By Daniel Walocha ‘19 Huntington’s Disease is caused by a trinucleotide repeat of the HTT gene. The wild type has a repeat ranging from 10 to 35, but beyond 39 repeats causes the disease characterized by significant impairments in the basal ganglia and neurodegeneration. The CAG repeats in the HTT gene cause the production of an abnormally long Huntington protein, which impairs the function of … Continue reading Intelligence in the HTT Gene
By: Gene Yang ‘19 Reciprocity, the act of responding to kind actions with other kind actions, has been known to stabilize cooperation within populations and communities. When applied on a global scale, models of international cooperation have shown reciprocity to be a key factor in stabilization. However, empirical research to verify these models have so far been limited to small-scale studies involving two or three … Continue reading Reciprocity and International Cooperation
By Marcia-Ruth Ndege ‘21 Trends throughout the years have underlined the fact that women tend to be more eco-friendly than their male counterparts. This trend has long been attributed to personality differences between the two sexes. Through a series of various psychological experiments, Dr. Aaron Brough and his team explore the role of masculinity in the commitment to make eco-friendly decisions. Brough and his team … Continue reading What Masculinity Has to do With the Environment
By Meghan Bialt-DeCelie ‘19 Sixty to seventy percent of schizophrenic patients and twenty-five percent of patients diagnosed with psychotic disorders struggle with both visual and auditory hallucinations. Drug and long-term cognitive therapies have been developed to conquer this, but they are often ineffective or only effective for a very select group of patients. Researchers led by Dr. Tom KJ Craig tested the effectiveness of a … Continue reading New Therapy for Hallucination Caused by Psychotic Disorders
By Maryna Mullerman ’20 Rubber hand visual-tactile illusion (RHI) experiments involve multisensory exposure, allowing participants to experience ownership over realistic rubber hands. Precise stimulation technique and positioning induce people to believe that a rubber hand is an integral part of their body. Marilia Lira and researchers from the Mackenzie Presbyterian University in Brazil investigated skin color’s effects on the time to onset of RHI in … Continue reading The Effects Of Implicit Racial Bias On Hand Ownership Experience
By: Ramanjot Singh ’19 In the recent years, there has been a strong wave of focus on evidence-based psychology. The push is towards achieving an evidence-based assessment for psychological conditions. More specifically, being able to have a physical test that will determine if you have a certain ailment or not. Counseling psychologist, Dr. Angie Cucchi, hypothesized that the evidence-based treatment would not be sufficient to … Continue reading The Setbacks of Evidence Based Counseling
By Rideeta Raquib ’19 From histone modifications to DNA alterations, epigenetic processes play a major role in various physiological systems. Histones are proteins in eukaryotic cells that package DNA strands into nucleosomes. Gene regulation processes include histone acetylation, whereby an acetyl group is transferred from one molecule to another. This eventually removes the positive charge on the histones, giving nucleosomes a relaxed structure and allowing … Continue reading Disrupting Enzyme To Tackle Alzheimer’s Disease
By Anna Tarasova ’19 Making a decision in a group requires integrating individual and group beliefs. It has been previously demonstrated that one is more likely to assign greater credibility to the beliefs of a larger group than to those of a smaller group. Prior researchers have also theorized that the adoption of group beliefs by individuals is driven by a desire to mitigate potential … Continue reading A New Model for Group Decision-Making
By Anna Tarasova ’19 Hypersensitivity to sensory stimuli is frequently an aspect of autism spectrum disorders (ASD), and can lead to defensiveness against touch and other sensory stimuli. This can contribute to hyperactivity and lead to inattention, learning difficulties, sleep disturbances, anxiety, and many other symptoms of autism. Although the mechanism of this phenomenon has long been unknown, Dr. Cynthia He and her colleagues at … Continue reading A Potential Mechanism Explaining Tactile Defensiveness in Autism
By Rideeta Raquib ’19 Emotion-related imagery training is a powerful tool for psychotherapy. Mental imagery can stimulate behavioral and physiological systems more effectively than verbal or informative stimulations. Imagery is less effective on patients diagnosed with generalized anxiety (GAD) because of the tendency to associate bright images with negative occurrences rather than generating positive images. Dr. Svetla Velikova and her team of researchers conducted a … Continue reading Using Positive Image Training to Regain Happiness
By Megan Tan ‘19 Gender stereotypes commonly associate intellectual brilliance with men. These stereotypes explain the gender imbalances in fields typically associated with brilliance, like physics and mathematics. Lin Bian, a graduate student from the University of Illinois, set out to find the origin of this stereotype. It was found that by the age of six, girls are less likely to associate their gender with … Continue reading Are Men Smarter than Women?
by Megan Tan ’19 It is questionable whether psychopaths have a higher or lower IQ than the average human. Previous researchers have investigated the relationship between psychopathy and IQ because there are links to antisocial behavior, violence, and criminal involvement. However, the results have been inconsistent: some studies have demonstrated a negative relationship between the two, whereas others have demonstrated a positive one. To clarify … Continue reading Psychopaths May Have Lower than Average Intelligence
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