Zitat des Tages von Robin Marantz Henig:
For humans and animals alike, truly vigorous, wholehearted, spontaneous play is something of a biological frill.
Lies can be verbal or nonverbal, kindhearted or self-serving, devious or bald-faced; they can be lies of omission or lies of commission; they can be lies that undermine national security or lies that make a child feel better. And each type might involve a unique neural pathway.
There's very little about being in a functional-M.R.I. scanner that is natural: you are flat on your back, absolutely still, with your head immobilized by pillows and straps. The scanner makes a dreadful din, which headphones barely muffle.
Many of us are tethered to bodies that sabotage us in our struggle to keep from getting fat, or to slim down when we do.
As people construct a life narrative, researchers have found, they tend to remember more events from the teens and twenties than from any other time. It's called the 'reminiscence bump.'
The essence of play is that the sequence of actions is fluid and scattered.
As the brain matures, one thing that happens is the pruning of the synapses. Synaptic pruning does not occur willy-nilly; it depends largely on how any one brain pathway is used.
Elderly parents tend to think their relationship with their middle-aged children is smoother than the children do. Adult grandchildren, who have little stake in pulling away from their grandparents, tend to describe that relationship as less rose-colored than do Gram and Gramps.
The limbic system explodes during puberty, but the prefrontal cortex keeps maturing for another 10 years.
Hardships of early human life favored the evolution of certain cognitive tools, among them the ability to infer the presence of organisms that might do harm, to come up with causal narratives for natural events and to recognize that other people have minds of their own with their own beliefs, desires and intentions.
The tenuousness of modern life can make anyone feel overwrought.
The human brain has evolved the capacity to impose a narrative, complete with chronology and cause-and-effect logic, on whatever it encounters, no matter how apparently random.
The English language has 112 words for deception, according to one count, each with a different shade of meaning: collusion, fakery, malingering, self-deception, confabulation, prevarication, exaggeration, denial.
Even though loneliness affects so many of us, it has gotten scant research attention compared to related conditions like depression or anxiety.
Some of my happiest moments are the ones I spend with my husband, a few close relatives, and a handful of very good friends who know me well and like me anyway.
The 20s are like the stem cell of human development: the pluripotent moment when any of several outcomes is possible. Decisions and actions during this time have lasting ramifications.
Scientists who study play, in animals and humans alike, are developing a consensus view that play is something more than a way for restless kids to work off steam; more than a way for chubby kids to burn off calories; more than a frivolous luxury.
It's almost a rite of passage for the middle-aged, it seems, to invent generational stereotypes for dumping on the young.
Anxiety is not fear, exactly, because fear is focused on something right in front of you - a real and objective danger.
Biology sets the context, and that is critical, but obesity still boils down to whether a person eats too much or exercises enough.