“Happiness” is an intense and immediate state of joy, pleasure, or euphoria, which makes us “feel good”. That is why, when we speak colloquially, we often use the terms happiness and well-being as if they were synonyms. But cerebrally, these concepts are different and have diverse implications for our health and quality of life. Understanding the distinction between happiness and well-being is not only interesting from an academic point of view, but it is also essential for promoting sustainable emotional balance and lasting mental health.

Imagine a friend telling you about their weekend, or perhaps you're telling someone else about it, or even reminiscing about it yourself. You could describe the sensory details you experienced, like the cool breeze, the colors of the sunset, or the aroma of coffee; or you could focus more on the thoughts and emotions the experience evoked, such as feeling free, recalling old dreams you'd half-forgotten, or noticing a shift within you. While both accounts describe the same objective facts, the way you present them completely affects how you remember them later.

"The quiet stage by definition." That's how some manuals and guides describe the stage of childhood between the ages of 6 and 12, which coincides with primary school. Although perhaps it's not as quiet as it seems. "It's a more blurred stage than the others. In fact, most studies and intervention programs focus on early childhood or adolescence, leaving this period in the background. But it's a crucial stage for cognitive, social, emotional, and physical development, and represents a window of opportunity for health promotion and the prevention of future problems." in emotional education, dermatology, and respectful parenting.

Pablo Picasso said that "inspiration exists, but it has to find you working." When we have a moment of inspiration, we feel a creative impulse growing within us. It allows us to imagine the most spectacular things and often brings us pleasure. But what exactly is inspiration in neurobiological terms? Why does an idea sometimes strike us suddenly, like a spark, and other times seem impossible to conjure?

Alex Tsompanidis (Athens, 1991) is a researcher at the Autism Research Centre at the University of Cambridge and one of the most promising voices in the field of neurodevelopment. After studying medicine in Greece, Tsompanidis began a doctorate at the prestigious English university with the aim of better understanding autism spectrum disorder (ASD). His thesis received recognition from the International Society for Autism Research and the journal Spectrum has highlighted him as one of the 40 best autism researchers under 40. He now continues his research to improve the lives of people with ASD, which he studies from a global perspective and focuses on the placenta, which he believes is at the heart of human neurodevelopment and evolution.

The stress, isolation, disruption of habits and uncertainty caused by Covid-19 five years ago may have left their mark on the brain, according to a new study published Tuesday in the journal Nature CommunicationsBritish researchers suggest that the context generated by SARS-CoV-2 "may have accelerated brain aging" in the population, even among those who were never infected. This effect is not irreversible, scientists advance.

The stress caused by traumatic events, such as the loss of a partner or financial problems, triggers changes in the brain that are linked to Alzheimer's, according to a study by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), a center supported by the La Caixa Foundation, and the Barcelona Beta Brain Research Center (BBRC), affiliated with the Pasqua Foundation. The results, published in the journal Neurology, suggest that grieving for the loss of a partner, having a low educational level, and being unemployed are factors that increase the risk of suffering from alterations associated with this disease. However, the researchers emphasize that there are differences in the brain's response to stressful life events depending on whether the affected person is male or female.

Surely some friend has explained that they remember things that happened to them when they were barely one year old. Others may go further and talk about previous experiences, even from the first few days after birth. Science has long said that all of this is false: the consensus is that the human mind doesn't form memories until two or three years old (in some exceptional cases, it could be a little earlier). Any image prior to that date has surely been constructed from what other people have told us, but it can't come from our own experiences. Or can it? A new study, recently published in the journal Science, questions this dogma and proposes that the brain is prepared to memorize earlier than we thought.

Legend has it that the first person to run a marathon, the Greek Pheidippides, died of exhaustion just minutes after completing the feat. It must be taken into account that the poor soldier did not expect that on that historic day in the 5th century BC, instead of ending up pierced by a Persian spear on the beach at Marathon, he would have to run tirelessly the 42.195 kilometers that separated the battlefield from Athens to announce victory over the invading troops.

When she was 30 years old and in good health, a woman suffered a stroke that left her with tetraplegia and anarthria, which is the inability to speak. Since then, she only communicated with guttural sounds because she couldn't articulate words clearly. Now, 18 years later, she has regained speech thanks to a device that is capable of translating brain activity through a computer that pronounces what the patient is thinking. It is a neurotransmitter developed by researchers at the University of California and reported on in a study published this Monday in the journal Nature Neuroscience.

Human memory is one of the most complex cognitive processes of our brain. We store memories that help shape our identity, and we are also able to distinguish objects and people regardless of their context. Now, and for the first time, a group of Catalan researchers from the Hospital del Mar Research Institute has observed in a study how the neurons in our brain collect these memories, which "allows us to establish higher and abstract relationships, which constitutes the basis of human intelligence," according to the authors of this research published this Thursday in the journal Cell Reports.

The neurobiologist and International Science Teaching Foundation director, Héctor Ruiz Martín, has written several books to bring the evidence on learning and educational practices closer together.

Lying is ingrained in the human condition. Although children are brought up to tell the truth, they soon realise that we adults tell quite a few lies. Everyone does it, whether by action or omission. Sometimes we lie simply out of selfishness, with the idea of making a profit, even though we may harm other people. Other times we do it in a pious way, thinking that in this way we benefit them.

Pandemic management involves lockdowns, restrictions, and quarantines that lead to social isolation. We meet our friends and family much less often, and interpersonal distance, i.e. the space we leave with other people, has increased significantly. This distancing has been found to generate psychological discomfort and stress in many people, since we are a social species that instinctively seeks to be with other individuals. In addition, it has also been proposed that social isolation may indirectly influence many other biological processes. Benjamin M. Seitz and his collaborators, from several American universities and research centers, have theorized about the consequences that prolonged isolation can have on the functioning of the immune system and brain development, especially in children and adolescents.