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Now here's one for you. Did you know our brains evolved to be so large as a result of sizing each other up? According to a new study, humans have evolved with a disproportionately large brain because we've learned to size each other up in large cooperative, social groups. Newswise.com reports that the challenge of judging a person's relative standing and deciding whether or not to compete with him has promoted the rapid expansion of the brain over the last 2 million years. The study found that evolution favors those who prefer to help others out who are at least as successful as they are. That;s kind of interesting when you think about our dog-eat-dog world today. "Our results suggest that the evolution of cooperation, which is key to a prosperous society, is intrinsically linked to the idea of social comparison -- constantly sizing each other up and making decisions as to whether we want to help them or not," write the authors.  "We've shown...

A new study on the brain has found exactly where inside it bullying begins. According to newswise.com, individual differences in the motivation to engage in or to avoid aggressive social interaction (bullying) are mediated by the basal forebrain, the lateral habenula circuit in the brain, according to a study conducted at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and published June 30 in the journal Nature . Now, you don't need to know the exact scientific facts about this.  All you need to know is that maladaptive aggressive behavior is associated with a number of psychiatric disorders and is thought to partly result from inappropriate activation of brain reward systems in response to aggressive or violent social stimuli. Researchers have now learned that the basal forebrain, or its projections to other brain regions, directly controls the rewarding aspects of aggression. Yes, that means that bullying is seen as a rewarding activity to some people. "Our st...

Ever thought your brain worked the same way when looking at pictures and text? Not so much.  In the brain, one area sees familiar words as pictures andnother sounds out words, according to newswise.com. Skilled readers can quickly recognize words when they read because the word has been placed in a visual dictionary of sorts which functions separately from an area that processes the sounds of written words, say Georgetown University Medical Center (GUMC) neuroscientists. The visual dictionary idea rebuts a common theory that our brain needs to “sound out” words each time we see them.  “Beginning readers have to sound out words as they read, which makes reading a very long and laborious process,” says the study’s lead investigator, Laurie Glezer, PhD, a postdoctoral research fellow. The research was conducted in the Laboratory for Computational Cognitive Neuroscience at GUMC, led by Maximilian Riesenhuber, PhD. I don't know about you but when I read about the ...

How about this?  You may use one part of your head to braid your daughter's hair and another to balance your checkbook. That's right.  You may think of yourself as using the same level of wisdom on each thing you do, but according to a new study, that's not quite right. While we may think some people are consistently wise, we actually demonstrate different levels of wisdom from one situation to the next, and factors such as whether we are alone or with friends can affect it, according to new research from the University of Waterloo.The study defines wise reasoning as a combination of such abilities as intellectual humility, consideration of others' perspective and looking for compromise, newswise.com reports.  "This research does not dismiss that there is a personality component to wisdom, but that's not the whole picture," says Professor Igor Grossmann, from the Department of Psychology at Waterloo and lead author of the paper. "Situ...

Big surprise. Men and women react differently to stress . Researchers focused on an area of the brain called the hypothalamus, which has a number of functions, among them helping the body adjust to stressful situations, controlling hunger and satiety, and regulating blood glucose and energy production. When stress hits, cells in the hypothalamus step up production of a receptor. It was known that this receptor contributes to the rapid activation of a stress-response sympathetic nerve network – increasing heart rate, for example. But since this area of the brain also regulates the body’s exchange of materials, the team thought that the receptor might play a role in this, as well.  The receptor is expressed in around half of the cells that arouse appetite and suppress energy consumption. After some pretty complicated experiments involving mice and the receptor, researchers found that male and female bodies may exhibit significant differences in the ways that materia...

So you can't decide.  Pinot or Chardonnay?  A Lexus or a BMW?  The man who makes seven figures a year but likes to stay home and watch home movies or the guy who barely can pay the rent but takes you out on his motorcycle with the wind dancing through your hair? Tough decisions, maybe.  But a small part of your brain is very instrumental in making them, according to newswise.com.  Choosing what shirt to buy, what to order for lunch or whether to go with the hearty red wine or the lighter white all involve assigning values to the options. A small brain structure plays a central role in the many decisions like this we make each day. But it hasn’t been clear how a limited number of neurons in this small part of the brain can support an unlimited number of choices. Now, studying how macaque monkeys choose between juice drinks, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found that some of the neurons in a part of the bra...

You know the expression, "out of sight, out of mind"? Well, we're actually talking about "in sight, out of mind."  How many times are you looking for something, staring right at it -- and not seeing it?  And no, it's not just that you are losing your mind. A research team from the University of California, Berkeley, is making new discoveries about how the brain organizes visual perception, including how it leaves things out even when they're plainly in sight. And they've come up with a rough map of the frontal cortex’s role in controlling vision, according to newswise.com. The frontal cortex is often seen as our “thinking cap,” the part of the brain scientists associate with thinking and making decisions. But it’s not commonly connected with vision. Some people believe that the frontal cortex is not involved, say researchers. Their new research adds to previous evidence that it is, however. The lack of association with that part of th...

