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Brain Condition Saves Aurora Shooting Victim’s Life: Explained

Amid the tragedy and heartache in Aurora last week, a fascinating story of survival emerged. Petra Anderson was shot in the head, but her brain has had from birth a small "defect" in it that may have...

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Ecstasy Improves “Mind-Reading,” But Only for Positive Emotions

Ecstasy is most well known as a party drug that makes you really friendly, but recently it has received attention for the treatment of PTSD. A new study may explain ecstasy’s dual role as a...

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The Neuroscience of Racial Bias

if most people do not want to appear racially biased, why does bias persist? Further, how can we get rid of it? Recent neuroscience studies offer answers to both questions.

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Through An App, A Better Way to Teach Kids About the Brain

I had the chance to speak with Erica Warp, co-creator of Ned the Neuron, an app to teach kids about the brain, and Alesha Bishop who's working to get the word out about this exciting project. Here's...

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Can Bilingualism Offset the Impact of Poverty?

Support for a bilingual advantage among low-income children has been mixed. Some suggested that it may even be harmful because it confused children with more words and slowed their uptake of the...

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The Damaging Impact of Abuse on Brain Development

After you're born, the greatest impact on the brain you'll have as an adult comes from the experiences you have in the first years of your life. Here's the latest research on what can result.

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To Do a Tough Job, Your Brain Conjures the Reward

Yesterday at the Society for Neuroscience (SfN) conference, Michael Treadway presented research on how we decide to buckle down and complete a tough task. He suggests that the brain needs to activate...

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Oxytocin Improves Emotion Recognition in Autism

Research from Japan suggests that oxytocin might help individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders recognize difficult-to-identify emotions.

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Are Temper Tantrums a Fight/Flight Response?

Could the fight/flight response be the driving force behind tantrums. If so, can tantrums be short-circuited with breathing exercise and thought training?

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Musical Training Boosts Verbal Memory

Before cutting any more of the arts curriculum from schools, take a look at the results of a study that came out this month in Frontiers in Neuroscience. Kids who took music lessons developed better...

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Agreeable? You’re More Likely to Benefit From Placebo

The next time you take a pill to relieve a headache, time how long it takes until the pain disappears. If it’s less than 15 minutes, chances are good that you benefited more from a placebo effect than...

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More Coffee, Less Bang?

According to a new study from the University of Bristol, regular caffeine consumers may not receive any benefit in performance. Worse still, they may depend on their favorite beverage just to function...

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Can We Predict Crime Using Brain Scans?

A study out this past month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggests that forecasting future criminal behavior could become reality in the near future. The study offers the first...

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Why Do We Backseat Drive? A Brain Perspective

The grocery store is seven blocks from my house and I know exactly how to get there. But when my wife started driving there she took a wrong turn. An instant after I asked her where the hell she was...

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Brain Chemistry and Upbringing Shape How We Make Friends

Having good friends benefits our health, happiness and overall life satisfaction. Despite friendship’s importance, we had little understanding of how we learn to make friends. New evidence from Ruth...

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What’s the Best Meal to Sober up After Drinking?

I just discovered the answer to the age-old after-the-bar question: what should you eat to help sober up? Some friends swear by migas, saying that the protein and fat in the eggs and cheese help you...

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Can Jogging Relieve Depression?

A recent review tested whether exercise decreased depression. When including all 35 potential studies comparing exercise to no treatment, exercise provided a modest benefit. However, when only the 6...

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How To Think Like a Psychopath

I recently had the chance to speak with neuroscientist James Fallon, Ph.D. whose book “The Psychopath Inside” came out this month. Psychopathy has been an interest of mine for several years, so it was...

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The Midas Touch

Babies born prematurely who were held for an hour daily for two weeks had better executive function--impulse control, planning and focus--than preemies who were kept in an incubator 24 hours a day. The...

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The Science of Viral Videos

The last time you sent your friend a link to a video, did you think about why? Philosophers have been grappling with similar questions for millennia. Only in the past few years, however, have we had...

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How to Build Character

I recently had the chance to speak with filmmaker Tiffany Shlain, whose latest film, The Science of Character, reminds us that we can grow and develop character traits throughout our lives.

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How the Brain Feels Betrayed

Betrayal hurts. A recent study in the Proceedings of the Royal Society: Biological Sciences asked why; how does the brain process the possibility of betrayal? In addition to great tragedy, betrayal...

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School Program Dampens Threat Response, Aggression

According to a new study, experiences during childhood affect how you handle angering encounters as an adult. Previous studies have shown that high-quality care can decrease the risk for aggression,...

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Have We Discovered a Hidden Danger of Pornography?

Men who have watched more porn have smaller volume in the striatum, a region of the brain’s reward network. The link between striatum size and time watching porn could mean that repeated exposure dulls...

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Making Learning Fun

June 20th is Summer Learning Day. I marked the occasion by speaking with Sooinn Lee, who recently gave a Ted Talk called, “When learning is painful.” Lee is the founder of LocoMotive Labs, where they...

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What Does Marijuana Really Do to the Brain?

While perception of marijuana may be in flux, one thing hasn’t changed: its psychoactive effects. With those effects cropping up in conversation more frequently as new laws make headlines, it’s high...

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7 Short-Term Effects of Marijuana on the Brain

In part 1 of what marijuana really does to your brain, we traced the discovery of the cannabinoid receptor. Finding the receptor is the first step in determining how smoking causes a high. The next...

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Long Term Effects of Marijuana on the Brain

The recent legalization of marijuana in two U.S. states means that it’s an increasingly frequent topic of conversation for many people. One key question remains unanswered: does marijuana have...

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How the Brain Processes Keeping up With the Joneses

Is outdoing your peers the opposite of being outdone, or a different experience entirely? Neuroscientists Michael Lindner and Klaus Fliessbach at the University of Bonn in Germany recently addressed...

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Born Late: The Trouble With Due Dates

Waiting for a baby to be born can be an anxious experience. A classic psychology study explains part of the reason why, and offers clues to ease your worries.

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