These are the images used in artistic physical displays. They are survey questions and conversation starters that are topically and thematically organized. They demonstrate how Jesus is relevant to each topic or theme. You can also just view the images on your device. If you would like, see all our Conversation Stations; below are the ones that relate to the topic of Desire.

Find Your Heart's Desire? (and instructions and theological essay)

Is a Good Friend Hard to Find? (and instructions and conversation tree)

What Story Do You Live In? (and associated message)

Does the Good Outweigh the Bad? (and instructions)

Whose Justice? (and instructions and Christian Restorative Justice Study Guide)

Whose Justice? for Harvard Law School

What Can We Do About Evil? (and instructions and conversation tree) and smaller version and brochure version

Edward T. Welch, Blame It on the Brain: Distinguishing Chemical Imbalances, Brain Disorders, and Disobedience. P&R Publishing | Amazon page, 1998.

Benedict Carey, A Neuroscientific Look at Speaking in Tongues. New York Times, Nov 7, 2006.

William M. Struthers, Wired for Intimacy: How Pornography Hijacks the Male Brain. InterVarsity Press | Amazon page, 2009.

Curt Thompson, Anatomy of the Soul: Surprising Connections between Neuroscience and Spiritual Practices That Can Transform Your Life and Relationships. Tyndale | Amazon page, Jun 1, 2010.

Marlene Winell and Valerie Tarico, The Sad, Twisted Truth About Conservative Christianity's Effect on the Mind. Salon, Nov 1, 2014.  - "Some religious beliefs may alter brain function..."

Skye Jethani, Dr. Jim Wilder: This is Your Brain on God. Holy Post, Episode 412, Jul 8, 2020.  On the brain, attachments, how people change, and how we develop a love for Jesus

Curt Thompson, The Soul of Desire: Discovering the Neuroscience of Longing, Beauty, and Community. InterVarsity Press | Amazon page, Oct 5, 2021.

Dominique J.-F. De Quervan, Urs Fischbacher, Valerie Treyer, Melanie Schellhammer, Ulrich Schnyder, Alfred Buck, and Ernst Fehr, The Neural Basis of Altruistic Punishment. Science, Aug 27, 2004.

“Many people voluntarily incur costs to punish violations of social norms. Evolutionary models and empirical evidence indicate that such altruistic punishment has been a decisive force in the evolution of human cooperation… Our findings support the hypothesis that people derive satisfaction from punishing norm violations and that the activation in the dorsal striatum reflects the anticipated satisfaction from punishing defectors.”

Michael D. Lemonick, How We Get Addicted. Time, Jul 5, 2007.  See also Time Magazine Interactive, Addiction and the Brain. Time.

Benedict Carey, Who's Minding the Mind? New York Times, Jul 31, 2007.

Melinda Wenner, Study: Religion is Good for Kids. LiveScience, Jan 11, 2008.

John Cloud, Epigenetics: Why Your DNA Isn't Your Destiny. Time, Jan 6, 2010.

Andrew Newberg and Mark Robert Waldman, How God Changes Your Brain: Breakthrough Findings from a Leading Neuroscientist. Ballantine Books | Amazon books, Mar 2010. See copy at archive.org. See also Andrew Newberg, How God Changes Your Brain: An Introduction to Jewish Neurotheology. CCAR Journal: The Reform Jewish Quarterly, 2016.

Center for Disease Control, Adverse Childhood Experience Study. Studies published from 1998 to 2011

Jonah Lerner, Depression's Upside. New York Times, Feb 25, 2010.  Lerner includes links between depression and mental exhaustion, depression and brain activity, depression and creative problem solving

Gail Dines, Pornland: How Porn Has Hijacked Our Sexuality. Beacon Press | Amazon page, Apr 2011.

Susan Krauss Whitbourne, The Essential Guide to Defense Mechanisms. Psychology Today, Oct 22, 2011.

Judith Horstman, The Scientific American Book of Love, Sex, and the Brain: The Neuroscience of How, When, Why, and Who We Love. Jossey-Bass | Amazon page, Dec 27, 2011.

William F. N. Chan, et.al. Male Microchimerism in the Human Female Brain. PLOSone, Sep 26, 2012.

LaVelle Hendricks, Sam Bore, Dean Aslinia, Guy Morriss, The Effects of Anger on the Brain and Body. National Forum Journal of Counseling and Addiction, 2013.  see also Sarah N. Garfinkel, et. al., Anger in Brain and Body: The Neural and Psychological Perturbation of Decision-Making by Emotion. Soc. Cogn. Affect. Neuroscience, Jan 2016.  and infographic How Anger Affects the Brain and Body. National Institute for the Clinical Application of Behavioral Medicine.

Joshua Lang, Awakening. The Atlantic, Jan 2, 2013.  On consciousness

Judith E. Glaser, Your Brain Is Hooked on Being Right. Harvard Business Review, Feb 28, 2013.

Daniel Reisel, The Neuroscience of Restorative Justice. TED talk, Feb 2013.

David Chalmers, How Do You Explain Consciousness. TED talk, Mar 2013.

Christopher Bergland, The Neuroscience of Calming a Baby. Psychology Today, Apr 22, 2013.

Dan Hurley, Grandma's Experiences Leave a Mark on Your Genes. Discover Magazine, Jun 11, 2013.  

Daniel Amen, The Most Important Lesson From 83,000 Brain Scans. TEDx Orange Coast, Oct 16, 2013.  how physical brain health helps mental and emotional health

Derek Thompson, Your Brain on Poverty: Why Poor People Seem to Make Bad Decisions. The Atlantic, Nov 22, 2013.

Giulio Tononi, Consciousness and the Brain. Visarga H | Vimeo video, Oct 2013.

