Memory

Researchers have found that listening to music after learning can influence memory in unexpected ways. Emotional arousal triggered by the music may enhance either general or detailed recall—but not both—depending on the strength of the listener’s emotional response.

Scientists have identified a brain protein that appears to drive age-related memory decline. In a new study, suppressing this protein in old mice led to gains in cognitive performance, offering insight into potential therapies for brain aging.

A team of neuroscientists has observed that individual neurons in the human brain follow rhythmic timing patterns during memory tasks. The findings highlight how internal brain states influence when cells fire as people form and recall memories.

A small brainstem region known as the locus coeruleus appears to help the brain segment experiences into distinct memories. New research links this neural activity to pupil responses and changes in hippocampal patterns during meaningful event transitions.

Researchers have found that children and young adolescents with higher anxiety tend to generalize negative memories more after sleep, raising questions about how nighttime memory processes could reinforce anxiety-related thought patterns during a sensitive developmental stage.

Does cannabis help or harm memory in older age? A new study in rats suggests the answer is complex. Researchers found THC’s effects depended on sex and delivery method, improving working memory in some cases while impairing it in others.

New neuroscience research shows how the brain decides which memories deserve more attention. By tracking brain activity, scientists found that the frontal cortex helps direct limited memory resources, allowing people to remember high-priority information more precisely than less relevant details.

The same brain system that rewards you for a delicious meal is hijacked by drugs like fentanyl. A behavioral neuroscientist explains how understanding the specific memories behind these rewards is the key to treating addiction without harming our essential survival...

Our perception of time is more fragile than we think. Scientists have uncovered a powerful illusion where repeated exposure to information makes us misremember it as happening much further in the past, significantly distorting our mental timelines.

A new brain imaging study shows that when people try to remember multiple things, their brains give more precise attention to the most important item. The frontal cortex helps allocate memory resources, boosting accuracy for high-priority information.

Scientists have discovered that forming a mental map of a new environment takes more than just recognizing individual places—it also requires sleep. The study highlights how weakly tuned neurons gradually become synchronized to encode space as a connected whole.

A new study suggests that forgiving someone does not make us forget what they did—but it does change how we feel about it. People who forgave recalled past wrongs with just as much detail, but with less emotional pain.

New research suggests the brain uses a learning rule at inhibitory synapses to block out distractions during memory replay. This process enables the hippocampus to prioritize useful patterns over random noise, helping build more generalizable and reliable memories.

New research suggests that difficulty recalling specific personal memories may be an early warning sign of mental illness in youth. A meta-analysis finds this memory trait predicts first-time psychiatric diagnoses, especially depression, during adolescence and early adulthood.

Stimulating the brain’s amygdala during memory formation can boost recall after 24 hours, a new study finds. But the effect varies: some people’s memory improves, others’ worsens—and baseline memory performance appears to be the best predictor of outcome.