Why a Dose of Nature Is Essential to Your Mental Health When was the last time you went out and soaked up some nature? Even in pre-pandemic times, most American adults spent 93% of their time indoors. Now, with social distancing requirements in place, the time we spend at home and inside has only increased. But during this stressful time, our connection to nature is more […] Read More Reading Fiction May Improve Real-Life Relationships Great literature can transport us to times and places outside our own existence. As we turn each page, the characters and plots become more and more real to us. This experience of being immersed in a good book is more than entertaining; it also may enhance our real lives as social beings. A number of […] Read More Bringing Harmony to the Brain: The Neuroscience of Music and Parkinson’s Disease As anyone who has heard “their song” can attest, the right music has the power to make you move. Now healthcare providers are trying to harness this power to help patients with a neurological motor disorder, Parkinson’s disease (PD). Over the past three decades, researchers have begun to uncover the neural basis of music’s effect […] Read More How Time in Nature Boosts Learning in the Classroom Even a little nature could go a long way to help students. Editor’s Note: This article was originally published on August 22, 2019. As summer fades, you can almost hear the collective sigh of children marching back into the confines of the classroom. Hopefully, their summer vacations included healthy doses of nature. Time outdoors has noted benefits to our mental health. But kids would do well to […] Read More How the Great Outdoors Improves Mental Health Mother nature knows best. Our society’s rapid pace of life and addiction to digital technology have created a stress epidemic in the 21st century. But there may be another major contributing factor: chronic nature deprivation. Our connection to nature has become very tenuous. More than half the world’s population currently lives in cities, a number that is predicted to […] Read More Music and the Brain: A Discussion with Legendary Jazz Guitarist Pat Metheny at SfN Dialogues Between Neuroscience and Society Panel on Music and the Brain. Pictured from left to right: Charles Limb, Pat Metheny and Richard Huganir. The 2018 Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting in San Diego, CA started on a spectacular note this November, featuring the legendary jazz guitarist Pat Metheny in the public lecture Dialogues Between Neuroscience […] Read More Your Brain on Art: A Promising Path to Healing War Trauma Seven service members, all diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) from combat, sat at the psychotherapy group table, creating symbols of themselves out of clay on a fabric placemat to keep their workspace clean. During the verbal processing part of the group, each participant described what he made; symbols that ranged from flat hearts to […] Read More Baltimore Brain Connect Reaches More Than 1,000 Students and Families “Kiss your brain!” It’s a common refrain from teachers at the Building Educated Leaders for Life (BELL) afterschool program when a scholar gives a great answer or pushes himself to new conclusions. After last week, scholars who kiss their hand and touch their forehead in response likely have a whole new appreciation for why their […] Read More WATCH: The Science of the Arts How does the brain process sensory information? What gives humans the unique ability to create and respond to art? Can architecture effect healing, creativity and learning? These are questions at the heart of the Science of the Arts, a program hosted by the Brain Science Institute that brought together researchers and artists in a series […] Read More IAM Lab Heads Overseas to Lead Arts and Brain Health Conference The International Arts + Mind Lab (IAM Lab) held its first overseas convening as part of the International Life Science Summer Summit in Hebei Province, China, earlier this month. Organized by the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS) with the Kavli Neuroscience Discovery Institute, the three-day convening focused on brain health from a variety […] Read More More → Join the neuroaesthetics conversation. Subscribe here.