June 2012
26 posts
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May 2012
13 posts
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“Yo tampoco dudé; Finn tenía la habilidad de hacerme creer en cualquier cosa, y a...”
– El viaje, Amanda Hocking
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Really? Using an iPad Can Strain Your Neck →
The lower and flatter a tablet is placed, the greater the risk for taxing neck muscles, a study finds. Researchers recommend placing tablets on tables, preferably propped up for better viewing.
Really? Red Wine Is Good for the Stomach →
Known for its potential to protect against heart disease, red wine also aids digestive health, through probiotics, studies show, the researchers found that both types of red wine produced improvements in the bacterial composition of the gut, lowered blood pressure and reduced levels of a protein associated with inflammation. Slight improvements in gut flora were seen among gin drinkers, but the...
Neurogenesis, plasticity and memory
Previously, I wrote about new SFN data on the role for newborn neurons in regulating emotion. The second half of the SFN meeting rounded out the story because the bulk of the functional presentations focussed on the role of new neurons in that other, classic function of the hippocampus: memory. Spanning synaptic plasticity, circuit function, and then linking it all to behavior, we have quite a...
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Forming and recalling memories. Artificially
Memory manipulation has become one of the most hotly pursued topics in neuroscience. After all, much or of who are is based on what we’ve learned, including memories that we can consciously recall as well as acquired desires and habits that can lead to problems like addiction. In rodents, we’ve known for decades that damage to the hippocampus can erase recently-formed memories. Studies of...
Bipedalism, birth and brain evolution →
One of the things that makes our species unique is our exceptionally large brain relative to body size. Brain size more than tripled during the course of human evolution, and this size increase was accompanied by a significant reorganization of the cerebral cortex, the prominent convoluted structure responsible for complex mental functions, which accounts for something like 85% of total brain...
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April 2012
32 posts
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Really? Optimism Reduces the Risk of Heart Disease
Laughter may not exactly be the best medicine. But a cheerful outlook on life may be good for your heart. So concludes new research on the impact of happiness and optimism on cardiovascular health.
Scientists have known about the reverse relationship between psychological health and heart health for some time; studies show that depression and anxiety can worsen outcomes for heart patients. But...
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Heavy Backpacks Can Spell Chronic Back Pain for...
Heavy backpacks don’t just sap children of energy that might be better used doing schoolwork or playing sports. Lugging them can also lead to chronic back pain, accidents and possibly lifelong orthopedic damage.
Among the risks described by Dr. Pierre D’Hemecourt, a sports medicine specialist at Children’s Hospital Boston, are stress fractures in the back, inflammation of growth cartilage,...
