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Frenemies?

In Nature Neuroscience this February, Bickart et.al. demonstrate a correlation between the number of friends you have and the size of your amygdala . Specifically, they showed that the volume of the amygdala is positively correlated with the size and complexity of a person’s social network.

As stated on the G2C website, the amygdala is involved in processing emotions, and fear–learning. Concerning the amygdala and fear, the flight-or-flight response is one of the most well known examples. So do people with more “frenemies” have larger amygdalae to help them survive inevitable back stabbing?

According to this paper, while there was a correlation between large More >

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Overcoming Fear

We all fear things. Fear itself is a basic survival instinct. It’s a natural response to a specific stimulus used to recognize danger and initiate fight-or-flight responses. Many common fears include ghosts, cockroaches, spiders, snakes, heights, water, enclosed spaces, tunnels and bridges, needles, exams, clowns and public speaking. These fears can be innate (you don’t know why you’re afraid of certain things) or they can be acquired by a frightening traumatic accident. For many people, their fears do not affect their quality of life. For some, however, fear can mean something completely different.

Post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD is a severe More >

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Sports and Concussions

We have all heard of concussions, but it seems to be not until recently that concussions are finally taken seriously. Many of our popular sports contain some sort of contact. Football is a very popular sport with many times, full contact. What about other sports such as boxing or mixed martial arts where contact, especially head contact is deliberate? Or in NASCAR’s car accidents involving vehicles traveling close to 200mph? Athletes are putting their brains on the line for their sport.

Over the past several years, many precautions were taken to prevent concussions and further damage to the brain following injury. More >