Postoperative delirium, a syndrome of confusion that often appears in the first few days following surgery, affects up to 40% of elder surgery patients. Postoperative delirium has been linked to extended hospital stays, severe distress, and major postoperative consequences, although the underlying causes remain unknown. Previous research in mice suggested that postoperative delirium could be…
How Your Hippocampus Differentiates False Memories from Genuine Ones
Summary: A study from the University of Pennsylvania has found that electrical signals in the human hippocampus differ immediately before recollection of true and false memories. The researchers found that low-frequency activity in the hippocampus decreases as a function of contextual similarity between a falsely recalled word and the target word. This suggests that the…
Risk of Chronic Physical Health Conditions Across the Whole Body Higher in Autistic People
A study led by University of Cambridge researchers has found that individuals with autism are more likely to have complex health needs and to have higher rates of chronic physical health conditions occurring throughout the body. The findings have important implications for the clinical care of autistic people. Numerous physical health issues are more common…
Lonely People Blur Lines Between Real and Fictional Persons
According to a new study, the boundary between real friends and favourite fictional characters blurs in the part of the brain that is active when thinking about others in lonely people. Researchers scanned the brains of “Game of Thrones” fans while they contemplated various characters on the show and their actual companions. Everyone had completed…
Fear of Missing Out Can Influence Family Planning
Summary: A study by Rutgers University reveals that a significant number of parents in the US, around 7%, say they wouldn’t have children if they could do it over again. The fear of missing out, or “FOMO,” is a key motivator for these parents. The researchers collected narratives from Reddit’s /r/childfree subreddit, an online community…
Upper-layer Pyramidal Neurons are Hyperactive Prior to Degeneration
Summary: A study led by researchers at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard has analyzed rare brain tissue samples from 52 living patients with varying degrees of Alzheimer’s-related changes in the brain, including 17 individuals later clinically diagnosed with the disease. The team identified a suite of changes in cells unique to the early…
How Creative Idea Generation is Influenced by Individual Preferences
We shape our thoughts more quickly the more we like them. But we must prioritize unconventional thinking if we are to be innovative. Researchers from Inserm at the Paris Brain Institute Alizée Lopez-Persem and Emmanuelle Volle demonstrated this in a recent study. Through the use of a computational model to reproduce the many elements of…
I Feel Love by Rachel Nuwer Review – MDMA Backstory Explained
Rachel Nuwer’s “I Feel Love: MDMA and the Quest for Connection in a Fractured World,” is clearly aimed at a broad audience. It will resonate with readers who have experienced MDMA recreationally, probably at a rave, or therapeutically, probably to heal the emotional aftereffects of deep-seated trauma. Or both. But it’s also intended for readers…
Giving Vague Answers Makes People Less Likeable
According to a new James Cook University study, being vague may not be the best way to make friends and influence people. Dr. Deming (Adam) Wang, a social psychologist, and his team conducted nine experiments with Western and Asian participants to examine the reception of ambiguous and direct responses to queries. Ambiguous responses were sometimes…