If Drinking Starts at Puberty, It’s More Likely to Lead to Alcohol Problems
Taking your first drink in your early teens may put you at greater risk of developing alcohol problems later on, according to new research.
Szalavitz's latest book is Born for Love: Why Empathy Is Essential — and Endangered. It is co-written with Dr. Bruce Perry, a leading expert in the neuroscience of child trauma and recovery.
Maia Szalavitz
Maia Szalavitz is a neuroscience journalist obsessed with addiction, love, evidence-based living, empathy and pretty much everything related to brain and behavior. She is the co-author of Born for Love: Why Empathy is Essential — and Endangered (Morrow, 2010) and The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog (Basic, 2006), both with Dr. Bruce D. Perry. Her 2006 book, Help at Any Cost: How the Troubled-Teen Industry Cons Parents and Hurts Kids (Riverhead, 2006) is the first book-length exposé of the “tough love” business. Szalavitz has been published in TIME Magazine, the New York Times, Elle, Scientific American Mind, the Washington Post, New Scientist and Psychology Today, among many others. She has been awarded the American Psychological Associations Division 50 Award for Contributions to the Addictions and the Media Award from the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology.
Articles from Contributor
The Key to a High IQ? Not Getting Distracted
A new study suggests that intelligence is more about what the brain chooses to ignore than simply its ability to process information rapidly.
‘Club Drug’ Ketamine Lifts Depression in Hours
The largest study to date confirms that ketamine — a “club drug” that is also legally used as an anesthetic — could be a quick and effective way to relieve depression.
Marijuana: The Next Diabetes Drug?
Toking up may help marijuana users to stay slim and lower their risk of developing diabetes, according to the latest study, which suggests that cannabis compounds may help in controlling blood sugar.
10,000 Hours May Not Make a Master After All
There are many roads to greatness, but logging 10,000 hours of practice to help you perfect a skill may not be sufficient.
Viewpoint: My Case Shows What’s Right — and Wrong — With Psychiatric Diagnoses
Over the course of my life, I have been given no fewer than five different diagnoses for mental illnesses, under the diagnostic system laid out in psychiatry’s “bible,” the DSM. But it was a sixth diagnosis— one that …
Q&A: Temple Grandin on the Autistic Brain
Temple Grandin, a professor of animal science at Colorado State University, was one of the first autistic people to chronicle her life with the condition— and is now a bestselling author and well known for her innovative …
The Dangers Lurking in Male Sexual Supplements
“Rock Hard” and similar so-called “natural” supplements for men often contain potentially dangerous drugs — some of which have never been tested on animals, let alone humans.
Your Brain on Laughter
Are they laughing at you or laughing with you? Your brain can tell the difference.
The Biology of Kindness: How It Makes Us Happier and Healthier
There’s a reason why being kind to others is good for you — and it can now be traced to a specific nerve.
Psychopaths and Callous Children Show Dysfunctional Brain Responses to People In Pain
Children who cruelly disregard other people’s pain and psychopathic criminal offenders show dysfunction in similar brain regions— but new research finds that the changes may lead in opposite directions.
Mental Health Researchers Reject Psychiatry’s New Diagnostic ‘Bible’
Just weeks before psychiatry’s new diagnostic “bible”—the DSM 5— is set to be released, the world’s major funder of mental health research has announced that it will not use the new diagnostic system to guide its …
