Scientists say that the nicotine receptors in the brain play an important role in social interactions and the ability to choose between competing motivations. Writing in the FASEB Journal, the French researchers explain how the nicotinic receptors in the prefrontal cortex are essential for social interaction in mice and that this area of the brain […]
Cambridge University researchers have found that autism diagnoses are more common in IT-rich regions, a finding that has important implications for service provision in those regions and also for the “hyper-systemizing” theory of autism. The researchers, led by Simon Baron-Cohen, Director of the Autism Research Centre at the University of Cambridge, hypothesized that autism spectrum […]
Degeneration of myelin in the brain’s white-matter fiber pathways is increasingly considered to be a key component of Alzheimer’s disease and researchers now say that the process begins when we are young and that nearly 90 percent of Caucasians are vulnerable. The risk gene to blame is called clusterin (CLU) and it begins to damage […]
The discussion about whether genius is a byproduct of good genes or good environment may take an entirely new direction, say Canadian researchers who contend that hormonal influences in the womb may play an important role in creating intellectually gifted individuals. University of Alberta researcher Marty Mrazik has linked giftedness (having an IQ score of […]
Experiments by German psychologists indicate that text messaging is subtly changing the way our brains respond to certain number combinations. Reporting their findings in the journal Psychological Science, the researchers say that just by typing the numbers that correspond to the letters in a word like “love,” we can activate the meaning of that word […]
Neurons in the brain had been thought to communicate exclusively via the physical connections that are known as synapses, but Caltech researchers say they have uncovered strong evidence that neurons also communicate with each other via weak electric fields, a finding that could help us understand how biophysics gives rise to cognition – the holy […]
People tend to be attracted to, and have relationships with, other people who resemble themselves in terms of personality, values, and physical appearance. However, these features only skim the surface of what makes a relationship work. The ways that people talk are also important, according to a new study inPsychological Science, which suggests that people […]
A new meta-study appearing in Current Directions in Psychological Science reviews research with infants and toddlers, and finds that we aren’t born afraid of spiders and snakes, but we can learn these fears very quickly. One theory about why we fear spiders and snakes is that natural selection may have favored people who stayed away […]
