Neuroscience in Everyday Life

How the Brain Gives Rise to Thoughts, Emotion, Behaviors, and Relationships

Marwa Azab Ph.D.

Gut Might Influence Whether or Not You Get Alzheimer's Disease

Patients suffering from Alzheimer's disease appear to have a less diverse gut microbiome compared to age- and sex-matched controls.

Parents' Anxiety Affects How They Talk to Their Children

Anxious mothers might not maximally benefit from parenting because of their excessive uncontrollable worries. They often miss out on the present.

A Non-Medicinal Treatment for ADHD and Why It Works

Among other benefits, exercise increases chemicals known as brain-derived neurotrophic factors (BDNF), which are crucially involved in learning and memory.

Is Midlife Stress the Cause of Dementia in Aging Women?

Stress prevention and management during mid-life may significantly reduce women's risk of dementia and related disorders.

Gut Bacteria Can Influence Your Mood, Thoughts, and Brain

Patients with psychiatric disorders such as depression have different populations of gut microbes compared to healthy individuals.

Doughnuts or Broccoli?: Why Dieters Fail and How to Succeed

There are differences in the brains of people who reject tasty unhealthy foods and those who succumb. But you can change that.

Love Is a Healthy Addiction Needed for Long Relationships

Romantic love is a key ingredient in healthy marriages. When It is achieved, it creates an addictive need that sustains a connection for decades.

Can Religion Help with Depression?

The brains of those at high risk for depression become more similar to low-risk brains when they strongly value religious beliefs.

Do Women Age Slower Than Men?

The data suggests that throughout the adult life span, normal female brains are more youthful than men's. In this study, female brains were on average 4 years younger than men's.

Can Stress Kill You? What Doesn't Kill You, Kills You Slowly

There are stressful situations that promote strength. The criteria: Stress you can tolerate, manage successfully, and have control over. Anything short of that can cause damage.

Is Stress Bad or Good for Memory?

High levels of glucocorticoids that accompany chronic stress activate forgetting circuits, inhibit the birth of new neurons, and eventually kill hippocampal cells.

The Pain of Worry: The Anxious Brain

Anxiety compels the sufferer to keep running from an invisible monster to an unknown destination.

The Brain on Fire: Depression and Inflammation

When inflammation is prolonged by stressors and vulnerabilities, the adaptive sickness behavior can become depression.

Why Are Teens So Emotional?

Teens are highly emotional because of a a hyperactive amygdala that generates many danger false alarms and slow inefficient connections with logical brain parts.

Are You Having a Bad Day? Exactly What to Do and Not to Do

Every time a bad day does not destroy you, your brain keeps track of it as a small victory.

Is Hormonal Imbalance Making You Crazy, Moody or Overweight?

Symptoms of a hormonal imbalance include fatigue, mood instability, weight gain, adult acne, lower sex drive, and more.

Childhood Stress Increases Vulnerability to Disease

Each trauma experienced as a result of this “parentectomy” will leave an epigenetic fingerprint on these helpless children’s DNA, and their children and their children.

What Not to Say to a Highly Sensitive Person and Why

Do not say to a HSP, you are too analytical, too sensitive, too emotional, you cannot handle criticism or stress.

Inside the Thinking Maze of Anxious Minds

Anxious people overestimate negative events, underestimate how much power they have, over-plan, fail to lower pessimism after success, and have a hyper-focused attentional system.

Preventing Mass Shootings: Examining Solutions

Indeed, thoughts and prayers are with victims everywhere, but not action-less thoughts and insincere prayers.

Are We in Control or on Autopilot?

Reflexive system runs the show when we are short on time and effort. This system is not great at filtering. Many efforts to change habits fail, because they address the logical.

20 Shades of Sadness: Why Do We Get Depressed?

At best, any treatment for depression is only 60% effective in managing symptoms. Why don't treatments alleviate the suffering of more people? Because treatments come in one size!

Why Sharing Your Goals Makes Them Less Achievable?

When we talk about our goals to others, our brain is tricked into thinking that the goal was achieved. As a result, it stops investing energy in or inhibit actions toward our goal.

Do Minorities Have Equal Access to All Emotions?

Where a person lies in the hierarchy set by society determines which emotions to express and which to suppress.

Are You a Highly Sensitive Person? Should You Change?

The brain areas associated with high sensitivity are the same ones involved when expressing empathy. You can benefit from your high sensitivity by selecting the right environment.

Is Social Pain Real Pain?

The same brain areas involved in processing physical pain such burning or hurt are also activated when a negative comment burns or when your feelings are hurt. Social pain is real.

The Neuroscience of Wanting and Pleasure

If you feel like you are running out of steam, it is OK! Motivation goes up and down. If the tide was high all the time, we would fail to see the beauty of calm oceans.

Winter Holiday Weight Gain and Related Biological Causes

There are seasonal biological changes that facilitate an increase in our caloric intake.

Why Would Groups Attacked by Trump Vote For Him?

Victims might become hypnotized by their attackers and impersonate or even defend them.

Why Is It Impossible to Not Judge People?

It is impossible to meet someone and make zero internal judgments about them. Just like it is impossible to look at a word and not read it.