Q&A with Child Development journal author According to the National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities, approximately 1 in 6 children in the United States have developmental disabilities which include physical, learning, language or behavior-related disabilities. Students with disabilities often receive accommodations (how students access and learn the same content as their classmates) at school, but teachers rarely explain them to typically-developing classmates. Children with disabilities are increasingly included in general education classrooms alongside typically-developing classmates. Accommodations such as…

PULLMAN, Wash. — When it comes to public attitudes toward using self-driving cars, understanding how the vehicles work is important—but so are less obvious characteristics like feelings of excitement or pleasure and a belief in technology’s social benefits. Those are key insights of a new study from researchers at Washington State University, who are examining attitudes toward self-driving cars as the technology creeps toward the commercial market—and as questions persist about whether people will readily adopt them. The study, published…

Research sheds light on how ‘aha!’ moments help you remember what you learn DURHAM, N.C. — Have you ever been stuck on a problem, puzzling over something for what felt like ages without getting anywhere, but then suddenly the answer came to you like a bolt from the blue? We’ve all experienced that “aha! moment,” that sudden clarity or magical epiphany you feel when a new idea or perspective pops into your head as if out of nowhere. Now, new…

How relatedness to nature is linked to well-being is determined by district-level socioeconomic status. The Kobe University analysis is based on survey results from two major Japanese metropolitan areas. Hiking. Camping. Even just walking in the park. Be it a current hobby or a childhood pastime, many urban residents have engaged in activities that have nurtured in them a positive relationship with nature. But in our modern society, disparities in access to nature have only grown larger between residential areas….

How social networks shape the vocal diversity of monk parakeets In the urban parks of Barcelona, Spain, the calls of a tropical parrot fill the air. The bright green monk parakeet, native to South America, has found a new home in European cities. Monk parakeets thrive in huge colonies where they communicate with each other using many distinct sounds—offering scientists a unique window into understanding the interplay of individual social relationships with vocal variety. For social animals, communication is a…

Two thousand years before the Inca empire dominated the Andes, a lesser-known society known as the Chavín Phenomenon shared common art, architecture, and materials throughout modern-day Peru. Through agricultural innovations, craft production, and trade, Chavín shaped a growing social order and laid the foundations for hierarchical society among the high peaks. But one of their most powerful tools wasn’t farming. It was access to altered states of consciousness. That’s according to a new study that uncovered the earliest-known direct evidence…

In a study published Wednesday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), University of Oklahoma researchers detail their discoveries about why the brain tumor glioblastoma is so aggressive. Their findings center on ZIP4, a protein that transports zinc throughout the body and sets off a cascade of events that drive tumor growth. About half of all malignant brain tumors are glioblastomas, the deadliest form of brain cancer with a median survival rate of 14 months. “Surgery for…

Some acute post-ayahuasca “adverse effects” like visual distortions were associated with better reported mental health at a later date, while other adverse effects like feeling isolated or energetically attacked were associated with worse mental health Mounting evidence supports ayahuasca’s potential to improve mental health, but its long-term effects are shaped by both individual mental health history and the context in which the psychedelic is used, according to a study published on April 30, 2025 in the open-access journal PLOS Mental…

9 children born with severe LAD-l are symptom-free two years after treatment An investigational gene therapy has successfully restored immune function in all nine children treated with the rare and life-threatening immune disorder called severe leukocyte adhesion deficiency-I, or LAD-I, in an international clinical trial co-led by UCLA. LAD-I is a genetic condition that affects approximately one in a million people in the world. It is caused by mutations in the gene that produces CD18, a protein that enables white…

Study shows how a dopamine circuit between two brain regions enables mice to extinguish fear after a peril has passed Dangers come but dangers also go and when they do, the brain has an “all-clear” signal that teaches it to extinguish its fear. A new study in mice by MIT neuroscientists shows that the signal is the release of dopamine along a specific interregional brain circuit. The research therefore pinpoints a potentially critical mechanism of mental health, restoring calm when…

Wild and zoo-housed orangutans explore the world differently, study finds A new study comparing wild and zoo-housed Sumatran orangutans reveals that life in a zoo significantly alters how orangutans interact with their environment. Researchers analyzed over 12,000 instances of daily exploratory object manipulation (EOM)—the active manipulation and visual inspection of objects associated with learning and problem-solving—across 51 orangutans aged 0.5 to 76 years. The findings show that orangutans living in zoos engage in more frequent, more diverse, and more complex…

The study’s findings could potentially help develop targeted therapeutics for mood disorders like major depressive disorder Our lives are filled with binary decisions – choices between one of two alternatives. But what’s really happening inside our brains when we engage in this kind of decision making? A University of Ottawa Faculty of Medicine-led study published in Nature Neuroscience sheds new light on these big questions, illuminating a general principle of neural processing in a mysterious region of the midbrain that is the very origin…

The most robust estimate ever made in the biome shows that hunting, predation by domestic dogs, livestock diseases and competition with wild boars are among the main anthropogenic influences. A group of Brazilian researchers has, for the first time in the entire Atlantic Rainforest, estimated the population density of the five deer species of the biome. This allowed them to measure the main factors that influence the number of deer per square kilometer (km²) in forest areas. The results suggest…

Using the video game Minecraft to understand human social learning The ability to learn socially from one another is a defining feature of the human species. Social learning enables humans to gradually accumulate information across generations. And although we are able to build cities full of skyscrapers, send people into space, and collectively develop cures for diseases, most studies investigating social learning mechanisms focus on relatively simple, abstract tasks that bear little resemblance to real-world social learning environments. As a…

The amygdala plays a key role in driving increased risk-taking Expecting feedback from an avatar compared to a real human facilitates risk-taking behavior in a gambling task, and a brain region called the amygdala is central to this facilitation, according to a study published April 22nd in the open-access journal PLOS Biology by Toshiko Tanaka and Masahiko Haruno from the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology, Japan. In virtual-reality environments, individuals can adopt various forms of avatars, projecting their behaviors…

Body appreciation differs between Middle-Eastern and Western societies, a new international study can reveal, highlighting how cultural and family influences shape body image and eating behaviours in young women. Led by Flinders University and published in the journal Body Image, the study surveyed over 850 women aged 18–25 in Australia and Lebanon, examining the roles that mothers and sisters play in shaping body dissatisfaction, body appreciation, and eating patterns. Lead author, registered psychologist and PhD candidate Melanie Deek, says the…