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Empathy in children. Piaget was not right.
Are young children capable of empathy? The article describes the study of the 70s., where Helene Borke proves that, yes. Empathy is a fundamental process underlying the human interaction and communication. It seems as important for interpersonal development as intelligence for cognitive. By observations of spontaneous language of children, their behavior when they play, and coping with […]
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What causes migraine?
The cause of migraine may be malfunctioning of the brain stem nuclei, which are responsible for inhibition of trigeminal nerve, which in turn causes migraine. The brain stem can also cause so-called cortical spreading depression (CSD) associated with aura, which in some patients precedes the attack.
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Personality in extreme sports athletes
The article presents the individual differences between athletes who practise extreme sports, not risky sports and those who do not practice any sport in the features belonging to five factor model of personality (ie. Big Five). To extreme sports researchers include any sport, which integral part is risk of serious injury or death, that is, inter alia, climbing, scuba […]
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Neurobiology of empathy
Psychology distinguishes between two types of empathy. From the perspective of emotions empathy is the ability to empathize emotional states of other people, but from the cognitive perspective – the ability to understand the beliefs, feelings and intentions of others. Empathy is a complex process, which involves at least two paths: “bottom-up” and “top-down”. The […]
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The stress response
The two main biological systems involved in stress response, ie. the sympathetic system and the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPA), I described in the article Biology of stress. Now a little bit more about corticoliberin, as well as the locus coeruleus in the brainstem, dopaminergic and serotonergic system and the amygdala, hippocampus and prefrontal cortex. Corticoliberin (Corticotropin-releasing hormone […]
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What you will not learn about the nervous system at school
The article presents facts about the functioning of the nervous system, according to the latest research, but not necessarily consistent with the information from textbooks. Only neurons generate the action potential – False According to the textbook knowledge, neurons’ function is to transmit information in the form of electrical stimuli (action potential), and function of […]
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Skydiving prevents depression?
French scientists based on skydivers research published in 1999, found that sensation seeking can be an adaptive response to anhedonia, ie. an inability to experience pleasure. The creator of the theory of sensation seeking stated that the physiological basis of sensation seeking is the optimal level of arousal – in patients that achieve high scores in this scale […]
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Time perception during tandem skydive
The stories of people who during traumatic events seemed that time slowed down or stopped are well known. There are not many scientific studies that investigate the issue, but several scientists investigated this phenomenon in the lab. They showed among other that while viewing a stressful film about a bank robbery, the respondents were under the […]
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Emotions during the first parachute jump and glider flight
According to the Solomon’s theory Solomon negative emotions are followed by positive emotions because the nervous system seeks to compensate emotions and reach optimal level. The opposite emotion is formed slowly and lasts longer than its original state.
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Endorphins
Endorphins are opioid peptides, were identified in 1975 and their name comes from the words “Endogenous morphine,” that is produced in the body morphine. Due to the induced state of euphoric endorphins are often called “hormone of happiness”. There are a lot of molecules belonging to the group of endorphins; the most researched is beta-endorphin.
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