Psychology & Psychiatry

Journey into the dilemmas of the brain

When you go to a restaurant, do you always order the same thing or do you like to try something new? If you order your favorite dish, you're guaranteed a delicious meal. If you order something you haven't tried before, you ...

Psychology & Psychiatry

Reducing anxiety and stress with pupil feedback

Our pupils are a mirror of our state of arousal: they dilate when we are tense, stressed or even panicky, and constrict when we calm down. Key to this is an area of the brain measuring about 15 millimeters: a nucleus in the ...

Neuroscience

Neurotransmitter orexin influences pupil size, research shows

The way the brain regulates pupil size is different from previously thought: fundamentally responsible is the neurotransmitter orexin, as researchers at ETH Zurich have now shown. This discovery could well alter our understanding ...

Neuroscience

Pupil dilation: A window to perception

The eyes are often referred to as the "windows to the soul." In fact, there is a grain of neurobiological truth to this. An international research team from the Universities of Göttingen and Tübingen, Germany, and Baylor ...

Psychology & Psychiatry

How the brain helps us focus our attention

How can we shift from a state of inattentiveness to one of highest attention? The locus coeruleus, literally the "blue spot," is a tiny cluster of cells at the base of the brain. As the main source of the neurotransmitter ...

Psychology & Psychiatry

Pupils mirror perception of social interaction

Humans are endowed with intrinsic social motivation to interact with others and to maintain social relationships. It has been demonstrated that pupil size may serve as a window for personal motivations, such as sex, money ...

Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes

European children back to school amidst virus fears

French pupils go back to school Tuesday as schools across Europe open their doors to greet returning pupils this month, nearly six months after the coronavirus outbreak forced them to close and despite rising infection rates ...

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