Brain Mysteries
The human subconscious has a bigger impact than previously thought on how we respond to danger, according to research led by the University of Exeter. This new study shows that our primitive response to fear can contradict our conscious assessment of danger.
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Feeling like you're part of the gang is crucial to the human experience. All people get stressed out when we're left out. A new study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, finds that a feeling of inclusion can come from something as simple as eye contact from a stranger.
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A clean desk might not be all it's cracked up to be. According to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research, messiness can lead consumers toward clearer thinking -- especially political conservatives.
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 | Contrary to previous assumptions that sleep might soften negative emotional effects of a disturbing event, a period of sleep was associated with participants' maintaining the strength of their initial negative feelings compared to a period of wakefulness. This suggests that sleep's effect on memory and emotion are independent. ...> Full Article |
"Be all you can be," the Army tells potential recruits. The military promises personal reinvention. But does it deliver? A new study, published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, finds that personality does change a little after military service -- German conscripts come out of the military less agreeable than their peers who chose civilian service.
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Adolescents with a family history of alcoholism (FHP) are at risk for developing alcohol use disorders.
A new study has compared the brain activity of FHP youth to peers with no family history of alcoholism.
Two areas of the brain -- the prefrontal cortex and cerebellum -- responded differently during risky decision-making in high-risk youth compared to their lower-risk peers.
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Teenagers are more susceptible to developing disorders like addiction and depression, according to a paper published by Pitt researchers Jan. 16 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
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 | Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have created a new generation of fast-acting fluorescent dyes that optically highlight electrical activity in neuronal membranes. The work is published in this week's online early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. ...> Full Article |
Whether it's investing in stocks, bungee jumping or public speaking, why do we often plan to take risks but then "chicken out" when the moment of truth arrives? Scientists from the University of Colorado Boulder and Carnegie Mellon University argue that this "illusion of courage" is one example of an "empathy gap" -- that is, our inability to imagine how we will behave in future emotional situations.
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Preparing to act in a particular way can improve the way we process information, and this has potential implications for those with learning disabilities. Researchers funded by the Economic and Social Research Council have shown that using a grabbing action with our hands can help our processing of visual information.
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New research is hoping to understand how the human brain hears sound to help develop improved hearing aids and automatic speech recognition systems.
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People who only use their left hand after breaking their right arm already exhibit significant anatomical changes in particular areas of the brain within 16 days. Researchers from the University of Zurich have demonstrated that the thickness of the left brain areas is reduced while the areas on the right hand side that compensate for the injury increase in size. The fine motor skills of the compensating hand also improve considerably.
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Hundreds of times during a baseball game, the home plate umpire must instantaneously categorize a fast-moving pitch as a ball or a strike. In new research from the University of Chicago, scientists have pinpointed an area in the brain where these kinds of visual categories are encoded.
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New technology developed at CSHL transforms the way detailed anatomical images can be made of whole brains and will greatly facilitate systematic comparison of neuroanatomy in mouse models of human brain disorders, e.g., autism and schizophrenia.
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Are you someone who easily recognizes everyone you've ever met? Or maybe you struggle, even with familiar faces? It is already known that we are better at recognizing faces from our own race but researchers have only recently questioned how we assimilate the information we use to recognize people.
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