Outlook

The growth of slums in the developing world's rapidly expanding cities is creating new opportunities for infectious disease to flourish and spread.

As mind sports becomes the new frontier for doping concerns, research is exploring whether users really get any value from 'smart drugs'.

Social ties go hand-in-hand with cognitive health. Now researchers are trying to determine why engaging with others helps to keep the brain healthy.

Future generations may have less to fear from cognitive decline thanks to microscopic insights into the ageing brain, and interventions from unexpected quarters.

Before data were so abundant, computer models of the brain were simple. Information is now much more plentiful — but some argue that models should remain uncomplicated.

Conflicting results are expected in a young field, but what do you do when even the meta-analyses do not agree?

Stress can have a negative influence on the human brain, but increasingly it is the ability to withstand severe stress that is the focus of research.

Consumption of animals helped hominins to grow bigger brains. But in a world rich with food, how necessary is meat?

Thoughtful use of ubiquitous technology can improve mental ability more than drugs and devices, say Nicholas S. Fitz and Peter B. Reiner.

As neuroscientists explore the therapeutic prospects of brain stimulation, the amateur community are hoping the technology will enhance their mental faculties or well-being.

Prostate cancer is one of the most common cancers in men — most will develop the disease if they live long enough. But it is not always deadly, and the number of cases often depends on how hard doctors look for it. By Richard Hodson, infographic by Mohamed Ashour.

Despite advances in detection and therapy, much about this common malignancy remains unknown. Here are some of the most important unresolved issues.

Surveillance is becoming a watchword for men with less-aggressive prostate cancer. If and when the disease progresses, new and newly-timed therapies are at hand.

Inflammation is an underlying cause of many cancers — and prostate cancer might turn out to be one of their number.

Strategies to destroy treatment-defying tumours in men with prostate cancer are beginning to make a difference.

In 2004, surgeon Declan Murphy was not convinced that using a robot to remove a cancer-riddled prostate was a significant improvement on keyhole, or laparoscopic, surgery. Eight-hundred robotic procedures later, he has not only changed his mind, but is now director of Robotic Surgery at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in Melbourne, Australia.

Prostate-specific antigen is not a bad test, it is just improperly applied, says Monique Roobol

Work to determine which prostate cancers are truly dangerous may finally be coming to fruition.