With Halloween around the corner, fear may be on your mind. As a basic emotion, fear develops when we react to an immediate danger. Understanding exactly how our brains detect and respond to such danger has been a goal of Joseph LeDoux of the Center for Neural Science at New York University for much of […]
We all know that a proper business meeting should start with a handshake but until now, we have not known exactly how much impact that seemingly small gesture can make. Turns out, the impact is substantial, according to new research that examines the neurological and emotional effects of a handshake. “Handshakes have been proven to […]
The reason why making healthy choices feels hard is because it is literally hard work. Scientists are finding that different systems within our brains fiercely compete to assign different values to the choices we make. In a recent study led by Cendri Hutcherson of Caltech, researchers saw this competition at play when choosing which snack […]
What’s new in the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience Driven to distraction: Age-related differences Older adults are considered more susceptible to distraction while driving in traffic or undertaking other daily activities that require us to keep track of multiple objects at a time. Researchers have understood for some time that this age-related increase in distractibility is […]
We all have memories that bring us down, whether a bad breakup or a prolonged illness. New research suggests that we can reshape how we emotionally process those negative memories through simple instruction. And for those with the worst memories to process, such as victims of post-traumatic stress syndrome (PTSD), the research offers hope for […]
CNS recently had the chance to catch up with Steven Pinker, Harvard College Professor and Johnstone Family Professor in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University, who was a keynote speaker at the first CNS annual meeting in San Francisco. In that 1994 talk, he gave an overview of the science of language from a […]
When an Indirect Statement Becomes a Request for Action We all know that context matters when it comes to language. What we do not know as well, however, is exactly how our brains tell us when to take actions based on words. New research suggests several mechanisms by which, even in the absence of action […]
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 […]
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 […]
