The imaginary friend is “an invisible character or personified object that takes part in children’s conversations or plays with them for a long period of time, at least several months”. The relationships are not identical; with personified objects the relationship is usually hierarchical, while with imaginary friends it is an egalitarian relationship. Peers tend to […]
Mental wandering, sometimes referred to as off-task thinking or, colloquially, going on autopilot, is the experience of thoughts not staying on a single topic, but jumping without control from one thing to another. This is particularly striking when we are engaged in a task that requires focus. A common place for mental wandering is when […]
COVID-19 worsens the already existing social difficulties for older adults and the disabled involved in long-term care services and supports; i.e., nursing homes, skilled nursing facilities, and home and community-based services . A hug is a form of non-verbal communication. It can indicate familiarity, love, affection, friendship, brotherhood, or sympathy. We use it when we […]
Williams syndrome (WS) was first described in 1961 by New Zealand cardiologist John Williams. It is mostly caused by the microdeletion 7q11.23, a loss of a fragment of genetic material on chromosome 7. It is usually a “de novo” mutation, that is, it is not inherited from the parents, but rather arises in that child […]
Depression is a psychiatric and psychological diagnosis that describes a temporary or permanent mood disorder characterized by feelings of dejection, unhappiness and guilt. Depressed people show a low mood and an aversion to activity and are characterized by sadness, difficulty thinking and concentrating, and a significant increase or decrease in appetite and time spent sleeping […]
To date, more than 50 million people have been infected with the new coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, and more than 1,2 million have died. It is a global problem, affecting everyone, but we are still learning how it infects, how it behaves, what causes harm to humans. The virus is spread by the droplets produced by an […]
Body odor is present in all mammals, including of course humans. It has a clear genetic basis, although it is modulated by different conditions, both normal and pathological. Interestingly, although it is believed to have an important communicative function and to be involved in sexual attraction, body odor is considered unpleasant by most people, which […]
The cause of autism spectrum disorders (ASD) is not known yet, but it is clear that there is a complex interaction between many genes and many environmental factors. Autism affects not only those aspects that are used for diagnosis: social interaction, communication, and restricted and repetitive behaviors, but also many other factors related to the […]
Research on autism is addressing some of the many issues that are pending and one of them is the situation and perspectives of the rest of the family: fathers, mothers, siblings, grandparents… A recent study examines some aspects of women with autism who have had a child with ASD, compared to women without autism who […]
The complexity of the brain stems from its connectivity. This is evidenced by the disproportionate increase in the volume of white substance throughout primate evolution even though the “grey matter” is the one that takes the fame; that is, there are more and more “wires” connecting the different cortical regions over long distances according to […]