Janeen Interlandi, The Toxins That Affected Your Great-Grandparents Could Be In Your Genes. Smithsonian Magazine, Dec 2013.

Richard Gray, Phobias May Be Memories Passed Down in Genes From Ancestors. Telegraph UK, Dec 1, 2013.

Gregory Ciotti, Is Your Brain Truly Ready for Junk Food, Porn, or the Internet? Sparring Mind blog.

Peg Streep, 6 Things You Didn't Know About How Your Brain Works. Psychology Today, Jan 13, 2014.

Shruti Ravindran, Twilight in the Box. Aeon Magazine, Feb 27, 2014.  What solitary confinement does to the brain

Alanna Ketler, This Study Will Make You Think Twice About Who You Are Getting Into Bed With. Collective Evolution, Mar 18, 2014.

Colin Schultz, Pot Smokers' Brains Are Different. Smithsonian Magazine, Apr 17, 2014.

Emma Innes, How the Trauma of Life Is Passed Down in SPERM, Affecting the Mental Health of Future Generations. Daily Mail UK, Apr 23, 2014.

Christopher Bergland, Social Disadvantage Creates Genetic Wear and Tear. Psychology Today, Apr 15, 2014.

Michaeleen Doucleff, Mom's Diet Right Before Pregnancy Can Alter Baby's Genes. NPR, Apr 29, 2014.

Sam Kean, Phineas Gage: Neuroscience's Most Famous Patient. Slate, May 6, 2014.

Justine Alford, Becoming A Father Can "Rewire" A Man's Brain. IFLScience, May 29, 2014.

Laura Dimon, How Solitary Confinement Hurts the Teenage Brain. The Atlantic, Jun 30, 2014.

Anita Collins, How Playing an Instrument Benefits Your Brain. TED Ed video, Jul 22, 2014.

Nury Vittachi, Scientists Discover That Atheists Might Not Exist, and That's Not a Joke. Science 2.0, Jul 6, 2014.  cited by Casey Luskin, Evolutionary Studies Suggest that Atheists, Whatever They Say to the Contrary, Really Do Believe in God. Evolution News, Aug 1, 2014.  Says "karmic justice". that is, cosmic retributive justice.  It is the "default setting" for the "religious part" of our brains. I underscore that this finding comes from the current understanding of cognitive neuroscience. It helps to explain to me why, when John Calvin developed the idea of penal substitution, that theory played on the "karmic justice" section of the human brain and then served to *supplant* the theological structure of genuine Trinitarian thought. For the first 1500 years, Christian Trinitarian theology was *not aligned* with the "default setting" of neural circuitry in our brains.

The earliest atonement theory was medical and not penal, the implications for relationships and socio-political ethics was for restorative, not retributive, justice, and the biblical motif of fire was interpreted as rehabilitative and purifying, not retributive and punishing. So: Christian theology and teaching of this type. firmly held by the Eastern Orthodox, along with Catholics and Protestants like me who are calling for a return to the Nicene period.  have to consistently *overcome* something deeply wired in our brains. It does not take advantage of the brain, or "hijack" the brain, as Dr. Andy Thomson states at the American Atheists Conference 2009, who claimed to have no "bias" whatsoever. of course. .

We should not be surprised now that the most deeply philosophical forms of both ancient Hindu and ancient Greek cosmology *agreed* about cycles of karma, reincarnation, and the principle of retribution. That view of the world just makes more sense to us intuitively. It also concurs with the more natural observations of how the world works: in endless cycles and circles. But, Judeo-Christianity, as a belief system, has a higher burden of proof. The only way it can offer an epistemology by which it can be evaluated is in the realm of history. Just as serving on a jury requires us to dig into the unrepeatable history of past personal, human events, so the epistemology that is appropriate to Judeo-Christianity is a historical epistemology. Are there signposts in history upon which it builds the case for a good God who intervenes on behalf of human beings and against human evil? Entertaining as videos like Dr. Thomson's are, nothing conclusive can be drawn from them, except that some practitioners of neuroscience overstate themselves, as they're not even in the appropriate academic discipline.

Dr. Nadine Burke Harris, How Childhood Trauma Affects Health Across a Lifetime. TED Talk, Sep 2014.  re: when a child experiences abuse, neglect, parental mental illness, substance abuse, incarceration, separation or divorce, domestic violence

Melissa Dahl, Why Men Don't Remember Anything. New York Magazine, Sep 19, 2014.

Sam Brodey, Scientists Dissected the Brains of 79 NFL Players. What They Found Is Disturbing. Mother Jones, Oct 1, 2014.

Jesse Singal, How Fairness Makes Our Brains Tingle. New Yorker Magazine, Oct 20, 2014.

Priya Joshi, Learning a New Language Stimulates Same Pleasure Centres in the Brain as Sex and Chocolate. International Business Times, Oct 25, 2014.

Eileen Shim, Scientists Have Discovered an Activity Just as Pleasurable as Sex, Drugs and Gambling. Mic, Oct 28, 2014.

Sara Reardon, Gut-Brain Link Grabs Neuroscientists. Nature, Nov 12, 2014.

Judith Shulevitz, The Science of Suffering: Kids Are Inheriting Their Parents' Trauma.  Can Science Stop It? New Republic, Nov 16, 2014.

Alexis Tsioulcas, Musicians' Brains Really Do Work Differently, In a Good Way. NPR, Nov 20, 2014.

Robert Martone, Scientists Discover Children's Cells Living in Mother's Brains. Scientific American, Dec 4, 2014.

Carol Dweck, The Power of Believing That You Can Improve. TED Talk, Dec 17, 2014.

