You're not hungry, you're thirsty. It's almost too easy: dieters everywhere have heard this advice for decades, but now it's been backed up by MRI science. The study, conducted by Wageningen University in the Netherlands, worked with 19 participants to collect the data. Done in three parts, the research looked at MRI scans of the stomach, [...]
Few diseases are stigmatized as much as schizophrenia, or other similar mental health illnesses. But things are looking up: according to new MRI research, brains afflicted with schizophrenia show an ability to identify and fight off the disease. The study, entitled Dynamic cerebral reorganization in the pathophysiology of schizophrenia: a MRI-derived cortical thickness study, was [...]
While it comes as no surprise that MRI scans reveal powerful activity in infants' brains upon hearing the voices of their mothers, scientists were looking for more specific information. “Many of our social, language and emotional processes are learned by listening to our mom's voice,” said study author Daniel Abrams. “But surprisingly little is known about how the [...]
In the 1950s and 60s, researchers at the forefront of neuroscience and psychology experimented with LSD for PTSD and depression. Despite the positive effects of treatments (which came in small doses in controlled environments) the drug and corresponding research on its therapeutic benefits were banned in North America in the late sixties. Newly published research which used MRI for [...]
To ride the elevator or climb the stairs may not seem like an important decision, but when it's a decision you make every day it could have lasting implications on not only your physical fitness, but your cognitive function as well. A new Canadian MRI study from researchers at Concordia University has found that younger-looking [...]
Adolescents are known for their risk taking. Health experts in privileged countries like ours cite preventable, often self-inflicted mishaps as the biggest risk to teenage well-being. But while the negative effects of peer pressure are well-known, less known are the more positive characteristics (faster learning and self exploration) attributed to the risks associated with group [...]
To exercise your mind you have to exercise your body, say the results of a newly released MRI study that was 20 years in the making. The study, published February 10 in the journal of Neurology, has its roots in the 1990s when 1,583 middle-aged (average age 40 years) participants took a treadmill test and a [...]
Two leading mental health professionals have cast doubt on the increasingly common practice of using fMRI studies to pinpoint the sites of psychiatric illnesses on anatomical images of the brain. In their report, Finding the Elusive Psychiatric "Lesion" with 21st-Century Neuroanatomy: A Note of Caution, published in the American Journal of Psychiatry, authors Dr. Eugenia Radulescu [...]
The hashtags #backtowork and the less subtle #backtoworkblues appeared across Twitter on Monday as millions of people bade the holiday season farewell and settled back into their routines. While it's natural to begrudge getting up early after an extended break of sleep-ins and visits with loved ones, is there something about the holiday season that [...]
Self-help literature abounds with the quest for happiness: what causes it and how can you get some of your own? But what does neuroscience have to say on the subject? A new MRI study from Korean researchers offers new information to the happiness market. The study, entitled The structural neural substrate of subjective happiness, was [...]