Brain

17 Mind-Blowing Psychology Findings that Explain the Baffling Choices You Make Every Day

Credit: Bruce Conner If you assume that you understand why you think and act the way you do, you’re probably wrong. Decades of psychological research suggest that people behave in ways that are mysterious and perplexing — even to themselves. We sifted through the Quora thread, “What are some mind-blowing facts about social [...]

Sleep Loss Makes Memories Less Accessible in Stressful Situations

galleryhip It is known that sleep facilitates the formation of long-term memory in humans. In a new study, researchers from Uppsala University now show that sleep does not only help form long-term memory but also ensures access to it during times of cognitive stress. It is well known that during sleep newly learned [...]

Why Each of Your Neurons Is a Beautiful and Unique Snowflake

Flickr/ Credit: Ann Larie Valentine You might expect that neighboring neurons would be closely related to one another, or that entire regions would arise from the same ancestral cells. But that’s not the case. Christopher Walsh from Boston Children's Hospital has now shown that in one region, the prefrontal cortex, any given neuron [...]

By |2015-10-12T16:46:56+11:00October 8th, 2015|Categories: Science & Research|Tags: , , , , , , , |0 Comments

FOMO: What’s the Psychology Behind the Fear of Missing Out?

free-stock-illustration The fear of missing out is an old, actually an ancient fear, being triggered by the newest form of communication: social media. Our survival as an individual within a tribe, and thus our survival as a species, once hinged on our being aware of threats both to ourselves and to the larger group. [...]

There’s a Biology to Lasting Happiness, and There May Be a Way to Train Yourself

Gotta good feeling. (Reuters/Guillermo Granja) That uplifting feeling you get when something good happens to you? Researchers now think they know the part of the brain responsible for it—and they suggest we may be able to train ourselves to make those positive emotions last longer. Their conclusions are based on a study (paywall) conducted by [...]

Mental Health ‘Labels’ Can Do More Harm than Good, Warn Researchers

loisirs.lemessager.fr, Shutterstock Diagnosing patients with medical labels to describe mental health conditions or severe mental health illnesses such as 'personality disorder' or 'schizophrenia', can have negative impacts on professionals working with them and could lead to less effective treatments being delivered, according to leading clinical psychologists based at our University. According to the [...]

Storytelling for the Elephant in the Room

123RF.com, Stockphoto Stories are everywhere. They draw people together and hold an enormous capacity to evoke connection and create change. It is how humans interact and has been our main source of passing on knowledge for more than 27,000 years. We are wired to think in narrative and make decisions based on cause [...]

Set of Neurons Urges Constant Drinking

If you can't control the urge to drink, there is a set of neurons to be blamed. Scientists have pinpointed a population of neurons in the brain that influences whether one drink leads to two and so on. The discovery could ultimately lead to a cure for alcoholism and other addictions, researchers from the Texas [...]

Practice Being Grateful and Reap the Benefits

money.usnews.com The benefits of gratitude are many and profound. Being grateful is shown to improve both physical and mental health, psychological wellbeing and attitude, and our relationships with others. Practicing gratitude has even been shown to rewire our brains for the better—it is a truly powerful life-changing tool. - Carla Clark, PhD Source: Practice [...]

The Placebo Effect 

brainscape.com Placebos are drugs or other sources of treatment that are physically and pharmacologically inert, without any direct therapeutic effects. The neurobiological mechanisms of the placebo effect remain a matter of great research interest. The placebo response is a set of complex psycho-neurobiological mechanisms; it is believed that verbal suggestions and conditioning cues [...]

By |2015-08-27T15:30:50+10:00August 27th, 2015|Categories: Science & Research|Tags: , , , , , |0 Comments
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