The possibility that insects experience pain is a frontier question at the intersection of behaviour, cognition and philosophy of mind. Interest has been fuelled not only by anatomical discoveries but also by expanding behavioural and comparative evidence. Leading frameworks emphasize behavioural indicators of pain-like experience such as flexible, targeted responses to harm beyond reflexive...
Starting from the early 2010s, several studies have shown that a short period of monocular deprivation in adult volunteers transiently shifts ocular dominance in favour of the deprived eye. We compiled a meta-analysis of 73 such studies and found that the shift of ocular dominance was reliably observed, although with variable effect sizes mainly associated with the duration of deprivation and...
Bodily organs such as the heart and the lungs play a crucial role in maintaining physiological homeostasis in a continuous closed-loop interaction with the brain. Beyond their vital role, recent developments have emphasized the remarkable contribution of bodily signals to high-level brain functions. A direct route by which bodily signals influence brain functioning is via modulation of...