Lifestyle-related dementia risks are complex, with factors like sleep, exercise, diet and social contact interacting with things like cognitive reserve, neuroplasticity and inflammation in the body.
New research hints at how psychedelics can trigger rapid, lasting change.
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Change in the brain usually comes with plenty of effort over time. Neuroscientists are working to understand how psychedelic drugs provide a shortcut that seems to rely on existing brain systems.
Changes in the synapses between neurons is responsible for learning and memory.
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Pinpointing where memories are stored in the brain and how they are transmitted could provide new targets to treat neurological diseases and serve as models for neuromorphic computing.
Fathers’ brains adjust their structure and function to parenthood.
María Paternina-Die
Darby Saxbe, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences e Magdalena Martínez García, Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria Gregorio Marañón IiSGM
Neuroscientists know that pregnant mothers’ brains change in ways that appear to help with caring for a baby. Now researchers have identified changes in new fathers’ brains, too.
Anthony Hannan, Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health
The key to understanding how brains can recover from trauma is that they are fantastically plastic – meaning our body’s supercomputer can reshape and remodel itself.
Activating the somatosensory cortex may help us connect to our bodies, develop our sensitivity, sensuality and capacity to feel pleasure.
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The brain’s somatosensory cortex may help enrich our emotional experiences and improve our mental health. Mindfulness and dance movement therapy may be effective ways to activate it.
A family lights candles at a vigil held in Moncton, N.B., on January 30, 2017, for the victims of the Quebec City mosque shooting.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darren Calabrese
How can scientific literature on interpersonal trauma help us better understand the impact of tragedy, especially on children who are still developing?
There are a million different ways to be bilingual.
Gerd Altmann/Pixabay
Xavier Aparicio, Université Paris-Est Créteil Val de Marne (UPEC)
Experts disagree on what makes someone truly bilingual, and how the human brain accesses multiple languages.
The teenage brain has a voracious drive for reward, diminished behavioural control and a susceptibility to be shaped by experience. This often manifests as a reduced ability to resist high-calorie junk foods.
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Excessively eating junk foods during adolescence could alter brain development, leading to lasting poor diet habits. But, like a muscle, the brain can be exercised to improve willpower.
Engaging in cognitively stimulating activities can help build your resilience to cognitive decline.
Gene Wilburn/Flickr
Activities that engage your brain, such as learning a new language and completing crosswords, as well as having high levels of social interaction, can reduce your risk of dementia.
The hormone oestrogen may play a role in a woman’s ability to perform two tasks at the same time.
mbeo/Flickr
In men and older women, a complicated thinking test appeared to overwhelm the part of the brain also responsible for moving one of their arms. They could only do one or the other.
People who haven’t experienced drug dependence often don’t know why it’s so difficult to kick the habit.
from www.shutterstock.com.au
Regardless of how they are consumed, alcohol and other drugs eventually make their way into the brain via the bloodstream. Once there, they affect how messages are sent through the brain.
Phantom limb effect: when the mind still sees what isn’t there.
www.blommestijn.com
There is increasing evidence that bilingualism can affect how the brain works. Older, lifelong bilinguals have demonstrated better cognitive skills in tasks that require increased cognitive control. These…
The human brain leaves computers behind with its endless capacity for problem solving, innovation and invention.
Humphrey King/Flickr
Anthony Hannan, Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health
The human brain is the most extraordinary and complex object in the known universe, a kilogram and a half of soft tissue that, at its peak, leaves computers behind with its endless capacity for problem…
People who stay mentally stimulated and physically active can delay onset of cognitive decline.
Daniel Erkstam/Flickr
Reema Rattan, The Conversation e Nicki Russell, The Conversation
Older people may be able to learn more from visual information than their younger counterparts, according to a study published today in the journal Current Biology. “The take-home message the study authors…
It’s not all bad news for older brains.
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For years, conventional wisdom held that growing older tends to be bad news for brains. Past behavioral data largely pointed to loss in cognitive – that is, thinking – abilities with age, including poorer…
No one who has kept their head out of the sand over the past several years needs to be told “brain training” is a hot topic. And it’s big business too, with advocates using claims such as “personal training…