Smoking Habit Affects Response to False Feedback
A team of scientists at HSE University, in collaboration with the Institute of Higher Nervous Activity and Neurophysiology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, studied how people respond to deception when under stress and cognitive load. The study revealed that smoking habits interfere with performance on cognitive tasks involving memory and attention and impairs a person’s ability to detect deception. The study findings have been published in Frontiers in Neuroscience.
'Neurotechnologies Are Already Helping Individuals with Language Disorders'
On November 4-6, as part of Inventing the Future International Symposium hosted by the National Centre RUSSIA, the HSE Centre for Language and Brain facilitated a discussion titled 'Evolution of the Brain: How Does the World Change Us?' Researchers from the country's leading universities, along with health professionals and neuroscience popularisers, discussed specific aspects of human brain function.
‘Scientists Work to Make This World a Better Place’
Federico Gallo is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Cognition and Decision Making of the HSE Institute for Cognitive Research. In 2023, he won the Award for Special Achievements in Career and Public Life Among Foreign Alumni of HSE University. In this interview, Federico discusses how he entered science and why he chose to stay, and shares a secret to effective protection against cognitive decline in old age.
'Science Is Akin to Creativity, as It Requires Constantly Generating Ideas'
Olga Buivolova investigates post-stroke language impairments and aims to ensure that scientific breakthroughs reach those who need them. In this interview with the HSE Young Scientists project, she spoke about the unique Russian Aphasia Test and helping people with aphasia, and about her place of power in Skhodnensky district.
Neuroscientists from HSE University Learn to Predict Human Behaviour by Their Facial Expressions
Researchers at the Institute for Cognitive Neuroscience at HSE University are using automatic emotion recognition technologies to study charitable behaviour. In an experiment, scientists presented 45 participants with photographs of dogs in need and invited them to make donations to support these animals. Emotional reactions to the images were determined through facial activity using the FaceReader program. It turned out that the stronger the participants felt sadness and anger, the more money they were willing to donate to charity funds, regardless of their personal financial well-being. The study was published in the journal Heliyon.
Spelling Sensitivity in Russian Speakers Develops by Early Adolescence
Scientists at the RAS Institute of Higher Nervous Activity and Neurophysiology and HSE University have uncovered how the foundations of literacy develop in the brain. To achieve this, they compared error recognition processes across three age groups: children aged 8 to 10, early adolescents aged 11 to 14, and adults. The experiment revealed that a child's sensitivity to spelling errors first emerges in primary school and continues to develop well into the teenage years, at least until age 14. Before that age, children are less adept at recognising misspelled words compared to older teenagers and adults. The study findings have beenpublished in Scientific Reports .
Meditation Can Cause Increased Tension in the Body
Researchers at the HSE Centre for Bioelectric Interfaces have studied how physiological parameters change in individuals who start practicing meditation. It turns out that when novices learn meditation, they do not experience relaxation but tend towards increased physical tension instead. This may be the reason why many beginners give up on practicing meditation. The study findings have been published in Scientific Reports.
Processing Temporal Information Requires Brain Activation
HSE scientists used magnetoencephalography and magnetic resonance imaging to study how people store and process temporal and spatial information in their working memory. The experiment has demonstrated that dealing with temporal information is more challenging for the brain than handling spatial information. The brain expends more resources when processing temporal data and needs to employ additional coding using 'spatial' cues. The paper has been published in the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.
Neuroscientists Inflict 'Damage' on Computational Model of Human Brain
An international team of researchers, including neuroscientists at HSE University, has developed a computational model for simulating semantic dementia, a severe neurodegenerative condition that progressively deprives patients of their ability to comprehend the meaning of words. The neural network model represents processes occurring in the brain regions critical for language function. The results indicate that initially, the patient's brain forgets the meanings of object-related words, followed by action-related words. Additionally, the degradation of white matter tends to produce more severe language impairments than the decay of grey matter. The study findings have been published in Scientific Reports.
New Method Enables Dyslexia Detection within Minutes
HSE scientists have developed a novel method for detecting dyslexia in primary school students. It relies on a combination of machine learning algorithms, technology for recording eye movements during reading, and demographic data. The new method enables more accurate and faster detection of reading disorders, even at early stages, compared to traditional diagnostic assessments. The results have been published in PLOS ONE.