Category: neuroscience

The journey involved in processing smell begins with cells that reside in the olfactory epithelium. (While we don’t have them, many mammals have a vomeronasal organ (VNO) to sense pheromones) Anyway, these smell cells have a lifespan of about a month, but you don’t have to learn what a magnolia flower smells like every month […]
This painting is a bit abstract, but you might be able to identify a face. Meanwhile, an AI might have difficulty identifying this as a portrait – we’re smarter than a computer! The brain region primarily responsible for identifying faces is called the fusiform gyrus. We don’t have brain areas specific for identifying trees, but […]
Is “food addiction” is real? Despite similarities between junk food consumption and drug addiction, one is still more extreme than the other. Here is how the two compare: (1) a main criteria for labeling something addictive is its ability to produce withdrawal symptoms, like a fever induced by quitting smoking cold turkey. Quitting cookies may […]