Every illusion has a backstage crew. New research shows the brain’s own “puppet strings”—special neurons that quietly tug our perception—help us see edges and shapes that don’t actually exist. When ...

“Illusions are fun, but they are also a gateway to perception,” says Hyeyoung Shin, assistant professor of neuroscience at Seoul National University. Shin is the first author of a new study in Nature ...

Researchers at the UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology find that the hippocampus sends signals to the visual cortex to predict what we are about to see. Our brains are powerful prediction machines ...

How does the brain perceive time? A new fMRI study identifies a three-stage neural relay from the visual cortex to the frontal regions that constructs our subjective experience of duration and timing.

The 1950s were a relatively rudimentary era for experimental neurophysiology. Recording the electrical activity of neurons wasn’t uncommon, but the methods often demanded considerable patience and ...

New ultra–high-field brain scans reveal hidden body maps inside the visual system, showing how the brain weaves sight and touch together to build a unified sense of ...

The visual cortex is the part of the brain that enables visual perception. In this area millions of nerve cells, called neurons, process stimuli from the outside world. They only react when objects ...

Vision shapes behavior and, a new study by MIT neuroscientists finds, behavior and internal states shape vision. The research, published Nov. 25 in Neuron, finds in mice that via specific circuits, ...