Browse Articles

Vassiliadis et al. use transcranial temporal interference stimulation—a non-invasive deep brain stimulation technique—to show that stimulation of the striatum applied at 80 Hz disrupts the ability to learn from reinforcement feedback.

Behavioural scientists want to see more consideration of context — so why are they not using tools derived from ecology, the science of all life in context? We invite behavioural scientists to align the science of human behaviour with that of behavioural ecology.

Genome-wide analyses reveal a deep history of musical instruments and specialized vocabulary among Central African hunter-gatherers and the long-term cultural interconnectivity of these groups before and after the Bantu expansion.

By combining advanced mathematical modelling with data from a rare sample of patients with brain damage, the authors show that a specific part of the brain in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex is associated with putting in effort to help other people.

A mathematical model of the evolution and development of hominin brain size suggests that the evolution of a larger brain size in humans may have been driven by changes in developmental constraints rather than selection for brain size.

Causal inference is needed to understand whether conservation is working. There is a substantial role for behavioural science, as interventions often depend on behaviour change. A focus on design over data, embracing mixed methods and support from funders will help to provide the evidence needed to reverse biodiversity loss.

A randomized controlled trial of a nurse-led 911 triage programme in Washington, DC, by Wilson et al. finds that the programme improves the use of ambulance services and helps connect non-emergency callers with primary care.

Coastal communities are growing rapidly and face the challenge of climate change with its implications for resource and livelihood sustainability. Raha et al. advocate for collaboration and co-creation of solutions to mitigate these urgent issues.

Testing two families of large language models (LLMs) (GPT and LLaMA2) on a battery of measurements spanning different theory of mind abilities, Strachan et al. find that the performance of LLMs can mirror that of humans on most of these tasks. The authors explored potential reasons for this.

For patients affected by speech disorders, brain–machine-interface (BMI) devices could restore their ability to verbally communicate. In this work, we captured neural activity associated with internal speech — words said within the mind with no associated movement or audio output — and translated these cortical signals into text in real time.

The impetus behind the development of various Chinese dialects is as yet unknown. In a comprehensive quantitative coanalysis of linguistic and genetic data across China, Yang et al. find evidence to suggest that demographic diffusion, cultural diffusion and linguistic assimilation all contributed to the expansive diversity of Chinese dialects.

Humans are unusually adept at endurance running, due in part to specialized muscle fibres and heat elimination by sweating. Cost–benefit analyses and an ethnohistorical survey of hunting methods suggest that these features could have evolved through the pursuit of evasive species until they are overcome with exhaustion and easily dispatched.

Using foraging theory and ethnohistoric data, the authors’ analysis supports the hypothesis that the human ability to sweat while running long distances evolved in the context of persistent, endurance-based pursuits of game.

Kozyreva et al. review evidence from individual-level interventions for fighting online misinformation featured in 81 scientific papers. They classify the interventions in nine different types and summarize their findings in a toolbox.

Wandelt et al. describe a brain–machine interface that captures intracortical neural activity during internal speech (words said within the mind with no associated movement or audio output) and translates those cortical signals into real-time text.

By digitizing a large lexical dataset of Chinese dialects and comparing it to genetic profiles, Yang et al. reveal a hybrid model of language diffusion, consisting of both population migrations and social learning across different regions of China.

Using a computational model to quantify difficulty in reconstructing images from compressed codes, Lin et al. show that reconstruction errors interface perception and memory by modulating how well images are encoded.

As an international student and academic, Thuy-vy T. Nguyen experienced the importance of culturally relevant mentoring first hand. In this World View, she shares her learnings for mentors and mentees.

Mu et al. use two-sample Mendelian randomization analyses to examine the causal impact of resting-state fMRI phenotypes on 12 psychiatric disorders.