Stuck in front of our screens all day, we often ignore our senses beyond sound and vision. And yet they are always at work. When we're more alert, we feel the rough and smooth surfaces of objects, the ...

Scientists are learning how the brain knows what’s happening throughout the body, and how that process might go awry in some psychiatric disorders. By Carl Zimmer Last year, Ardem Patapoutian got a ...

Maddy has a degree in biochemistry from the University of York and specializes in reporting on health, medicine, and genetics. Maddy has a degree in biochemistry from the University of York and ...

A groundbreaking project at Scripps Research and the Allen Institute aims to chart the human body’s “hidden sixth sense” — interoception, the process by which the nervous system monitors internal ...

If you’ve ever said, “He doesn’t even know when he has to go to the bathroom!” or “She’s melting down and can’t tell me why,” then it’s time to talk about interoception. Yep—interoception is the “8th ...

There is a quiet language spoken inside us, a private vocabulary of heartbeats, breath, butterflies in the stomach, and the warmth of joy. Most people know this language instinctively. But for many ...

Interoception is how your brain senses and responds to what’s going on inside your body. “It’s how we know when we’re hungry, thirsty, anxious, or even need to take a deep breath,” says Wen G. Chen, ...

Work described in this story was made possible in part by federal funding supported by taxpayers. At Harvard Medical School, the future of efforts like this — done in service to humanity — now hangs ...