A social enterprise providing education and information to protect and enhance the mental health of young people
Treating the brain with sound waves could be a radical new treatment for depression. New research shows short bursts of ultrasound (sound waves above the range of human hearing), at just 30 seconds a time, appear to boost mood and ease anxiety. Volunteers reported significant improvements in mental wellbeing within ten minutes of a single [...]
Millions of high school and college algebra students are united in a shared agony over solving for x and y, and for those to whom the answers don’t come easily, it gets worse: Most preschoolers and kindergarteners can do some algebra before even entering a math class. In a recently published study in the journal [...]
Learning can only occur if certain neuronal "brakes" are released. As the group led by Andreas Lüthi at the Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research has now discovered, learning processes in the brain are dynamically regulated by various types of interneurons. The new connections essential for learning can only be established if inhibitory inputs from [...]
Compared to the monumental machines of science, things like the International Space Station or the Large Hadron Collider, the human brain doesn't look like much. However, this three-pound amalgam of squishy cells is one of the most complicated and complex structures in the known universe. - Evan Lerner via Researchers model neural structures on [...]
When you take a look at the emerging science of what motivates people to behave in a racist or prejudiced way, though, matters quickly grow complicated. In fact, if there's one cornerstone finding when it comes to the psychological underpinnings of prejudice, it's that out-and-out or "explicit" racists—like Sterling—are just one part of the story. [...]
Your ancestors' lousy childhoods or excellent adventures might change your personality, bequeathing anxiety or resilience by altering the epigenetic expressions of genes in the brain. - Dan Hurley via Grandma's Experiences Leave Epigenetic Mark on Your Genes | DiscoverMagazine.com.
Sociology influences medicine more than we like to admit. One only needs to look at the history of psychiatric disorders – a term used broadly here to incorporate developmental disorders – to see how “normal” in one era is often deemed “abnormal” in another. And how the dividing line between these two ends is often [...]
Here's the thing: what if it's over-baked? What if the claims made for neuroscience are so extreme that most neuroscientists would disown them? What if the constant references to "brain scans of neglected children" actually just meant one brain scan, from one highly contested study? What if synaptic development were a bit more complicated than [...]
Over the past 5 years, computerized cognitive training (CT) programs have made a huge splash in the digital wellness market. These programs, usually consisting of small computer games, have capitalized on recent research that demonstrates a previously unrecognized degree of neuroplasticity, or cognitive flexibility, in the brain. Currently, research is moderately supportive of CT. In [...]
A study from the Max Planck Institute for Cognitive and Brain Sciences and the Technische Universität Dresden found that even being around a stressed person, be it a loved one or a stranger, has the power to make someone stressed in a physically quantifiable way. - Laura Stampler via Science Says Stress Is Contagious | TIME.com.
