Mind, features and articles | Educational Science

Feb 28, 2011

Surgery for Traumatic Brain Injury May Cause Harm Later

Surgery to remove part of the skull after a traumatic brain injury allows the brain to swell and relieves pressure in the head. But the procedure might cause problems over the long term for some patients, a new study suggests. Patients in the study who had this procedure, known as...

Feb 28, 2011

Mental Fallout from Japan Disaster Hits Elderly Hard

In the aftermath of the Japan earthquake and tsunami, pictures and videos tell hundreds of tragic stories: A young man sobbing after learning his wife and child are dead; rescue workers combing through leveled towns, turning up many bodies and few survivors; gray-haired seniors, made homeless by the tsunami, sleeping...

Dec 31, 2010

After Brain Injury: Giffords' Recovery Likely Lifelong

As plans progress to move U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) from Tucson's University Medical Center to a rehabilitation hospital in Houston, brain injury experts warn that her road to recovery is long and uncertain. Giffords, who was shot in the head on Jan. 8 in an attack that killed six,...

Nov 30, 2012

How Many Cells are in the Brain?

An enchanted loom is how Charles Sherrington described the interconnected net of cells that makes up our three-pound control center. Indeed, there is something almost magical in the notion that all our mental processes, from perception to memory to consciousness itself, can be described entirely by cellular activity in the...

Jul 31, 2012

How Depression Shrinks the Brain

Certain brain regions in people with major depression are smaller and less dense than those of their healthy counterparts. Now, researchers have traced the genetic reasons for this shrinkage. A series of genes linked to the function of synapses, or the gaps between brain cells crucial for cell-to-cell communication, can...

Jul 31, 2012

Marriage Drives Women to Drink, Study Suggests

Marriage may drive a woman to drink, not because she's unhappy but because she's influenced by her husband's alcohol consumption, new research suggests. And men, on average, drink more than women. Men, on the other hand, spend less time with their drinking buddies and more with their wives after tying...

Jun 30, 2012

Batman on the Couch: Psychologist Analyzes Comic Book Character

He wears a caped bat costume in public and funds an alter ego out of his personal fortune. As a child he witnessed his parents' murders; as an adult, he puts his own life on the line, practicing a personal brand of vigilante justice. He may be a comic book...

Jun 30, 2012

Club Drug Ecstasy Harms Memory, Study Reveals

Recreational use of the club drug Ecstasy could cause memory problems, new research finds. The research is the first study of Ecstasy users before they begin to use the drug regularly, which helps rule out alternative causes for the memory loss, said study leader Daniel Wagner, a psychologist at the...

May 31, 2012

Why Being Touched Can Inflame Emotions

It's clear touch and emotion can be closely tied: The brush of a hand can provoke excitement, comfort or repulsion — all depending on who's delivering the touch and when. But new research indicates the emotional connection shows up early as the brain processes a social touch. Using brain scans...

May 31, 2012

More Money Can Mean Less Happiness for Neurotics

Add one more item to the things that torture neurotics: a pay increase. While more money doesn't guarantee more happiness for anyone, increasing income is actually associated with less happiness among neurotic people who already earn a good salary. In fact, as pay increased, well-off neurotics are less happy than...

May 31, 2012

Living Brain Image Wins Photography Prize

Bright-red blood vessels and thick purple veins meander across the surface of a living human brain in the winning image in this year's Wellcome Image Awards contest. A rare peak inside the skull beat out a plethora of other gorgeous shots for first prize, including a colorful caffeine crystal and...

Mar 31, 2012

How to Use Light to Control the Brain

In the film Amèlie, the main character is a young eccentric woman who attempts to change the lives of those around her for the better. One day Amèlie finds an old rusty tin box of childhood mementos in her apartment, hidden by a boy decades earlier. After tracking down Bretodeau,...

Mar 31, 2012

Cause of Brain Freeze Revealed

Most people have likely experienced brain freeze — the debilitating, instantaneous pain in the temples after eating something frozen — but researchers didn't really understand what causes it, until now. Previous studies have found that migraine sufferers are actually more likely to get brain freeze than people who don't get...

Feb 29, 2012

Fatty Diet May Cause New Brain Cells to Sprout

Eating too many burgers and fries? Your brain might show the effects, if new mouse research holds true in humans. Researchers have discovered that a high-fat diet causes new brain cells to sprout in an area of the brain that seems to regulate eating. Interestingly, if the researchers stopped new...

Jan 31, 2012

Apologies: Do They Make It All Better?

In the past seven days, President Barack Obama has apologized to Afghanistan for NATO troops burning Qurans; German Chancellor Angela Merkel apologized to the relatives of 10 people believed to have been killed by a neo-Nazi group; the Mormon Church said it would discipline members who may have posthumously baptized...