brain activity

Unless you are this woman, you probably have a long mental list of moments and facts you wish you could remember -- but for the life of you, you can't. To use a personal example, I periodically Google the words "yellow house Berlin," hoping to produce the name of that one hostel I lived in for a summer in college; alas, no success yet.

Maybe it's not pseudoscience after all. Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS), a technique that stimulates brain activity through externally-delivered magnetic pulses, has been alternately hailed and written-off for years, showing promise in some studies while proving ineffective in others.

Lately, though, scientists at several major universities have been saying that the technology is finally refined enough to start making a difference, and a new study to be published in Biological Psychiatry suggests they might be right. In a multi-center trial, 301 medication-free but severely depressed patients received either real or sham TMS for 4-6 weeks. The researchers report that side effects were minimal, and TMS proved to be an effective treatment—with the real TMS proving significantly more effective than the placebo version.—Gregory Mone

The immune system. Metabolism. Learning and memory. Running short on sleep impairs each of these functions and processes, and now scientists say that it can affect our emotional balance, too.

A group led by Berkeley neuroscientist Matthew Walker used fMRI scans of subjects to show that a lack of sleep messes with the brain's ability to respond to negative stimuli. The researchers kept the volunteers awake for 35 hours, showed them images that would provoke positive or negative reactions, and recorded the response in brain activity. Regions of the brain associated with emotional reactions spiked in sleep-deprived subjects, relative to the well-rested. A word to fathers with newborns: Don't show this paper to your wife. She won't appreciate it.—Gregory Mone

Via MindHacks

A recent study in the journal Psychological Science reports that older people are much more likely to shrug off a negative experience or emotion. The scientists recorded the brain activity of 63 adults of different ages while showing them a series of positive and negative images.

The younger folk held on to the negative feelings, while the older crowd was able to move on, and not let the bad pics bring them down. I'm not sure if this explains the single most annoying character in the universe, pictured at left, but you can read more about the study here. And if you're young, try not to get all worked up about it.—Gregory Mone

Via LA Times