#endocannabinoid-system

#endocannabinoid-system

We found no evidence any form of cannabis is effective in treating anxiety, depression or post-traumatic stress disorder, which are three of the leading reasons for which cannabis is prescribed. The cannabis medications being administered in these studies were largely oral formulations, such as capsules, sprays or oils. In real life, people typically use smoked cannabis, and there is even less evidence of its effectiveness for mental health.

The law is clear. Advertising prescription medicines directly to consumers in Australia is prohibited - including on football jerseys, websites, social media, and on posters or banners.

They created an artificial 'mental map', with pleasantness along one axis and bodily reactions along the other, and charted how the brain responded while watching clips from films. The results revealed clear groupings in the way that our brains represent emotion - with guilt, anger and disgust in one corner and happiness, satisfaction and pride in the other.

The study found that the stress hormone cortisol significantly impaired the brain's navigation system, affecting how individuals orient themselves in unfamiliar environments.

Dopamine is one of the most extensively studied neurotransmitters, chemicals that convey signals from cell to cell. It's the one with the highest profile outside neuroscience: often known as the 'pleasure chemical', it's depicted as the hit of reward that people get from recreational drugs or scrolling through social media. That's a gross simplification of what dopamine does; on that, researchers agree.

Adult content has never been as accessible as it is now, thanks to the internet. Hell, online smut played a major role in the rise of the web itself in the 1990s. With that glut of porn, some have voiced concerns that some people are consuming too much of the stuff or even becoming addicted, which they claim could have consequences like regulating emotions or impaired sexual functioning.

Wooden spoons as microphones, siblings spinning in socks across the floor, a mother laughing as Whitney Houston's "I Wanna Dance With Somebody" fills the room for the third time in a row-this is love. Long before children understand romance, they learn connection this way, through synchronized movement, shared joy, and the safety of familiar songs. Research on rhythm and social bonding suggests that moving in time together can regulate the nervous system and strengthen feelings of connection.

On social media, television, and wellness apps, mindfulness is often shown as one simple thing-staying calm and paying attention to the moment. Large companies like Google use mindfulness programs to help employees stay focused and less stressed. Hospitals use it to help people manage pain and improve mental health. Millions of people now use mindfulness apps that promise everything from lowering stress to sleeping better.

This is part of Wet February, a series about America's increasingly muddled relationship with drinking-and how to sip your way through it wisely and well. Alcohol is my only vice, and boy, it does not feel good to have my vice validated by the new food pyramid, which also suggests that steak is the foundation of a healthy diet. But I can't deny that a happy hour martini makes me feel as if I sparkle,

It is one of the most common reasons that adults look for medical care. In fact, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), there are over 58 million adults who are living with doctor-diagnosed arthritis in the US alone. In addition to this, over 25 million people battle with daily limitations caused by joint pain. (CDC, 2024). Probably, even more concerning, is the fact that an estimated 15 million adults experience severe joint pain rated

A child was struggling to breathe after surgery. Monitors beeped erratically, staff spoke in rushed fragments, and fear hung in the air so thick it felt like fog. The mother stood frozen in shock. A nurse-one of those rare people who radiates groundedness-walked in. She didn't speak at first. She simply approached the mother, placed a gentle hand on her shoulder, and breathed slowly, visibly, intentionally.

Before treatment began, participants underwent neuroimaging. Instead of relying on a single modality, the researchers fused structural connectivity (how regions are physically wired) with functional connectivity (how regions co-activate at rest). The goal was not to throw every possible feature at a black box, but to learn a constrained pattern-what the authors call structure-function "covariation"-that carries the most predictive signal for outcome. In other words, the model tries to find the smallest set of connections that meaningfully forecasts symptom change.

They then used emerging mathematical methods to isolate signals originating from nine brain regions previously implicated in mediating consciousness and examined connections between pairs of these regions. Among them were the parietal cortex, which is at the top of the brain about halfway between the forehead and the back of the skull; the occipital cortex, at the back of the head; and several small, deeper structures, such as one called the thalamus.