Yudhijit Bhattacharjee, Baby Brains. National Geographic, Jan 2015.  - on the first year of a baby's development

Feel Guide, New Research Discovers Depression Is An Allergic Reaction to Inflammation. Feel Guide, Jan 6, 2015.

Amy Ellis Nutt, Music Lessons Spur Emotional and Behavioral Growth in Children, New Study Says. Washington Post, Jan 7, 2015.

Tom Barnes, Science Just Discovered Something Amazing About What Those Childhood Piano Lessons Did to You. Mic, Jan 8, 2015.

Adrienne Lafrance, What Happens to a Woman's Brain When She Becomes a Mother. The Atlantic, Jan 8, 2015.

Matt Fradd, Neuroscience Has Proved That Porn is Literally Making Men's Brains More Childish. LifeSite News, Jan 14, 2015.

Elahe Izadi, How Men and Women Process Emotions Differently. Washington Post, Jan 23, 2015.

Fresh Air, Why Teens Are Impulsive, Addiction-Prone And Should Protect Their Brains. NPR, Jan 28, 2015.

Sound Medicine, Childhood Trauma Leads to Brains Wired for Fear. Sound Medicine News, Feb 3, 2015.

Gary Wilson, Your Brain on Porn: Internet Pornography and the Emerging Science of Addiction. Commonwealth Publishing | Amazon page, Feb 2015.

Pam Weintraub, The Elastic Brain. Aeon, Feb 27, 2015.

Claire Landsbaum, What a Neuroscientist Said About Eminem's Brain. New York Magazine, Mar 3, 2015.

Gretchen Reynolds, One Twin Exercises, the Other Doesn't. New York Times, Mar 4, 2015.

Allison Eck, Stress from Poverty Decreases Child Brain Sizes - Even at Birth. PBS, Mar 31, 2015.

Lizette Borreli, Birth Control Pill May Alter Woman's Brain Structure; Are There Real-World Consequences? Medical Daily, Apr 7, 2015.

Lisa Miller, Why Kids Need Spirituality. New York Magazine, Apr 16, 2015.

Trace Dominguez, How Poverty Changes Your Brain. Test Tube video, Apr 22, 2015.

Destin Sandlin, The Backwards Brain Bicycle. Smarter Every Day, Apr 24, 2015.  about brain bias, learning and unlearning

Peter Gray, Early Academic Training Produces Long-Term Harm. Psychology Today, May 5, 2015.

Florence Waters, Is Wi-Fi Making Your Child Ill?  France Bans Wi-Fi in Nurseries and Primary Schools. Telegraph UK, May 9, 2015.

Richard A. Friedman, Infidelity Lurks in Your Genes. New York Times, May 24, 2015.

Annalaura Montgomery Chuang, Formed by War: Combat Wounds the Soul, but the Gospel Offers Hope. Christianity Today, May 26, 2015.

Debra Kain, Researchers Find Missing Link Between Brain and Immune System. Neuroscience News, Jun 1, 2015.

Kathy Gilsinian, The Buddhist and the Neuroscientist: What Compassion Does To Your Brain. The Atlantic, Jul 4, 2015.

Dylan Goldstein, The Neuroscience of 6 Drugs In a Nutshell. Brain Decoder, Jun 26, 2015.

Stephanie Pappas, The Frustrating Search for Free Will. Brain Decoder, Jul 6, 2015.

Dylan Goldstein, Lonely People's Brains Look 'Hungry' For Social Connection. Brain Decoder, Jul 6, 2015.

Daryl Cameron, Michael Inzlicht, William Cunningham, Empathy is Actually a Choice. New York Times, Jul 10, 2015.

James Hamblin, The Paradox of Effort: A Medical Case Against Too Much Self-Control. The Atlantic, Jul 16, 2015.

Matt Fradd, 4 Ways Porn Warps the Male Brain. Covenant Eyes, Jul 31, 2015.

Anil Ananthaswamy, The Man Who Wasn't There: Investigations Into the Strange New Science of Self. Dutton | Amazon page, Aug 4, 2015.

Vivian Giang, Your Brain Is Particularly Vulnerable to Trauma at Two Distinct Ages. Quartz, Aug 4, 2015.

Donna Jackson Nakazawa, The Last Best Cure: 7 Ways Childhood Adversity Changes the Brain. Psychology Today, Aug 7, 2015.

Christian Jarrett, The Neuroscience of Being a Selfish Jerk. New York Magazine, Aug 19, 2015.

Helen Thomson, Study of Holocaust Survivors Finds Trauma Passed on to Children's Genes. The Guardian, Aug 21, 2015.

Big Think Editors, Why Black Mental Health Is Different From White Mental Health. Big Think, Aug 26, 2015.

Christian Jarrett, Does Reading Literature Really Beef Up Your Brain? New York Magazine, Sep 3, 2015.

Christian Jarrett, Drugs and Talk Therapy Affect the Brain in Different Ways. New York Magazine, Sep 30, 2015.

Dan Gray, The Serious Mental Costs of Watching Porn. Fight the New Drug, Oct 16, 2015.

Artur Rosman, Top 10 Books on Theology and Neuroscience. Patheos, Oct 22, 2015.

Victoria Woollaston, Could Your Views on God and Immigration Be Changed Using Magnets? Brain Simulation Can Alter Beliefs, Study Claims. Daily Mail, Oct 14, 2015.  and the interpretation by Joel McDurmon, Atheists Embarrassed: Study Proves Atheism Uses Less Brain Function. The American Vision, Oct 26, 2015.

Abraham Riesman and Jesse Singal, This Is Your Brain on Advertising: Why Kids Are So Vulnerable to Marketing. New York Magazine, Nov 3, 2015.

Christian Jarrett, When Jealousy and Empathy Collide in the Brain. New York Magazine, Nov 5, 2015.

