Category: Brain and Behavior
A recent report indicates aspirin and non-steroidal antinflammatory drugs seem to have the positive and perhaps unexpected benefit, of cutting a person’s risk of developing AD.
In recent years, the government has made moves to support making the results of taxpayer-funded research available to taxpayers for free. A new bill in Congress attempts to pull the plug.
A recent article in the USA Today discussed “the placebo effect” and the debate surrounding it. According to the American Medical Association “a placebo is a substance provided to a patient that the physician believes has no specific pharmacological effect upon the condition being treated.” Perhaps more important to the understanding of the placebo effect is the belief of the patient.
It has been know for some time that aerobic exercise and physical activity helps to increase cognitive function and perhaps delay onset of Alzheimer’s disease. A recent study provides some explanation for how this might occur.
The world economic situation is fertile ground for anxiety, some realistic and other perpetuated from misinformation and personal agendas. According to the National Sleep Foundation, One-third of Americans are losing sleep over the state of the U.S. economy and other personal financial concerns.
As I wrote recently, Stephen Quake has been writing about conflicts of interest in research over at The Wild Side blog. He proposes solving these problems with peer review. I like the article, and he has many thoughtful things to say on the topic, but I don't really understand this proposal.
Experimental pragmatics is the science of language use. It's also a great conference held in Europe every year and a half or so.
Students have a laundry list of reasons why writing is one of their least favorite subjects. How do we adjust this mind set through incorporating science?
This article will explore tips, tricks, and techniques of using science to actually excite students about writing in school at all age levels K-12. Teachers and students- you no longer have to dread writing time!
The problem of conflicts of interest in science is not going to go away.
What's in the Stimulus Package for science?
I run a graduate student research workshop for students in the linguistics and psychology departments here at Harvard. We did a segment on word-learning. One of our guest-speakers started her presentation by pointing out that the field often things of word learning as learning nouns, despite the fact that there are many other types of words that probably have to be learned differently.
People voluntarily pick what information they store in short-term memory. Now, using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), researchers can see just what information people are holding in memory based only on patterns of activity in the brain.
Many students make it to 5th grade and haven't had the chance to do many hands-on experiments .
Whether it is due to focus on math/reading to pass standardized test scores, lack of effort/knowlege to teach science using hands-on techniques, to limited time; I think this is a major missed opportunity for students and teachers.
Scientists all over the world are starting to agree that stimulating the brain can improve brain power. Numerous studies show that activities such as interactive games can help maintain key cognitive functions.
