Your Brain Could Be Controlling How Sick You Get—And How You Recover

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March 01, 2023

Scientists have shown a growing interest in figuring out to what degree the brain has control over the body--how much stock can we put in "mind over matter?" In one recent case, they observed the lines of communication between the nervous and immune systems. The findings of this work in neuroimmunology could potentially have a major impact on illnesses ranging from autoimmune diseases to even cancer. Read more in our top story below!

Gary Stix, Senior Editor, Mind & Brain @gstix1

Neurology Your Brain Could Be Controlling How Sick You Get--And How You Recover Scientists are deciphering how the brain choreographs immune responses, hoping to find treatments for a range of diseases By Diana Kwon,Nature magazine

Psychology Many Differences Between Liberals and Conservatives May Boil Down to One Belief Conservatives tend to believe that strict divisions are an inherent part of life. Liberals do not By Jer Clifton

Neurology Does Not Being Able to Picture Something in Your Mind Affect Your Creativity? Researchers who study aphantasia, or the inability to visualize something in your “mind’s eye,” are starting to get a sense of how to accurately measure the condition and what it may mean for those who have it. By Stefano Montali | 05:55

Mental Health Survivors of Deadly Earthquakes Must Deal with Lasting Trauma A psychiatrist who has studied the effects of previous devastating quakes explains how the Turkey-Syria earthquake could impact survivors’ mental health By Tanya Lewis

Neuroscience Long COVID Now Looks like a Neurological Disease, Helping Doctors to Focus Treatments The causes of long COVID, which disables millions, may come together in the brain and nervous system By Stephani Sutherland

Mental Health Talk Therapies Take On a Vital Role in Treating Schizophrenia Cognitive-behavioral therapy helps to treat symptoms of schizophrenia for which drugs are ineffective By Matthew M. Kurtz

Neuroscience Acting Out Dreams Predicts Parkinson's and Other Brain Diseases Enacted dreams could be an early sign of Parkinson’s disease By Diana Kwon

Neuroscience Monogamous Prairie Voles Reveal the Neurobiology of Love Studies of prairie voles are providing surprising new insights into how social bonds form By Steven Phelps,Zoe Donaldson,Dev Manoli

Psychology Love and the Brain: Do Partnerships Really Make Us Happy? Here's What the Science Says How romance affects our well-being is a lot more complicated than “they lived happily ever after.” By Shayla Love | 14:53

Psychology This Change Could Reduce Police Brutality against Black Drivers like Tyre Nichols Cops—no matter their own race—are more confrontational toward Black drivers. Social psychologist Nicholas Camp describes ways to reduce police antagonism By Marla Broadfoot

QUOTE OF THE DAY "We often have a black box between the brain and the effect we see in the periphery. If we want to use it in the therapeutic context, we actually need to understand the mechanism." Henrique Veiga-Fernandes, neuroimmunologist at the Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown in Lisbon.

FROM THE ARCHIVE Something Clicks for Dolphin Identification Machine-learning algorithms teased seven distinct dolphin clicking patterns from a library of more than 50 million clicks, identifying one species by sound alone. Christopher Intagliata reports. By Christopher Intagliata | December 2017

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