Using direct, intracranial brain recordings in humans, a new study finds that the thalamus, a small region located deep within the brain, plays a pivotal role in conscious perception. According to the authors, specific high-order thalamic regions act as a gateway to awareness by sending signals to the prefrontal cortex. The findings shed new light on the mysteries of human consciousness. Understanding the neural foundations of human consciousness is among the most challenging tasks in neuroscience. Previous research has suggested that consciousness can be divided into two components: the conscious state (i.e., awake or asleep) and conscious content (i.e., specific experiences or perceptions). While subcortical structures are primarily involved in regulating conscious states, many theories emphasize the importance of subcortical-cortical loops in conscious perception. However, most studies on conscious perception have focused on the cerebral cortex, with relatively few studies examining the role of subcortical regions, particularly the thalamus. Its role in conscious perception has often been seen as merely facilitating sensory information.

To better understand the role of the thalamus in conscious perception, Zepeng Fang and colleagues performed a unique clinical experiment and simultaneously recorded stereoelectroencephalography (sEEG) activity in the intralaminar, medial, and ventral thalamic nuclei and prefrontal cortex (PFC), while five chronic, drug-resistant headache patients with implanted intracranial electrodes performed a novel visual consciousness task. Feng et al. discovered that the intralaminar and medial thalamic nuclei exhibited earlier and stronger consciousness-related neural activity compared to the ventral nuclei and PFC. Notably, the authors found that activity between the thalamus and PFC – especially the intraluminal thalamus – was synchronized during the onset of conscious perception, suggesting that this thalamic region plays a gating role in driving PFC activity during conscious perception.

GPS tech may empower older adults to be more adventurous on the road, according to a study published April 3, 2025 in the open-access journal PLOS Digital Health by Sol Morrissey from the University of East Anglia and colleagues.

Wild bonobos – our closest living relatives – communicate using vocal calls organized in compositionally complex semantic structures that mirror key features of human language, according to a new study. The findings challenge long-held assumptions about the uniqueness of human language and open new avenues for understanding the evolution of communication. A hallmark characteristic of human language is its ability to combine discrete elements to form more complex, meaningful structures. This principle, known as compositionality, allows for the assembly of morphemes (the smallest unit of language with meaning) into words and words into sentences; the meaning of the whole is determined by its constituent parts and their arrangement. Compositionality can take two forms: trivial and nontrivial. In trivial compositionality, each word maintains its independent meaning. Nontrivial compositionality involves a more complex, nuanced relationship where meaning is not simply a direct sum of the words involved. Compositionality may not be unique to human language; studies in birds and primates have demonstrated that some animals are capable of combining meaningful vocalizations into  trivially compositional strucutres. However, to date, there is no direct evidence that animals use nontrivial compositionality in their communication.

Here, Mélissa Berthet and colleagues report strong empirical evidence that wild bonobos (Pan paniscus) use nontrivial compositionality in their vocal communication. Berthet et al. analyzed 700 recordings of bonobo vocal calls and call combinations and documented over 300 contextual features associated with each utterance. Employing a method derived from distributional semantics – a linguistic framework that measures meaning similarities between words – the authors analyzed these contextual features to infer the meanings of individual bonobo vocalizations and quantify their relationships. Then, to assess whether bonobo call combinations follow compositional principles, they applied a multi-step approach previously used to identify compositionality in human communication. Berthet et al. discovered that bonobo call types integrate into four compositional structures, three of which exhibit non-trivial compositionality, suggesting that bonobo communication shares more structural similarities with human language than previously recognized.

Eventgoers’ live experiences are shaped by media technologies like social media, whether used in the moment or not, and memory and anticipation are increasingly part of live experiences themselves, research published in Cambridge University Press journal Memory, Mind & Media has found.

Goethe University Frankfurt has been awarded another humanities research unit funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG): The unit, titled “Power and Abuse in the Roman Catholic Church,” will investigate the conditions that facilitate abuse and how they can be prevented. Additionally, the Center for Advanced Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences “Polycentricity and Plurality of Premodern Christianities” has secured follow-up funding for its study of Christianity from the first to the eighteenth century.