July 8, 2025
(MIT Technology Review) – It’s a common view among neuroscientists that building brainlike neural networks is one of the most promising paths for the field, and that attitude has started to spread to psychology. Last week, the prestigious journal Nature … Read More
July 7, 2025
(Axios) – It’s not food, it’s not chewing tobacco and it’s not gum — though it might look like it when you see it — but it is becoming America’s new addictive obsession. Why it matters: Sales of Zyn nicotine … Read More
July 7, 2025
(Wired) – As psychedelic companies and therapy apps experiment with AI, people are already taking huge doses of drugs and using chatbots to process their trips. He recently asked the app’s “chat with your mind” function how he had become … Read More
July 4, 2025
(Nature) – Brain–computer interfaces being trialled in China offer some advantages over Neuralink and other leading US devices. A deep brain device that allowed a man with no limbs to play computer games is one of an increasing number of … Read More
July 3, 2025
(Undark) – Although the evidence is limited, some psychiatrists are using ketogenic diets to treat psychiatric disorders. In fact, ketogenic diets have long been used in conventional medicine to treat severe or intractable epilepsy. Several studies published in the past … Read More
July 3, 2025
(Front Porch Republic) – One does not need too much imagination to understand how Leopold’s critique of over-mechanized hunting is generalizable to the relationship between technology and all facets of life. In the case of large language models and their … Read More
July 2, 2025
(MIT Technology Review) – Peter—who asked to have his last name omitted from this story for privacy reasons—is far from alone. A growing number of people are using AI chatbots as “trip sitters”—a phrase that traditionally refers to a sober … Read More
July 1, 2025
(Aeon) – Emerging research from the past few years has revealed that, within an individual, ADHD can be highly unstable across the lifespan. Many, if not most, individuals with ADHD, will meet formal diagnostic criteria for the disorder during some … Read More
July 1, 2025
(Harper’s Magazine) – What were we if not obsessive-compulsive, we who so often traced our origins to a people whose very name, the Puritans, epitomized the perfectionistic delusion underlying this illness? A people so committed to virtue that they’d risked … Read More
June 30, 2025
(Wall Street Journal) – Among members of the Richardson family who carry a mutation in the PSEN1 gene, the average age when symptoms start is 39 Hannah’s family has a history of a rare genetic mutation that, when inherited, virtually … Read More
June 30, 2025
(The New Yorker) – Ted Bundy, Charles Manson, and many other notorious figures lived in and around Tacoma in the sixties. A new book argues that there was something in the water. During the “golden age” of serial killing, between … Read More
June 24, 2025
(New York Times) – Robert F. Kennedy Jr., secretary of health and human services, is correct that reported autism rates have exploded in the last 30 years — they’ve increased roughly 60-fold — but he is dead wrong about the … Read More
June 24, 2025
(Aeon) – The misunderstood story of Phineas Gage shows that we need a new way of understanding the experiences of brain injury survivors We mostly used the term ‘disinhibition’ as a mitigation: an invitation to think creatively about how to … Read More
June 24, 2025
(Nature) – Liraglutide, a member of the family of blockbuster weight-loss drugs, reduces headaches by half in a small study. Head-splitting migraines could be the next ailment in a seemingly endless list that a class of blockbuster weight-loss drugs might … Read More
June 20, 2025
(TIME) – Does ChatGPT harm critical thinking abilities? A new study from researchers at MIT’s Media Lab has returned some concerning results. The study divided 54 subjects—18 to 39 year-olds from the Boston area—into three groups, and asked them to … Read More
June 20, 2025
(Wall Street Journal) – Ibogaine has been touted for its potential to erase years of addiction and withdrawal in one session. Banned in the U.S., the drug is prompting Americans to cross borders for treatment. Desperate to break free from … Read More
June 19, 2025
(Fox News) – The potential risk of cannabis use has been in the spotlight following recent research pointing toward negative health effects. This includes a new meta-analysis by French researchers, published in the journal Heart, which reviewed multiple studies to … Read More
June 19, 2025
(AP) – The Dutch government advised parents on Tuesday not to have children under 15 use social media platforms such as TikTok and Instagram, citing psychological and physical problems among children using them, including panic attacks, depression and difficulties sleeping. … Read More
June 19, 2025
(NPR) – A new study finds that addiction to social media, mobile phones and video games is linked to a higher risk of suicidal thoughts and behaviors. The study, published in JAMA on Wednesday, looked at data on more than … Read More
June 19, 2025
(Nature) – Research is revealing the cellular mechanisms that link mental well-being and longevity. There might be a paradox in the biology of ageing. As humans grow older, their metabolisms tend to slow, they lose muscle mass and they burn … Read More
June 16, 2025
(Wall Street Journal) – Parents desperate for treatments say cannabis helps, but doctors urge caution Marijuana is becoming easier to get in many states, and one group showing interest might surprise you: parents of children with autism. In online and … Read More
June 16, 2025
(Wall Street Journal) – A drop in overdoses astounded public officials and health experts who traveled across the country to learn the formula and replicate it The formula: making recovery a community affair. Many of the initiatives making a difference … Read More
June 16, 2025
(New York Times) – Generative A.I. chatbots are going down conspiratorial rabbit holes and endorsing wild, mystical belief systems. For some people, conversations with the technology can deeply distort reality. ChatGPT presented Mr. Torres with a new action plan, this … Read More
June 13, 2025
(Undark) – Jennie Erin Smith’s “Valley of Forgetting” explores the genetics of early-onset dementia plaguing a mountain region. That cause — a hereditary genetic mutation known as E280A — is at the heart of science journalist Jennie Erin Smith’s deeply … Read More
June 12, 2025
(ABC News) – The Supreme Court sided with a teenage girl with a rare form of epilepsy on Thursday in a unanimous ruling that could make it easier for families like hers to go to court over access to education. … Read More