Ian Sample talks to Dr Laura Pritschet, a postdoctoral fellow of psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania, about her research using precision scans to capture the profound changes that sweep across the brain during pregnancy. She explains what this new work reveals about how the brain is reorganised in this period, whether it could it help us better understand conditions like pre-eclampsia and postnatal depression, and why women’s brains have often been overlooked by neuroscience
Some people compare the immune system to a muscle, suggesting that the more you use it, the stronger it gets. Who doesn’t love an analogy? But is this one accurate?
Like a highway system, the vagus nerve branches profusely from your brain through your organs to marshal bodily functions, including aspects of mind such as mood, pleasure and fear.
A series exploring National Library of Medicine’s rich and varied collection of “herbals,” books devoted to the description of medicinal plants with instructions on how to use them.