Carl Zimmer, Parents May Pass Down More Than Just Genes, Study Suggests. New York Times, Dec 3, 2015.

Emmeline Zhao, Why Identity and Emotion Are Central to Motivating the Teenage Brain. KQED, Dec 10, 2015.

Dawn Papple, Neuroscience Research: Does Free Will Actually Exist? Inquisitr, Jan 10, 2016.

Jennifer Delgado, Did You Know That Intelligence is Inherited from Mothers? Psychology Spot, Mar 2016.

Ian Sample, Neuroscientists Create 'Atlas' Showing How Words Are Organised in the Brain. Guardian, Apr 27, 2015.

Mark Wolynn, It Didn't Start With You: How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are. Science & Nonduality, Apr 28, 2016.  review of his book

Robert Epstein, The Empty Brain. Aeon, May 18, 2016.  On why the brain is not a computer

Amy Reichelt, This Is Your Brain On Sugar. TEDxYouth@Sydney, Jun 29, 2016.

Emily Deruy, The Complex Lives of Babies. The Atlantic, Jun 20, 2016.

Maia Szalavitz, Can You Get Over an Addiction? New York Times, Jun 25, 2016.

Sean Kane, 7 Science-Backed Reasons You Should Make Art, Even If You're Bad At It. Business Insider, Jun 29, 2016.  art's impact on the brain

Rignam Wangkhang, Can Trauma Be Passed from Parent to Child? Ozy, Jul 7, 2016.

Taniya Chadha, Role of Nutrition in the Cognitive Development of Preschoolers. My City 4 Kids, Jul 14, 2016.

Sumathi Reddy, Can This Brain Exercise Put Off Dementia? Wall Street Journal, Jul 25, 2016.

Douglas Main, Breastfed Infants' Brains Develop Better, Faster. Newsweek, Aug 1, 2016.

Donna Jackson Nakazawa, Childhood Trauma Leads to Lifelong Chronic Illness - So Why Isn't the Medical Community Helping Patients? ACES Too High News, Aug 10, 2016.

Gaia Vince, How Language Is Processed By Your Brain. CNN, Aug 16, 2016.

James Hamblin, Why One Neuroscientist Started Blasting His Core. The Atlantic, Aug 24, 2016.

Julie Sedivy, How Morality Changes in a Foreign Language. Scientific American, Sep 14, 2016.

Michael Alison Chandler, This Doctor Pioneered a Way to Treat Stress in Children, a Startling Source of Future Disease. Washington Post, Oct 6, 2016.

Fergus Walsh, Smoking Causes Hundreds of DNA Charges. BBC News, Nov 3, 2016.

James Hamblin, Why Morning People Thrive. The Atlantic, Nov 4, 2016.

Rod Dreher, On Time: Arrival. The American Conservative, Nov 24, 2016.  spoiler alert! but great exploration of neuroplasticity and language

Earl Miller, Here’s Why You Shouldn’t Multitask, According to an MIT Neuroscientist. Fortune, Dec 7, 2016.

Olivia Goldhill, Scientists Say Your "Mind" Isn't Confined to Your Brain, or Even Your Body. Quartz, Dec 24, 2016.

Jerry Bowyer, Looking for a Cognitive Enhancer? Skip the Drugs and Try Fasting Instead. Forbes, Jan 6, 2017.

Bhuvanesh Awasthi, From Attire to Assault: Clothing, Objectification, and De-humanization – A Possible Prelude to Sexual Violence? Frontiers in Psychology, Mar 10, 2017.

“In the context of objectification and violence, little attention has been paid to the perception neuroscience of how the human brain perceives bodies and objectifies them. Various studies point to how external cues such as appearance and attire could play a key role in encouraging objectification, dehumanization and the denial of agency. Reviewing new experimental findings across several areas of research, it seems that common threads run through issues of clothing, sexual objectification, body perception, dehumanization, and assault. Collating findings from several different lines of research, this article reviews additional evidence from cognitive and neural dynamics of person perception (body and face perception processes) that predict downstream social behavior. Specifically, new findings demonstrate cognitive processing of sexualized female bodies as object-like, a crucial aspect of dehumanized percept devoid of agency and personhood. Sexual violence is a consequence of a dehumanized perception of female bodies that aggressors acquire through their exposure and interpretation of objectified body images. Integrating these findings and identifying triggers for sexual violence may help develop remedial measures and inform law enforcement processes and policy makers alike.”

Bruce Goldman, Two Minds: The Cognitive Differences Between Men and Women. Stanford University Medicine, Spring 2017.  On the neuroscientific study of gender differences. See also Leonard Sax, A New Study Blows Up Old Ideas About Girls and Boys. Psychology Today, Mar 27, 2019.  Studies of the neural development of fetuses show major differences between girls and boys, challenging the views of Judith Butler and Cordelia Fine that “gender” has no biological basis, for example Genevieve Fox, Want Meet the Neuroscientist Shattering the Myth of the Gendered Brain. The Guardian, Feb 24, 2019.  "Why asking whether your brain is male or female is the wrong question."

Olivia Goldhill, For Half a Century, Neuroscientists Thought They Knew How Memory Worked. They Were Wrong. Quartz, Apr 15, 2017.

Tara Garcia Mathewson, How Poverty Changes the Brain. The Atlantic, Apr 19, 2017.

Lauren Gelman, Benefits of Reading: Getting Smart, Thin, Healthy, Happy. Reader's Digest, Apr 2017.

Tim Urban, Neuralink and the Brain’s Magical Future. Wait But Why, Apr 20, 2017.

Katherine Sellgren, Babies with Involved Fathers Learn Faster, Study Finds. BBC, May 10, 2017.

