Amazing Brain Stories...
Below are our articles on the subject of Amazing Brain Stories. If you can't see what you are looking for our other categories are displayed on the left under 'Our Quick Links'...
Acute Confusion
Acute confusion is a common condition in the hospitalised elderly with many different causes. The state of clouded consciousness is reversed when the cause is treated....
An Amazing Brain Recovery
The ability of the human brain to recover from major head trauma is incredible and can be baffling even to doctors and care workers....
Art Therapy
Art therapists help a huge variety of patients to communicate, and to get relief and release through the process of either creating or appreciating art....
Better Brain for Better Grades
If you ever wondered how your children could improve their brain skills to get better grades, then a new study might answer your questions....
Brain Efficiency Using Caffeine and Glucose
The combination of caffeine and glucose could make the brain more efficient, helping to achieve the same or better cognitive performance on tasks....
Brain Gym
Brain gym is a program widely used in UK schools, which claims to improve learning by a series of exercises. But the scientific basis is deeply flawed, which has angered critics....
Brain Size and Longevity
The newest study around brain size and longevity suggests that mammals with larger brains relative to their body size have a better chance of living longer....
Brain Skills: Ageing and Depression
Parts of your health such as the effects of ageing are connected to your brain skills and how well you function....
Breathe Your Way to Intelligence
A simple breath can do more for your brain skills than you may realise. Learn how the right breathing can improve how you think and feel....
Can Bacteria Improve Brain Skills?
Improving brain skills isn't just about brain training games. New research suggests that bacteria could help to improve learning....
Can Emotional Intelligence Really Predict Success?
People with high emotional intelligence are instinctively good at getting on with others and coping with their own emotions. But does EI really predict success?...
Chemicals for Creativity
Scientists have found 'creativity' chemicals in the brain but they vary depending on a person's intelligence....
Cognitive Decline with Age
Although many old people are still sharp, most of us, even without a neurodegenerative disease like Alzheimer's, experience some decline in brain function in old age....
Cognitive Decline With Age: How Can We Affect It?
Our population is ageing and research has showed a number of conditions that can accelerate cognitive decline and some lifestyle and other factors that may slow the rate of decline....
Coping with Autism
Autism is lifelong. Although there's no cure, early identification, and a combination of behavoioural and drug approaches can improve the functioning of many autistic individuals....
Coping with Dyslexia
The best established method for teaching literacy skills to dyslexics is multisensory teaching and development of awareness of phonemes (the sounds of letters in words)....
Coping With Parkinson's Disease
There's no cure for Parkinson's disease, but there are drugs like levodopa that can help. Deep brain stimulation devices help after levodopa effects wear off and there's a lot of research into new tr...
Discover a Brain Friendly Diet
The right brain foods can help you improve memory and overall brain functioning. Discover the foods you should be eating on a regular basis....
Fight or Flight: Coping with Danger
When we're faced with danger or stress, our brain responds by triggering release of hormones that sharpen all our senses and abilities, so we can fight the danger or flee it....
Get Smarter With a Low Stress Life
As if there weren't already enough good reasons to reduce stress in your life, new research suggests that you may have another one. It may be possible to improve your brain skills by reducing stress ...
Gifted Children
Gifted children are those with high intelligence or talent. Giftedness is hard to define and measure. It may lead to difficulties as cognitive development outstrips the rate of social and emotional ...
Growing up Bilingual
Children's brains are flexible and ideally suited to learning more than one language from an early age. The benefits to brain power are lifelong....
Helping in the Recovery Stages Following a Stroke
The days and weeks following a stroke can be very emotional and difficult to adjust to, but providing support for each other may make this transition easier to bear....
Hope for the Treatment of ADHD in Children
This article discusses treatment of ADHD, referring to Ritalin, the controversy surrounding when it should be used and to other non medical therapies....
How a Fit Body Gives You a Fit Mind
By exercising for a fit body, you can also exercise for a fit mind, bringing you many benefits to focusing, memory and learning....
How Being Forgetful Helps Your Brain
Even though most people want to improve their memory, sometimes being forgetful is good for you....
How Blood Sugar Affects Memory
Blood sugar doesn't just affect our heart and energy levels but it can also affect memory as well, particularly as we age or if you suffer from diabetes....
