Tag: neuroscience
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How Poverty Affects the Brain
I’ve already noted the correlation between a low IQ and poverty, but now The EconomistĀ has a summary of how poverty and stress affects the brain. The reduced capacity of the memories of the poor is almost certainly the result of stress affecting the way that childish brains develop. [ā¦] To measure the amount of stress…
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The Future of Human Health
In seven videos, each between 9 and 19 minutes in length, some of Stanford’s best researchers discuss cutting-edge cognitive science research. Learn about the frontiers of human health from seven of Stanford’s most innovative faculty members. Inspired by a format used at the TED Conference, each speaker delivers a highly engaging talk in just 10-20…
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Paternal Age and Child Development
Advanced paternal age at conception has previously been shown to affect the resulting child’s health in many ways. Now,Ā advanced paternal age has also been associated with impaired neurocognitive abilities (“the ability to think and reason, including concentration, memory, learning, understanding, speaking, and reading”). Advanced paternal age showed significant associations with poorer scores on all of…
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Losing Your Sense of Balance
After a hysterectomy, Cheryl contracted a post-operative infection and was given the antibiotic gentamicin; a known side effect of which is a loss of the sense of balance (equilibrioception). When it was overprescribed to her the inevitable happened. The Telegraph follows Cheryl’s story on losing her sense of balance and enlightens us on neuroplasticity in…
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Losing Your Sense of Smell
Three years ago Elizabeth Zierah caught a cold; a few weeks later she was back to normalā¦ except that she had lost her sense of smell. In Slate, she writes about the miseries of losing the sense of smell (and in the process, taste). I lost normal function on the left side of my body…
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Neurology of the Itch
The Itch is an article from The New Yorker on the neurology behind that annoying sensation we’ve all had. I warn you, the article is quite icky in places, with a particularly stomach churning case study in one place, but I was quite fascinated to find out that the sensation of the itch seems to…