Teens’ nocturnal lifestyles are more than a personal preference — dramatic hormonal changes during puberty alter the brain circuits that regulate sleep.

The brain’s fusiform face area helps you find your friend in a crowd.

Hemispatial neglect — the loss of awareness of one side of the body — is common in stroke victims.

Theory of mind is your ability to infer and understand other people’s thoughts, desires, and beliefs — no telepathic superpowers required.

Smoking nicotine and drinking alcohol are common risk factors that can lead to premature death. Learn how both substances impact our bodies and can lead to addiction.

Brain-computer interfaces provide a link between a person’s mind and a machine, allowing the brain’s electrical signals to be the language to use a machine.

Believing a treatment will work can change how you respond to it — even when it’s fake.

Dopamine works as a crucial messenger in our brains, with imbalances causing a variety of brain disorders.

Specialized cells in the inner ear turn vibrations in the air into what we perceive as sound. However, over time or after prolonged exposure to loud noises, these cells can become damaged and die, leading to hearing loss.

Some brain signals once thought to be "noise" actually encode useful information. Lessons from the physics of flow encourage us to reconsider these unpredictable signals and now scientists are finding uses for them in medicine.