Home of the Stanford Neuroblog. Scientists writing about science, for a general audience.
Have a question about the brain? Ask a neuroscientist a question.
Is restless leg syndrome a neurological disorder? What could be the root cause and is there any cure?
I fell deep into a rabbit hole of RLS and related research in writing this article. RLS is a neurological disorder, and we have some tantalizing clues about its cause--but there are far more questions than answers at this point. But two candidates are dopamine and iron.
Read MoreDo some people experience a rush of dopamine when they pray or preach the gospel?
Becca Krock's fascinating answer evokes a wide range of subjects, from St. Teresa, "who certainly seems to have enjoyed praying", to the handful of studies that have measured brain activity during prayer, to the writings of William James, "the father of modern psychology".
In the end, she writes, it may be reasonable to conclude that "prayer is an intricate composite of many more run-of-the-mill psychological processes (attention, memory, emotion, speech). And each one...is accompanied by the neural correlates you’d expect to see during that process, regardless of whether it’s occurring in a religious or secular context."
Image source: continuedon.wordpress.com
Read MoreIn this issue of Ask a Neuroscientist, Dr. Talia Lerner fields a question about the exact relationship between dopamine and addiction. Writing in response to a question from Peter Senavallis, Talia says: "the dopamine hypothesis of drug addiction ... has been a driving force in addiction research ever since people noticed that addictive drugs all seem to act in one way or another on dopamine regulation." However, she notes (and describes) recent research that "calls into question the idea that dopamine neuron stimulation would be sufficient to induce and sustain all the classic hallmarks of addiction, both behavioral and molecular. "
Read MoreDopamine neurons are some of the most studied, most sensationalized neurons out there. Lately, though, they’ve been going through a bit of an identity crisis. What is a dopamine neuron? Some interesting recent twists in dopamine research have definitively debunked the myth that dopamine neurons are all of a kind – and you should question any study that treats them as such.
Read MoreHome of NeuWrite West and the Stanford Neuroblog.
Do you have burning questions about how the brain works? You’ve come to the right place! Submit all your questions to NeuWrite West and we will have a neuroscientist research and answer your question.
Note: The NeuWrite West team consists of research scientists. Therefore, we can not provide answers to questions of a medical nature; we are not medical doctors.
Questions will have a turn-around time of approximately one month.
Or search for "NeuWriteWest" (without spaces) on your favorite podcast app!
Powered by Squarespace
