Gradually exposing people to the objects they fear can help people overcome phobias of everything from closed spaces to spiders and snakes. In a new study, scientists have observed the changes in the brain that make this so-called “exposure therapy” so effective – revealing the neurological processes underlying our fears and how we cope with […]
The Bonds of Empathy: From Rats to Humans Q&A with Jean Decety
Scientists are finding that empathy is not just for humans. It plays a key biological role in other animals too, and in a paper published last December in Science, University of Chicago neuroscientists Peggy Mason, Inbal Ben-Ami Bartal, and Jean Decety showed that even rats display such pro-social behavior. After placing pairs of rats in […]
