Author Archives: kkiritah

January 12

Dosing Dopamine to Regulate Rest

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Sleep is great.  We all do it (sort of), and the fortunate among us can look forward to getting some sweet slumber every night.  But sometimes, something better comes along.  A new video game, Netflix series, or Tinder date might be so captivating that even late into the night, our body’s need for sleep seems […]

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October 20

Cuteness, or How I Scammed My Way to Adulthood

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I have a confession to make: I am a scammer. You’re born naked and the rest is scam. — Joanne The Scammer (@joanneprada) May 18, 2016 When I was born, I was completely unsuited to survive on my own.  Considering all of my accomplishments today, it’s hard to believe that when I got started, I […]

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March 11

Heavy on My Mind: Lead Poisoning (Part I)

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I fear (read: know) that I am not the only person who has chosen to ignore the water crisis in Flint, Michigan. It’s depressing and complicated. But it is also important, and not just about Flint. In this post, I discuss the biological and economic costs of lead poisoning. Its effects are widespread throughout the body—and the United States—and I hope you will find them worthy of your attention.

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June 11

Technicalities of the Tingles: The science of sounds that feel good. #ASMR

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“I wanted someone speaking in lightly accented English. And I wanted them talking to me about jewelry, slowly and deliberately.” — Andrea Seigel, This American Life #491: Tribes (aired March 29, 2013) Now that NeuWriteSD’s gender month is over, I thought I’d ease our readers back into the usual routine with a scientifically-stimulating but slightly […]

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October 16

Lithium: Wonder Drug? Part II

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Note from the author: This post is dedicated to my biology nerds out there.  If you follow my Gene-of-the-Week posts (and you should because they’re the weirdest), you know that I often get lost in the cellular and molecular details of life, and it’s totally overwhelming.  I wrote this post specifically to discuss the mechanisms […]

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August 14

Let’s Talk About Sleep

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Oh no.  It’s 4am, and I’ve done it again.  Ugh.  I’ve waited until the last minute to write my NeuWriteSD post, and now it’s 4am.  And I haven’t slept since 5am yesterday morning.  Ugh. As you might imagine, I’m feeling pretty terrible.  Not only because of the guilt (since I was supposed to have this […]

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April 03

Talkin’ 2 Myself: Eminem and the Science of Inner Speech

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The other day, I was listening to Eminem’s “Talkin’ 2 Myself,” and I started thinking about the therapeutic effects of talking to oneself (coincidentally, Eminem briefly discussed the song with Big Boy on Power 106 this Monday!   Seriously random, considering Recovery was released in 2010…).  Specifically, I was curious about the fine line between […]

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January 03

Help the Hoarders!

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I am—like most of my neuroscientist and psychologist colleagues, I’m sure—a mental hypochondriac. As a nervous perfectionist and self-proclaimed weirdo with a laundry list of mild psychiatric conditions (professionally and personally diagnosed), my interest in neuroscience has always been driven by a selfish desire to know more about myself and my strange brain (link art […]

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November 29

Rx: Gratitude

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Now that Thanksgiving is over, how are you feeling?  Are you still sleepily savoring the leftover turkey and stuffing from last night’s dinner?  Or have too much family time, traffic, and consumerism of Black Friday brought the onset of the holiday blues (Goin, 2002)1? In a recent study on the effects of the Thanksgiving holiday […]

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November 19

Random, Hilarious, Scientific (?) SfN

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I enjoyed a lot of random things at SfN this year.  For example, I enjoyed composer Bruce Adolphe’s preview of a new piece for piano and orchestra, inspired by a discussion between bipolar patient (piano) and therapist (orchestra), which will be performed by the New York Philharmonic in 2015.  I also enjoyed the way Eric Kandel says […]

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