brain

Educational books and toys not only make a child smarter, but also influence brain growth, researchers from the University of Pennsylvania (USA) have revealed at the Annual Meeting of the Society for Neuroscience. The results of their work indicate that there is an extremely sensitive period in childhood during which brain development is strongly influenced by environmental factors.

Are there differences in the brain of a man who feels like a woman, or in that of a woman who feels like a man? To answer this question, researchers from the National Distance Education University (UNED), in collaboration with other centers, have measured the thickness of the cerebral cortex of transsexual people. The results confirm the biological roots of transsexuality.

You may never have heard of fibromyalgia. However, surely there is someone near you who suffers from this disease. In fact, according to statistics there are more than a million affected in Spain. And it is that fibromyalgia is a disease with few external signs, but capable of radically changing the life of those who suffer from it.

It is not a myth. During winter, states of depression and melancholy are more frequent, and in the Nordic countries, with long winters of almost total darkness, the suicide rate is higher than in other parts of the planet. A scientific study published in the journal Nature has shown that mice exposed to lesser and more irregular amounts of light suffer from depression and experience learning disabilities.

Spanish and Australian scientists have found that patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) have greater moral sensitivity and show greater concern.

Ted Bundy, a smart, charming and good-looking guy, died young. Of course, before he was fried in the electric chair in Raiford prison, he had time to murder more than 35 women after beating and raping many of them, apart from his intelligence and loquacity, psychopaths like him they are identified as being liars and impulsive. Unable to appreciate the consequences of his actions, the psychopath is unable to show empathy or feelings of guilt, and is extremely aggressive. These traits are what allow him to approach his victims without raising suspicions and then commit the most heinous crimes with them.

When you consume caffeine, your ability to recognize words with positive connotations increases, according to a neuroscientific study published in the journal PLOS ONE. Specifically, the study reveals that 200 milligrams of caffeine, the equivalent of 2 or 3 cups of coffee, increases receptivity to positive emotionally charged language (such as "happy", "party" or "end of week").

According to a study just published in the journal Neuron, when we make quick decisions, the brain works differently, which leads us to make more mistakes. From the results of the research it is deduced that, "when faced with the same information, the brain performs a different analysis if it is under speed stress or precision stress".