Plasticity 2000
Navigation-related structural change in the hippocampi of taxi drivers London cab drivers have measurably larger posterior hippocampi — direct evidence the adult brain physically rewires with experience.
Maguire et al. · PNAS Open →
Sleep 2005
Sleep-dependent memory consolidation Sleep is not passive downtime — specific sleep stages actively consolidate the memories you formed while awake.
Stickgold · Nature Open →
Emotion 1998
The amygdala and emotional memory Maps how the amygdala tags experiences as emotionally significant and writes them more deeply into long-term memory.
LeDoux · Nature Open →
Consciousness 2001
A default mode of brain function Identified the 'default mode network' — the set of regions that activate when you're doing nothing in particular, the brain's resting state.
Raichle et al. · PNAS Open →
Language 1998
Mirror neurons and the simulation theory of mind-reading Proposes that we understand others' actions by literally simulating them with the same neurons we use to perform them ourselves.
Gallese & Goldman · Trends in Cognitive Sciences Open →
Emotion 2008
How the body shapes the way we think Emotion and cognition are not separate systems — they share circuits, especially in the prefrontal cortex and amygdala.
Pessoa · Nature Reviews Neuroscience Open →
Decision 2007
Dopamine, learning and reward-seeking behaviour Reframes dopamine as a 'prediction error' signal — the brain's way of learning when the world surprises you.
Schultz · Acta Physiologica Open →
Disease 2016
Alzheimer's disease: the amyloid cascade hypothesis The dominant model for what goes wrong in Alzheimer's — and the basis for nearly every drug trial of the past two decades.
Selkoe & Hardy · EMBO Molecular Medicine Open →
Plasticity 1998
What's new in psychotherapy research Argues talk therapy works by physically rewiring synapses — bridging psychiatry and molecular biology.
Kandel · American Journal of Psychiatry Open →
Vision 1999
Visual processing in the primate brain How the visual cortex turns photons into the experience of seeing — and what binocular rivalry tells us about consciousness.
Logothetis · Scientific American Open →
Decision 2003
The neural basis of decision making Lays the foundation for neuroeconomics — how the brain assigns value and chooses between options in real time.
Glimcher · Annual Review of Neuroscience Open →
Development 2005
Critical periods in brain development Explains why certain skills — language, vision, music — are dramatically easier to learn in childhood, and what's happening in the cortex.
Hensch · Nature Reviews Neuroscience Open →