the most cited in the world?

The research funded by this Foundation has generated innovative discoveries with a significant impact on science. According to the most recent data, covering November and December 2024, 17 articles resulting from this support are part of the Highly Cited Papers group, meaning they rank among the top 1% most cited in their academic field and year of publication, according to the Essential Science Indicators (ESI). Among them, a study published in Science Advances stands out, exploring the dynamic patterns of the brain associated with consciousness, helping to better understand states such as coma and sleep. Another widely cited study, published in PLoS ONE, investigates the challenges of meditation and its psychological effects, a topic increasingly relevant in contemporary Western society. A study published in the journal Cortex explores whether the human brain, particularly the left frontal lobe, may act as a filter to suppress innate psi abilities, such as psychokinesis. An article in Biological Psychiatry outlines an essential roadmap on interoception – the perception of the body's internal signals – and its connection to well-being. Other widely cited articles analyze altered states of consciousness (such as meditation, hypnosis, and psychedelic experiences), the brain mechanisms of insomnia, and even the effects of COVID-19 on cognition. With hundreds of citations and growing impact, these studies reinforce the importance of the BIAL Foundation in understanding the human mind, paving the way for new scientific discoveries.

What happens in the brain when we say "No"?

Negation plays an important role in language, changing the meaning of sentences and the focus of our attention. Recent studies suggest that understanding non-action sentences, such as "She did not write the letter", involves brain areas responsible for movement control. In this context, Alessio Avenanti and collaborators investigated how reading affirmative and negative action and attention sentences affects inhibitory and facilitatory mechanisms in the primary motor cortex (M1), which controls movements. Using a technique called transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), they discovered that negated action sentences (like "did not write") decrease activity in the brain's motor areas, blocking action. However, non-action sentences, such as "She was not attentive", do not have this effect. Negated action sentences also reduce the activity of inhibitory circuits in the brain, regulated by the neurotransmitter GABAA, but do not affect circuits that facilitate brain activity. These findings help us better understand how the brain processes language and how this is connected to the movements we perform. This study was supported by the BIAL Foundation, in the scope of the research project 304/22 - Boosting and hindering action imitation by modulating spike-timing dependent plasticity, and published in the journal Brain and Language, in the article Exploring the impact of sentential negation on inhibitory motor networks: Insights from paired-pulse TMS.