Brain

A new paper claims that when study participants ate alone, the food tasted better and they ate more if they could see themselves reflected in a mirror. This was true of both elderly and young adult participants.

In elderly Japanese, a similar increase in the appeal of food was seen when the mirror was replaced with a photo.

Exercise can be intimidating. Like not calling your grandmother because you don't want to be berated for not calling for so long, it can be hard to stop. But even if you only exercise once, it can have positive effects on mood, memory, attention, motor/reaction times, and even creativity. Understanding the immediate effects of a single bout of exercise is the first step to understanding how the positive effects of exercise may accrue over time to cause long-lasting changes in select brain circuits.

Homo sapiens is a very moody species. Even though sadness and bad moods have always been part of the human experience, we now live in an age that ignores or devalues these feelings.

Who is most likely to report side effects from taking statins? People who know they are taking statins and have read about side effects. As many as 20 percent of patients may stop taking or refuse the drug due to reported side effects, which include muscle pain, cataracts, memory loss, erectile dysfunction and disrupted sleep.

Yet in clinical trials people who don't know they are taking statins don't report side effects any more than a placebo group. 

The common belief is that macrophages, a class of white blood cells, play a major role in thermogenesis, how the body regulates its production of heat, but a new study suggests that the main driver of thermogenesis is the sympathetic nervous system, which is chiefly controlled by the brain.

Gender dysphoria in individuals with psychotic disorders can be adequately diagnosed and safely treated with gender affirming psychological, endocrine, and surgical therapies, finds a new paper using a few case studies in LGBT Health.

Data from online video games has been used to study what kinds of practice and habits help people acquire skill. Basically, what does it take to get good? 10,000 hours? Nope, not even close. But there are reasons why some people are great in The Division and you die in the Dark Zone within seconds after meeting another player. Basically, they learned shortcuts and before they ever met you, they warmed up.

Adolescents with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) use 400 percent more emergency-department services than peers without autism, which puts more strain on an over-burdened health care system. It may be that they need better access to primary care.

Some people have an extreme fear of spiders or other objects while others have breathing difficulties and accelerated heart beat in small rooms or large gatherings of people. Some anxiety attacks occur for no apparent cause. Some patients suffer from the detrimental impacts on their everyday lives, they have problems at work and withdraw from social contacts.

A new study believes that football clubs which focus too much on physical attributes risk overlooking future stars. Does this mean that with the correct cognitive behavior you could outrun Usain Bolt? No, there are still physical realities to sports, no matter what a press release wants to claim, but intangibles like "eccentricity" and other psychological characteristics matter now, just as they always have.

Postpartum depression is considered much like any other form of depression: New mothers withdraw from family and friends, lose their appetites, and feel sad and irritable much of the time.

A new paper contends there is uniqueness of mood and emotional disorders that arise during pregnancy or shortly after giving birth. It uses fMRI, which has not been shown to be valid for diagnosis, but may provide some insight into what's happening.

According to a new paper in Animal Cognition, chickens, who are typically thought of as possessing a low level of intelligence compared with other animals, actually demonstrate self-control and self-assessment —capacities which may indicate self-awareness, and are behaviorally sophisticated, discriminating amongst individuals, and exhibiting Machiavellian-like social interactions.

"Act your age" says one group, while "you are only as young as you feel" assures another. Those are two conflicting messages about aging and maturity. How can anyone know when maturity is "just right"?

Deep brain stimulation (DBS) of areas in the brain known to be involved in making memories does not improve memory performance, according to a new study. 

Deep brain stimulation is an invasive technique that involves the implantation of electrodes deep into the brain and then running current through them to electrically stimulate nearby neurons. 

Smoking during pregnancy is a well-known risk factor for many health problems in children, including low birth weight, heart defects and asthma. In our latest study, we show that smoking in pregnancy also increases the risk for children’s later tobacco smoking, as well as alcohol and cannabis use. This effect may be partly explained by so-called epigenetic changes at birth, in genes important for brain function and development.