Mapping ‘psychedelic trips’ in the brain to better direct their therapeutic effects

By The Conversation | April 4, 2022

For the past sev­er­al decades, psy­che­delics have been wide­ly stig­ma­tized as dan­ger­ous ille­gal drugs. But a recent surge of aca­d­e­m­ic research into their use to treat psy­chi­atric con­di­tions is spurring a recent shift in pub­lic opin­ion. Psy­che­delics are psy­chotrop­ic drugs: sub­stances that affect your men­tal state. Oth­er types of psy­chotrop­ics include anti­de­pres­sants and anti-anx­i­e­ty medications.…

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Higher body mass index (BMI) linked to lower blood supply to the brain in large neuroimaging study

By SharpBrains | August 7, 2020

Body weight has sur­pris­ing, alarm­ing impact on brain func­tion (Sci­ence Dai­ly): As a per­son­’s weight goes up, all regions of the brain go down in activ­i­ty and blood flow, accord­ing to a new brain imag­ing study in the Jour­nal of Alzheimer’s Dis­ease … sci­en­tists ana­lyzed over 35,000 func­tion­al neu­roimag­ing scans using sin­­gle-pho­­ton emis­sion com­put­er­ized tomog­ra­phy (SPECT) from…

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Neuroimaging study finds extensive brain rewiring–in just six months–among illiterate adults learning to read and write

By SharpBrains | June 8, 2017

— Learn­ing to read and write rewires adult brain in six months (New Sci­en­tist): “Learn­ing to read can have pro­found effects on the wiring of the adult brain – even in regions that aren’t usu­al­ly asso­ci­at­ed with read­ing and writ­ing. That’s what Michael Skei­de of the Max Planck Insti­tute for Human Cog­ni­tive and Brain Sciences…

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Can Brain Training and Biofeedback Help Prevent Depression

By Dr. Pascale Michelon | November 10, 2011 |

In two inno­v­a­tive pilot stud­ies, Ian Gotlib and his col­leagues at Stan­ford Uni­ver­si­ty, Cal­i­for­nia, showed that brain train­ing can be used to help elim­i­nate depres­sion, even before it starts. They stud­ied young girls (10 to 14 year old) whose moth­ers were depressed and who thus were at high­er risk of devel­op­ing depres­sion them­selves lat­er-on. The girls…

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