How Compassion Helps Brain Skills
A compassionate style of coaching can help participants improve their brain skills....
How Does Language Acquisition Happen?
Children's brains are uniquely adapted to learning language, apparently containing a distinct language organ, so they learn perfectly whatever language they are exposed to, even without formal teachin...
How Juggling Improves Brainpower
Something as fun and random as juggling can help brainpower. In fact, learning any new skill can trigger changes in the brain's white matter....
How Long Do Young Children Take to Process Information?
Young children need space and time as well as encouragement to process information and answer questions....
How Medications Affect Brain Skills
Common medications could be impairing your cognition, reducing your brain skills and affecting the ageing process....
How Personality Affects the Ageing Brain
Personality can relate to structural changes in the brain as you age. Much depends on whether you have more 'neuroticism' traits or 'conscientious' ones....
How Smoking Could Thin Your Brain
A new study suggests smokers may have more thinning of the brain than non-smokers. The consequences could be reduced brain skills....
How Teachers Can Improve Brain Skills
Teachers play an important role in helping children develop brain skills. Learn what can help....
How to Cope with Alzheimer's
There is no known cure for Alzheimer's. Mental and social activity in old age may slow down the onset. Drugs may help with symptoms, and there are new research ideas in the pipelines....
How to Develop Empathy Skills
Empathy skills are important brain skills that many people have never heard about but they can make a difference in your career and personal life....
How to Get Great Exam Results Using Exam Technique
In order to well in exams, you need to be prepared for what the examiners will ask, through extensive experience of past papers....
How to Improve Your Memory
Obsessive compulsive disorder affects 2% of the population. It involves repetitive, unwanted thoughts and a drive to perform rituals to overcome the anxiety. It is treated by drugs and therapy....
How to Train Your Brain and Keep it Active
If you want to keep your body fit, then you exercise it. The same applies to mental muscle - constant challenge is the best way to keep it in shape....
How Your Memory Works
Memory is classified as short and long term, implicit or explicit. Emotion plays a part in determining which memories are retained. We filter out a lot to avoid memory overload....
Incomplete Memories
Incomplete memories may be the basis by which dementia occurs, unlike older studies that claim it arises from forgetting key events....
Inside the Autistic Mind
Trying to understand what is going on in the mind of an autistic child or adult can be a difficult task. This article discusses some of the diferences between those with autism and those without it....
Interview Technique
Employers interview candidates, police interview suspects, journalists interview celebrities and doctors interview patients. The right technique can be crucial for getting results....
IQ Tests
IQ tests have been around for about 100 years. The results usually correlate well with success in Western society, but there is debate over whether they really measure intelligence and whether they ar...
Is Intelligence Inherited
Twin studies and adoption studies have shown that intelligence is primarily inherited, and brain scans show remarkable similarities between family members....
Is Language a Purely Human Trait?
Language is a function that is unique to humans, and is handled by the left brain in a complex and fascinating way....
Learning Another Language
Language learning is easiest in childhood. It is associated with cognitive advantages at all ages, and the languages we speak seem to affect how we use our brains....
Learning Computer Skills
We live in a high tech information age where many believe that children as young as 3 have a lot to gain from computer skills. Others are concerned about the dangers....
Learning in the Visual Brain
New research gives us clues to how the brain's visual system works and how learning happens in the brain....
Learning Motor Skills
We all learn a tremendous array of highly complex motor skills, through a combination of physical practice and later slow learning whereby the brain consolidates the skill....
Left and Right Brain Working Together
Cognitive neuroscience shows how different areas in both sides of the brain contribute to most cognitive functions, when the functions are broken down to components. Left and right brain usually work...
Left Brain vs. Right: What's the Difference?
The left side of the brain controls the right side of the body, and vice versa. But do they also control totally different types of cognitive function?...
Literacy and Your Brain
Learning to read doesn't just open up access to activities that help brain skills. It also changes the structure of important parts of your brain....
Magnetic Exposure and Brain Ability
The simple application of a magnetic field to a specific region of the brain can severely bias your ability to make moral judgments....
Meditation
Meditiation is a mental discipline for focussing attention, which can have many beneficial effect on mental and physical health and even seems to alter brain structure....
