Neuroscience

A drug extracted from the oriental raisin tree may greatly reduce the symptoms of a hangover and prevent addiction. Read More

The 2010 publication of "Testing predictions from personality neuroscience: Brain structure and the big five" marked the beginning of a small personal test of the "just let it die" neuroscience-without-criticism approach to bad ideas. Just over a year and 46 citations in many prominent journals later, I think we can safely say the results are in. It's time to be critical. Read More

How easy is it for you to turn down another piece of chocolate, another line of cocaine or just one more beer before driving home? The ease with which you make your decision when faced with such risky choices is greatly influenced by the genes and unique brain anatomy that you inherited from your parents. Read More

Many patients who are discharged from the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) frequently suffer health problems long after they've left the hospital. Read More

We look at the world through two eyes, but see it as one. This fact has interesting implications regarding the question of whether or not the world we perceive is real. Read More

We may have grown accustomed to, if not sanguine about, the landslide of today's devastating truths. Drowning polar bears, birds falling from the sky, and blistering out-of-season temperatures are hard to shrug off, but humanity plugs along obsessing on celebrities' crises and Wall Street's temperamental cycles. Read More

Neuroscientists believe that extreme sports, like whitewater rafting, can help PTSD patients learn to relax after stress. The huge adrenaline rush also leaves them with positive memories. And one neuroscientist says the exercise is as effective an antidepressant as any pharmaceutical. Read More

In widely read earlier posts, I argued that the basic function of religion is coping with anxiety. More specifically, it helps people to deal with the stress of uncertainty from third-world living conditions (even if these happen to affect affluent people in countries like the U.S.). Read More

Within the next 3-5 years, we will likely have biological tests to accurately diagnose the prodrome of Alzheimer's disease (AD). Much remains to be done in standardizing these tests, determining their appropriate set points and patterns of results, and negotiating the difficult transition from research to general clinical practice. Read More