During my first undergraduate year in Munich, I was completely baffled by the realisation that what we perceive is…
What did you do in the few seconds before reading this? Sit down and take out your phone? Scroll…
I originally studied medicine at Isfahan University of Medical Sciences. I then moved to London to do an MSc…
We all love a good story. But did you know, where children’s development is concerned, bedtime stories are more…
I’m fascinated by decomposition, and how soft tissues – which are usually quick to decay – enter the fossil record. I worked as an Undertaker and Embalmer while studying a Masters in Bioarchaeology & Forensic Anthropology at UCL, and saw first-hand how rapidly the brain deteriorates after death; so it was a surprise to discover reports of a 2,500-year-old brain surviving from the Iron Age! My doctoral research at Oxford has since uncovered more than 4,400 human brains preserved in the archaeological record. I aim to understand why the brain preserves when other organs perish, and what they can tell…
I am generally interested in how brains work, but I find the insect brain to be especially interesting because they are so much smaller and in many ways simpler than the brains of vertebrates, and yet insects are capable of some incredible behaviours, including social behaviour. Bumblebees are really important for pollination in the ecosystem as well as for agriculture, and they are facing many threats in the environment, including changing habitat, climate change, and pesticides. I hope that my research can both enlighten us to the incredible things bumblebees can do, and find new ways of registering toxicity in…
We are out in the wild today talking to bees! In this behind the scenes episode, we visited Dr Rachel Parkinson’s bee recording studio to see insect neuroscience research in action. You might know that honeybees communicate with each other using the waggle dance, a minute choreography that shows other bees the way to the flower buffet. But little is known about how bumblebees communicate. To understand more about bee behaviour, Rachel has created a series of small arenas with cameras and microphones. Using AI, visual and audio recordings can be matched up to create a database of sounds and…
Cats are pretty adorable! Those big eyes, fluffy paws and cheeky personalities mean that most people find felines cute. But what is the science behind this reaction? Neuroscientist Professor Morten Kringelbach reveals how special technology can track what happens to signals in the brain in response to sounds and images of babies and small animals. In just a seventh of a second, our brain decides that something is cute. This almost instantaneous cuteness reaction is thought to be a deep-rooted evolutionary feature of humans, encouraging us to look after young babies and animals to help species to survive. Cats (and…
We spend one-third of our lives asleep. But while we drift off into the land of dreams, our brains are very busy. Nerves within the brain are constantly creating new proteins, with each protein having a specific function, such as controlling the flow of charged particles and electrical activity in the brain. But these proteins only do their job properly if they are folded correctly – a bit like a paper aeroplane only flies well if you fold it a certain way. Atreyi Chakrabarty, from the Department of Pharmacology, explains that if the cell environment isn’t just right, cells can…
Music is an integral part of life. Whether your foot taps on your commute to work, you play an instrument in a band or dance the night away to your favourite songs, music is everywhere. However, we often don’t realise how beneficial music can be for our happiness and wellbeing. In this video, musician Easy Chalmers, from Science Together’s MuzoAkademy II initiative, spoke to researchers from the Department of Primary Care Health Sciences and the Department of Experimental Psychology to uncover how music can affect the brain and influence language development.
Toast, anyone? Did you know that even seemingly trivial tasks – such as making breakfast – require complex brain mechanisms? Attention, memory and motor control must all come together in perfect harmony in order for the task to be carried out correctly. Experimental psychologists Dr Dejan Draschkow and Dr Sage Boettcher tell us more, and reveal some of the fascinating ways they are able to better understand this ‘cognitive orchestra’. By doing so, they are able to pave the way for better treatments for neurological conditions and also contribute to developments in the field of artificial intelligence!
“My work focuses on understanding how our past experiences and memories guide attention and behaviour. I am specifically interested in how we may proactively use memories from different time scales (short & long-term) and from different dimensions (spatial, temporal, & identity) to guide ongoing behaviour. To understand these processes I use a combination of psychophysical methods with non-invasive brain imaging techniques.” – From st-annes.ox.ac.uk
During my first undergraduate year in Munich, I was completely baffled by the realisation that what we perceive is more than what meets the eyes. Or maybe not “more”, but “different”. This was news to me. Afterwards, I spent a lot of time trying to gain an understanding of experimental methods, as this seemed like the perfect way to investigate this. Plus, it is a lot of fun. What I found is that previous experiences have a profound impact on our perception, so I zoomed in on that. Turns out that the past affects the present because you store memories…
What did you do in the few seconds before reading this? Sit down and take out your phone? Scroll through some other Oxford Sparks web pages? Take a sip of a drink? While we think of these things as very simple actions – requiring hardly any thought at all – there are actually many complex processes taking place in your brain when they happen. These processes allow you to perfectly time each action, as neuroscientist Dr Nima Khalighinejad explains.
I originally studied medicine at Isfahan University of Medical Sciences. I then moved to London to do an MSc in Neuroscience at University College London followed by a PhD in Cognitive Neuroscience. After receiving my PhD in 2017 I moved to Oxford. I have since been working at the department of Experimental Psychology and the Wellcome Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging (WIN). The aim of my research is to understand how decisions about whether and when to initiate a voluntary action is implemented in the brain. To achieve this aim I use various neuroscientific methods including electroencephalography (EEG), magnetic resonance imaging…
We all love a good story. But did you know, where children’s development is concerned, bedtime stories are more than just good fun or a comforting pre-sleep routine? Dr Nicola Dawson and Dr Emma James explain the important role that stories play in children’s language development, and how the sleep that follows might make a difference too. With special thanks to The Story Museum, Oxford.