Mental Focusing Techniques
Enhanced concentration and directed mental focus seem to be key to high achievement in lots of fields of endeavour. Certain techniques can be used to achieve this state....
Methamphetamine and Brain Function
New studies on methamphetamine show it takes time to regain brain skills in adults, and can harm brain skills after prenatal exposure....
Mother's Milk Gives Kids a Higher IQ
New research shows that babies who are breastfed might have a cognitive advantage over babies who receive formula milk....
Motor Skills
The process whereby our brain controls even our simplest movements is incredibly complex, involving interactions between many different brain regions....
Music Therapy
Music therapy is a successful way of improving emotional and physical wellbeing for a wide variety of people, both through listening and music making....
Myths and Facts About Early Brain Development
There are a lot of myths about how our brains develop, often promoted by those who are selling a product that they claim will make children cleverer....
Newest Ways to Preserve Your Brain
Preserving your brain throughout the years is not as difficult as you might think. New research offers ways to keep your brain skills sharp....
Numeracy Skills and Wealth
Numeracy skills could be the key to ensuring you obtain the financial stability you need....
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
Obsessive compulsive disorder is a common condition, where recurrent, upsetting thoughts lead to repetitive actions that impede normal functioning. Drugs and therapy can be helpful....
Optimise Your Child's Cognitive Development
You can affect your child's brain development even before conception, and maternal nutrition and behaviour, as well as childhood nutrition and emotional environment are critical....
Paranormal Brain Skills
Research has linked some paranormal experiences to geomagnetic field shifts, infrasound and brain events similar to epilepsy. Other paranormal events are yet to be explained....
Parental Mistakes in Training Kids
We all make mistakes when training kids but by avoiding the biggest ones, you can help your children to develop their brain kills and succeed as adults....
Play Therapy
Play is the most natural means of communication for children, and play therapists use this to help them to cope with a variety of problems....
Power Naps and Your Brain
Power naps don't just make you feel better, but they could also enhance your ability to learn new information....
Pregnancy: Tips for a Brainy Child
Helping give your child strong brain skills starts when you are pregnant and should keep going right after birth....
Revision Technique
If you want to succeed in exams, then revision needs to be organised and sensible, and focussed on past papers and whole brain learning....
Savant Syndrome
Savant syndrome is a condition where tremendous memory related abilities exist in an individual with severe mental disabilities. Talents may be mathematical, musical, artistic or mechanical....
Sleep and Intellectual Performance
Sleep deprivation leads to impaired mental functioning across the board, while sufficient rest improves overall intellectual performance and can lead to insights unavailable while awake....
Sleep for Creativity and Strong Memories
Sleep doesn't just help you feel good but it also supports stronger memories and creative ideas....
Social Skills
Our social skills are crucial for determining positive and successful interactions. Basic social abilities are innate, but several techniques exist for improving social skills....
Solving Problems With Fluid Intelligence
By training to improve your fluid intelligence, you can better solve problems in everyday life....
Speech Delay and Impediments
Speech delay is common. It may resolve with time, or may there may be an underlying learning disorder. Stuttering and stammering can usually be cured by speech therapy if detected early....
Speed Reading
Using the right techniques, experts say that most people can learn to read up to 1000 words per minute. Critics say that speed may come at the expence of comprehension....
Stroke Rehabilitation
Strokes are very common and can cause significant disabilities. A multidisciplinary team of doctors, nurses and various therapists is usually needed for good rehabilitation....
Supplements to Focus Your Mind?
Improving mental clarity and focusing could be helped with some supplements that have shown positive results in research....
Telekinesis
Some people believe that it's possible to move objects by power of mind alone. Most scientists aren't convinced, though neurotechnology may make such abilities accessible to all one day....
Telepathy
Some people believe that thoughts can be transferred between minds, and point to remarkable personal incidents, but experimental evidence is not conclusive....
The Mysteries of Amnesia
Amnesia can be a mystifying disorder to researchers and the rest of us but new research yields clues about how it affects brain skills....
Tips for Better Brain Control Over Emotions
If you feel you have lost control of your emotions, find out how to use your brain to get better control....
Top Ten Ways to Improve Memory
Memory isn't simply the luck of the gene pool. There are ways you can enhance your memory to live a better life....
