Like many other parents, I am trekking all of my son’s belongings off to college this week. Please send us your questions in the “ask” box to the right >> and we’ll respond on next week’s edition of “The Female Brain.” Thanks!
A new study finds that the more carbs and sugars you eat, the more your brain’s appetite-control cells are damaged. BOTTOM LINE: keep your brain’s appetite-suppressing cells alive and healthy as you age by eating fewer sugars and carbs. It looks like those higher protein diets pay off for the brain after all. The study finds that the attack on appetite suppressing cells creates a cellular imbalance between our need to eat and the message to the brain to stop eating.
People in the age group of 25 to 50 are most at risk. The neurons that tell people in the crucial age range not to over-eat are being killed-off.
Gender differences in language appear biological, according to a new study at Northwestern University. They show both that areas of the brain associated with language work harder in girls than in boys during language tasks, and that boys and girls rely on different parts of the brain when performing these tasks.
The findings suggest that language processing is more sensory in boys and more abstract in girls. This could have major implications for teaching children and even provide support for single sex classrooms or more attention by teachers on learning-styles in girls and boys for some subjects.
This week we hear from a menopausal woman looking to alleviate her anxiety attacks and from a man who is concerned that his wife’s perimenopausal hormone changes may result in their divorce. We also help a reader understand the role of horomones in sexually transmitted diseases, and recommend some good reads to a woman who enjoyed my recent article in Men’s Health magazine.
To listen, click the play button on the blue Blog Talk Radio box to the right >>.
When someone betrays us, how does the brain deal with it?
These new studies out of Switzerland give clues to a hormone, oxytocin, associated with social attachment. In order to investigate the role of oxytocin following breaches of trust, the experimenters scanned 49 participants who were given either placebo or oxytocin via a nasal spray. The participants in the oxytocin group showed decreases in responses in areas of the brain responsible for emotions. The male and female brain may react differently - under normal conditions - since females naturally have more oxytocin in their brains than males. Females may be more trusting or take longer to realize they have been betrayed.
