Your brain releases oxytocin when someone really listens to you. That’s why one good conversation can feel better than 10 hours of sleep.

Have you had a conversation like that?

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Neuroscientists discover specific brain cells that enable intelligent behavior

For decades, neuroscientists have developed mathematical frameworks to explain how brain activity drives behaviour in predictable, repetitive scenarios, such as while playing a game. These algorithms have not only described brain cell activity with remarkable precision but also helped develop artificial intelligence with superhuman achievements in specific tasks, such as playing Atari or Go.

Yet these frameworks fall short of capturing the essence of human and animal behaviour: our extraordinary ability to generalise, infer and adapt. Our study, published in Nature late last year, provides insights into how brain cells in mice enable this more complex, intelligent behaviour.

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Some cells tracked progress towards immediate subgoals – like chopping vegetables in our cooking analogy – while others mapped progress towards the overall goal, such as finishing the meal.
Together, these goal progress cells created a system that gave our location in behavioural space rather than a physical space. Crucially, the system is flexible and can be updated if the task changes. This encoding allows the brain to predict the upcoming sequence of actions without relying on simple associative memories.

The behaviour we compose to reach our goals is replete with repetition. Generalisation allows knowledge to extend beyond individual instances. Throughout life, we encounter a highly structured distribution of tasks. And each day we solve new problems by generalising from past experiences.

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A common calorie-free sweetener alters brain activity and appetite control, new research suggests

Consuming sucralose, a widely used non-caloric sweetener, may influence how the brain regulates hunger and body weight. A new study published in Nature Metabolism found that sucralose increases activity in the hypothalamus—a key brain region involved in appetite regulation—compared to caloric sugar (sucrose) and water. The findings suggest that even though sucralose lacks calories, it can trigger neural responses linked to increased hunger and alter the way the brain communicates with areas involved in motivation and sensory processing.

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Brain imaging also revealed that sucralose altered the functional connectivity between the hypothalamus and other brain regions. For example, after drinking sucralose, participants showed stronger connections between the hypothalamus and areas involved in motivation (like the anterior cingulate cortex) and body awareness (such as the parietal lobule). These changes suggest that sucralose may heighten the brain’s responsiveness to food cues or amplify motivational signals related to eating.

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https://www.psypost.org/a-common-calorie-free-sweetener-alters-brain-activity-and-appetite-control-new-research-suggests/