In recent years, science is finally beginning to grasp the obvious fact that the human body is a system, so that when something goes wrong in one part of the organism, it has effects in other parts of the organism as well. The most obvious example of this is the new focus on the microbiome … Read more
Paul Whiteley, who blogs at Questioning Answers (mostly on autism research), posted this intriguing research summary from Progress in Neuro-Psychopharmacology and Biological Psychiatry on the relationship between the “gut-brain axis” and schizophrenia, which is not a new avenue of research, but is nonetheless still considered a fringe notion in the mainstream schizophrenia research. It only … Read more
This post serves as a follow-up to yesterday’s post on the relationship between trauma exposure and neuroinflammation. This review article comes from Frontiers in Neuroendocrine Science. This is from the abstract: Inflammasomes activate pro-inflammatory caspases 1 and 5, which then cleave the precursor forms of pro-inflammatory cytokines IL-1β, IL-18, and IL-33 into their active forms. … Read more
Awesome – Jaak Panksepp is one of the founders of affective neuroscience, and author of Affective Neuroscience: The Foundations of Human and Animal Emotions (2004) and The Archaeology of Mind: Neuroevolutionary Origins of Human Emotions (2012). The Science of Emotions: Jaak Panksepp at TEDxRainier Published on Jan 13, 2014 Given an inherent subjective nature, emotions … Read more
In this new mini review from Frontiers in Cognition, Lippelt, Hommel, and Colzato compare three meditation types (focused attention, open monitoring and loving kindness) in terms of their effects on attention, conflict monitoring, and creativity. The three research areas the authors covered in this review (attentional control, performance monitoring, and creativity or thinking style) seem … Read more
This is an interesting theoretical article from Frontiers in Evolutionary Psychology and Neuroscience on the evolution of the human capacity for pattern processing as a uniquely human trait. According to Mattson, superior pattern processing (SPP) [is] the fundamental basis of most, if not all, unique features of the human brain including intelligence, language, imagination, invention, … Read more
From PLoS ONE, this is an interesting article on how emotional numbing in those experiencing PTSD reduces neural activity in exposure to happy faces. This study provides initial evidence that individuals with PTSD have lower reactivity to happy facial expressions, and that lower activation in ventral striatal-limbic reward networks may be associated with symptoms of … Read more
From Frontiers in Neuroscience, this interesting article looks at the body of research investigating associations between socioeconomic status (SES) and brain development in children. Previous studies have found significant links between low SES and changes (deficits) in brain structure, especially in areas related to memory, executive control, and emotion. Brito and Noble review the studies … Read more
Neuroscientist Joseph LeDoux interviews one of the founders of modern neuroscience, Nobel Prize winner Eric Kandel, still going strong at nearly 85 years of age. Mapping the Mind: An Interview with Eric Kandel from Imaginal Disc August 19, 2014 Host: Joseph LeDouxDirector: Alexis GambisProducer: Rose MeachamCamera: Alejandro MeijaEditor: Léo GhyselsAdministrative Support: Will ChangProduction Assistants: Danabelle … Read more
This is an interesting overview of the current research on how inflammation can play a role in depression, schizophrenia, and autism. I suspect there is much more research to be done in this realm, but I believe they need to stop using pharmacological interventions targeted at a specific molecule or hormone in the immune response … Read more