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Puerto Rico’s “Fear Lab” Mentors Neuroscience Rigor amid Diversity
A lineage of young neuroscientists from diverse backgrounds trace their scientific roots to a “fear lab” in Puerto Rico that the National Institutes of Health has been supporting for two decades. A crucible for studies of fear extinction, the lab has so far published 80 papers—some the first ever from Puerto Rico for certain journals—that generate more than 2,000 citations a year. Of 130 young people trained in the lab, 90 percent are from Puerto Rico and Latin America and half are women.
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Policy Statements on the Effects of Media Overlook Scientific Complexity
Organizations and associations have issued statements about the effects of media exposure, but many such statements do not accurately reflect the available scientific evidence, researchers find.
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Putting Yourself in Their Shoes May Make You Less Open to Their Beliefs
Trying to take someone else’s perspective may make you less open to their opposing views, according to findings published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. “As political polarization in America
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New Research From Clinical Psychological Science
A sample of research exploring personality and psychopathology, the relationship between attention and depression, and the influence of social anxiety on social behavior in competitive contexts.
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This Is Your Brain Off Facebook
The world’s most common digital habit is not easy to break, even in a fit of moral outrage over the privacy risks and political divisions Facebook has created, or amid concerns about how the habit might affect emotional health. Although four in 10 Facebook users say they have taken long breaks from it, the digital platform keeps growing. A recent study found that the average user would have to be paid $1,000 to $2,000 to be pried away for a year. So what happens if you actually do quit? A new study, the most comprehensive to date, offers a preview. Expect the consequences to be fairly immediate: More in-person time with friends and family.
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From Fruit Fly To Stink Eye: Searching For Anger’s Animal Roots
For comedian Lewis Black, anger is a job. Black is famous for his rants about stuff he finds annoying or unfair or just plain infuriating. Onstage, he often looks ready for a fight. He leans forward. He shouts. He stabs the air with an index finger, or a middle finger. To a scientist, Black looks a lot like a belligerent dog, or an irritated gerbil. "Practically every sexually reproducing, multicellular animal shows aggressive behavior," says David Anderson, a professor of biology at Caltech and co-author of the book The Neuroscience of Emotion."Fruit flies show aggression." When I relay that last bit to Black, he's skeptical. "Really?" he says.
