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A Bad Joke Won’t Fool The Brain
I think I’m funny. Some people say I’m funny. But when the moment presents itself where its my time to shine, all lights on me, this ‘one’ is going to be a knee slapper…nope, not so much. The first time I realized I wasn’t funny was in the eleventh grade in my calculus class. My […]
Popularity and Your Brain
Whereas the fields of psychology, sociology, and anthropology have extensively studied group dynamics and popularity, neuroscience is barely starting to scratch the surface. Although the role of power in social status has been well-investigated, research into popularity has been minimal. However, recent research by Kevin Ochsner of Columbia University is exploring how likability determines […]
Taking Your Brain On a First Date
Have you ever been interested in someone on a date yet could not figure out if you were truly attracted to them? Well, this is pretty much all up to your medial prefrontal cortex, located near the front of the brain. This area plays a major role in romantic decision-making, and is specifically responsible for […]
Pregnant Women Fit Between Everyday Obstacles
Pregnancy is…? This sentence can end in a multitude of ways depending on whose answering the question. If I ask the ‘teen-mom-too-good-to-be-true-seventeen year-old-boyfriend’ who isn’t worried about nothing, then he’d probably say…well I would’ve asked but he just stormed off in his 92′ Bronco. You know, the one with the flames on the side? If […]
The Polygenetic Basis of Mutations in the Development of Schizophrenia
Schizophrenia is a mental disorder often presented in patients by abnormal thought processes, impaired emotional responses, and negative symptoms. As a chronic disorder that affects ~1% of all people, schizophrenia can be have debilitating effects on patients, especially on their social lives. Due to the lack of knowledge on its pathophysiology and also the heterogeneity […]
The Power of Meditation
When the word meditation comes up, people usually think of Monks or Buddhists first. However, there is a reason they meditate so often; meditation does wonders for your brain, and here is how. There are two main types of meditation: 1) Focused-attention meditation or ‘Mindful meditation’ and 2) Open-monitoring meditation. In Mindful meditation, you focus […]
Traumatic Brain Injuries: Helpless to Hopeful
Traumatic brain injuries, often referred to as TBI, have gained major traction in the field of neuroscience over the past couple years, and for obvious reasons. The name itself suggests that something has gone horrible awry with our BRAIN – you know, the mass of cells inside our skulls responsible for telling our heart to […]
Telepathic rats communicate via brain-to-brain connections
Scientists from Duke University and Brazil claim wires connecting one rodent to another can allow communication spanning continents via the internet. Professor Miguel Nicolelis of Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, led a team of researchers who demonstrated that it is possible to transmit instructions from one animal to another by brain-to-brain communication, a process akin to […]
Liar Liar, Pants on Fire, Hanging from a 75th Percentile Wire
Do you remember telling a lie at 2, 3, or 4? Well, feel guilty no more! Lying is actually a reliable sign of higher cognitive functioning. It was previously accepted that children were able to start lying at 3.5 years and no earlier. However, a recent study by psychologist Angela Evans found that 25% of […]
Want to Bolster STEM Career Interest? This Guy's Got it Right.
Here’s a great TED Talk to get everyone thinking today. Tyler DeWitt is a PhD candidate at MIT and an advocate of the idea that science education in high schools needs to take a turn for the less serious if we want kids to really get excited about it. Instead of the highly technical jargon […]