Frederica Perera, The Womb Is No Protection From Toxic Chemicals. New York Times, Jun 1, 2017.

Newsner, Latest Research Reveals the More You Hug Your Kids - the Smarter They Get. Newsner, Jun 9, 2017.  

Tristan Harris, How Your Brain Is Getting Hacked: Facebook, Tinder, Slot Machines. Big Think, Jul 4, 2017.  Harris speaks of “back doors into the brain” like approval from others, and how Facebook knows how long your profile picture shows up on other people’s screens. Another vulnerability is the variable schedule reward, like the slot machine: it creates addictions 2 - 3 times faster than any other casino machine, and garners more money than movies, baseball, and amusement parks combined. You pull a lever and sometimes you get a reward. Our phones are a slot machine.

John Schwartz, Learning to Learn: You, Too, Can Rewire Your Brain. New York Times, Aug 4, 2017.

Thoughty2, The Truth Why Modern Music Is Awful. Thoughty2, Aug 5, 2017.  a Youtube video; at 17 - 18 minutes, mentions dopamine and brain activity

James Taranto, The Politicization of Motherhood. Wall Street Journal, Oct 27, 2017.  research on the first three years of child development, and the political reception of this science

Scott Berson, How Often You Hold Your Baby Actually Affects Their DNA, Study Finds. Miami Herald, Nov 28, 2017.

Olga Khazan, Even Small Amounts of Alcohol Impair Memory. The Atlantic, Dec 15, 2017.

Janelle Nanos, Stop Answering Your Phone. Boston Globe, Jan 6, 2018.  discusses neurological impact on young people

Lisa Feldman Barrett, The Three Big Myths About Emotions, Gender and Brains. Wired UK, Jan 9, 2018.

Sean Illing, This is What Love Does to Your Brain. Vox, Apr 23, 2018.

Brian Resnick, We're Underestimating the Mind-Warping Potential of Fake Video. Vox, Apr 23, 2018.

Ari Ne'eman, The CDC Just Announced One in 59 Children Are Autistic. Here's Why That's Not Evidence of an Epidemic. Vox, Apr 30, 2018.

Ashley Fetters, The Exceptional Cruelty of a No-Hugging Policy. The Atlantic, Jun 20, 2018.  See also Charlie Baily and Schuyler Henderson, The Clinical Case for Keeping Families Together. The Atlantic, Jun 20, 2018.

Ed Yong, A Landmark Study on the Origins of Alcoholism. The Atlantic, Jun 21, 2018.  Studies of the amygdala.

Meghna Chakrabarti and Chris Citorik, How Motherhood Changes The Brain. NPR, Jul 18, 2018.  A 14 minute radio segment.  See also Chelsea Conaboy, Motherhood Brings the Most Dramatic Brain Changes of a Woman’s Life, So Why Does Prenatal Care Ignore the Topic Altogether? Boston Globe, Jul 17, 2018.

Sharon Hewitt Rawlette, What If Consciousness Comes First? Psychology Today, Jul 22, 2019.  “Bridging the mind-body gap will require a fundamental shift in perspective.”

Katherine J. Wu, Dads Pass On More Than Genetics in Their Sperm. Smithsonian, Jul 26, 2018.

Keith Brannon, Tulane Psychiatrist Wins National Award for Research That Shows How Trauma Seeps Across Generations. Tulane University, Aug 17, 2018.

Allison Aubrey, Want To Keep Your Brain Sharp? Take Care Of Your Eyes And Ears. NPR, Oct 22, 2018.

The Young Turks, Fear and Loathing in the Conservative Mind. The Young Turks, Feb 14, 2019.  On the emotion of disgust, and its correlation to politically conservative instincts; how language triggering disgust is often used with religious ideology of a "pure community."  References Kathleen McAuliffe, Fear This Is Your Brain on Parasites: How Tiny Creatures Manipulate Our Behavior and Shape Society. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt | Amazon page, Jun 2016.  See also Kathleen McAuliffe, The Psychology (and Politics) of Disgust. Big Think, Sep 23, 2016.  See also Bobby Azarian, A Complete Psychological Analysis of Trump's Support. Psychology Today, Dec 27, 2018.  “Science can help us make sense of the president's political invincibility.”

Kevin Roose, Do Not Disturb: How I Ditched My Phone and Unbroke My Brain. New York Times, Feb 23, 2019.

Daily Health Post Editorial, New Study: The More you Hug your Kids, the More Their Brains Develop. Daily Health Post, Jul 1, 2019.

Justin Brown, Neuroscience Reveals: This Is How Gratitude Literally Rewrites Your Brain to Be Happier. Real Farmacy, Jul 13, 2019.

Bahar Gholipour, A Famous Argument Against Free Will Has Been Debunked. The Atlantic, Sep 10, 2019.  “For decades, a landmark brain study fed speculation about whether we control our own actions. It seems to have made a classic mistake.”

Jerome Groopman, Can Brain Science Help Us Break Bad Habits? The New Yorker, Oct 21, 2019.  “Studies suggest that relying on will power is hopeless. Instead, we must find strategies that don’t require us to be strong.”

Deborah Copaken, What Menopause Does to Women’s Brains. The Atlantic, Nov 8, 2019.  The risk of Alzheimer’s; 2/3 of all Alzheimers patients are women; estrogen is a neuro-protective hormone, so when it declines, the brain is more vulnerable.

David Brooks, The Wisdom Your Body Knows. New York Times, Nov 28, 2019.  Regarding the body-brain connection.

