Education

Why Kids Ask “Why?”

June 3, 2019

Whew. Starting around age 3, kids have an explosion of “Wh-” questions, says Mina Kim, Ph.D., an assistant professor of psychology at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York. Your child may sound like a broken record, but her endless queries show that she’s curious about the world

The Power of Green

May 26, 2019

It’s not just fresh air that helps clear your mind when you take a walk in the park — simply being around plants and trees has a beneficial effect, too. What can numb pain, make you a better person, and help you concentrate … ? A plant. It may sound far-fetched, but it’s true. While big pharmaceutical companies spend billions trying to come up

On The Threshold: An Interview with Dr. Elkhonon Goldberg

May 25, 2019

Elkhonon Goldberg is one of those rare scientists who are able to distill complex ideas into accessible, entertaining, and even literary prose. His books “The Wisdom Paradox” and “The New Executive Brain” are as compulsively readable as they are insightful and instructive.

The New Age of Enlightenment: An Interview With Steven Pinker

May 23, 2019

Steven Pinker is a world-renowned author, experimental psychologist, and cognitive scientist at Harvard University. Considered one of the most influential thinkers in the world, he has written a substantial amount of literature on language, human nature, and the mind, and received multiple awards

The Importance Of Play: An Interview with Dr. Jaak Panksepp

May 22, 2019

All people have emotions — although some are more in touch with them than others—but most people don’t know how emotions work. Dr. Jaak Panksepp, a neuroscientist, psychologist and psychobiologist, coined the term “affective neuroscience” to refer to the study of the neural mechanisms of emotion.

Know Your Brain: Basal Ganglia — The Cerebral Connection

May 21, 2019

That feeling of satisfaction you get when someone likes the new photos on your Instagram is processed by the basal ganglia and is probably a big reason you spend too much time on it — your brain is constantly craving the next little reward — reinforced each time you upload a new picture and get feedback.

It’s All In Your Mind? What the Placebo Effect Tells Us

May 16, 2019

In the 17th century, something amazing happened in Western medicine: Anton van Leeuwenhoek of Holland invented the microscope and discovered the biological nature of disease. Once a scientific basis for illness had been identified, the effectiveness of treatments could be observed and measured for the first time.

Communicating with Teens: Tips from an Unusual Source

May 14, 2019

A study from the University of Arizona which looked into using text messaging to deliver educational information about nutrition and physical activity to teens found that most teens were open to receiving such texts, but the way in which they were worded made a big difference. The study, which appears in the

How Being Bilingual (As A Child) Betters Your Brain

May 11, 2019

It used to be the general consensus that being bilingual was not good for children. The practice was frowned upon by teachers and education experts because it was believed that trying to speak two languages at the same time confused children and made it difficult for them to learn either language properly. Now, however, thanks to

Should New Drivers Receive Cognitive Training?

May 9, 2019

The brain’s frontal lobe is crucial to driving—it controls judgment, problem-solving, reasoning and anticipating consequences.

Energy and Consciousness: Something From Nothing

May 8, 2019

Nothing, as the ultimate reality and the source of the unity of energy and consciousness, is not only my personal realization of what I really am, but also the essential teaching of the Korean tradition of Tao, to which I am culturally indebted. To give proper credit to this great body of knowledge, I would like to explain its core principles briefly.

Epigenetics: Where Consciousness Meets DNA

May 7, 2019

The study of epigenetics is illuminating more of the intricacies of how our genes affect, and are affected by, our life. “Epi” comes from Greek, meaning “upon,” “over,” or “near,” so epigenetics is the study of mechanisms “on top of” or “near” the classical mechanisms that affect gene expression. I

The Games Our Children Now Play

May 6, 2019

According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, children ages 8 to 18 spend an average of more than 7.5 hours a day engaged in digital media — social networking, video games, websites, music, and television. Figuring in media multitasking — playing a video game, say, on an iPhone while watching television — they are actually

How To Survive Your Teenager’s Brain

May 2, 2019

We all know the story of Romeo and Juliet: Two teenagers fall instantaneously and deeply in love despite their families’ being bitter enemies. Believing themselves to be “star-crossed lovers,” they seize the moment and secretly marry. Eventually they and their best friends die. The theme of the play is

How Rewards and Goals Redraw Your Brain’s Map of the World

April 30, 2019

Until recently, grid cells were thought to use a precise system of coordinates when it came to mapping out space — a reason grid cells were described as the “brain’s inner GPS” when the researchers who made this discovery won the Nobel Prize. Neurobiologist Lisa Giocomo of Stanford University suspected that the

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A magazine dedicated to the brain.

We believe that neuroscience is the next great scientific frontier, and that advances in understanding the nature of the brain, consciousness, behavior, and health will transform human life in this century.

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