Science of the SpiritS


Bulb

University of Alberta researcher questions whether genius might be a result of hormonal influences


University of Alberta
Fri, 11 Mar 2011 10:40 UTC
A longstanding debate as to whether genius is a byproduct of good genes or good environment has an upstart challenger that may take the discussion in an entirely new direction. University of Alberta researcher Marty Mrazik says being bright may be due to an excess level of a natural hormone.

Mrazik, a professor in the Faculty of Education's educational psychology department, and a colleague from Rider University in the U.S., have published a paper in Roeper Review linking giftedness (having an IQ score of 130 or higher) to prenatal exposure of higher levels of testosterone. Mrazik hypothesizes that, in the same way that physical and cognitive deficiencies can be developed in utero, so, too, could similar exposure to this naturally occurring chemical result in giftedness.

"There seems to be some evidence that excessive prenatal exposure to testosterone facilitates increased connections in the brain, especially in the right prefrontal cortex," said Mrazik. "That's why we see some intellectually gifted people with distinct personality characteristics that you don't see in the normal population."
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Bulb

Giftedness Linked to Prenatal Exposure of Higher Levels of Testosterone


ScienceDaily
Sat, 12 Mar 2011 09:49 UTC
Head Brain
© iStockphoto/Vasiliy YakobchukA longstanding debate as to whether genius is a byproduct of good genes or good environment has an upstart challenger that may take the discussion in an entirely new direction. University of Alberta researcher Marty Mrazik says being bright may be due to an excess level of a natural hormone.

A longstanding debate as to whether genius is a byproduct of good genes or good environment has an upstart challenger that may take the discussion in an entirely new direction. University of Alberta researcher Marty Mrazik says being bright may be due to an excess level of a natural hormone.

Mrazik, a professor in the Faculty of Education's educational psychology department, and a colleague from Rider University in the U.S., have published a paper in Roeper Review linking giftedness (having an IQ score of 130 or higher) to prenatal exposure of higher levels of testosterone. Mrazik hypothesizes that, in the same way that physical and cognitive deficiencies can be developed in utero, so, too, could similar exposure to this naturally occurring chemical result in giftedness.

"There seems to be some evidence that excessive prenatal exposure to testosterone facilitates increased connections in the brain, especially in the right prefrontal cortex," said Mrazik. "That's why we see some intellectually gifted people with distinct personality characteristics that you don't see in the normal population."
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People

More Reasons to Be Nice: It's Less Work for Everyone


Association for Psychological Science
Wed, 09 Mar 2011 14:48 UTC
holding door
© Unknown
A polite act shows respect. But a new study of a common etiquette - holding a door for someone - suggests that courtesy may have a more practical, though unconscious, shared motivation: to reduce the work for those involved. The research, by Joseph P. Santamaria and David A. Rosenbaum of Pennsylvania State University, is the first to combine two fields of study ordinarily considered unrelated: altruism and motor control. It is to be published in a forthcoming issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

"The way etiquette has been viewed by Emily Post - that you're being proper by following social codes - is undoubtedly part of it," said psychology professor Rosenbaum. "Our insight is there is another contributor: the mental representation of other people's physical effort. Substantial research in the field of motor control shows that people are good at estimating how much effort they and others expend," Rosenbaum continued. "We realized that this concept could be extended to a shared-effort model of politeness."
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Family

Boy toddlers need extra help dealing with negative emotions


University of Illinois College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences
Tue, 08 Mar 2011 14:14 UTC
Image
© Unknown
The way you react to your two-year-old's temper tantrums or clinginess may lead to anxiety, withdrawal and behavior problems down the road, and the effect is more pronounced if the child is a boy who often displays such negative emotions as anger and social fearfulness, reports a new University of Illinois study.

"Young children, especially boys, may need their parents' help working through angry or fearful emotions. If you punish toddlers for their anger and frustration or act as if their fears are silly or shameful, they may internalize those negative emotions, and that may lead to behavior problems as they get older," said Nancy McElwain, a U of I associate professor of human development.

McElwain and lead author Jennifer Engle examined data gleaned from observations of 107 children who were part of a larger study of children's social and emotional development and parent-child relationships.

When the children were 33 months old, mothers and fathers were asked how often their child had displayed anger or social fearfulness in the last month. The parents were also asked how they would respond to the child's negative emotions in several hypothetical situations.
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Bulb

The cerebellum provides clues to the nature of human intelligence


Elsevier
Tue, 08 Mar 2011 11:43 UTC
cerebellum
© Unknown
New study suggests link between cerebellar volume and cognitive ability in older adults.

Research suggests that intelligence in humans is controlled by the part of the brain known as the 'cortex', and most theories of age-related cognitive decline focus on cortical dysfunction. However, a new study of Scottish older adults, reported in the April 2011 issue of Elsevier's Cortex, suggests that grey matter volume in the 'cerebellum' at the back of the brain predicts cognitive ability, and keeping those cerebellar networks active may be the key to keeping cognitive decline at bay.