I tend to take risks.  Speak up (loudly) about not getting paid for an assignment.  When my son has a teacher who loses his test, then yells at him because she can't find it.  When my late mother-in-law insisted I wear a dress that made me look like a beached whale to her grandson's bar mitzvah (not). On the other hand, my husband is super-cautious.  Won't send it back when a server mistakenly places the wrong order in front of him.   Panics when a patient leaves a message (he's a dentist) and says it's urgent. Refused to get married for years because of his fear of divorce (we've been married for 22). Now a new study is asking, is risk contagious? In my house, not so much. In the study, 24 volunteers repeatedly participated in three types of trials: a "self" trial, in which the participants were asked to choose between taking a guaranteed $10 or making a risky gamble with a potentially higher payoff; an "observe" trial, in which...

Do you really see what you think you see? Guess what?  You don't. Perception experts have long known that we see much less of the world than we think we do, according to newswise.com. A person creates a mental model of their surroundings by stitching together scraps of visual information gleaned while shifting attention from place to place. Counterintuitively, the very process that creates the illusion of a complete picture relies on filtering out most of what's out there. Kind of like focusing on just what's in front of you when you're trying to ignore distractions.   "The visual system really cares about objects," says postdoctoral fellow J. Eric T. Taylor, who is the lead author on the paper reporting this. "If I move around a room, the locations of all the objects - chairs, tables, doors, walls, etc. -- change on my retina, but my mental representation of the room stays the same." Objects play such a fundamental role in how we...

I suppose it should come as no surprise. But people who are anxious perceive things differently than those who are not.  It turns out, according to a new study, that people suffering from anxiety perceive the world in a fundamentally different way than others. That means that people diagnosed with anxiety are less able to distinguish between a neutral, “safe” stimulus (in this case, the sound of a tone) and one that had earlier been associated with gaining or losing money. In other words, when it comes to emotionally charged experiences, they show a behavioral phenomenon known as “over-generalization,” the researchers say, newswise.com reports. “We show that in patients with anxiety, emotional experience induces plasticity in brain circuits that lasts after the experience is over,” says Prof. Rony Paz of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel. “Such plastic changes occur in primary circuits, and these later mediate the response to new stimuli. The result is an...

Okay.  So you wanna know the next news-breaking way to stay young? Climb stairs. That's just what a new study found at Concordia University.  Taking the stairs is normally associated with keeping your body strong and healthy. But new research shows that it improves your brain’s health too — and that education also has a positive effect, according to newswise.com. Scientists at Concordia University’s Montreal-based PERFORM Centre have found that the more flights of stairs a person climbs, and the more years of school a person completes, the “younger” their brain physically appears. The researchers found that brain age decreases by 0.95 years for each year of education, and by 0.58 years for every daily flight of stairs climbed — i.e., the stairs between two consecutive floors in a building. There already exist many ‘Take the stairs’ campaigns in office environments and public transportation centres, say researchers. This study now shows that older adults ne...

I've known this for some time.  When I'm depressed, like this past week, when a friend's son, and a young man I taught journalism to, took his own life last week, and then when there was a bomb scare at my son's high school (and a job contract ended suddenly), I went to help at my church's after-school program and soon I was feeling better, surrounded by all the high-on-sugar (this was the Valentine's Day party day) and sweet, anyway, kids. Many of them come from low-income homes and they're hungry for loving contact.  Some parents work several works and aren't home too much, while others may be in jail (yes, sadly) or just not around.  But it does more for me than the kids when they come up to me and ask me to read with them, or they follow me like a little shadow.  Or they look really happy to see me. And now a new study confirms this. According to newswise.com, giving support—rather than receiving it—may have unique positive effects on key b...

Did you know when you're in love it's like smoking marijuana? Well, maybe not exactly.  But the highs are similar, according to a new report . Newswise.com says that the hormone oxytocin, which has been associated with interpersonal bonding, may enhance the pleasure of social interactions by stimulating production of marijuana-like neurotransmitters in the brain, according to a University of California, Irvine study. The research provides the first link between oxytocin – dubbed the “love hormone” – and anandamide, which has been called the “bliss molecule” for its role in activating cannabinoid receptors in brain cells to heighten motivation and happiness.  Not to get too technical but the researchers discovered that social contact increased production of anandamide ( messenger molecule which plays a role in pain, depression, appetite, memory, and fertility) in  the nucleus of the brain, which triggered cannabinoid receptors there to reinforce the pleas...

