Study: Brain scans may predict depression risk better than clinical rating scales, paving the way for earlier preventive treatments

Brain Scans Could Iden­ti­fy Kids at Risk of Depres­sion (Smith­son­ian): “One of the most fright­en­ing aspects of depres­sion is the fact that, once some­one suf­fers a depres­sive episode, they’re very like­ly to have anoth­er. And depres­sion itself often brings oth­er ills, from sub­stance abuse to heart disease

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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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Study: Long-term meditation can help slow down aging-related brain volume decline

. Long-term med­i­ta­tion tied to less brain loss (Reuters): “Peo­ple who report­ed med­i­tat­ing for an aver­age of 20 years had high­er brain vol­umes than the aver­age per­son, researchers report in Fron­tiers in Psy­chol­o­gy. Kurth and his col­leagues write that they can’t say med­i­ta­tion caused its prac­ti­tion­ers to lose less brain vol­ume, how­ev­er. Oth­er habits of…

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The neuroscience of positive, vision-based coaching

Good coach­es get results, respect, and awards. But what makes a coach or men­tor good? One school of thought says they should hold their mentees to spe­cif­ic per­for­mance bench­marks and help them reach those bench­marks by tar­get­ing their per­son­al weak­ness­es. But new research sug­gests a dif­fer­ent tack—namely, to nur­ture a mentee’s strengths, aspi­ra­tions for the future,…

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Cognitive therapy or medication? Brain scans may help personalize treatments

Pre­dict­ing How Patients Respond to Ther­a­py (press release): “A new study led by MIT neu­ro­sci­en­tists has found that brain scans of patients with social anx­i­ety dis­or­der can help pre­dict whether they will ben­e­fit from cog­ni­tive behav­ioral therapy…Social anx­i­ety is usu­al­ly treat­ed with either cog­ni­tive behav­ioral ther­a­py or med­ica­tions. However,

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