Articles by Meghan Meyer, PhD student
Neuroscience & Neurology | By February 09, 2010 | By Meghan Meyer, PhD student | 10 Comments
“I Feel Your Pain” – The Neural Basis of Empathy
Last month, a terrible earthquake raised havoc in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. While the Haitians in Port-au-Prince are miles away from us, witnessing media images of their physical and emotional suffering moves us tremendously, and motivates many of us to respond to their distress with monetary and other donations. In a sense, this is an amazing human feat—that we are able to feel for other people’s far away tragedies. How is it that we are so moved? This is a question about human empathy, and it has boggled the minds of great thinkers for centuries. Indeed, German philosopher Rudolf Lotze coined the term empathy (einfuhlung) to literally mean “in” (em) and “feeling” (pathos), or “to feel into.” Read more →
- White Bears – The Paradox of Mental Suppression
- How Culture Shapes Our Mind and Brain
- The Neural Basis of the Self
- Laughter’s the Best Remedy
- Social and Physical Pain Share Neural Architecture
- The Psychology of Minority Students
Whatever you do, don’t think of a white bear. Go on, close your eyes, relax, but don’t think of a white bear… So, what happened? Most likely, you were overwhelmed by thoughts of a white bear. This mini-experiment highlights the fascinating paradox of thought suppression. That is, once we explicitly try not to think of something, we find that we think about it all the time. Indeed, in its worse forms, the failure of thought suppression mars the minds of those suffering from various psychological disorders, such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), and even depression. Read more →
Most people would agree that culture can have a large effect on our daily lives — influencing what we may wear, say, or find humorous. But many people may be surprised to learn that culture may even effect how our brain responds to different stimuli. Indeed, until recently, most psychology and neuroscience researchers took for granted that their findings translated across individuals in various cultures. In the past decade, however, research has begun to unravel how cultural belief systems shape our thoughts and behaviors. Read more →
Perhaps the most personal and most quintessentially human aspect of our existence is the experience of our ‘self.’ What contemporary philosopher Daniel Dennett has described as the unitary narration of our experience, the ‘author’ of our life. Artists, writers, philosophers and psychologists dedicate much of their attention to describing and discerning the kernels of the self. And now, cognitive neuroscientists have entered the debate. With the recent advent of brain imaging technologies, researchers now have a tool to take a stab at this fundamental, though esoteric, question. Read more →
Groucho Marx once said, “A clown is like an aspirin, only he works twice as fast.” Indeed, research suggests that humor can minimize our perceptions of physical pain. Various theoretical explanations have been offered to explain the analgesic effects of humor, and humor’s potential role in pain therapy appears promising.
Studies exploring the role of humor in pain perception involve showing participants funny videos prior to the “cold presser task,” in which participants submerge their hand into very cold water for as long as possible. Read more →
The old adage, “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me,” may be more defensive than accurate. Indeed, most languages rely on words that represent pain — hurt feelings, heartache, broken hearts — to communicate feelings of social distress. Recent findings in neuroscience suggest that sayings such as these may reflect more than poetic metaphor, and instead indicate an overlap in neural systems used to represent physical and social pain in humans. Read more →
A major public policy concern is the well known fact that many minority students under-achieve scholastically. The roots of the discrepancy in performance of some minorities and their white counterparts has been attributed to many causes, such as socioeconomic disparities and poor school systems in minority communities. Many of the explanations, however, focus on the students’ environment, and less attention is paid to the psychology of being a minority student in America. Recent provocative research in social psychology, however, suggests that a large portion of academic performance differences may reflect minority students’ representations of stereotypes surrounding their racial and ethnic identities. Read more →
Saturday, March 20, 2010
- Religion - A "Natural" Phenomenon?
- Psychotropics and Youth, Part 1 - The Five Myths
- How Culture Shapes Our Mind and Brain
- Sex, Violence and The Male Warrior Hypothesis
- The Secret to Good Health – Listen to the Data
- If Herbal Medicine is Medicine, Shouldn't it be Treated as Such?
- Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Neuroscience Conferences for 2010
- Too Much Information?
- "I Feel Your Pain" - The Neural Basis of Empathy
- Income Inequality and Health Outcomes
- The Evolution of Depression
- Journal Retracts Autism Research
- Speaking in Tongues - A Neural Snapshot
- Post-Partum Psychosis - Rare but Real
- Is Your Doctor Happy or Burnt-Out?
- Ginkgo Biloba Ineffective... Again
- Worried Well on the Web
- Psychotropics and Youth, Part 2 - The Solutions
- Why Some Human Brains Become Leaders, While Others Followers?
- Postoperative Cognitive Dysfunction
- Let the Matches Begin!
- My Nephew and his Brain, Part 4 – Their Life Today
- My Nephew and his Brain, Part 3 – Try to Work Out their Troubles
- My Nephew and his Brain, Part 2 – Revealed to be Complicated
- My Nephew and his Brain, Part 1 – Introduction
- Deep Brain Stimulation – A New Frontier in Psychiatry
- Psychotropics and Youth, Part 3 – Equip Teachers with Prescription Pads?
- Why Some Human Brains Become Leaders, While Others Followers?
- Brain Blogger Finalist for Two 2010 Research Blogging Awards in Neuroscience and Psychology
- Tall Tales of Diabetic Amputations
- Psychotropics and Youth, Part 2 – The Solutions
- Brain Blogging, Forty-Ninth Edition
- How Your Brain Groups Words
- The Child Brain and the Playing Teacher
- You Have a Right to Choose if we Agree
- Measuring Quality in Primary Care
- Matchmaker, Matchmaker Make Me A Match – The NRMP Main Residency Match
- Psychotropics and Youth, Part 1 – The Five Myths
- When It Comes to Aging, Size Matters
- “I Feel Your Pain” – The Neural Basis of Empathy
- Very touching story. My heart goes out to your family. Seizures are tough. And ...
- Thank you for sharing your nephew's story. So hard on those who love him, but I...
- Congratulations to all who've matched! Although the results of NRMP Main Residen...
- It's been almost 25 years since my son suffered a TBI in an accident. He was onl...
- I tend to agree with the teachers.But a teacher can only keep a record about the...
- Very interesting article, the 5th paragraph gets a little biased...but I still e...
- Dear Dan,There is certainly much clinical interest in this field. ClinicalTr...
- I recently commented on a sciencedaily.com article reporting success with TRD an...
- I have family members who are teachers. After sharing this article with them, th...
- It is great that people are challenging the use of this medication. As, a societ...
- I agree with the stand of the teachers and their children's that more than half ...
- I think that there’s also a social aspect to it. If you grow up in an area where...
- I have had epilepsy since I was 9 and am now 42. I have tried about every med. o...
- In this text is a serious error. Brain areas are found that contain religious ex...
- It's amazing how the brain works....
- Organ transplant for unavoidable patients have been around for quite some time a...
- Diet plays a major role in having diabetes. In today's world, people are finding...
- Interesting... I think that there's also a social aspect to it. If you grow up i...
- I think the article is actually describing a normal human being. Leadership tra...
- I think that applies to leaders within certain fields of knowledge or creativity...

