Researchers found that mice can sense sugar even if they lack taste receptors.

The evolutionarily ancient part of the brain that controls breathing and heart rate also regulates the immune system — a discovery about the brain-body axis made by experts on taste.

Our willingness to help others is governed by a specific brain region pinpointed by researchers in a study of patients with brain damage to that region.

Learning about where in the brain “helping” decisions are made is important for understanding how people might be motivated to tackle large global challenges, such as climate change, infectious disease and international conflict. It is also essential for finding new approaches to treating disorders of social interactions.

The study, published in Nature Human Behaviour, was carried out by researchers at the University of Birmingham and the University of Oxford, and shows for the first time how a region called the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) has a critical role in helping, or “prosocial” behaviors.

In the future, getting help for depression might involve a quick brain scan to find the most effective treatment for you.

An analysis of brain activity during rest and while undertaking specific tasks among a large group of people with depression and anxiety has identified six distinct types of brain activity patterns, symptoms, and responses to treatment.

The team from the US and Australia who conducted the study also determined treatments that are more likely to work for some of these categories. This means doctors could potentially match patients with the best therapies based on how their brains function.