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Later school starting times strengthen positive effects of good sleep hygiene and sleep quality
Without a doubt, we all remember the dark, dreary days of high school: waking up at 6:00 in the morning, sitting on the bed, eyes still half-closed, while your mind drifts in and out of light dreams. After finally mustering enough energy to check your phone, it’s 6:30. Your mind snaps awake once you realize […]
The Brain’s Perception of Beauty
What makes an object beautiful? Is beauty inherent in the object itself or is it because people say the object is beautiful that we assume it is? A new study by Zhang et al. used fMRI to see what exactly goes on in our heads when we think of beauty. Using fMRI technology, they had 19 right-handed college students perform […]
To Be Blind in One’s Mental Eye
The ability to picture things in our mind seems so natural, and yet certain people, as researchers have discovered, are unable to. Referred to as “aphantasia,” the condition describes an inability to form mental images. What is currently known about the condition comes mostly from the work of neurologist Adam Zeman. In 2005, Dr. Zeman […]
How Infants With Cochlear Implants Learn Differently
Starting at conception, your genes lay out a neural map for the nervous system: your cells multiply and migrate to form the primitive beginnings of your brain. Much of what happens during this time is co-determined by your environment, which in turn is determined by that of the mother. Sometimes, this interplay, or even purely […]
Isolation: Why we need others to function
Some peace and quiet might be nice, but too much may actually harm us. Humans are naturally social animals: we build communities, create teams, and all around like to be around others who share similar ideas with us. The aspect of interacting with others, discussing topics, or even criticizing others all are different forms of […]
Brain-synching: What Happens When You Converse with Other People
Over-used expressions like “on the same page” or “same wavelength” may actually have some physiological truth behind them. When two people are having a conversation or listening to the same story, it makes sense that they’d be using similar parts of their brain, but the question is just how similar this activation is. Drexel and […]
Science of Happiness: What Makes Us Truly Happy?
Happiness, by definition, is often the feeling of contentment or pleasure in doing something you like. However, the formal definition of happiness and what it truly is may differ. In one study, the Harvard Department of Psychology tried to determine the role of morality in happiness. The participants were given an example of a hypothetical person named “Tom”, […]
Sleep & Memory Consolidation
As important as it is to be productive and live a balanced life, it seems like for a great deal of people, students in particular, health comes second to term papers. I suppose it’s an occupational hazard, but it’s pretty interesting to think that despite the incredibly adverse affects on our intellect, sleep is the first […]
Why Multitasking Isn’t a Good Idea
In theory, multitasking sounds efficient. Why perform different tasks separately when you can perform them simultaneously and save time, right? In practice, however, multitasking is not as efficient as it may seem. In fact, people are terrible multitaskers; most attempts at multitasking usually only result in one’s attention switching back and forth between tasks, which […]
Study, Sleep, Repeat
This timeline will be familiar to those of you who have experienced an all-nighter. During the first 16 hours of day 1, you feel normal. Your attention span and working memory have not yet been affected. Then, around hour 17, you enter your “biological night time.” The hormone melatonin, which circulates from your brain to […]