When you have problems sleeping do you run to the drugstore and pick up a box of Tylenol PM? How about downing a couple of Dramamine tablets for nausea before boarding a plane? These are common over-the-counter drugs that many of us take for a variety of reasons, but can have long-term effects on our [...]
Although chimpanzees are not able to talk they do have a language and are able to communicate. A recent study suggests that chimps may have what it takes to be able to evolve language by linking sounds and levels of brightness, similar to what is called synaesthesia in humans. This association could offer an explanation [...]
Imagine the classroom of the future - where languages are taught with a physical workout. It may not be as far-fetched as you might think. According to several studies, people learn new languages much quicker when movement accompanies them. Twenty volunteers were enrolled in a study at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and [...]
After a week or two away from the office or job you are getting ready to go back to the old grind, at least you know you have to, but your brain is telling you it’s not ready. It takes a few days to get back into the routine, and those days seem to be [...]
The Human Connectome Project’s goal is to map the large-scale connections of 1,200 healthy adult human brains, using cutting-edge and noninvasive techniques through neuroimaging. They hope this research will lead to invaluable information about brain connectivity, how it relates to human behavior, and how genetic and environmental factors lead to individual differences in brain circuitry. [...]
The National Institutes of Health reports approximately 50 to 70 million Americans experience some form of sleep disorder, enough to “significantly diminish†their health, safety, slower reactions and inability to focus. The interruption of sleep could come in the form of sleep apnea, inability to get to sleep, too much sleep, or poor quality of [...]
What makes one individual different from another? Why do different people within the same family have a wide array of personalities? What causes some men/women to become successful while others, who may have the same brain capacity or potential, fall short? This is a question scientists have been wondering for centuries. For the first time [...]
Get off your coach and hit the streets! That is the advice of researchers from the University of Illinois at Champagne-Urbana who tracked the brain activity of adults from 58-78 years of age for six months. They found that the circuits of the brain that involve cognitive thinking and memory improve through regular exercise. Many [...]
Our brains are hardwired to like sweets. It’s in our DNA, and sweets are a “yardstick for all pleasures,†according to Dr. Alexei B. Kampov-Polevoi, professor of psychiatry at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. That is why so many people are chocoholics, or can’t pass up a bakery without wanting to go inside [...]
Experiments on mice have found that a drug used to treat cancer can very quickly remove build up of beta-amyloid peptides in the brain, known to cause Alzheimer’s. Alzheimer’s disease is believed to be associated with a build up of plaque-like substances that brings on the memory problems. The build-up is thought to underlie the [...]
