Science education is traditionally framed as a driver of scientific literacy and economic growth. However, emerging evidence suggests that it may also function as a contributor to public health by shaping brain health across the lifespan. In this invited commentary, I synthesize findings from human and animal studies to examine how enriched, inquiry-based educational experiences intersect with neural processes underlying cognitive development, stress regulation, executive function, and social-emotional well-being. This synthesis is guided by the principle of cognitive compassion, which emphasizes the design of learning environments that support both cognitive and emotional needs. Research on neuroplasticity, stress biology, and motivation indicates that learning contexts characterized by curiosity, emotional safety, and active engagement are associated with adaptive neural function and long-term cognitive resilience. Drawing on empirical literature and illustrative translational observations from education...

Repeated restraint stress (RRS) in rats impairs cognitive flexibility, particularly when faced with additional mild acute stress (AS). We tested the hypothesis that this impairment is associated with altered dopaminergic activity in the dorsal striatum (DS) driven by corticotropin-releasing-factor receptor type 1 (CRFR1) in the substantia nigra pars compacta (SNpc). Sixty-two male rats received RRS or handling for 14 d, before training on a two-action, two-outcome instrumental conditioning task. Initial learning was assessed using an outcome devaluation test. Cognitive flexibility was assessed by reversing the outcome identities and a second outcome devaluation test, with half the rats in each group receiving AS before reversal training. Dopamine and metabolites were quantified in the DS, and CRFR1 mRNA was quantified in the SNpc. In Experiment 2, SNpc CRFR1 was pharmacologically blocked unilaterally before AS and reversal training in 32 male and 32 female rats. Increased dopaminergic activity in the DS an...

Consumption varies across the stages (metestrus, diestrus, proestrus, estrus) of a rat's estrous cycle, changing in ways that might be expected to reflect, in part, a direct impact of hormones on taste palatability. Evidence regarding this hypothesis has been mixed, however, and critical within-subject experiments comparing consumption of multiple tastes with distinct valences across all estrous phases have been few. Here, we assayed female rats' licking of palatable (saccharin, sucrose, NaCl) and aversive (quinine-HCl, citric acid) tastes in brief-access trials, while tracking their estrous cycles through vaginal cytology. We observed sucrose palatability to be high at metestrus, the same phase at which the palatability of the aversive citric acid was low. These patterns were consistent across tastes of similar palatability, despite vast differences between the substances' receptor mechanisms and central impacts. Together, these results reveal a general (i.e., independent of particular tastant identity) m...

Harmonicity is a property of complex sounds such as vocalizations or music, but it remains unclear how harmonicity is processed in the auditory cortex (ACtx). Subregions of ACtx are thought to process harmonic stimuli differently. Selective responses to sound features in ACtx emerge hierarchically from primary ACtx (A1) L4 and secondary ACtx (A2) layer (L)2/3, which is believed to be the most responsive to harmonic sounds. Since harmonic stacks can range from 2 to >10 components, being more similar to naturalistic vocalizations, harmonic sensitivity might also arise hierarchically across layers and areas. We studied responses to harmonic stacks of 2–10 frequencies across A1 L4, A1 L2/3, and A2 L2/3 in adult male and female mice using in vivo two-photon microscopy. We found harmonic-sensitive neurons (HNs) responding only to harmonic stacks but not to individual frequencies in all areas at similar proportions. HNs showed highly nonlinear spectral integration of harmonic frequencies that decreased as the har...

Rapid advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) have enabled text-to-speech (TTS) systems to produce voices increasingly indistinguishable from humans, posing significant societal risks, particularly through potential misuse in fraud and deception. To address this concern, this study combined behavioral assessments and neural measures using electroencephalography (EEG) to examine whether short-term perceptual training enhances people's ability to distinguish AI-generated from human speech. Thirty participants (of either sex) listened to sentences produced by human speakers and corresponding AI-generated clones, judging each sentence as either human or AI-generated before and after a brief (∼12 min) training session, during which voices were explicitly labeled as “human” or “AI.” Behaviorally, participants showed consistently poor discrimination before and after training, with only minimal improvement. However, neural analyses revealed substantial training-induced changes. Specifically, temporal response...

