Description: Quick! Which of these is easier to remember: a song you heard last week and really liked or what you had for lunch last Tuesday? Unless the lunch was particularly good or unique or special it is most likely you would remember the song and if you think about it you agree with that… Read more »
Posts Categorized: Neuroscience
MRI’s and Replication in Psychological Research
Description: What does the brain of someone diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder look like? How about the brain of someone recently diagnosed with Alzheimer’s? How about the brain of a depressed person … a happy person … an introvert … a risk-taker ….? The list could go on and on. For a number of years… Read more »
Mental Health Thermometers
Description: You drop into your doctor’s office and tell them you are not feeling well. Assuming COVID is not the issue (which would likely be picked up at the front desk of the clinic using screening questions) what is one of the first things the doctor will likely do? Take you temperature, right? (Or ask… Read more »
Psychology of Inventory Placement and Impulse Buying
Description: Two large grocery stores near my home have been undergoing renovation for the past few months (though it feels like it has been a year!). Way the long drawn out process? Well the renovations are large and complex but as I wandered around trying to find my “usual stuff” to buy I started to… Read more »
This is Your Brain on Revenge
Description: I have been re-watching Game of Thrones recently and as a result have seen a great many depictions of acts of revenge (if you have not watched the series, you can trust me on this). Now it is a bit of a leap to jump from Game of Thrones to the “real world” but… Read more »
Brain Bases of Social Hierarchies
Description: Mammals are aware of social hierarchies, right? You are sitting around a table sharing pizza with a few other people. There is one slice left and you want it. As you reach out for it another hand also reaches out for it. What do you do? It depends, right? What if you are sitting… Read more »
Ways of Knowing the Brain and Mind: Indigenous Perspectives
Description: Think about this question: Is neuroscience (brain science) universal or does it, or should it, vary across diverse cultural communities? On the one hand, brains are brains, right? On the other hand, a HUGE part of what goes into mental health, wellness and dealing with mental illness IS culturally linked isn’t it? Which of… Read more »
Is Microdosing (With Hallucinogens) Effective or is it a Placebo Effect?
Description: Here is a “design a study” challenge. You may have run across discussions of recent research looking at the therapeutic use of drugs that are or were considered recreational and illegal, e.g., LSD, Ecstasy, or Psilocybin (magic mushrooms). What you may not have run across yet are discussion of more recent research looking at… Read more »
Would You Know If You Were Burned-Out?
Description: I suspect you probably know quite a bit about stress, about how it feels, about what it does to your ability to manage, to work, to focus, or to relax. You likely know that you have limits relating to how much stress you can manage before you cannot keep functioning well. But did you… Read more »
Would Addiction be More Treatable if it Was Not a Crime?
Description: Think about how you would answer this question. Why do we arrest people found in possession of personal use amounts of addictive drugs and often send them to jail? Is it because we think that the threat of arrest will be a deterrent to becoming addicted? How is that working out for us? What… Read more »
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