What does the sleeping brain think about?
Thanks to a unique system that decodes brain activity during sleep, a UNIGE team is deciphering the neuronal mechanisms of memory consolidation. We sleep on average one third of our time. But what does the brain do during these long hours? Using an artificial...
Brain functional connectivity in Tourette syndrome
Tourette syndrome, a neurodevelopmental disorder, causes motor and phonic “tics,” or uncontrollable repeated behaviors and vocalizations. People affected by Tourette syndrome can often suppress these tics for some time before the urges become overwhelming, and...
Brain Mapping Method Illuminates Targets for Treating Neuropsychiatric Symptoms
Researchers have made significant advancements in correlating aberrations in specific brain circuits with neuropsychiatric conditions like depression. However, it remains difficult to prove that damage to these circuits causes the symptoms themselves and that...
The Brain Bible Giveaway
Congrats Seian from New South Wales for being our winner! Learn more as a member of The Science of Psychotherapy! Get access to hundreds of articles, videos, and a community of mental health professionals to help you understand the art and the...
Mythic Imagination Today with Terry Marks-Tarlow
Today we catch up with regular contributor to The Science of Psychotherapy, Dr Terry Marks-Tarlow, who talks to us today about her latest writing Mythic Imagination Today: The Interpenetration of Mythology and Science. For more about Dr Marks-Tarlow go to her website...
Memory making involves extensive DNA breaking
To quickly express genes needed for learning and memory, brain cells snap both strands of DNA in many more places and cell types than previously realized, a new study shows The urgency to remember a dangerous experience requires the brain to make a series of...
Impulsiveness tied to faster eating in children, can lead to obesity
Children who eat slower are less likely to be extroverted and impulsive, according to a new study co-led by the University at Buffalo and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. The research, which sought to uncover the relationship between temperament and eating...
The Key Role of Astrocytes in Cognitive Development
Astrocytes are cells in the brain which have long been considered only as mere support cells for neurons. In recent years, the study of astrocytes has grown, gradually revealing their importance in brain function. Researchers from Inserm, CNRS and Collège de France at...
Scientists discover a new class of neurons for remembering faces
Scientists have long searched in vain for a class of brain cells that could explain the visceral flash of recognition that we feel when we see a very familiar face, like that of our grandmothers. But the proposed “grandmother neuron”—a single cell at the crossroads of...
Don’t count on caffeine to fight sleep deprivation
Rough night of sleep? Relying on caffeine to get you through the day isn’t always the answer, says a new study from Michigan State University. Researchers from MSU’s Sleep and Learning Lab, led by psychology associate professor Kimberly Fenn, assessed how effective...
The Gateway to Conscious Awareness
Researchers find out how some sensory information breaks through to conscious experience. During our waking hours, the brain is receiving a near-constant influx of sensory signals of various strengths. For decades, scientists have wondered why some signals rise to the...
The Science of Psychotherapy July 2021
As COVID-19 vaccines roll out around the globe there is a feeling that something about the way we have lived has ended and a new way of life is beginning. How many times in history has this been true for the whole world: that a single event has irrevocably changed the...
Evidence-based Patient-Psychotherapist Matching Improves Mental Health Care
In first-of-its kind research led by a University of Massachusetts Amherst psychotherapy researcher, mental health care patients matched with therapists who had a strong track record of treating the patients’ primary concerns had better results than patients who were...
Bacteria are connected to how babies experience fear
New research from MSU shows that an infant’s gut microbiome could contain clues to help monitor and support healthy neurological development Why do some babies react to perceived danger more than others? According to new research from Michigan State University and the...
Feel-good hormone dopamine affects passion and autism
Dopamine is often called the “happy” or “feel-good” hormone. It can help explain both autistic behaviours and men’s need for passion in order to succeed. Men – more often than women – need passion to succeed at things. At the same time, boys are diagnosed as being on...
How neurons get past “no”
Inhibitory neurons target the weakest-responding neurons in the brain to facilitate transmission of signals When looking at a complex landscape, the eye needs to focus in on important details without losing the big picture—a charging lion in a jungle, for example....
Running to music helps combat mental fatigue
Listening to music while running might be the key to improving people’s performance when they feel mentally fatigued a study suggests. The performance of runners who listened to a self-selected playlist after completing a demanding thinking task was at the same level...
Personality traits relate to being a morning or evening person at both the phenotypic and genetic level
The link between the different hierarchies of personality, sleep patterns and even genetics has been discovered by researchers from the Department of Psychology at the University of Warwick. A typical example of a morning person is thought to be someone who wakes up...
Non-invasive potential treatment for Alzheimer’s disease
Ultrasound can overcome some of the detrimental effects of ageing and dementia without the need to cross the blood-brain barrier, Queensland Brain Institute researchers have found. Professor Jürgen Götz led a multidisciplinary team at QBI’s Clem Jones Centre for...
Inflammatory proteins may slow cognitive decline in aging adults
An unexpected discovery: Inflammatory proteins may slow cognitive decline in aging adults Research has previously linked inflammation to Alzheimer’s disease (AD), yet scientists from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and the Harvard Aging Brain Study (HABS) have...
Self-reported declines in cognition may be linked to changes in brain connectivity
Jessica Damoiseaux, Ph.D., an associate professor with the Institute of Gerontology at Wayne State University, recently published the results of a three-year study of cognitive changes in older adults. The team followed 69 primarily African American females, ages 50...
It’s True: Stress Does Turn Hair Gray (And It’s Reversible)
Legend has it that Marie Antoinette’s hair turned gray overnight just before her beheading in 1791. Though the legend is inaccurate—hair that has already grown out of the follicle does not change color—a new study from researchers at Columbia University Vagelos...
Picky neurons
In the visual thalamus, neurons are in contact with both eyes but respond to only one The visual thalamus is classically known to relay visual stimuli coming from the retina to the cerebral cortex. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology now show...
Focus on emotions is key to improving heart health in people living with obesity
People living with obesity who attended a non-judgemental and personalised lifestyle modification programme improved their cardiovascular and mental health during just 10 weeks, according to a study presented at the EuroHeartCare – ACNAP Congress 2021, an online...