Large neuroimaging study finds social isolation to be an early indicator of increased dementia risk

Why do we get a buzz from being in large groups at fes­ti­vals, jubilees and oth­er pub­lic events? Accord­ing to the social brain hypoth­e­sis, it’s because the human brain specif­i­cal­ly evolved to sup­port social inter­ac­tions. Stud­ies have shown that belong­ing to a group can lead to improved well­be­ing and increased sat­is­fac­tion with life. Unfor­tu­nate­ly though, many…

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Executive Functions in Health and Disease: New book to help integrate Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuropsychology

__________ Neu­ro­science used to be the monop­oly of a few elite uni­ver­si­ties locat­ed in a hand­ful of coun­tries. Neu­ropsy­chol­o­gy used to be a quaint niche dis­ci­pline rel­a­tive­ly uncon­nect­ed to the larg­er world of neu­ro­science and con­tent in its meth­ods with paper-and-pen­­cil tests. 

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Study: Structural brain differences due to childhood poverty may account for 20% of the academic achievement gap

. Brain scans reveal how pover­ty hurts chil­dren’s brains (Bloomberg): “Grow­ing up poor has long been linked to low­er aca­d­e­m­ic test scores. And there’s now mount­ing evi­dence that it’s part­ly because kids can suf­fer real phys­i­cal con­se­quences from low fam­i­ly incomes, includ­ing brains that are less equipped to learn.

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