Category Archives: Emotions

January 20

A review: “How Emotions are Made” by Lisa Feldman Barrett

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Take a moment and think about the last time you saw someone cry, or broke into a fit of laughter with your friends. It’s memories like these that last the longest in our minds and ultimately make up who we are – our ability to feel a vast range of emotions, and to share those […]

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May 07

Take a Trip Down Memory Lane: the study of nostalgia

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Living through a global pandemic with limited access to friends, family, and fun has undoubtedly left many of us feeling emotional. Perhaps you’ve been listening to music during your many hours at home and a song has come on that forces you to reminisce on a particular trip you took with your best friend in […]

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February 18

Surprise!! A surprise birthday party is a “touchy” subject during a global pandemic

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I open the door to my apartment and switch on the light, and  at first I cannot see anything, because I’m coming in from a dimly lit hallway. But I also don’t have to see anything, because all I hear is a loud “SURPRISE” synchronously shouted from at least 20 people. My heart jumps, my […]

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November 12

How Light Leads to Darkness: A Neural Link Between Nighttime Light and Depression

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Nighttime light exposure can lead to depression. A new study brings us closer to understanding why, and what we can do about it.

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November 05

Why do we get hangry?

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I’ll admit it – I get very hangry. “Hangry” (a colloquial combo of “hunger” and “angry”) describes the grumpiness and irritability I experience when I’ve gone a bit too long between meals. Hunger itself is an important physiological feeling that signals when our body is low on energy that needs to be replenished by eating. […]

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April 23

I Can See it in Your Face: Facial Expressions in Mice

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How do you know what an animal is feeling? Unfortunately, you can’t ask a dog, mouse, or fly how they are feeling or what they are thinking. This is one of the chief problems in animal research – we just don’t have ready access to their internal thoughts and feelings. This inability to access the […]

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January 30

Love in the Time of PCR

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(Image credit: CellPress)  Renowned geneticist George Church caused a stir last month with his idea for a brand new dating app, in which users submit their DNA for sequencing as a critical part of their profile.  Church’s app, “digiD8”, doesn’t connect tech-savvy singles who love all-things-90’s, as the name implies, but rather matches users based […]

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December 26

Open Borders: Remapping the Brain

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While reading articles online, you may occasionally stumble across headlines like “Scientists find fear center of the brain,” or “Could this really be where the mind resides?” You might have also heard a TED talk where the speaker discusses how they discovered a part of the brain that makes decisions. Such expressions can take more […]

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July 12

How do you feel? Interoception- the new science of emotion

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[En español] What happens when someone asks, “How do you feel?” Besides possibly uttering the rote response, “good, how are you”—what is the process of sensing how you’re really feeling in that moment? It seems to involve interoception—the sense of the physiological condition of the body. Interoception mediates many different sensations—pain, temperature, itch, hunger, sexual […]

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May 16

Why Do I Care So Damn Much About Game of Thrones?

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Spoiler Alert. Although the neuroscientific, psychological, and cinematic concepts explored in this piece are relevant to all kinds of fiction beyond Game of Thrones, this post will be examining these concepts through the lens of the global obsession surrounding the final season of Game of Thrones, which wraps up in just a few days. So […]

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