Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have new insight on what goes on inside people’s heads as they make decisions to obtain information about the future. The scientists identified a set of mental rules that governs decision-making about physical rewards — for example, food or money — and cognitive rewards – […]
New methods to treat human brain disorders is one of the top priorities of the National Institutes of Health’s ambitious BRAIN Initiative. To find noninvasive tools that are equally or more effective is a kind of Holy Grail for neuroscience, and a biomedical engineer at Washington University in St. Louis has it in her sights. […]
Over the past half century, artificial intelligence has gone from a concept to everyday life, with electronic payments, facial recognition and social media becoming the norm. But the dynamic mechanisms in the brain on which artificial intelligence is based, which are more efficient, reliable and flexible, remain unclear to scientists, leading to a disconnect between […]
The term “doomscrolling” describes the act of endlessly scrolling through bad news on social media and reading every worrisome tidbit that pops up, a habit that unfortunately seems to have become common during the COVID-19 pandemic. The biology of our brains may play a role in that. Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in […]
At the Washington University in St. Louis Board of Trustees meeting Oct. 4, more than a dozen faculty members were appointed or promoted with tenure or granted tenure, effective Oct. 4 unless otherwise indicated. Appointment with tenure Flora Cassen as associate professor of Jewish, Islamic and Middle Eastern studies and of history in Arts & Sciences; […]
Ilya Monosov, assistant professor of neuroscience at the School of Medicine, received a three-year, $300,000 McKnight Memory and Cognitive Disorders Award to study how the brain seeks, values and uses information to resolve uncertainty about the future. This work can help shed light on disorders that arise from maladaptive decision-making and poor risk/reward assessment. Read more.