ScienCentral has posted a number of interesting articles recently. One was on a rat study published last year finding that looking after young children is an enriching experience for the brain. Which I'm sure is true, but, you know, many of us feel it also impacts negatively on our cognitive processes -- I'm guessing that what happens is that your energies are redirected, so that while some parts of your brain grow, it's often at the expense of others. But, hey, it's just my theory. And on the really positive side, the mother rats had less of the substance that forms the toxic plaques characteristic of Alzheimer's -- so maybe having children helps protect against Alzheimer's. I don't know that anyone's done an epidemiological study looking at this, so that's an interesting question.

ScienCentral also have an article about a very exciting study that effected dramatic improvement in sensory movement in rats in whom stroke had been induced. Clinical trials are no doubt a way off, but this is a very promising study.

There's also an article on light therapy for people with seasonal affective disorder (SAD).