Lydia Denworth, The Loneliness of the “Social Distancer” Triggers Brain Cravings Akin to Hunger. Scientific American, Apr 2, 2020.  “A study on isolation’s neural underpinnings implies many may feel literally “starved” for contact amid the COVID-19 pandemic”

Lisa Mosconi, How Menopause Affects the Brain. TEDx Talks, Apr 13, 2020. Tiredness and felt energy levels. Diet can help, especially the Mediterranean diet and dark chocolate which are richer in estrogens. Stress causes cortisol, which reduces estrogen.

Jerome D. Lubbe, The Brain-Based Enneagram: You Are Not A Number. Dr. Jerome D. Lubbe | Amazon page, May 2020.

Melissa Fay Greene, Decades Ago, Romania Deprived Thousands of Babies of Human Contact. The Atlantic, Jul-Aug 2020. This history raises profound questions: Can an unloved child learn to love? Can strict anti-contraception and anti-abortion policies overwhelm parents’ mental and physical health, leading to emotionally deprived children? And what will be the cost to the children? To others? The article explains the work of clinicians and neuroscientists like John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth in attachment theory.

“This past Christmas Day was the 30th anniversary of the public execution by firing squad of Romania’s last Communist dictator, Nicolae Ceaușescu, who’d ruled for 24 years. In 1990, the outside world discovered his network of “child gulags,” in which an estimated 170,000 abandoned infants, children, and teens were being raised. Believing that a larger population would beef up Romania’s economy, Ceaușescu had curtailed contraception and abortion, imposed tax penalties on people who were childless, and celebrated as “heroine mothers” women who gave birth to 10 or more. Parents who couldn’t possibly handle another baby might call their new arrival “Ceauşescu’s child,” as in “Let him raise it.” […]

The Romanian orphans were not the first devastatingly neglected children to be seen by psychologists in the 20th century. Unresponsive World War II orphans, as well as children kept isolated for long periods in hospitals, had deeply concerned mid-century child-development giants such as René Spitz and John Bowlby. In an era devoted to fighting malnutrition, injury, and infection, the idea that adequately fed and medically stable children could waste away because they missed their parents was hard to believe. Their research led to the then-bold notion, advanced especially by Bowlby, that simply lacking an “attachment figure,” a parent or caregiver, could wreak a lifetime of havoc on mental and physical health.”

Bobby Azarian, Neuroscientist Explains Why Christian Evangelicals Are Wired to Believe Trump’s Lies. AlterNet, Aug 3, 2020.  “It takes more mental effort to reject an idea as false than to accept it as true. In other words, it’s easier to believe than to not.”

Lisa Feldman Barrett, People’s Words and Actions Can Actually Shape Your Brain — A Neuroscientist Explains How. TED, Nov 17, 2020.  

“How do the people around you influence your body budget and rewire your adult brain? Your brain changes its wiring after new experiences, a process called plasticity. Microscopic parts of your neurons change gradually every day. Branch-like dendrites become bushier, and their associated neural connections become more efficient. Little by little, your brain becomes tuned and pruned as you interact with others. Some brains are more attentive to the people around them and others less so, but everybody has somebody. Ultimately, your family, friends, neighbors and even strangers contribute to your brain’s structure and function and help your brain keep your body humming along. This co-regulation has measurable effects. When you’re with someone you care about, your breathing can synchronize, as can the beating of your hearts — whether you’re in casual conversation or a heated argument. This sort of physical connection happens between infants and caregivers, therapists and clients, even people taking a yoga class or singing in a choir together.”

Relevant Magazine, You’ve Heard About Mental Health — Let’s Talk About Brain Health. Relevant Magazine, Nov 26, 2020.

James Kimmel, Jr., What the Science of Addiction Tells Us About Trump. Politico, Dec 12, 2020.  “It turns out that your brain on grievances looks a lot like your brain on drugs. And that’s a problem not just for the outgoing president, but for the rest of us.”

Michael Hobbes, What Is The Internet Doing To Boomers’ Brains? Huffington Post, Dec 29, 2020.  See also Peter Manseau, His Pastors Tried to Steer Him Away from Social Media Rage. He Stormed the Capitol Anyway. Washington Post, Feb 19, 2020.  

“This account of one alleged rioter’s path to the Jan. 6 insurrection is based on his extensive Facebook posts, court documents, and the recollections and social media messages of several people who know him. Reached by phone this week, Sparks, who was released after his Jan. 19 arrest, declined to comment on anything related to his presence at the Capitol.”

Dan Shapiro, Robert Sapolsky et.al. The Science Behind ‘Us vs. Them’. Big Think, May 9, 2021.  re: oxytocin and the limbic system in the brain increasing both the “us” and the “them” sensibilities; facial recognition and trustworthiness; political behavior rewards loyalty — this explains why economic issues may overlap with, but are not synonymous with, ethnic-racial groupings.

Virginia Hughes, Scientists Drove Mice to Bond by Zapping Their Brains With Light. New York Times, May 25, 2021.  Fascinating connections suggested between neuroscience and personal relations. “The study, a tour de force in bioengineering, comes after two decades of research on brain-to-brain synchrony in people.”

Luke Burgis, Social Media Addiction - How It Changes Your Brain. Big Think, Nov 28, 2021.  Uses mimetic desire to explain it. “All desire is a form of transcendence. We desire to go beyond the boundaries, to go over the mountain, to be the kind of person that we don’t feel that we currently are.”

NBC News, New Study Finds Developmental Differences For Children Born During Pandemic.  NBC News, Jan 5, 2022.  Women who were pregnant while enduring homelessness or eviction, and food insecurity during the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic had infants with developmental delays.  At six months, infants were slower in fine motor skills, gross motor skills, and social skills.

Cathy O’Neil, Why Can’t We Pay Attention Anymore?  New York Times, Feb 3, 2022. 

