Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences

Year after year, carnival in Rio makes one thing perfectly clear: samba moves people. The pounding drums elicit exuberant...

Playing an instrument presents an enormous challenge for our brains. How exactly the brain masters the complex...

A large amount of information constantly flows into our brain via the eyes. Scientists can measure the resulting brain...

Mental training that promotes skills such as mindfulness, gratitude or compassion reduces the concentration of the stress...

Over 70 million deaf people around the world use one of more than 200 different sign languages as their preferred form of...

Every region has its place in the brain. However, it has been unclear why brain regions are located where they are. Now...

To recognise a chair or a dog, our brain separates them into their individual properties and then  puts them back...

Traditionally, neuroscience regards the brain as being made up of two basic tissue types. Billions of neurons make up the...

The brain never processes the same information in the same way. Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive...

Individual frequency can be used to specifically influence certain areas of the brain and thus the abilities processed in...

Our brains construct mental maps of the environment from the experiences of our senses. This allows us to orient...

The fewer animal products someone consumes, the lower their body mass index and the less extroverted the person tends to...

A team led by Nikolaus Weiskopf from the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig has now...

While sleeping the brain goes through previously experienced things, consolidates new memory contents and summarizes...

The brain seems to have two different systems through which we can put ourselves into the shoes of someone else. These two...

After a stroke, there is an increased risk of suffering a second one. Until now, it was known that if areas in the left...

In order to orient ourselves in space, and to find our way around, we form mental maps of our surroundings. But what...

Why is it that people find songs such as James Taylor’s “Country Roads,” UB40’s “Red, Red Wine,” or The...

Brain-computer interfaces have a structural impact on brain substance after one hour’s training. Brain-computer...

A new epigenetic study suggests that mothers’ behavior can also have a substantial impact on their children’s...

How babies integrate new events into their knowledge. Babies seek to understand the world around them and learn many new...

Music touches. Until recently, this was only meant in a figurative way – now it can also be taken...

Language serves as a cornerstone of human cognition. However, our knowledge about its neural basis is still a matter of...

Reading is such a new ability in human evolutionary history that the existence of a ‘reading area’ could not be...

Although it plays a central role in the control of movement and expression of our mental abilities, our knowledge of the...

Each month, the up and down of estrogen in women appear to not just influence the switching between fertile and infertile...

When someone offends you while smiling, should your brain interpret it as a genuine smile or as an offense? Researchers at...

Language is considered as the key to integration. But how can a new language be learned in the most effective way, and...

Irrespective of whether we offer someone a cookie, give up a seat to a pensioner, or receive refugees – the broader the...

Max Planck scientists devise a model of how human speech develops Speech is generally believed to start with our very...

How well we can listen to the speech of another person in noisy surroundings depends on our ability to adapt our alpha...

Emotions consist of general components that are also elicited by similar impressions and specific components Grimacing, we...

The ability to produce and understand language makes humans unique. Not just humans but also monkeys and dogs can learn...

When art and science merge: Award-winning theatre performance “Musicophilia” supported by researchers from MPI...

Researchers discover how the brain completes sentences Even if we just hear part of what someone has said, when we are...

Director, Tania Singer has been voted to be among the top 50 most influential women for the German economy. Both the top...

Language that is metrically regular to an unusual degree is not only found in poetry, but also in the language of rites...

Which is more important when we plan an action: the overarching goal or the approach along the way? Scientists at the Max...

Scientists discover neural communication pathways for prosody Researchers from the Leipzig-based Max Planck Institute for...

A Trance State of Consciousness is associated with a Specific Brain Network Signature and Perceptual Decoupling In the...

Anatomical features of the survival of musical memory in Alzheimer’s disease uncovered Those who are in regular contact...

A New Model to describe cognitiv processes in the brain The Relationship between the mind and the brain remains one of...

Leaders of a group synchronize their brain activity with that of their followers during communication Great leaders are...

Movements and images facilitate vocabulary learning “Atesi” – what sounds like a word from the Elven language of...

Breastfeeding experience influences infant perception of emotional signals Individuals differ in how they perceive...

Sleep improves and structures infant memory There is no rest for a baby’s brain – not even in sleep. While infants...