Tag Archives: dopamine

September 19

Solving the Puzzle of Addiction

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According to the United Nations’s World Drug Report of 2024, the number of people who use drugs worldwide had risen to 292 million in 2022, a 20 percent increase over the past 10 years (1). Further more, an estimated 64 million of those people suffer from a substance use disorder (addiction). The study of addiction […]

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June 20

When Illusions Help

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What can pushing the limits of reality do for you? There has been a lot of interest recently in using the mind-altering properties of a class of drugs known as psychedelics in the treatment of many psychiatric and neurological disorders. Currently, psychedelics are being explored as a novel treatment for depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, […]

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April 20

This is your brain on drugs: how cannabis products affect the brain and body

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How do Cannabis products affect the brain and body?

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December 22

Fatal Attraction: What is Sex and Love Addiction?

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Have you ever been in love? Has it made you do crazy things? Whether it was sending your lover bundles of flowers, stalking their social media (or stalking them in person), or boiling a rabbit in a pot of water, we’ve all been there. We know that love is enthralling. It is potent enough in […]

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July 07

The Forgotten:

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Image source: “New Awakenings: The Legacy & Future of Encephalitis Lethargica (EL)” (Sparacin 2012) Some call it “the sleepy-sickness”, others encephalitis lethargica. This mysterious disease, lost to time, bears its colloquial name because those who contracted it entered an “all-enveloping trancelike sleep” (1); and some of those who entered this sleep, did not awake for […]

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Ultra-cool cartoon microglia September 03

Microglia as Architects and Designers for Your New Brain

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[En español] While neurons tend to get the spotlight in the brain, there’re tons of other cell types working in the background to support brain health and function. Microglia are one such cell type, often described as the immune cells of the brain, patrolling and gobbling things up like white blood cells do in the […]

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March 26

How is your brain coping with social distancing?

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[En español] Amidst an ever-growing national and global crisis unleashed by the COVID-19 pandemic, you’ve probably already heard about (and are hopefully practicing) social distancing. The Center for Disease Control defines social distancing as “remaining out of congregate settings, avoiding mass gatherings, and maintaining distance (approximately 6 feet or 2 meters) from others when possible”. […]

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September 05

“I see it, I like it, I want it, I got it”

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I would never have thought that an Ariana Grande song could lend itself to talking about an interesting avenue of neuroscience research. Yet the catchy phrase repeatedly featured in her most recent hit song “7 rings,” “I see it, I like it, I want it, I got it,” implicitly highlights the relationship between liking and […]

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October 25

The Science of Stuttering

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A special thank you to Kaja Bajc and Jaymie Horak for their incredibly helpful personal input. How is it that someone can sing fluidly but struggle to introduce herself? Or smoothly imitate a foreign accent without trouble, but get stuck on words when speaking without pretense?  Stuttering is a communication disorder characterized by disruptions (“disfluencies”) […]

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December 28

Machines Comparing Circuitry (or, Understanding Our Uniquely Human Brain)

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I became fascinated by the brain because I was – and continue to be – fascinated by humans. Why are we so obsessed with other people’s lives, including (sometimes especially) those whom we’ve never met? How are we able to communicate such complex emotions with a raise of an eyebrow or even just a glance? […]

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