Neuro News Nanos

Image via Wikipedia

Here are this morning’s:

* Facial emotional expressions are universal AND culturally specific — athletes from collectivist cultures, such as China, tended to mask their emotional expressions more than athletes from individualistic cultures like the UK — a big smile or a small one

* How to make your friends fat — be fat yourself — be thin and eat a lot of food around your friends

* Is the first spot always best in a preference test? — across the board, there was a consistent “first-is-best” result — first is usually best, except when it’s not

* Spontaneous panic attack caught on brain scan — the woman’s brain activity during the panic episode showed that her heart-rate was positively correlated with activity in her left amygdala — the woman’s heart rate increased, activity decreased in her left middle temporal gyrus

* Angry faces — facial structure linked to aggression — “Volunteers’ estimates of aggression correlated highly with the actual aggressive behavior of the faces viewed, even if they saw the picture for only 39 milliseconds.”

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