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Parietal Brain Protects Kids from Neighborhood Violence Stresses
Neighborhood violence has been associated with adverse health effects on youth, including sleep loss, asthma and metabolic syndrome. Yet...
Phil Harris
Nov 29, 20182 min read


Autism Study Show Male Trait Bias
A large scale study has found that people with autism show higher male trait scores in systemic thinking over empathetic thinking, above...
Phil Harris
Nov 14, 20181 min read


Pain: All in the Mind?
I am currently looking at psychological pain management techniques that can reduce the intensity of withdrawal symptoms in detoxification...
Phil Harris
Nov 14, 20184 min read


How Do We Think?
It is one of the most fundamental questions in neuroscience: How do humans think? Until recently, we seemed far from a conclusive answer....
Phil Harris
Nov 12, 20183 min read


Why Did Our Brains Expand?
A theory called the cultural brain hypothesis could explain extraordinary increases in brain size in humans and other animals over the...
Phil Harris
Nov 12, 20182 min read


Schizophrenia: Too Diverse to Diagnose?
Schizophrenia is an extremely variable psychiatric disorder which is diagnosed based on the presence of specific symptoms. Thomas Wolfers...
Phil Harris
Oct 15, 20182 min read


A Revolution in Diagnosis of Mental Illness?
In lectures and training in mental health I stress how current psychiatric diagnosis is really a short-hand for the presenting signs and...
Phil Harris
Oct 15, 20181 min read


Free Online Compassion Training from the Center for Healthy Minds
Working with trauma is hard. Being exposed to the pain and suffering others can have significant impact on us as a worker and as a human...
Phil Harris
Sep 1, 20185 min read


Free Online Cognitive Reappraisal Training for Depression, Anxiety and Poor Impulse Control from the
Without realizing it we make use of emotion regulation strategies all the time and they are crucial for everyday life. This is the...
Phil Harris
Sep 1, 20182 min read


Kill with Kindness: Why Too Much Empathy is a Bad Thing
People who empathize easily with others do not necessarily understand them well. To the contrary: Excessive empathy can even impair...
Phil Harris
Aug 22, 20183 min read


Poor Impulse Control: Most Kids Have It
Children who struggle with weak cognitive control at an early age are at most risk for trouble in adulthood following their engagement in...
Phil Harris
Aug 10, 20183 min read


If... Then...: Two Influences of Dopamine on Motivation
Do dopamine neurons have a role in causing cues in our environment to acquire value? And, if so, do different groups of dopamine neurons...
Phil Harris
Aug 10, 20183 min read


Mental Health: Beyond Neurotranmission
Psychiatric medications have focused heavily on neurotransmitters as the basis of mental health disorders.Researchers at Columbia...
Phil Harris
Aug 9, 20182 min read


A Whole New World of Fear
In lectures I describe that there are two types of fear in humans, innate and learned. Whilst innate fears are located in the amygdala,...
Phil Harris
Aug 9, 20183 min read


What the Fruit Fly Tells Us About Sex, Drugs and Rock 'n' Roll.
Nothing cheers me up as much as a quirky research study on the humble fruit fly. We share approximately 65 per cent of our DNA with...
Phil Harris
Jul 19, 20185 min read


Thought Controller: Position Vacant
While we can "decide" to think about certain things, other information -- including activities we have learned like counting -- can enter...
Phil Harris
Jul 19, 20182 min read


Stress Affects Schizophrenia Differently
Stressful situations affect the brain and body differently in people with schizophrenia compared to people without the mental illness or...
Phil Harris
Jul 12, 20183 min read


Mechanism for Gender Differences in Mental Health Identified?
Researchers have recently begun to realize that biological sex plays a key role in disease risk. Sex plays a role in hypertension,...
Phil Harris
Jul 4, 20182 min read


The Three Best Ways to Have Fun
Everyone's so busy these days that it is easy to think you need to schedule time to have fun. But be careful about how you do that, said...
Phil Harris
Jul 4, 20182 min read


Teenage Brain: Stepping Up
Some brain networks become more densely connected during adolescence while others become less so, according to a new analysis published...
Phil Harris
Jul 4, 20181 min read
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