Key features of sleep such as behavioral quiescence, reduced responsiveness to external stimuli and characteristic posture are recorded in all living organisms, from simple forms like jellyfish to humans. This implies that sleep serves an important, yet unknown, vital evolutionary function. However, sleep is unambiguously... click to read more

In the same way as our genome contains the collection of all of our genes, we call microbiome the collection of microorganisms that have settled in our organism. Over the past decades, the gut microbiome, in particular, has been shown to affect our physical health:... click to read more

For all our life we've always wondered: what makes us human? A possible answer to that today would be: the neocortex. This evolutionary youngest part of our brain is a nest for such precious mental features as: emotions, reasoning, attention, communication etc. It's true that... click to read more

A supercomputer is made up of millions of repeating modules. Our recent study found that the brain is made up of repeating microcircuits. This intriguing similarity may explain how brains are built to efficiently handle diverse tasks, with "microcolumns" that act like the Lego bricks... click to read more

"A guy needs somebody -- to be near him... A guy goes nuts if he ain't got nobody."
Of Mice & Men, John Steinbeck. As social creatures, all aspects of our daily lives are powerfully shaped by our social experiences. The social bonds that we... click to read more