The study looked at 228 older adults living independently in the Aberdeen area, who had been part of the Scottish Mental Survey of 1947. This survey had tested Scottish children born in 1936 and at school on 4th June 1947 using the Moray House intelligence test. The cognitive abilities of the participants were tested again, now at age 63-65 years, and their brains were also scanned, using a neuroimaging technique called voxel-based morphometry (VBM), to determine the volumes of grey and white matter in frontal areas and the cerebellum.
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Smiley

You can't help but smile

Albert Nerenberg
Montreal Gazette
Thu, 03 Mar 2011 17:29 UTC
Smile. And the world smiles with you. Frown and your face drops and frightens children.

smile
© JoshMak
According to body-language experts, if you don't smile much, over time, it will come out in your face. Without practice, smiling muscles weaken and wither. Bitterness, sadness and anger repositions the muscles and tissue into a "downturned smile" - this is where instead of smiling, a pouching at the corner of the mouth pulls your smile downward. This effect can be permanent and some people go scowling into oblivion.

Like everyone else who comes across this theory, I checked the sides of my mouth to see where my face stood. Obviously faces are made up in diverse ways, and smiling up or down doesn't necessarily mean anything. Then again maybe it does. Studies have shown that small children are instinctively afraid of the downturned smile and even adults exert caution around it.

Although it doesn't seem like psychologists recognize the phenomenon, plastic surgeons certainly have. You can now have your choice of Snap On Smiles, Botox Smiles and Smile Replacement surgeries where tendons are ripped and reattached, flesh is re-sculpted and various congealing substances are injected around the mouth. The specialists claim to be able to literally turn a frown upside down. So be as miserable as you want to be. For a bunch of cash, you can always get a reconstructed smile pasted back on your face.

Comment: To experience for yourself the healing benefits of vagus nerve activation, you can try out the Éiriú Eolas stress control and rejuvenation program.

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Alarm Clock

US: New generation infected by narcissism, says psychologist

Kate Hagan
The Sydney Morning Herold
Thu, 03 Mar 2011 21:07 UTC
narcicissm
© Harry AfentoglouNarcissists had an inflated sense of self, lacked empathy, were vain and materialistic and had an overblown sense of entitlement.

An ''Epidemic of narcissism'' has swept across the student population in the past 30 years, a US expert will tell a conference on personality disorders in Melbourne today.

Jean Twenge, professor of psychology at San Diego State University, said a study she conducted of 16,000 university students across the US showed 30 per cent were narcissistic in psychological tests, compared with 15 per cent in 1982. ''They are all 18 and 19-year-olds, so this is clearly a generational shift,'' she said.
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Family

Better brain wiring linked to family genes


University of Melbourne
Thu, 03 Mar 2011 12:32 UTC
How well our brain functions is largely based on our family's genetic makeup, according to a University of Melbourne led study.

The study published in the international publication The Journal of Neuroscience provides the first evidence of a genetic effect on how 'cost-efficient' our brain network wiring is, shedding light on some of the brain's make up.

Lead author Dr Alex Fornito from the Melbourne Neuropsychiatry Centre at the University of Melbourne said the findings have important implications for understanding why some people are better able to perform certain tasks than others and the genetic basis of mental illnesses and some neurological diseases.

He said how the brain's network is organized has been a mystery to scientists for years. "The brain is an extraordinarily complex network of billions of nerve cells interconnected by trillions of fibres," he said.
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Magic Wand

The more secure you feel, the less you value your stuff, UNH research shows


University of New Hampshire
Thu, 03 Mar 2011 12:28 UTC
People who feel more secure in receiving love and acceptance from others place less monetary value on their possessions, according to new research from the University of New Hampshire.

The research was conducted by Edward Lemay, assistant professor of psychology at UNH, and colleagues at Yale University. The research is presented in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology in the article "Heightened interpersonal security diminishes the monetary value of possessions."

Lemay and his colleagues found that people who had heightened feelings of interpersonal security - a sense of being loved and accepted by others - placed a lower monetary value on their possession than people who did not.
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People

Scientists identify susceptibility factor for bipolar disorder


Cell Press
Thu, 03 Mar 2011 12:09 UTC
bipolar
© Unknown
A new study provides fascinating insight into the genetic basis of bipolar disorder, a highly heritable mood disorder characterized by recurrent episodes of mania and depression. The research, published by Cell Press online February 24 in the American Journal of Human Genetics, identifies a previously unrecognized susceptibility factor for bipolar disorder.

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) provide a way to systematically sort through all the DNA of many individuals in order to identify genetic variations associated with a particular disease. However, thus far these studies have not been as successful in bipolar disorder as they have been for several other common diseases, such as type II diabetes, Crohn disease, and schizophrenia. Dr. Sven Cichon, from the University of Bonn in Germany, together with his colleagues Dr. Markus M. Nöthen (University of Bonn) and Dr. Marcella Rietschel (Central Institute of Mental Health, Mannheim), led a GWAS and a critical two-step follow-up study of samples from a great number of clinically well-characterized European, American, and Australian individuals with bipolar disorder.
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