Brain-machine interfaces may be used to study and regulate mood

Brain-machine interfaces translate brain signals into information that can be used to control robotic limbs, and now even predict an individual’s mood state. Researchers envision using BMIs together with electrical stimulation, to regulate abnormal brain signals in patients with treatment-resistant neuropsychiatric disorders. Continue reading Brain-machine interfaces may be used to study and regulate mood

Dirtiness is perceived by all, cleanliness is pursued by women

Housekeeping is an arena that houses gendered behavior even today, despite the increasing trend where both the man and the woman of the household work and ‘bring home the bread’. The common myth that men just cannot see the dirt has been busted by a study published in Sociological Methods and Research. This new study attempts to understand the interplay between individual preferences and gender … Continue reading Dirtiness is perceived by all, cleanliness is pursued by women

With Great Responsibility Comes Great Charity

The next time you’re looking to raise some money, choose your words carefully. A recent study by a collaboration between Harvard Business School and the University of British Columbia has shown that the wealthy are willing to donate more money if they are prompted with agentic appeals for donations – that is, appeals to individual action – rather than communal. Drawing on previous research on … Continue reading With Great Responsibility Comes Great Charity

Your Personality May Determine How You Respond to Placebo Pills

The placebo effect is a puzzling phenomenon. Placebos (sugar pills or saline solutions secretly substituted for actual drugs) are commonly used in clinical trials to set a baseline against which to measure the effects of a drug. However, people in the placebo group will often show improvements alongside the treatment group. The fact that an inactive substance, such as a sugar pill, can lead to … Continue reading Your Personality May Determine How You Respond to Placebo Pills

New Detailed Brain Map Could Aide Future Understanding

Researchers have created the most detailed general map of the brain to date by scanning the brains of 1200 people. After recording detailed imaging of the subjects’ brain activity as they performed a variety of mental tasks, the information was used to ‘teach’ a computer to identify spatial ‘regions’ of related activity. These regions span the brain, creating a 3D, puzzle-like map. Also called a … Continue reading New Detailed Brain Map Could Aide Future Understanding

Oh no! Recent paper may make it harder to blame your character faults on birth order

If you have siblings you’ve probably been told at one point or another that firstborns are bossy, the youngest is spoiled and the poor middle child is always neglected. People have been trying to figure out the effect of birth order on personality for over a hundred years and at times it feels that with each month a new study pops up either supporting or … Continue reading Oh no! Recent paper may make it harder to blame your character faults on birth order

A Reanalysis: Paxil Declared Unsafe for Teens

In 2001, a famous clinical trial, Study 329, declared that the antidepressant Paxil was safe for adolescents. After a great deal of controversy, criticism, and numerous lawsuits, patient level data was finally made available by GlaxoSmithKlein for reanalysis. The original study found that adolescents on Paxil fared no better than those given a placebo on the study’s standard depression questionnaire, but did improve according to … Continue reading A Reanalysis: Paxil Declared Unsafe for Teens