The death drive concept emerged from Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic theories in the early 20th century. It represented a significant shift in understanding human motivation and behavior, challenging previous notions of the pleasure principle as the primary driving force. Freud introduced the death drive concept in his 1920 work Beyond the Pleasure Principle. This groundbreaking text…
Your Brain Processes Linguistic Structures in Milliseconds
Contemporary digital media transmit rapid messages, such as phone notifications and text overlays on videos, to our brains at a remarkable velocity, significantly exceeding the pace of spoken language. Can we analyze these sentences as swiftly as we can assess the composition of the pictures that constitute our screen experience? The answer seems to be…
What Happens After Narcissistic Injury – Narcissist Experiences
Narcissistic injury, also referred to as narcissistic wound, occurs when an individual with narcissistic traits faces criticism, rejection, perceived abandonment, or failure that challenges their inflated self-image and overwhelms their defense mechanisms. This experience can trigger intense emotional reactions, often manifesting as anger, shame, or anxiety. Narcissistic rage may follow as a defensive response to perceived attacks on the person’s…
Brain Volume Genetic Links to Parkinson’s and ADHD Found
Researchers have identified 254 genetic variants that influence critical structures in the “deep brain,” such as those that regulate memory, motor skills, and addictive behaviors, in one of the most extensive ever studies of DNA and brain volume. The study1 is powered by the Enhancing Neuro Imaging Genetics through Meta-Analysis (ENIGMA) consortium, an international effort…
Childhood Attentional Variability May Predict Psychosis Risk
Your risk of developing psychotic-like experiences may be influenced by both childhood attention problems and genetic makeup, researchers at UCLA have found. The findings1 build upon a long-studied association between childhood attention problems and the likelihood of later developing schizophrenia. UCLA researchers led by Dr. Carrie Bearden used data from around 10,000 children over a…
Amygdala Neural Dysfunction May Underpin Depressive Negativity Bias
Between 15 and 20% of people experience a depressive episode – “a state of deep, lasting distress” – at some point in their lives. But 30% of patients with depression are resistant to conventional medical treatment with antidepressants. Depression is characterized by, among other things, a tendency to perceive sensory stimuli and everyday situations in…
In-utero Gene Editing Tool for Neurodevelopmental Conditions
A recent study1 from the University of California, Davis, demonstrates that a biomedical tool can successfully transfer genetic material to alter defective genes in developing fetal brain cells. The device, which has been tested in animals, may be able to halt the growth of genetically based neurodevelopmental diseases, including Angelman syndrome and Rett syndrome, before…
Vicarious Traumatization: Understanding Secondary Stress
Vicarious traumatization refers to the transformation in a helper’s inner experience resulting from empathetic engagement with trauma survivors. It differs from burnout or compassion fatigue by specifically altering one’s cognitive schemas and belief systems. Irene Lisa McCann and Laurie Anne Pearlman coined the phrase vicarious trauma (VT). The phenomenon is also known as secondary traumatic stress,…
Behavioral Signals Affect All Visual System Processing Stages
The conventional view in research has been that the primary objective of human perception is to distinguish objects and assign them to distinct categories — for example, this seen object is a dog, and dogs are classified as animals. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig and Justus…