Closing the Circuit: Helen Mayberg’s research could revolutionize depression treatment

By Greater Good Science Center | February 7, 2008 |

At some point in their lives, 5 to 12 per­cent of Amer­i­can men and 10–25 per­cent of women will suf­fer an episode of depres­sion, mak­ing it the most com­mon­ly diag­nosed men­tal dis­or­der today. Unlike nor­mal sad­ness, which pass­es with time, depres­sion feels unstop­pable and caus­es peo­ple to lose inter­est in near­ly all activ­i­ties. Because it…

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Emotional Intelligence and Faces

By Alvaro Fernandez | November 15, 2007 |

Paul Ekman has con­duct­ed exten­sive research on iden­ti­fy­ing emo­tions through facial expres­sions. As part of that research, and as part of the pow­er of dis­ci­pline and train­ing, he learned how to con­scious­ly manip­u­late 42 facial mus­cles, includ­ing many that in most of us are beyond our con­trol, and even aware­ness. In the 60s and 70s…

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Enhancing Cognition and Emotions for Learning — Learning & The Brain Conference

By Caroline Latham | February 26, 2007

Alvaro and I had the good for­tune to attend a great con­fer­ence last week called Learn­ing & The Brain: Enhanc­ing Cog­ni­tion and Emo­tions for Learn­ing.… Some top­ics were meant to be applied imme­di­ate­ly, but many were food for thought — dis­cus­sions on where sci­ence and edu­ca­tion are headed.Using dra­mat­ic new imag­ing tech­niques, such as fMRIs, PET, and SPECT, neu­ro­sci­en­tists are gain­ing valu­able infor­ma­tion about learn­ing. This pio­neer­ing knowl­edge is lead­ing not only to new ped­a­go­gies, but also to new med­ica­tions, brain enhance­ment tech­nolo­gies, and ther­a­pies. Dis­cov­er how new adven­tures could change edu­ca­tion, learn­ing dis­or­der inter­ven­tions, and even soci­ety itself in the future.

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