Prozac, Ritalin, Cognitive Enhancement, and the power of a snappy title

Let it be known that Sci, like many a young, bright-eyed little scientist, tries to keep up on her reading. TRIES is the operative word, but every week Sci gets the Tables of Contents for all the major journals in her field (and all the major ones in her subdisciple) emailed straight to her for [...]

Stress and Anxiety, aka CRF and 5-HT2

Today’s post comes to you from several tweets that Sci received way back in the mists of time (that is…two weeks ago. Three? Something like that). Sci got wind of this paper and has been meaning to blog it for a while, but other things get in the way, like other things will. And when [...]

Bulimia and the Vaso-Vagal Reflex

This is another post in Sci’s investigation into the current studies being performed on eating disorders, particularly binge eating and bulimia. Usually I try to focus on the dysregulation of reward-related systems in these disorders, but this paper will be a little different. Faris et al. “De-Stabilization of the Positive Vago-Vagal Reflex in Bulimia Nervosa” [...]

A Follow up: Depression, p21, CREB, and more

Everyone once in a while, someone sends Sci email. Often it’s silly. This one, however, was very good in that it asked for some clarification on a series of posts that I’ve been working on looking at clinical depression and possible causes and treatments, including neurogenesis in the hippocampus, cell cycle controls, and CREB. And [...]

The Neurogenesis theory of depression and a little guy called CREB

Sci wishes she could begin this post with something clever. But she has a cold. Suffice it to say that this paper is cool and interesting. And also, as Sci has a cold, I expect all of you to read this post out loud to yourselves in suitably stuffy, gluey Sci-voices. (*sniff*) Gur et al. [...]

SFN Neuroblogging: Got Type 2 Diabetes on the Brain

As some of my readers from WAY back (all two of you, hi guys!) may know, diabetes is one of Sci’s favorite things. It’s one of those things that, if she could start her entire little sciency life over, would be something she would heavily consider as a focus. Heck, there’s always another post-doc, right? [...]

Best. Modelling Paper. Ever.

Mathematical proof that if zombies attack, we are SO doomed.

Key paper in depression genetics disputed

I wanted to draw attention to a new paper in JAMA recently because it reveals a lot about how conditional most of the statements we make in behavioral genetics are. Every time you hear a news article that says, “Gene for depression found,” I want you to think about this case. Risch et al. performed [...]

Evil Genes: Why Rome Fell, Hitler Rose, Enron Failed, and my My Sister Stole My Mother’s Boyfriend

When I was asked to review Evil Genes: Why Rome Fell, Hitler Rose, Enron Failed, and my My Sister Stole My Mother’s Boyfriend, by Barbara Oakley, I was pretty certain that my life as a Science Blogger had reached its peak. I mean, blogging about science AND FREE BOOKS?! You’re not serious. When I got [...]

Complete speculation on the health of John McCain

Some people have been noticing erratic behavior from republican nominee John McCain lately. His most recent seems to be slight, but rather odd. Specifically, he appears to have developed ptosis— a drooping eyelid— which could of course be related to any number of causes, from an autoimmune attack on cholinergic receptors such as that seen [...]