From love and politics to health and finances, humans can sometimes make decisions that appear irrational, or dictated by an existing bias or belief. But a new study from Columbia University neuroscientists uncovers a surprisingly rational feature of the human brain: A previously held bias can be set aside so that the brain can apply …
This is the first time in recent decades that these many high income countries simultaneously experienced declines in life expectancy for both men and women, and the size of these declines were larger than in the past. In the non-US countries, these declines were largely concentrated at ages 65 and older and likely related to …
Conflicts about social hierarchy, tension around religious differences, and even betting on Super Bowl winners share the dynamics of us and them. Rather than approaching each example separately, Dunham argues that the us-and-them phenomenon can explain most of the observations we have about inter-group dynamics, and the things it fails to explain should then constitute …
New research by Harvard Business School associate professor Ethan Bernstein and colleagues, to be published online next week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS), suggests that “always on” may not be always effective. “Intermittently on” might, instead, be better for complex problem solving. In their study …
The key to people’s accepting fake news as true, despite evidence to the contrary, is a phenomenon known as confirmation bias, or the tendency for people to seek and accept information that confirms their existing beliefs while rejecting or ignoring that which contradicts those beliefs, he said. Many of these beliefs and biases are formed …
A new area in depression research suggests dysfunction in mitochondria — the main source of energy for cells — could lead to major depression. Published in Frontiers in Neuroscience, this new insight to long-held theories on the causes of depression could lead to the development of novel and more effective antidepressant drugs. Depression is a …
Healthcare providers and researchers rely on screening questions to detect patients who may be at risk for developing Alzheimer’s disease and other aging-related problems, but how these questions are worded may be confusing or trigger emotional responses. According to Penn State researchers, this may result in patients who answer the same questions differently, and for …
The Wellcome-funded research, published in The Journal of Neuroscience, reveals that a known tendency of people to take more notice of good news than bad news – the optimism bias – disappears when people feel threatened. “Generally, people are quite optimistic – we ignore the bad and embrace the good. And this is indeed what …
In June 2016, the team used a novel method developed by Frances Barg, MD, a professor of Family Medicine and Community Health, to gather 315 anonymous stories about experiences with inclusion or lack thereof in response to two open-ended questions posed to employees, faculty, and students of four health science schools and six hospitals, including …
Researchers find that a deficiency of acetyl-L-carnitine is associated with a particular subtype of depression. Individuals with very low levels of this molecule often have highly severe symptoms and don’t respond to traditional antidepressants. In the latest study, the scientists measured levels of LAC in blood samples taken from people diagnosed with MDD. They found …