How Money Affects the Brain’s Reward System (Why Money is Addictive)
A study by Elliott and colleagues (2003), published in The Journal of Neuroscience, used a functional magnetic resonance imaging technique (fMRI) to identify the brain areas that are affected by...
View ArticleWhat Are The Main Functions of the Frontal and Temporal Lobes?
What are the main functions of the frontal and temporal lobes? Frontotemporal dementia shows us. Frontotemporal degeneration typically occurs because of frontotemporal dementia. It is called...
View ArticleThe Effects of Glutamate in the Treatment of Anxiety Disorders
Anxiety disorders are some of the most frequent psychological disorders, and the processes involved in fear conditioning seem to be the same across species, i.e. the same neural structures may be...
View ArticleThe Impact of Serotonin on Social Behaviors
The impact of the neurotransmitter serotonin on the brain functioning is extensive, and the treatment of a number of psychological disorders involves serotonin in some way or another. A new...
View ArticleHow Your Mood Influences Your Cognitive Functioning
A literature review by Mitchell & Phillips (2007) examined how positive and negative moods influence people’s cognitive functioning, or more specifically, executive functions. Positive moods...
View ArticleManual Experience With an Object Shapes Its Meaning
The sensorimotor-based theories posit that the brain becomes activated in the same brain regions when people perceive and interact with an object, and when they store its meaning. Therefore, having an...
View ArticleLeft-Brain vs. Right-Brain Personalities: Fact or Fiction?
A new study by Nielsen and colleagues (2013) examined this by using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The authors obtained data from fMRI reports of 1011 individuals between the ages of 7...
View ArticleStudy: Smiling Makes You More Attractive
A study by Golle, Mast & Lobmaier (2013) shows how emotional expressions of happiness influence the judgment of attractiveness. The researchers manipulated faces with computer graphics software to...
View ArticleThe Brain’s Reward System: Is Dopamine the Only ‘Feel Good’ Chemical?
Much evidence has associated dopamine with the brain’s reward system. For this reason, dopamine has been called the “feel good” or pleasure chemical. Stimulation of the neurotransmitter, dopamine,...
View ArticleDoes Brain Training Work or is it a Waste of Time? This is What Research Shows
Brain training is a hot topic. It’s a million-dollar business and its popularity is still increasing. We have been interested in increasing people’s intelligence since the study of intelligence, but...
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