By Suhanee Mitragotri
When your infant wakes up from a nap, all you want is to be able to hold them close and give them all of your love. While…
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Policy Memo by Yug Yadava
Executive Summary
When a child is born at a hospital in the United States, he or she is tested for genetic, inherited, heart, and hearing…
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By Caitlin Goodpaster
TikTok, a video-sharing app that has taken the world by storm, was first introduced as Douyin in 2016 in China, where it gained 100 million users in…
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By William Pollard
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, success rates for cessation remain low, with only 7.5% of smokers managing to quit smoking entirely. The need…
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By Anastasiia Gryshyna
Many of us have heard a common debate between the fields of biology and sociology. Are human traits, behavior, and personality influenced by nature, or by nurture?…
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By Mary Cooper
“New year, new me,” is a thought we may have had around the start of a new year. Maybe we want to be stronger, healthier, or smarter…
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By Vincent A Medina
Gun deaths in the United States far exceed those of every other developed country in the world (Sam & Rupp, 2022). This has prompted frequent discussions…
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By: Lauren Granata
The transition from childhood to adulthood is notoriously turbulent. Teens fumble through these years as they try to finesse a balance between school, extracurriculars, and their ever-shifting…
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Human beings are a highly social species. In order to survive and thrive, we rely on social exchanges in which we constantly keep track of others’ faces (Leopold & Rhodes,…
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When you think of researchers growing “mini-brains,” you might picture a mad scientist out of a sci-fi or horror movie. But the reality looks quite different. Cerebral organoids, often colloquially…
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When you hear a baby relentlessly crying on an airplane, even through your noise-cancelling headphones, you can do nothing but sigh in defeat. With all hope of an in-flight nap…
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Depression is a common mental disorder affecting around 4% of the world’s population. Evidence suggests that chronic inflammation plays an important role in the development of depression. Indeed, around one…
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I was in my junior year of college at Ohio State University when my roommate roped me into joining an organization called 4 Paws for Ability, a group that trains…
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The use of fetal tissue for scientific research has long been at the intersection of political polarization and medical breakthroughs. In 2019, the Trump administration passed restrictions on human fetal…
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What can we learn and implement from neuroscience to support long-term vocabulary retention in adult language learners?
Brain and Language
Neuroscience focuses on how different regions of the brain work…
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In his book “Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain”, the neurologist Oliver Sacks stated that music can “calm us, animate us, comfort us, thrill us, or serve to organize…
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Our brains are extremely rich in fat. Indeed, about two thirds of the human brain is composed of fat, 35% of which consists of essential polyunsaturated fatty acids. What are…
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Alternating Hemiplegia is a neurodevelopmental disorder that affects children. A characteristic symptom of the disorder is repetitive episodes of paralysis on one side or both sides of the body. The…
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You probably don’t remember anything from when you were an infant. However, chances are that you experienced some pain immediately after you were born. You might have needed an IV…
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Imagine listening to your favorite song, how it makes you feel, and the flood of memories the sounds bring with them. Music is well known for its ability to evoke…
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Alexander disease is an extremely rare neurological disorder that severely impairs the functions of nervous system leading to intellectual disability and developmental delay. In this infographic, neuroscientist Rajamani Selvam explains…
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Have you ever wondered how each cell of our body reaches its correct place? It is even more astounding when you realize that our body is formed from only two…
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Every single day, a group of cells work tirelessly to monitor and protect the neural architecture of your brain. Some of them even move around, scanning neural networks like recon…
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Dyslexia is an unexpected difficulty in learning to read despite normal intelligence and vision and access to good instruction. Today, scientists generally agree that people with dyslexia struggle to read…
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Anyone who has spent time around teenagers knows they don’t always consider the full consequences of their actions. Just consider the dozens of YouTube videos involving falling dressers or fireworks…
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You may have heard it repeated in the media and pop culture that humans’ brains don’t change at all after birth. However, the past several decades of neuroscience research have…
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Over the past few years, you might have noticed a surfeit of articles covering current research on bilingualism. Some of them suggest that it sharpens the mind, while others are…
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This post was updated on April 24, 2019 to incorporate feedback from parents. Names have been changed to protect anonymity.
What is health? What is happiness? We generally imagine the…
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Note: Ketamine is a controlled substance in the US and many other countries. Do not use ketamine illicitly.
[dropcap]I[/dropcap]magine an injection that briefly gives you schizophrenia. Now imagine that this…
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[dropcap]F[/dropcap]rom bird songs to frog ribbits, animals engage in countless forms of vocalization. However, no other species in the animal kingdom matches humans in complexity of language. The versatility of…
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[dropcap]O[/dropcap]ur brains are split into two halves, a left hemisphere and a right hemisphere. While the left brain specializes in languages, the right brain specializes in faces. But the two…
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What are you doing right now? I’m no psychic, but I can say for certain one thing that you’re doing: reading. You’re reading this sentence, word by word, and extracting…
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The human brain is arguably the most complex organ. Throughout life, it is shaped ever so slightly by each and every experience we endure. The resulting nuances are what make us…
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Sometimes it’s hard to understand why scientists do what they do. Why spend a career studying cells, fungus, or flies? Other than being nerdy and wanting to learn about our…
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When babies are born, they cannot see very well, but their vision vastly improves as they continue to develop. Sometimes, the eyes don’t communicate well with the brain, and vision…
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What brain regions are employed when we interact with other people? Cognitive neuroscientist Sarah-Jayne Blakemore explains the “social brain” in her TED talk and sheds light on the complex networks…
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“I would there were no age between sixteen and three-and-twenty, or that youth would sleep out the rest; for there is nothing in the between but getting wenches with child,…
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Stem cells have two characteristic and essential properties:
Self-renewal. They can divide to give rise to another stem cell.
Potency. They are capable of differentiating into specialized cells.…
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It is easy to assume that if a car has a gas pedal, it needs to have brakes, and similarly, if our brain…
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In my last post, “Vocal Practice is for the Birds” examined one similarity between human and songbird procedural learning: the necessity for practice before performance. Zebra finches sing a series…
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The human brain continues to develop and form new connections from birth until as late as the mid-20s. During this time, billions of connections are made and broken as the…
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Genetics, although ostensibly complicated, is all around us. In our immediate social circle, we often come across genetics at display. Some examples are obvious: The kids wear glasses because both…
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While I was growing up, I remember my parents and teachers saying, “Your brain is like a sponge.” Of course, I didn’t understand what they meant, but as cliché as…
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Mitochondria are frequently implicated in several human disease states. From neurological disorders like Alzheimer’s disease and Autism Spectrum Disorder, to metabolic conditions like diabetes and obesity, energy abnormalities are seen…
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Every once in a while, we hear of amazing scientific feats about how some new drug successfully reduces weight without dieting or exercise in monkeys, or how scientists slowed aging…
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Have you ever wondered how the social experiences you had early in life affected the way your brain developed? How was your cerebral architecture influenced by the games of ‘peek-a-boo’…
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Our bodies possess unique and amazing capabilities for self-healing and repair. Time and again, we have witnessed (or experienced first-hand) someone with a broken bone injury. After some medical intervention,…
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