A new study by Brown University epidemiologists found that children on the threshold of obesity or overweight in the first two years of life had lower perceptual reasoning and working memory scores than lean children when tested at ages five and eight. The study also indicated that IQ scores may be lower for higher-weight children. Continue reading “Early-life obesity impacts children’s learning and memory, study suggests”
Leg exercise is critical to brain and nervous system health
Groundbreaking research shows that neurological health depends as much on signals sent by the body’s large, leg muscles to the brain as it does on directives from the brain to the muscles. Published today in Frontiers in Neuroscience, the study fundamentally alters brain and nervous system medicine — giving doctors new clues as to why patients with motor neuron disease, multiple sclerosis, spinal muscular atrophy and other neurological diseases often rapidly decline when their movement becomes limited. Continue reading “Leg exercise is critical to brain and nervous system health”
How social isolation transforms the brain
Chronic social isolation has debilitating effects on mental health in mammals — for example, it is often associated with depression and post-traumatic stress disorder in humans. Now, a team of Caltech researchers has discovered that social isolation causes the build-up of a particular chemical in the brain, and that blocking this chemical eliminates the negative effects of isolation. The work has potential applications for treating mental health disorders in humans. Continue reading “How social isolation transforms the brain”
Self-consistency influences how we make decisions
When making decisions, our perception is influenced by judgments we have made in the past as a way of remaining consistent with ourselves, suggests new research published in eLife. Continue reading “Self-consistency influences how we make decisions”
New parts of the brain become active after students learn physics
Parts of the brain not traditionally associated with learning science become active when people are confronted with solving physics problems, a new study shows. Continue reading “New parts of the brain become active after students learn physics”
Our brains are obsessed with being social
Our brains are obsessed with being social even when we are not in social situations. A Dartmouth-led study finds that the brain may tune towards social learning even when it is at rest. The findings published in an advance article of Cerebral Cortex, demonstrate empirically for the first time how two regions of the brain experience increased connectivity during rest after encoding new social information. Continue reading “Our brains are obsessed with being social”
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