“Johann Hari’s book “Stolen Focus” and Jacob Ward’s book “The Loop” discuss how technology and modernity are negatively and chronically affecting our brains and behavior. They focus on the individual experience of living in this moment, and how modern technology is limiting our choices and personal notions of freedom and consciousness. These well-researched surveys draw attention to important concerns while avoiding simplistic self-improvement recommendations.”

The Economist, Becoming a Father Shrinks Your Cerebrum. The Economist, Oct 21, 2022. See archived copy.

“A paper just published in Cerebral Cortex by Magdalena Martínez-García of the Gregorio Marañón Health Research Institute in Madrid, and her colleagues, divulges the details. Dr Martínez-García’s study followed a group of 40 expectant fathers, 20 from Spain and 20 from America, and also, as a control, 17 Spanish men who did not have a baby on the way. To measure changes to their brains the volunteers underwent two magnetic-resonance imaging (MRI) scans roughly a year apart. In the case of the new fathers, one of these scans was before, and the other after, the birth of the child.

This shrinkage is not, however, evenly distributed. The biggest reductions are in the area at the back of the cortex where information from the retina is processed and interpreted, and in the “default-mode” network, a piece of neural circuitry distributed between three different cortical areas, which is associated with daydreaming, mind-wandering and thinking about the self and others.

This pattern partly mimics changes found in the brains of first-time mothers. For example, a study published in Nature Neuroscience in 2017 by some of the same researchers found that areas of the default-mode networks of their brains also shrink. The differences in first-time fathers’ brains are less pronounced than those in mothers, and also more variable—and are, presumably, caused in a different way. But different physiological means can still arrive at the same evolutionary end.”

Wendy Suzuki, The Exercise Neuroscientist: New Research, The Shocking Link Between Exercise And Dementia! The Diary of a CEO, May 23, 2024. The pre-frontal cortex can grow by regular physical activity. Also discusses the nature of memory and what impacts it.

Lisa Feldman Barrett, How to Master Your Emotional Life. The Weekend University, Jul 13, 2023. Dr. Barrett tells a personal story of being on a first date with a guy, feeling flush and warm in her body and face, then coming down with the flu the next day. But her first thought and emotion was whether she was emotionally attracted to him.

“Lisa Feldman Barrett discuss the differences between the classical psychological view of emotions versus her work on the subject. Also discussed is how the brain uses past experiences in order to predict rather than react, and finally we discuss what it means to be experientially blind.”

Amanda McCracken, How Longing [for Love] Keeps Us from Healthy Relationships. TEDx Talks, Sep 29, 2023. McCracken shares her personal journey of realizing that she had become addicted to the longing for love, which was rooted in a sense of personal shame and also neuro-chemical realities about how we can become addicted to unrealistic fantasies, rather than believing she was worthy of love and understanding what healthy love is. This insight is going to be increasingly important to Christian spiritual formation.

Eric W. Dolan, New Study Links Brain Network Damage to Increased Religious Fundamentalism. PsyPost, Sep 26, 2024.

“A new study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggests that specific networks in the brain, when damaged, may influence the likelihood of developing religious fundamentalism. By analyzing patients with focal brain lesions, researchers found that damage to a particular network of brain regions—mainly in the right hemisphere—was associated with higher levels of fundamentalist beliefs. This finding provides new insight into the potential neural basis of religious fundamentalism, which has long been studied in psychology but less so in neuroscience.”

Holden Thorp, I Was Diagnosed With Autism at 53. I Know Why Rates Are Rising. New York Times, Mar 20, 2025.

“Could there be other factors behind the surge in autism diagnoses beyond increased awareness? Yes. Conservative estimates from studies of twins and siblings indicate that genetic factors may account for about 80 percent of autism risk. That leaves room for environmental factors. For instance, there are studies suggesting a link between autism and exposure of expecting mothers to nitric oxide found in air pollution.

But any environmental contributors to autism will need to be subjected to rigorous study of all of the evidence. Too often, when vaccine skeptics blame vaccines for autism, they point to studies that have weak methodology, as Mr. Kennedy did during his confirmation hearing for health secretary. Proponents of these studies ignore the existence of numerous large and carefully designed studies that show the opposite.”

Aaron Bastani, '10 Year Old Girls Are Going To Sephora, It's Insane' | Aaron Bastani Meets Jonathan Haidt. Novara Media, May 18, 2025. Haidt makes international comparisons. He also finds that religious communities produce healthier children because there is stability of people and notions of right and wrong, in comparison with social media. Haidt says of capitalism, “A good free-market society is one where you can only get rich by making other people better off.” Compare this to the social media tech companies: Meta, Snapchat, and Tiktok. A key economic question: How much would you pay to limit other people’s posts per day? Instagram is especially bad for girls because it’s social. Snapchat is being used for sexploitation and drug sales.

Nataliya Kosmyna, Eugene Hauptmann, Ye Tong Yuan, Jessica Situ, Xian-Hao Liao, Ashly Vivian Beresnitzky, Iris Braunstein, Pattie Maes, Your Brain on ChatGPT: Accumulation of Cognitive Debt when Using an AI Assistant for Essay Writing Task.  ARXIV, Jun 10, 2025.

