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.
I recently tried to find some consensus in the research on whether smoking marijuana makes you psychotic — some data indicate that pot-smokers are more likely to develop schizophrenia, while other studies find that marijuana …
We’re so used to thinking of pleasurable things as “sinful” and “bad for you” that when the popular media, or science for that matter, attempts to validate our guilty pleasures — such as my colleague John Cloud’s excellent piece about recent research showing that heavy drinkers outlive teetotalers — skepticism runs high.
Good drama relies on conflict and confrontation — but that is not true of good therapy. In fact, if you are trying to change human behavior, kindness, empathy and support are far more effective than tough love and quick fixes.
When scientific studies first began suggesting that “Baby Einstein” videos might make children more like Einstein himself — as a child, he was taciturn and not especially verbal — rather than creating literary prodigies, …
I’m excited to be starting my “new school year” as a blogger here on Healthland — and what better way to begin than with news about boosting your ability to learn, using neuroscience! One of the hottest articles flying around the Web today is Benedict Carey’s great New York Times science story headlined “Forget What You Know …
Many explanations have been offered for JetBlue flight attendant Steven Slater’s meltdown and dramatic emergency slide exit on Monday—from “air rage” to suggestions of a relapse into alcoholism. But none of the media coverage has noted what could be the most obvious and chilling reason for his bizarre behavior: at the beginning of …
News that the Florida teen’s autopsy revealed trace amounts of THC shouldn’t be misinterpreted to equate marijuana use with violence.
A growing body of research suggests that early life experience changes the way genes respond to the world—and this can influence everything from the way people respond to stress to their risks for various diseases.
A new study–published in Nature Neuroscience and led by Chris Murgatroyd of the Max Planck Institute in …
Fashionable British baby product manufacturer MacLaren is recalling around a million strollers sold since 1999, according to a report in the New York Daily News. The News says that the recall comes in the wake of injuries to 12 babies who lost the tips of their fingers when they became caught in the stroller’s hinges.
The Consumer …
Men really believe they read Playboy for the articles (although internet porn doesn’t even offer that excuse)—at least according to fascinating new research published as a working paper by Harvard Business School [hat tip: Economist]. The study sheds light on how people rationalize embarrassing or otherwise questionable behavior …
About 70 million Americans suffer from some sort of chronic pain—including at least 23 million whose pain is so severe that it is disabling. Lost work hours and other pain-related costs add up to over $100 billion.
But while misuse of prescription pain medication makes headlines and has led to numerous initiatives aimed at fighting …
Though she is nestled safely in the womb, your baby is already listening to you by the last trimester of pregnancy. At birth, according to new research, infants have already picked up their parents’ “accents,” – and these can be distinguished by listening to the way their cries rise and fall in pitch.
The research examined 60 …
The internet and cell phones are bringing people together, not tearing us apart—at least, according to a new survey released today by the Pew Internet and American Life project. The research followed up a shocking 2006 study, which found that American social networks were rapidly contracting and that 25% of Americans reported that …