Are you an icing first or a cake? Don't know about you but I always save the icing for last.  It's my favorite (I could eat a whole bowlful of that alone!).  I can't get over the people who scrape it off. A new study has found the specific parts of the brain involved in decisions that call for delayed gratification. Researchers discovered that the hippocampus (associated with memory) and the nucleus accumbens (associated with pleasure) work together in making critical decisions of this type, where time plays a role. The researchers showed that when these two structures were effectively ‘disconnected’ in the brain, there is a disruption of decisions related to delayed gratification. Simply put,  scientists have figured out that, unless these parts of the brain are connected, we're pretty much willing to wait for a reward, but only for so long. "This is a type of decision-making that many of us grapple with in daily life, particularly the very young, ...

It doesn't take a genius to figure this out but challenging work tasks may be a good thing for our brain. Duh, right?  But a new study has found that professionals whose jobs require more speaking, developing strategies, conflict resolution and managerial tasks may experience better protection against memory and thinking decline in old age than their co-workers, according to a new study published in the April 29 issue of the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. “Our study is important because it suggests that the type of work you do throughout your career may have even more significance on your brain health than your education does,” says study author Francisca S. Then, PhD, with the University of Leipzig in Germany, at newswise.com. “Education is a well-known factor that influences dementia risk.”  So much for crossword puzzles and exercise! For the study, 1,054 people over the age of 75 were given tests that measured their memory and thinking...

We've always heard that it's good to have a purpose in life.  Becoming a mother.  Giving blood.  Making a million dollars. How many of us have given it just lip service, though?  A new study is saying we should think again. Study Highlights • People who have a strong sense of purpose in life are less likely to develop brain infarcts as they age. • Having a “purpose in life” may also protect against dementia, movement problems, and death. • Purpose in life differs for everyone and can include things such as volunteering, learning new things, or being part of your community. Having a strong sense that your life has meaning and direction may make you less likely to develop areas of brain damage caused by blockages in blood flow as you age. This research is reported in the American Heart Association’s journal Stroke . When a blockage interrupts blood flow in a vessel within the brain, a stroke can result or brain tissue can be damaged. This damaged tissue...

Did you know there are places in our children's brains that tell whether they will be generous or not? According to a new study, University of Chicago developmental neuroscientists have found specific brain markers that predict generosity in children. Those neural markers appear to be linked to both social and moral evaluation processes, newswise.com reports. Although young children are natural helpers, their perspective on sharing resources tends to be selfish.  I remember when my son was little, I don't remember too many times when he gave away his prized Lego figures to his friends, or vice versa. More likely, it was snatch and grab, and then screaming.  "We know that generosity in children increases as they get older,” said study co-author Jean Decety, the Irving B. Harris Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry at the university.   “The results of this study demonstrate that children exhibit both distinct early automatic and later more controlled patterns of...

Duh. Thinking how many pounds that 12-oz bag of M&Ms is going to pad onto you may cause you to  reconsider. That's what new research is saying, according to newswise.com.  Turns out the idea that the brain can control eating behavior, and considering the long-term consequences of your food choices may help control food cravings. Two research studies have showed the way you think about food can have an impact on appetite, and many others on the relationship between the brain and eating behavior. Scientists at Brown University used functional MRI scans to watch participants' brains as they reviewed pictures of enticing foods, like pizza, French fries and ice cream. Through the scans researchers were able to evaluate different strategies to reduce the desire to eat. They found that thinking about the long-term negative impact of eating these foods may be an effective way to reduce appetite. "We found that simply thinking in a different way affects how t...

It's probably happened to you.  A mosquito bite starts itching, and the minute you scratch, it itches more.  It may sound like an oxymoron but scratching actually does make it itch more. According to a new study by scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis found that scratching causes the brain to release serotonin, which intensifies the itch sensation, newswise.com reports.  Scientists have known for decades that scratching creates a mild amount of pain in the skin, the Web site quotes senior investigator Zhou-Feng Chen, PhD, director of Washington University’s Center for the Study of Itch. That pain can interfere with itching — at least temporarily — by getting nerve cells in the spinal cord to carry pain signals to the brain instead of itch signals. “The problem is that when the brain gets those pain signals, it responds by producing the neurotransmitter serotonin to help control that pain,” Chen explained. “But as serotonin ...

Would you believe that our brain's response to disgusting images can tell whether we're a Republican or Democrat? I didn't say disgusting images of Republicans (sorry, all you conservatives out there!), but apparently, a new study has found, how much your brain responds to pictures of maggot infestations, rotting carcasses, unidentifiable gunk in the kitchen sink, could predict whether you are liberal or conservative.  Say what?  An international team of scientists led by Virginia Tech reports that the strength of a person’s reaction to repulsive images can forecast their political ideology, according to newswise.com. “Disgusting images generate neural responses that are highly predictive of political orientation even when those neural responses don’t correspond with an individual’s conscious reaction to the images,” the Web site quotes Read Montague , a Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute professor who led the study. “Remarkably, we found that the brai...