Top Ten Ways to Raise Smarter Kids
If you've ever wondered how you can help your kids develop their brain skills, then read on to find out the top ten ways to raise smarter kids....
Tourette's Syndrome
Tourette's syndrome involves repeated, involuntary motor and verbal tics, and may be either mild, or severe and very disruptive of everyday life....
TV and Cognitive Development
Some see TV as the greatest possible danger to our children's cognitive development, while others claim that children can benefit from the right amount of appropriate programming....
Understanding High Speed Brains
New research tells us more about genetic factors and how they play a role in high speed brains....
Using Your Subconscious Mind
Although claims about subliminal skill improvement were disappointing, sights, sounds and smells may have a powerful priming effect on our subconscious, which may not agree with our conscious mind....
Visual Perception
Visual perception is the process whereby the eye responds to a limited range of light wavelengths, and the brain interprets retinal input to produce a coherent image of the external world....
What Are the Effects of Family Therapy?
This article addresses three examples of the many situations in which family therapy has been shown to have positive results: schizophrenia, families traumatised by violence in Belfast and anorexia....
What Causes Alzheimer's
Alzheimer's gets commoner with increasing age, but the causes are unknown. There are some theories, and a lot of research, but as yet, few answers....
What Causes Autism?
There have been theories of causation including bad parenting and vaccination, which are now known to be totally wrong. The cause of autism is still unknown....
What Causes Dyslexia?
Dyslexia runs in families, and is caused by abnormalities in the part of the brain that processes speech and writing. Hearing problems many contribute and it is commonest in English speakers due to t...
What Causes Parkinson's Disease?
Parkinson's disease is caused by the degeneration of dopamine producing neurones in the brain areas that control movement. This is usually due to a combination of inherited and environmental factors....
What Do Smart Brains Look Like?
You probably have friends who are smarter or less intelligent than you are but what makes their brain so different?...
What Hypnosis can do for Your Brain
Hypnosis is a way of bypassing the conscious mind and accessing the subconscious. It can be used therapeutically by psychistrists. Past life memories are fascinating but probably false....
What is a Stroke?
Strokes are the third commonest cause of death in the UK. They occur when there's a blocked blood vessel or a bleed in the brain. 80% of strokes are preventable....
What is ADHD?
ADHD is a common disorder that can be disruptive to the whole family. The
article describes causes, explains how diagnosis is made, what other disorders must be
ruled out and refers to the broad spe...
What is Alzheimer's?
Alzheimer's is the most common type of dementia, mainly affecting old people, causing increasing forgetfulness and inability to function in daily life. The disease progresses slowly over years, and i...
What is Asperger's Syndrome?
Asperger's syndrome is the highest functioning end of the spectrum of autistic disorders. Despite normal intelligence, there are problems with social and communication skills, and with imagination....
What is Autism?
The hallmark of autism is impaired social interaction, and problems with communication. There is often repetitive movement and restricted imagination....
What is Dyslexia?
Dyslexia is a common condition, where reading, writing and spelling are difficult to acquire despite normal intelligence. The characteristic mistakes may appear once the child first encounters writin...
What is Family Therapy
Family therapy is used to help people with a vast array of problems, by addressing issues within the context of the whole family, and helping everyone to move in positive directions....
What is Hypnosis?
Hypnosis has a long history. People in a trance are very suggestible, and there are many different methods of hypnotic trance induction....
What is Parkinson's Disease?
Parkinson's disease is a chronic, progressive neurological disorder, where movement is impaired because of neuron degeneration. The main symptoms are tremor, rigidity and bradykinesia (slowed movemen...
What Monks Know About Brain Skills
Monks may know something we don't when it comes to brain skills. New research can show us how to benefit from their knowledge and practices....
What You Can do to Help the Recovery of a Stroke Patient
Strokes can be disabling, but with modern techniques, including early recognition of stroke, and multidisciplinary brain stimulation, recovery can be facilitated....
When Language Acquisition Goes Wrong
It seems that exposure to language in childhood is necessary for language to be acquired. Children raised in isolation never learn language properly, as they missed out on the critical period....
Why a Bigger Brain Isn't a Better Brain
If you have always thought a bigger brain means more intelligence, then think again. New research yields clues to how brain size isn't what we should worry about....