Jason Herr Psy.D.

Early Trauma Hardwires the Brain for Aggression and Self-Harm

A new study reveals how childhood trauma alters brain wiring, creating vulnerability to both self-harm and aggression.

Trauma boosts the activity of calcium channels within a neural circuit that regulates emotion, pain, and decision-making.

This hyperactivation amplifies pain sensitivity and impulsive responses, suggesting that both behaviors may arise from a single disrupted pathway.

Understanding this shared circuitry could pave the way for new, brain-targeted treatments for trauma survivors.

Brain Prioritizes What to Remember When Memory Space Runs Low

A new neuroscience study has revealed how the brain manages its limited working memory capacity by prioritizing important information.

When people are asked to remember multiple visual items, their brains allocate more neural resources to high-priority information, resulting in more precise memory for those items.

Using fMRI, researchers observed that the visual cortex encodes visual representations, while the frontal cortex determines which items should receive greater attention.