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The idea of a simple, cheap and widely available device that could boost brain function sounds too good to be true.Yet promising results in the lab with emerging ‘brain stimulation’ techniques, though still very preliminary, have prompted Oxford The idea of a simple, cheap and widely available device that could boost brain function sounds too good to be true.Yet promising results in the lab with emerging ‘brain stimulation’ techniques, though still very preliminary, have prompted Oxford neuroscientists to team up with leading ethicists at the University to consider the issues the new technology could raise. Recent research in Oxford and elsewhere has shown that one type of brain stimulation in particular, called transcranial direct current stimulation or TDCS, can be used to improve language and maths abilities, memory, problem solving, attention, even movement.

The odds of a major depressive episode are more than double for those working 11 or more hours a day compared to those working seven to eight hours a day, according to a report is published in the online journal PLoS ONE. The authors, led by Marianna Virtanen of the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health and University College London, followed about 2000 middle aged British civil servants and found a robust association between overtime work and depression. This correlation was not affected when the analysis was adjusted for various possible confounders, including socio-demographics, lifestyle, and work-related factors.

Want to think outside the box? Try actually thinking outside of a box. In a study to be published in an upcoming issue of Psychological Science, researchers had students think up solutions to problems while acting out various metaphors about creative thinking and found that the instructions actually worked. The authors of the new paper were inspired by metaphors about creativity found in boardrooms to movie studios to scientific laboratories around the world and previous linkages established between mind and body.

Conservatives paint self-indulgent liberals as insufferably absent on urgent national issues, while liberals say fear-mongering conservatives are fixated on exaggerated dangers to the country. A new study from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln suggests there are biological truths to such broad brushstrokes. In a series of experiments, researchers closely monitored physiological reactions and eye movements of study participants when shown combinations of both pleasant and unpleasant images. Conservatives reacted more strongly to, fixated more quickly on, and looked longer at the unpleasant images; liberals had stronger reactions to and looked longer at the pleasant images compared with conservatives.

Small-group dynamics — such as jury deliberations, collective bargaining sessions, and cocktail parties — can alter the expression of IQ in some susceptible people, says a new US study. “You may joke about how committee meetings make you feel brain dead, but our findings suggest that they may make you act brain dead as well,” said Read Montague, director of the Human Neuroimaging Laboratory and Computational Psychiatry Unit at the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute.