Consciousness.
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Category: neuroscience – Page 1,026
Why Your Brain Hates Slowpokes
“Why are we impatient? It’s a heritage from our evolution,” says Marc Wittmann, a psychologist at the Institute for Frontier Areas of Psychology and Mental Health in Freiburg, Germany. Impatience made sure we didn’t die from spending too long on a single unrewarding activity. It gave us the impulse to act.
Not long ago I diagnosed myself with the recently identified condition of sidewalk rage. It’s most pronounced when it comes to a certain friend who is a slow walker. Last month, as we sashayed our way to dinner, I found myself biting my tongue, thinking, I have to stop going places with her if I ever want to … get there!
You too can measure yourself on the “Pedestrian Aggressiveness Syndrome Scale,” a tool developed by University of Hawaii psychologist Leon James. While walking in a crowd, do you find yourself “acting in a hostile manner (staring, presenting a mean face, moving closer or faster than expected)” and “enjoying thoughts of violence?”
Slowness rage is not confined to the sidewalk, of course. Slow drivers, slow Internet, slow grocery lines—they all drive us crazy. Even the opening of this article may be going on a little too long for you. So I’ll get to the point. Slow things drive us crazy because the fast pace of society has warped our sense of timing. Things that our great-great-grandparents would have found miraculously efficient now drive us around the bend. Patience is a virtue that’s been vanquished in the Twitter age.
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How a blast to the kidney could end high blood pressure for good
A revolutionary 60-minute therapy for high blood pressure could allow patients to throw their tablets away for good.
The unlikely remedy involves blasting nerves in the kidneys with sound waves to stop them sending signals to the brain that drive up blood pressure.
It could slash the risk of heart attacks and strokes, two of Britain’s biggest killers.
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“The Mice Became Smarter”: New Treatment Restores Aging Brains
Scientists at Stanford University say they’ve devised antibodies that block a specific gene related to brain aging — and that it’s giving old mice the cognitive prowess of younger ones.
“The mice became smarter,” senior author Tony Wyss-Coray said in a statement. “Blocking [the gene] CD22 on their microglia restored their cognitive function to the level of younger mice. CD22 is a new target we think can be exploited for treatment of neurodegenerative diseases.”
Can bees do maths? Yes – new research shows they can add and subtract
The humble honeybee can use symbols to perform basic maths including addition and subtraction, shows new research published today in the journal Science Advances.
Despite having a brain containing less than one million neurons, the honeybee has recently shown it can manage complex problems – like understanding the concept of zero.
Therapy that Dramatically Slows Alzheimer’s has Passed Final Clinical Phase
Through a new approach dubbed AMBAR, the biotechnology company Grifols has attempted to reduce the amount of harmful, Alzheimer’s disease-causing amyloid beta in the brain by collecting it with a blood protein called albumin and draining it out of the bloodstream. This approach differs from the previous antibody and catabody approaches and offers new hope for sufferers of this neurodegenerative disease.
What is Alzheimer’s disease?
Alzheimer’s disease, named after its discoverer, is a slow and progressive disease that causes the degradation of the brains of its sufferers. This leads to memory loss, a decrease in problem-solving abilities, changes in personality, and other symptoms. It is associated with the accumulation of tau and amyloid beta in the brain.
Russia Says “Super Soldiers” Can Crash Computers With Telepathy
According to a report in the official magazine of its Defense Ministry, Russian “supersoldiers” are able to use “parapsychology” techniques to crash enemy computers, access the minds of foreign soldiers, and read documents inside locked safes — abilities they gained, according to the article, from telepathic dolphins they can now communicate with.
The report is almost certainly nonsense. But it does raise questions about the ambitions — and perhaps dysfunctions — of Russia’s military.
GQ talks to Luc Besson, the director who got inside Scarlett Johansson’s brain
Circa 2014
French director, Luc Besson, talks to GQ ahead of the UK release of action-thriller Lucy.
Old People Can Still Make Fresh Brain Cells
The human brain can grow new neurons up to age 97.