…or is it something else? Sci is at SciAm blogs today taking on a paper that got some press last week, claiming a relationship between immune function, cortisol levels, testosterone, and attractiveness in men. Head over there to find out what I think of it.
Sci is at SciAm blogs today, talking about using blood levels of BDNF to predict whether or not patients will respond to antidepressants. It’s a very preliminary study, but I think in the long run it could be very clinically useful. Head over and check it out.
I got a reader question in my inbox recently which caused me to go on an instant pubmed hunt: is there a link between hypotension and major depressive disorder, and if so, does increasing blood pressure help? And the more I dug, the more I realized that the answer is both very complicated…and pretty unknown. […]
Sci does not celebrate Valentine’s Day in general. I prefer to celebrate tomorrow, February 15th, otherwise known as the day when all the chocolate goes 50{9f43b4361d9a125bc126dd2a2d1949be02545ec69880430bc4fed2272fd72da3} off and I wallow in glorious sugar. But for those of you who want to celebrate Valentine’s Day SCIENCE-STYLE, head over to the Stanford website and twitter feed, where […]
Sci is at SciAm Blogs today, talking about a new study in humans looking at normal, every day social interactions and cytokines, one of the important signaling molecules in inflammation. IS you competitive spirit bad for your health? Head over and find out!
…and unfortunately, that’s all this paper is. Check out your brain on drugs, and read why I really wanted something better, over at The Scicurious Brain. Check it out!
Sci is at SciAm today, talking about using neuronal transplants in genetically altered mice, to treat their severe obesity and diabetes. The work tells us a lot about how appetite and metabolism are controlled by the hypothalamus, and it also gives a hint as to how much we don’t know. Head over there and check […]
As you sip your morning (or afternoon, or evening!) coffee today, check out Scicurious at Scientific American, where I’m talking where caffeine produces its stimulation in the brain. Check it out, and keep sipping! 🙂
Today we have a study on sad lonely lady rats. And why? Because it’s about time we paid attention to the ladies. The vast majority of studies on anything other than reproduction get done in males. Males are thought to be “easier” (you don’t have to track the menstrual cycle), and besides, what we find […]
Sci is over at Scientific American today, talking about a new study in PNAS on ocytocin receptor gene variants and how people respond to social stress. And it turns out only some people may respond best when their friends are around. It’s a very cool study, go check it out!