Accurate time estimation is essential for optimizing our perception and actions. Previous neuroimaging and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) studies have suggested that the right inferior parietal lobule (IPL) and supplementary motor area (SMA) are involved in time perception. However, it remains inconclusive whether the activity in these regions is crucial for time perception, partly due to the possible spread of TMS effects across anatomically connected brain regions. Such a remote effect is less likely to happen with transcranial static magnetic stimulation (tSMS), as the static magnetic field is expected to modulate the firing threshold of neurons rather than directly triggering an action potential. In this study, we aimed to determine the causal relevance of local activities in the right IPL and the SMA for temporal processing using tSMS. Forty-eight human volunteers (26 males and 22 females) participated in the study. We measured duration discrimination thresholds, along with orientation discri...

Forming a long-term memory requires changes in neuronal transcription. What happens, though, as the memory is forgotten? And how does the transcriptional state relate to the maintenance and recall of the long-term memory? To answer these questions, we have been systematically tracing the time course of transcriptional changes evoked by long-term sensitization in the marine mollusk Aplysia californica . Our approach captures transcriptional changes in neurons of known behavioral relevance using a within-subject design, delineating patterns of transcriptional change that are comprehensive and reproducible. We have previously reported that within 1 d of long-term sensitization training, there is a widespread transcriptional response involving robust changes in over 5% of tested transcripts (1,198 of ∼22 k; [Conte et al., 2017][1]). Within 1 week, however, memory strength fades, and nearly all transcriptional changes relapse to baseline ( [Perez et al., 2018][2]). Here we report microarray analysis ( N  = 16) ...

The current treatment for drug-resistant epilepsy is surgical intervention, which relies on accurate identification of the seizure onset zone (SOZ) using intracranial electroencephalography (iEEG) data. iEEG analysis with computational epileptogenic zone identification algorithms (CEZIAs) is a promising step toward better SOZ localization and surgical outcomes. A key step in validation and adoption of CEZIAs is to allow for widespread shared development and validation of code and data. To achieve this, we developed an ecosystem of seizure localization methods that includes a straightforward analysis pipeline, standardized data formatting and storage, and completely documented and open-source code. The TableContainer package provides standardized storage of tabular data and serves as a foundational data structure for the ecosystem. Building on this, the Epoch package enables cropping, resampling, and visualization of iEEG data and provides publicly downloadable datasets for reproducibility. The public iEEG ...

Bridging integrator 1 ( BIN1 ) is one of the strongest genetic risk factors for Alzheimer’s disease (AD), yet its function in the brain and role in AD remain unclear. Neuronal BIN1 isoform levels are decreased in AD, and recent data show an important role of BIN1 in inhibitory neurons. Inhibitory neurons are key regulators of cognition and network excitability, with parvalbumin-expressing (PV) neurons as the most abundant subtype. We tested the hypothesis that loss of BIN1 from PV neurons contributes to AD-related cognitive dysfunction and network hyperexcitability. We generated a cell type–specific conditional knock-out mouse line, Bin1- pvKO, and examined mice of both sexes. These mice showed few behavioral differences when assessed with traditional or machine learning–based behavioral tests, with only a slight reduction in exploratory behavior in aged cohorts. Bin1- pvKO mice showed no significant differences in network excitability on measures of induced seizure susceptibility and spiking on cortical e...

Implicit adaptation recalibrates movements based on sensory prediction errors. It is often characterized as automatic and resource-independent, suggesting that it is insulated from cognitive influence. Here, we asked whether implicit adaptation is sensitive to goal-directed attentional demands imposed by a concurrent visual task. Across two experiments, we used clamped visual feedback to measure implicit adaptation while human adults (49 females, 23 males) monitored a rapidly changing visual stream for targets. In Experiment 1, participants performing the visual task showed modest early enhancement in implicit adaptation relative to a single-task control condition. In Experiment 2, adding response-contingent feedback to the visual task led to stronger and more sustained enhancement. Visual task accuracy and implicit adaptation were uncorrelated, arguing against resource competition. Model-based analyses revealed elevated error sensitivity under dual-task conditions, with individual differences reflecting a...