I’m sure this has happened to you before – you’re walking down the street and you smell something that takes you back to a holiday, or a time when you were younger. It could be the smell of a sweet shop or someone’s perfume, and you are taken straight back to a moment from years … Read more
For the vast majority of you, if I asked you, right now, to imagine a beach – all golden sands and blue sky then I doubt it would be a problem. We ‘see’ the beach with our mind’s eye, even though there is no beach in front of us, and it’s most likely still grey … Read more
As a left handed person and psychology graduate, this is a post I’ve wanted to write for a while because there’s actually a lot I don’t know about how being left handed affects the brain. Me and my dad are both left handed, but at opposite ends of the spectrum – he writes with his … Read more
Although you might think that the structure of your brain is formed before you are born and does not change, this actually isn’t the case. As we grow and learn, the brain is constantly making new connections and pathways between different areas. It used to be believed that anything which had not been developed by … Read more
This post will explore a bit deeper into the functions of the brain – in particular how the brain learns to coordinate our movement and behaviours. To put it simply, mirror neuron ‘fire’ a signal when an individual is carrying out an action or when they watch another person carry out the same action. This … Read more
No doubt you’ll have heard that women are meant to be better at multitasking than men, but is this really true? In fact, it is difficult for anyone to do two things at the same time, especially if they involve the same parts of our brain. This is why it’s so dangerous to use your … Read more
Hi everyone, this week’s post follows on from last week’s, which was all about our body clock (if you’d like to read it then click here). First, I will look at the stages of sleep and the link between sleep and memory, before moving on to talk about a sleep disorder – narcolepsy. Scientists have … Read more
Hi everyone, this week’s post is about something we talk about a lot – our body clock. Even though everyone’s heard of it, I’m guessing it’s not something people are too familiar with, so I’ll try and explain it here. The 24 hour cycle we live in accordance with is known as a Circadian Rhythm. … Read more
This week’s post is about the cells that make up our brain. You might already know (especially if you read this post) that our brain cells are divided into two types: grey matter and white matter. Grey matter is another name for the brain cell bodies. White matter is made up from all of the … Read more
Imagine if you saw music in colour, or if the letter ‘e’ always reminded you of a specific shade of yellow. Sounds weird, but these symptoms occur in people with synaesthesia: senses that are usually unrelated are automatically joined together to form a unique sensory experience. This can take the form of stimuli being assigned … Read more