Tag: Brain

Got Brain Cells? Here is How To Grow New Ones

When I was growing up as a wee neuroscientist, I was told that we could not grow any new brain cells.  So, when you go on a bender and wake up to feel like a jack-hammer is lodged in your head because of all the neurons you pummeled the...

When Colors Have Smells and Numbers Have Sex

The brain is a funny place. This condition, called “Synesthesia”, involves the interposition of senses that are normally separate. There are reports of these people, called Synesthetes,  who literally feel colors, but also can taste them, and hear them, and smell them. If they get a paper cut, they might see...

Don’t Shrink-Wrap Your Brain

Whatever you do, DON’T shrink your brain!! Nearly 300 people in Pittsburgh kept track of how much they walked each week. After nine years of this, scientists took brain scans to measure their brain volume. After four more years, they tested to see if anyone in the study had...

Want Better Grades? Here’s How You Get Them

It doesn’t matter if you’re in Middle School or College … if you exercise, you make better grades. After controlling for every extraneous variable on the planet, researchers showed that exercise made a sizable difference in a student’s G.P.A. On a 4.0 grade scale, students who exercised vigorously seven...

Your Brain on Portions and Pleasure

This report speaks directly to the message we are trying to get across: that overweight and obesity is about more than just molecule micromanagment. To love your food and reintroduce pleasurable eating, can lead to neural changes that can help reduce overconsumption. In this study, they used chocolate milkshakes,...

Neurobics

And-a one, and-a two, keep it up, sweat it out! This is the brain version of exercise routines. But in stead of trying to increase the aerobic capacity of your lungs, in stead of wearing sweat bands and following the spandex’d, bouncy leader at the front of the room,...

Red Red Wine

People who drink to forget might actually succeed if they just stopped at a couple. In fact, red wine helps to reinforce the neural circuits that control negative emotional memory (Now See Here). Of course, having more than just a couple is a physiological disaster across the board, but...

Cruciforms

Some foods are great at fighting fires in your body (Now See Here). These are the “cruciferous” and “green leafy” veggies, and including cauliflower, spinach, kale, broccoli, cabbage, brussels sprout and collards. One of the many benefits of these particular vegetables is their Vitamin E content, which is substantial....

Blueberry Brains

If, by now, you don’t have blueberries on the brain, you should. This food has been dubbed a “Superfood”, and for good reason. Not only is it delicious, not only is it righteous in a pie, and stellar in yogurt, but it can also slow and even reverse the...

Fish on the Brain

A while back, health authorities told us not to eat salmon … too many oils, you know. Rather than “risk it”, you should take Omega3 fatty acid pills. Remember when we weren’t supposed to eat fatty nuts, like walnuts? Although terrific in someone’s little theory about how the body...

Break the Fast

What about breakfast? There are cultures in the world who don’t insist that their people eat a 3 egg omelet every morning. These are people who are thin and healthy, as well. So why is that if, quote, Breakfast is the Most Important Meal of the Day? Much of...