Psychology news

• Sleeping on stomach may increase risk of sudden death in epilepsy

  21-01-2015 23:35
  Stomach sleepers with epilepsy may be at higher risk of sudden unexpected death, researchers report, drawing parallels to sudden infant death syndrome in babies. Epilepsy is a brain disorder that causes repeated seizures and affects an estimated 50 million people worldwide.
  
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• Neuroscientists lead global consortium to crack brain's genetic code

  21-01-2015 20:48
  
  About 300 scientists used more than 30,000 brain scans and DNA samples to find eight gene mutations that affect the size of specific parts of the brain. The study could help identify people who would most benefit from new drugs designed to save brain cells, but more research is necessary to determine if the genetic mutations are implicated in disease, the researchers say.
  
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• Blood vessels in older brains break down, possibly leading to Alzheimer's

  21-01-2015 19:08
  Researchers used high-resolution imaging of the living human brain to show for the first time that the brain's protective blood barrier becomes leaky with age, starting at the hippocampus, a critical learning and memory center that is damaged by Alzheimer's disease.
  
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• How the brain stores trivial memories, just in case

  21-01-2015 18:49 via nytimes.com
  Study shows that memory is an adaptive process, continually updating itself according to what knowledge may be important in the future.
  
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• Parents may be able to lower kids' autism risk

  21-01-2015 18:48 via time.com
  
  With the help of videos and trained therapists, parents of at-risk kids may eventually help their toddlers to avoid an autism diagnosis.
  
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• Editing the brain: How new epigenetic tools could rewrite our understanding of memory and more

  21-01-2015 17:46
  Epigenetic changes are implicated in a host of neural conditions, from Alzheimer's-related memory loss to depression. Now, a revolutionary set of molecular editing tools is allowing scientists to alter the epigenome like never before.
  
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• Young adults' brain function may be boosted by exercise

  21-01-2015 12:00
  Exercise sharpens young adults' brains by increasing oxygen to the frontal brain says new research showing it is not just older adults whose brains benefit from physical activity.
  
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• Exercise improves brain function in young adults

  21-01-2015 12:00
  Exercise sharpens young adults' brains by increasing oxygen to the frontal brain says new research showing it is not just older adults whose brains benefit from physical activity.
  
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• Dog-human cooperation is based on social skills of wolves

  21-01-2015 11:00
  
  Dogs are man's best friend and partner. The origins of this dog-human relationship were subject of a study by behavioural scientists from the Messerli Research Institute at the Vetmeduni Vienna and...
  
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• Long-term childhood outcomes improved by early parental program

  21-01-2015 09:00
  
  Children whose parents participated in a prenatal program aimed at enhancing couples' co-parenting relationship were better adjusted at age seven than children whose parents were assigned to a...
  
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• A pathway discovered in mouse brain that regulates fear memory and behavior

  21-01-2015 09:00
  Some people have no fear, like that 17-year-old kid who drives like a maniac. But for the nearly 40 million adults who suffer from anxiety disorders, an overabundance of fear rules their lives.
  
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• Suicide and gender: why are men more likely than women to take their own lives?

  21-01-2015 08:00
  
  Efforts to prevent suicide, such as those championed by Nick Clegg, must take into account some apparently paradoxical differences between men and womenThis week saw the deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, appeal for the widespread adoption of a “zero suicide” campaign in the NHS. This is admirable, but a concerted effort to prevent people from taking their own lives will be more effective if we understood why suicide is a particularly male problem.
  It’s known as the “gender paradox of
  
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• Why are men more likely than women to take their own lives?

  21-01-2015 08:00
  
  Efforts to prevent suicide, such as those championed by Nick Clegg, must take into account some apparently paradoxical differences between men and womenThis week saw the deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, appeal for the widespread adoption of a “zero suicide” campaign in the NHS. This is admirable, but a concerted effort to prevent people from taking their own lives would be more effective if we understood why suicide is a particularly male problem. It’s known as the “gender paradox of s
  
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• Why can’t the world’s greatest minds solve the mystery of consciousness? | Oliver Burkeman

  21-01-2015 07:00
  
  Philosophers and scientists have been at war for decades over the question of what makes human beings more than complex robotsOne spring morning in Tucson, Arizona, in 1994, an unknown philosopher named David Chalmers got up to give a talk on consciousness, by which he meant the feeling of being inside your head, looking out – or, to use the kind of language that might give a neuroscientist an aneurysm, of having a soul. Though he didn’t realise it at the time, the young Australian acad
  
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• On the ups and downs of the seemingly idle brain

  21-01-2015 00:59
  
  Even when it seems not to be doing much, the brain maintains a baseline of activity in the form of up and down states of bustle and quiet. To accomplish this seemingly simple cycle, it maintains a complex balance between the activity of many excitatory and inhibitory cells, scientists report.
  
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• Men and women process emotions differently

  21-01-2015 00:58
  
  Women rate emotional images as more emotionally stimulating than men do and are more likely to remember them. However, there are no gender-related differences in emotional appraisal as far as neutral images are concerned. These were the findings of a large-scale study that focused on determining the gender-dependent relationship between emotions, memory performance and brain activity.
  
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• Hunger hormone in infancy may link to lifelong obesity risk

  21-01-2015 00:58
  
  Researchers now reveal an unexpected role for ghrelin in early brain development and show its long-term impact on appetite regulation. "We've shown that neonatal ghrelin directly influences development in the part of the brain related to appetite and the regulation of metabolism," said the principal investigator. "This study suggests a link between maturation of the gut-brain axis and later susceptibility to obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease."
  
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