I watched the new PBS show called Brain Secrets in which our own founder, Dr. Mike Merzenich, is featured. One of the everyday examples of brain fitness Dr. Mike mentions is how older people can avoid falling down by training their brains to keep their head upright when they walk. Older people have more fear…
For the past 25 years or so, TED Talks have been a great source of accessible information about cutting-edge research on the brain and its development over a lifespan. We’ve featured several on our blog and in other communications. Here, we’ve gathered a few of our favorites together so you can find them all in…
Ed. note: This week, in the run-up to Valentine’s Day, we’re featuring a 5-part series about the neuroscience of love and romance. At the end, we’ll put the full series on our website. Enjoy! Does all this romantic mumbo-jumbo make you feel a little queasy? I have good news: a recent study showed that listening…
Ed. note: This week, in the run-up to Valentine’s Day, we’re featuring a 5-part series about the neuroscience of love and romance. At the end, we’ll put the full series on our website. Enjoy! You may have heard of oxytocin, sometimes called the “love hormone.” Human and animal studies have shown that oxytocin plays a…
Ed. note: This week, in the run-up to Valentine’s Day, we’re featuring a 5-part series about the neuroscience of love and romance. At the end, we’ll put the full series on our website. Enjoy! Lots of relationship experts suggest that couples who have been together through the ages can keep the romance alive with regular…
Ed. note: This week, in the run-up to Valentine’s Day, we’re featuring a 5-part series about the neuroscience of love and romance. At the end, we’ll put the full series on our website. Enjoy! Unlike Helen Fisher, Ted Huston is more interested in studying what happens throughout long-term relationships. One interesting finding over a lifetime…
Ed. note: This week, in the run-up to Valentine’s Day, we’re featuring a 5-part series about the neuroscience of love and romance. At the end, we’ll put the full series on our website. Enjoy! Ever fallen madly in love? Researcher Helen Fisher has spent her academic life trying to figure out what’s going on in…
A few years ago, David Rock wrote a fantastic article called “(Not So Great) Expectations: Use Them or Be Used By Them”. The article cites research from Wolfram Schultz (who serves as a science advisor to Posit Science) on how expectations affect dopamine levels in the brain, which in turn affects happiness. The gist of…
I recently returned from a 3 week trip to the Middle East. In preparation, I took Arabic lessons for about 6 months, in hopes that it might aid my communication on my trip. I am bilingual in English and Spanish, and was surprised to find that learning Arabic was a great deal more challenging than…
A few years ago Disney announced that it is offering refunds on Baby Einstein DVDs purchased in the past five years. Why? Baby Einstein claimed to make babies “smarter,” but doesn’t. In fact, research suggests that if anything, watching such DVDs slows learning development in young children. Threatened with a class-action lawsuit, Disney began to…
