Choosing the usual or taking a chance?

We always choose the same route back home, but one day, alerted about traffic restrictions, we decide to risk an alternative route. What drives us to make this decision?

Dream and daydream: differences and similarities

Did you know that daydreams reflect events from the previous two days and “night” dreams resemble a fictional plot?

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”.

How stress during pregnancy may impact children’s sleep?

Desana Kocevska, principal investigator of the research project 381/20 - Pathways from prenatal and postnatal stress to sleep quality across childhood: The role of the amygdala and cortisol, supported by the BIAL Foundation, studied the impact of prenatal psychosocial stress (life events, contextual, parental or interpersonal stressors) on 4.930 children’s sleep at ages 2 months, 1.5, 2, 3 and 6 years. In addition, analyses using polygenic risk scores were performed in a subsample of 2.063 children. Higher total prenatal stress was associated with more sleep problems across all time points between 2 months and 6 years of age. Prenatal stress, and in particular negative life events during the pregnancy interact with genetic liability for insomnia to exacerbate sleep problems at six years of age. To know more about this study read the paper A Longitudinal Study of Stress During Pregnancy, Children’s Sleep and Polygenic Risk for Poor Sleep in the General Pediatric Population published in the journal of Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology.

Do eyes on robots matter?

Artur Pilacinski, principal investigator of the research project 260/22 - TrustyCobots: Human-like or machine-like? Tracking psychophysiological components of trust in human-robot collaboration, supported by the BIAL Foundation, assessed, using both subjective and objective measures (heart rate, pupil size and task completion time), the human trust when collaborating with eyed and non-eyed robots of the same type. Although humans seem to report marginally higher trust in eyed robots, they showed larger pupil size and faster task completion when interacting with robots without eyes, suggesting a more comfortable cooperation with them. This indicates that humans might not need human-like machines to trust and work with them. Instead, they seem to collaborate better with machine-like, eyeless machines. To know more about this study, read the paper The robot eyes don't have it. The presence of eyes on collaborative robots yields marginally higher user trust but lower performance published in the journal Heliyon.

The contribution of nucleus accumbens in anxiety

In the scope of the research project 175/20 - The role of nucleus accumbens in the perception of natural rewards, led by Carina Cunha and supported by the BIAL Foundation, it was published the paper Involvement of nucleus accumbens D2–medium spiny neurons projecting to the ventral pallidum in anxiety-like behaviour in the Journal of Psychiatry & Neuroscience. In this study, the contribution of a specific population of dopaminergic neurons in a central nucleus for emotional behaviors is highlighted, now in the context of anxiety.