“This study explores the neural and behavioral consequences of LLM-assisted essay writing. Participants were divided into three groups: LLM, Search Engine, and Brain-only (no tools). Each completed three sessions under the same condition. In a fourth session, LLM users were reassigned to Brain-only group (LLM-to-Brain), and Brain-only users were reassigned to LLM condition (Brain-to-LLM). A total of 54 participants took part in Sessions 1-3, with 18 completing session 4. We used electroencephalography (EEG) to assess cognitive load during essay writing, and analyzed essays using NLP, as well as scoring essays with the help from human teachers and an AI judge. Across groups, NERs, n-gram patterns, and topic ontology showed within-group homogeneity. EEG revealed significant differences in brain connectivity: Brain-only participants exhibited the strongest, most distributed networks; Search Engine users showed moderate engagement; and LLM users displayed the weakest connectivity. Cognitive activity scaled down in relation to external tool use. In session 4, LLM-to-Brain participants showed reduced alpha and beta connectivity, indicating under-engagement. Brain-to-LLM users exhibited higher memory recall and activation of occipito-parietal and prefrontal areas, similar to Search Engine users. Self-reported ownership of essays was the lowest in the LLM group and the highest in the Brain-only group. LLM users also struggled to accurately quote their own work. While LLMs offer immediate convenience, our findings highlight potential cognitive costs. Over four months, LLM users consistently underperformed at neural, linguistic, and behavioral levels. These results raise concerns about the long-term educational implications of LLM reliance and underscore the need for deeper inquiry into AI's role in learning.”

Allen Frances, Autism Rates Have Increased 60-Fold. I Played a Role in That. New York Times, Jun 23, 2025. Dr. Frances is a psychiatrist who led the American Psychiatric Association’s task force charged with creating the fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

“The rapid rise in autism cases is not because of vaccines or environmental toxins, but rather is the result of changes in the way that autism is defined and assessed — changes that I helped put into place.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, I was the chair of the task force charged with creating the fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or the D.S.M.-IV. Sometimes called the “bible of psychiatry,” the D.S.M. influences medical practice, insurance coverage, education and treatment selection.

In the third edition of the D.S.M., published in 1980, autism was tightly defined and considered extremely rare. Criteria for the diagnosis required a very early onset (before age 3) of severe cognitive, interpersonal, emotional and behavioral problems.

But my task force approved the inclusion of the new diagnosis, Asperger’s syndrome, which is much milder in severity than classic autism and much more common. In doing so, we were responding to child psychiatrists’ and pediatricians’ concerns for children who did not meet the extremely stringent criteria for classic autism, but had similar symptoms in milder form and might benefit from services.

Based on careful studies, our task force predicted that the addition of Asperger’s syndrome would modestly increase the rate of children given an autism-related diagnosis. Instead, the rate increased more than 16-fold, to one in 150 from an estimated one in 2,500 in the span of a decade. It has been climbing more gradually ever since and is one in 31 today. Our intentions were good, but we underestimated the enormous unintended consequences of adding the new diagnosis.

The resulting explosion in cases included many instances of overdiagnosis — children were labeled with a serious condition for challenges that would better be viewed as a variation of normal. It also sowed the seeds of conspiracy theories and anti-vaccine beliefs as people wondered how to explain the rising cases.

Many large studies have come to the same conclusion: Vaccines don’t cause autism. The role, if any, of environmental toxins is still to be determined, but there is no known environmental factor that can explain the sudden jump in diagnoses. The changes we made to the diagnosis in the D.S.M.-IV can.

Why did autism-related diagnoses explode so far beyond what our task force had predicted? Two reasons. First, many school systems provide much more intensive services to children with the diagnosis of autism. While these services are extremely important for many children, whenever having a diagnosis carries a benefit, it will be overused. Second, overdiagnosis can happen whenever there’s a blurry line between normal behavior and disorder, or when symptoms overlap with other conditions. Classic severe autism had so tight a definition it was hard to confuse it with anything else; Asperger’s was easily confused with other mental disorders or with normal social avoidance and eccentricity. (We also, regrettably, named the condition after Hans Asperger, one of the first people to describe it, not realizing until later that he had collaborated with the Nazis.)”

Andrew R. Chou, ChatGPT May Be Eroding Critical Thinking Skills, According to a New MIT Study. Time, Jun 17, 2025.

“The study divided 54 subjects—18 to 39 year-olds from the Boston area—into three groups, and asked them to write several SAT essays using OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s search engine, and nothing at all, respectively. Researchers used an EEG to record the writers’ brain activity across 32 regions, and found that of the three groups, ChatGPT users had the lowest brain engagement and “consistently underperformed at neural, linguistic, and behavioral levels.” Over the course of several months, ChatGPT users got lazier with each subsequent essay, often resorting to copy-and-paste by the end of the study.”

Tracey Marks, Why Healthy Love Feels "Boring" (The Dopamine Trap Explained). Dr. Tracey Marks, Nov 12, 2025. And unstable attachments, even to toxic people, feels motivating and exciting. Dopamine is the motivation hormone. But oxytocin and seratonin are the bonding hormones.

“Why do we sometimes stay drawn to relationships that drain us? This video explains how dopamine—the brain’s reward chemical—can make unpredictable, inconsistent partners feel addictive. Learn how this “dopamine trap” forms, what signs to watch for, and how to retrain your brain to crave stability instead of chaos.”

Maggie Penman, New Study Shows How Your Brain Changes at Four Key Ages: 9, 32, 66 and 83. Washington Post, Dec 9, 2025. “New research finds that brain development is not linear. There are distinct phases with unique characteristics.”

Ariana Eunjung Cha, 6 Daily Habits to Show Aging, From a Harvard Brain Expert. Washington Post, Jan 21, 2026. “Harvard scientist Rudolph Tanzi shares his plan for brain health and aging well, including habits for sleep, stress and social interaction.”

Barry Ferns, The Real Reason Everyone Is Talking About Iran. Barry's Economics, Mar 15, 2026. A neuroscience perspective on why authoritarians want to “flood the zone” (Steve Bannon’s words): people feel stress, feel overwhelmed by the news, and stop believing in anything. The amygdala goes into overdrive feeling survival feelings. We need to protect and reactivate the pre-frontal cortex.