Does your dog have social skills?

A study suggests that viewing the owner’s face works as a positive social reinforcement for dogs. Learn more about this and other surprising results about “man’s best friend”.

The role of alpha in attentional processes

Alexander Jones and Jonathan Silas published in Cortex the paper Spatial attention is not affected by alpha or beta transcranial alternating current stimulation: A registered report resulting from the research project 150/16 - An investigation into the causal role of alpha oscillations in attention, supported by the BIAL Foundation. Using transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS), the researchers tested whether somatosensory alpha oscillations are causally related to endogenous and exogenous attention and concluded that the manipulation of alpha by tACS does not cause changes in tactile spatial attention. These findings support an account of alpha power not being causally involved in attention.

Italy, UK, USA and Portugal were the countries with most supported projects in Grants Programme 2022/23

Did you know that in the Grants Programme for Scientific Research 2022/23 it was supported 75 applications from 17 countries?

Voluntarily turning off consciousness

Matthew Sacchet, principal investigator of project 99/20 - Beyond "mindfulness" and toward a modern science of meditative mastery and spiritual transformation, supported by the BIAL Foundation, studied the total absence of consciousness during meditation achieved by some advanced practitioners. Besides the absence of any time experience or tiredness, practitioners also report a sudden sense of clarity, openness, and possibly insights after emerging from meditation-induced cessations of consciousness.