Brain/Neuroscience
Vitamin B6 shown effective in treating depression and anxiety
Taking high-dose Vitamin B6 tablets has been shown to reduce feelings of anxiety and depression by new research. Scientists at ...
Updating the ‘serotonin hypothesis’: Mental illness is way more complex than a chemical imbalance
Almost as soon as it was floated in 1965 by Harvard psychiatrist Joseph Schildkraut, the serotonin hypothesis of depression—reduced and ...
Are anxious parents unconsciously ‘teaching’ their kids to be stressed out?
Children were more likely to be diagnosed with an anxiety disorder when a parent of the same sex, rather than ...
How fatty diets wreak havoc on body, brain and heart
An international study led by UniSA neuroscientists Professor Xin-Fu Zhou and Associate Professor Larisa Bobrovskaya has established a clear link ...
Sonic pain relief? Could we reduce pain by manipulating the neural mechanisms that regulate sound?
An international team of scientists has identified the neural mechanisms through which sound blunts pain in mice. The findings, which ...
Ancient human brains reveal that our ancestors meditated to relieve stress
Scientists have discovered that humans, unlike our Neanderthal cousins, evolved the ability to meditate to deal with both past and ...
Gum disease and tooth loss have been largely overlooked as risk factors for dementia
A close link is emerging between oral health and some of the world's most pressing diseases, including cardiovascular disease, diabetes ...
Humans sleep away ⅓ of their lives, but it’s a lot less than other primates. Here’s why
Research has shown that people in non-industrial societies — the closest thing to the kind of setting our species evolved ...
‘It’s a slog’: Cure or treatment for Alzheimer’s proving elusive, and we don’t know why
We see headlines that declare a “Cure Breakthrough” and “Reversing Dementia in Mice,” but still, if you get sick, there ...
Male and female brains are different in key ways — and that could explain sex disparities in incidences of autism and Alzheimer’s
Scientists have long had of evidence linking immune activity to brain differences and disorders, but the science that sex adds ...
Disentangling the links between diet, genes and dementia
Dementia, like most chronic diseases, is the result of a complex interplay of genes, lifestyle and environment that researchers don’t ...
How growing up in a poor neighborhood can damage a child’s developing brain
Children growing up in more disadvantaged neighborhoods — meaning those with poor housing quality, more poverty, and lower levels of ...
How family issues, discrimination, and other social stressors age our immune systems and impact health
Social stress such as discrimination and family problems, along with job and money problems, can contribute to premature aging of ...
‘Special skills’: How dyslexia helped the human race survive
People with dyslexia have special skills that enabled our species to survive. They are better at solving problems and adapting ...
Human and octopus brains share key similarities
The octopus and human brain share similar transposons, or “jumping genes” – a type of genes that can move from ...
Comparing primate intelligence: What’s so unique about the human brain that makes us so smart?
Humans are unrivalled in the area of cognition. After all, no other species has sent probes to other planets, produced ...
Single AI-informed brain scan can detect early Alzheimer’s
British scientists announced [June 20] that they have developed a machine-learning algorithm that can determine, with 98% accuracy, whether Alzheimer’s ...
Transitioning transgender teenagers are not new. This Dutch clinic has been helping them for decades
Relationships between and physicians last a long time at Amsterdam’s Center of Expertise on Gender Dysphoria. Some of today’s adult ...
Headaches and genetics: If migraines are hereditary, what are possible solutions?
Chances are that you or someone you know experiences migraine—it is one of the most common health disorders in the ...
Should an AI chatbot robot have rights? A now-suspended Google engineer thinks so
Google suspended an engineer who contended that an artificial-intelligence chatbot the company developed had become sentient, telling him that he ...
Can the body exist without the brain? Is the human mind nothing more than a parasite?
Take a deep breath. Can you feel your lungs filling with air? Now look at your hand. Can you see ...
‘Neurological roots of politics’: Are Democrat and Republican brains wired differently?
Emerging research has begun investigating the neural underpinnings of the biological and psychological differences that drive political ideology, attitudes and ...
Do dogs ponder the future? Here’s what we can learn from animal dreams
Other animals may not ponder deep, existential questions, but the fact that they dream proves that they possess formidable memories ...
‘Dark personalities’: When are destructive traits like narcissism and psychopathy most likely to appear?
Stories about insufferable teenagers, selfish college students, or inconsiderate older adults have one thing in common: They attribute the presence ...
‘We just clicked’: Is there a chemical basis to ‘love at first sight’?
Finding true love may actually be due to how well your body synch’s up with your partner, according to researchers ...
Proline and mental health: Link found between common protein and depression
Depression is a common mental health issue for many people around the world today. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates ...
Here’s what we still don’t understand about consciousness
The mind-body problem addresses one of the fundamental questions of science and humanity. How is consciousness related to the body ...