The University of Queensland have discovered a new way to explain how emotional events can sometimes lead to disturbing long term memories.
In evolutionary terms, the brain’s ability to remember a fear or trauma response has been crucial to our long term survival.
However, in the modern world, when a similar type of fear response is triggered by a traumatic event such as being in combat; being exposed to abuse or being involved a major car accident, we do not want to repeatedly re-experience the episode, in vivid detail, for the rest of our lives. [continue reading…]
Depressed pregnant women have twice the risk of preterm delivery than pregnant women with no symptoms of depression, according to a new study by the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research. The study is published online in the Oxford University Press’s journal Human Reproduction on behalf of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology. [continue reading…]
Corisol helps our bodies cope with stress, but what about its effects on the brain? A new study by Cohen and colleagues, appearing in the October 15th issue of Biological Psychiatry, suggests that the answer to this question is complex. In an animal model of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), high doses of a cortisol-related substance, corticosterone, prevented negative consequences of stress exposure, including increased startle response and behavioral freezing when exposed to reminders of the stress. However, low-dose corticosterone potentiated these responses. This finding suggests that corticosterone levels may influence both vulnerability and resilience in a dose-dependent manner through its involvement in memory processes. [continue reading…]
What does the way you dance say about you? Or more specifically, what does it reveal about the quality of your genes – your ‘fitness’ as a potential mate?
It’s a question that’s obsessing cognitive psychologist Dr Peter Lovatt and his team at the University of Hertfordshire. But now he thinks he’s come up with the perfect experiment to test the links between genes, physical attraction and dance. Continue
