Christmas is the season when we get together with elderly friends and relatives (NOTE: You can watch the video here), and Santa’s not so young either! Have YOU gotten to the point where birthdays are depressing? Here’s something you should know: the brains of older people are NOT slower but ARE wiser than young brains, which allows older adults to achieve an equivalent level of performance.
read more
We learn something new about obesity every day. We’ve learned that being fat starts in your brain, and now scientists say that appetite regulation has to do with the HAIRS in your brain. In other words, if you have fat brain hairs, you’ll have a fat body.
These tiny hairy projections, called cilia, are present on almost every cell of the body–including the brain. New research shows that the cilia on our appetite-regulating brain cells control whether our bodies get the "stop eating" signal in time for us to lay down our forks when we’ve had enough.
read more
It sounds like something you might find in a horror movie, but it’s REAL: Scientists are studying mental disorders, such as schizophrenia or autism, by studying brain cells in a petri dish. Their goal is not to be ghouls, but to uncover what goes wrong inside the brain before the damage starts. They reprogram the skin cells of patients with mental disorders and grow them into brain cells in the laboratory. There, under their careful watch, they can detect inherent defects in how neurons develop or function, or see what environmental toxins or other factors cause them to misbehave.
read more
New research shows that The higher up in latitude you live, the bigger your brain AND eyeballs will be. But does this mean that people who live in these regions are better thinkers? Relatively few innovations have come from people living in these parts of the world, but this may be because the populations of polar countries have always been relatively sparse.
Their brains may be bigger simply to help them cope with the cold. And what about the eyeballs? There’s less oxygen available at higher altitudes. Many high altitude areas are cold and thus snowy. It turns out that people need to see better in places that receive less light than areas that closer to the equator.
read more