The brain mechanisms underlying the suppression of fear responses have attracted a lot of attention as they are relevant for therapy of human anxiety disorders. Despite our broad understanding of the different brain regions activated during the experience of fear, how fear responses can be suppressed remains largely elusive. Researchers at the University of Bern and the Friedrich Miescher Institute in Basel have now discovered that the activation of identified central amygdala neurons can suppress fear responses.

In noisy environments it is difficult for hearing aid users or people with a hearing implant to understand their conversational partner because current audio processors still have difficulty focusing precisely enough on specific sound sources. In a feasibility study, researchers from the Hearing Research Laboratory at the University of Bern and the Inselspital are now suggesting that artificial intelligence could solve this problem.

While studying two exoplanets in a bright nearby star system, the CHEOPS satellite has unexpectedly spotted the system's third known planet crossing the face of the star. This transit reveals exciting details about a rare planet -with no known equivalent-, as the scientific team led by the Universities of Geneva and Bern, and members of the National Center of Competence in Research PlanetS, point out.

A study conducted at the Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of Bern provides new insights into the pollution of the world's oceans with plastic waste. The modelling shows that most of the plastic does not end up in the open ocean, but beaches or drifts in the water near the coast.

Swissuniversities asks the Federal Council and the Parliament to stabilise relations with the European Union as soon as possible so that Switzerland can be quickly associated with Horizon Europe. This is important for the academic world, but also for companies and, beyond that, for the maintenance of the quality of life enjoyed by the Swiss population, in terms of prosperity, health, education and security.

Three researchers at the University of Bern are receiving Sinergia grants from the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) for their research projects.

It could be a milestone on the path to detecting life on other planets: Scientists under the leadership of the University of Bern and of the National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) PlanetS detect a key molecular property of all living organisms from a helicopter flying several kilometers above ground. The measurement technology could also open up opportunities for remote sensing of the Earth.

An international study coordinated by the University of Bern and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine shows for the first time the actual contribution of man-made climate change in increasing mortality risks due to heat: between 1991 and 2018, more than a third of all deaths in which heat played a role were attributable to global warming. The study, the largest of this kind, used data from 732 cities in 43 countries around the world and has just been published in the "Nature Climate Change" journal.