Description: We are seeing more and more research in recent years examining the physiological and developmental consequences of stress. For example, we now better understand the ongoing impact of developmentally early traumatic experiences on subsequent development and psychological functioning and well being at both an observational level and increasingly at a physiological causal level. We… Read more »
Posts Categorized: Clinical Neuropsychology
If Rats Have Empathy Do We Understand What Empathy Involves?
Description: How would you define empathy? Would feeling another person’s feelings capture it or at least part of it? Some sort of positive response would likely also need to be included in the definition, but it could be seen to follow from the first part. So how do we feel what someone else feels? We… Read more »
Understanding and Overcoming Pain and Anxiety: FAAH-OUT!
Description: A big part of the current opioid crisis that does not perhaps get the level of attention it deserves is that many people caught up in it got there through their experiences and issues with pain management. Pain experience and pain management is a very complex area of psychological and medical research and a… Read more »
Getting Into the Heads of Actors When They Are In Character
Description: If you watched Heath Ledger’s version of the Joker in The Dark Knight (Batman) film you saw an amazing piece of acting – of method acting. Ledger was a method actor meaning that he got into his character by essentially becoming the Joker and, it is said, stayed there on and off set throughout… Read more »
Making Sense of Old Sayings at the Cellular Level: Sleep and T Cells
Description: Not feeling well? Perhaps a good night’s sleep is just what you need. Even if you believe this to be true do you know why it is true? What is actually going on at the cellular level in our immune system while rest and recover? No idea? Well, have a read through the article… Read more »
Alzheimer’s: When Potential Treatments Fail
Description: Imagine you are a biochemist and you have been working on finding substances that could be used against the two main toxic proteins involved in Alzheimer’s, amyloid beta and tau. Further imagine that you have found a substance that seems to do what you want, at least when tested on the proteins in petri… Read more »
Chemobrain: An Important Part of Cancer Treatment Patient Experience
Description: Have you heard the term “Chemobrain”? While it has been around for quite a while it has been coming up more frequently lately as a concern for those undergoing cancer treatments using chemotherapy as at least 50% of them currently will experience some of the aspects of cognitive imparement associated with Chemobrain and for… Read more »
The Efficacy and Ethics of Zapping Depression
Description: Ok here we go…. This sounds like science fiction BUT … what if we could implant electrodes into our brains into specific locations and then, when necessary, such as when were are clinically depressed, we could use the implanted electrodes to stimulate those areas of the brain and by doing so normalize the functioning… Read more »
Biology and Mental Illness: Why No Cures Yet?
Description: We have drugs that treat mental disorders like schizophrenia and depression so do we have cures for those disorders? One of the reasons given for the focus shift taken by Martin Seligman, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and others to Positive Psychology (optimizing things for everyone) is that we have addressed mental illness and can move on…. Read more »
Moving Towards Transplant Fixes for Some Forms of Blindness
Description: The prospect of vision loss is scary and while my parents and grandparents would say things like don’t run with scissors or you cannot have a BB gun (for fear of “putting out an eye”) or make sure you have a good light on when you are reading because “those are the only set… Read more »
Books for Success!
