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The basic urge is surprisingly complex
16 June 2024 at 16:19
To most people, pulling into a highway rest stop is a profoundly mundane experience. But not to neuroscientist Rita Valentino, who has studied how the brain senses, interprets and acts on the bladder's signals. She's fascinated by the brain's ability to take in sensations from the bladder, combine them with signals from outside of the body, like the sights and sounds of the road, then use that information to act—in this scenario, to find a safe, socially appropriate place to pee. "To me, it's really an example of one of the beautiful things that the brain does," she says. from How Do We Know When to Pee? [Smithsonian; ungated]
