Throughout modernity, science has been synonymous with truth. But replication crises across disciplines and ‘fake news’ have deeply eroded society’s trust in science. The Citizen Science movement is a way to rebuild trust through citizen involvement. The idea is that anyone can contribute to reliable scientific knowledge, and science and science policy are responsive to society’s concerns and needs when they are open and accessible to all.
In our recent Wellcome funded project, the Emotional Brain Study, Professor Sarah-Jayne Blakemore and I are collaborating with citizen scientists the world over. The study is conducted using the Emotional Brain Study app, which is free to anyone on Google Play and Apple store. The app is designed to study the development of emotion regulation across the lifespan.

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When listening to a song or watching a dance, humans tend to follow the rhythm of the music. This is because one fundamental aspect of music is its rhythm, the way we synchronize with the temporal regularities of a melody or a dance. A recent study explores how our brain fuses with musical rhythm and the extent to which humans share this ability with other animals.
Alexandre Celma-Miralles and Juan Manuel Toro, an ICREA research professor with the Department of Information and Communication Technologies (DTIC), and members of the Comparative Cognition and Language (LCC) research group at the Center for Brain and Cognition (CBC) at UPF, explain this peculiarity in an article published this November in the journal Brain and Cognition.

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A new collaboration with an independent school in Menlo Park, Calif., is helping Stanford researchers better understand how different learning experiences drive changes in the brain.
The Brainwave Learning Center at Synapse School brings together researchers, teachers and students to gain new insights into how young learners' brains transform as they acquire new skills.
Through the center, students in kindergarten through eighth grade engage with neuroscience through lessons and activities developed by researchers and Synapse teachers, while researchers learn about brain development.
"By being embedded in a school, we can really see how school experiences impact the development of systems like the brain circuitry for reading or the brain circuitry for computing numbers," said Stanford Graduate School of Education (GSE) Professor Bruce McCandliss, who leads the project.

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Music is a fundamental attribute of the human species. Virtually all cultures, from the most primitive to the most advanced, make music. It's been true through history, and it's true throughout an individual's lifespan. In tune or not, we humans sing and hum; in time or not, we clap and sway; in step or not, we dance and bounce.
The human brain and nervous system are hard-wired to distinguish music from noise and to respond to rhythm and repetition, tones and tunes. Is this a biologic accident, or does it serve a purpose? It's not possible to say. Still, a varied group of studies suggests that music may enhance human health and performance.

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If you were fortunate enough to have music education in school, what were those classes like? Did you pick up an instrument—say, a recorder or violin, and learn how to play the scale and simple melodies? Did you listen to the classics and learn about the history of music?
Musicians and music educators alike say that learning music is so much more than just playing an instrument, or learning about your favorite artists. It’s a window into other disciplines—and life skills—and teaches you how to learn and get along.
That’s what Lorrie Murray, executive director of the Bay Area Music Project, told EdSurge earlier this fall. And it’s a sentiment echoed by a rock legend, Steven van Zandt, who most people have heard (as a member of Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band) or watched (as the mobster Silvio Dante in “The Sopranos”).

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In his new book, "How We Learn: The Surprising Truth about When, Where, and Why It Happens," author Benedict Carey informs us that “most of our instincts about learning are misplaced, incomplete, or flat wrong” and “rooted more in superstition than in science.”
That's a disconcerting message, and hard to believe at first. But it's also unexpectedly liberating, because Carey further explains that many things we think of as detractors from learning -- like forgetting, distractions, interruptions or sleeping rather than hitting the books -- aren’t necessarily bad after all. They can actually work in your favor, according to a body of research that offers surprising insights and simple, doable strategies for learning more effectively.

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Teaching students basic knowledge about the brain’s potential can have a positive impact on their motivation, grit, and achievement. In particular, explicitly teaching them that learning changes the structure and function of their brains can be transformational in building a stronger belief in the value of working hard to master new material.
Teachers who explain these findings report that the knowledge has a positive effect on students’ perceptions of their abilities as well as on their expectations for success.

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