Author: Sheba AJ
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Battling Addiction
Addiction is a neurological disease that affects millions. How can we help them? From the desk of Dr. Teresa Franklin I earned my PhD in 1999 from Hahnemann University in Phila, PA, USA. Since then, I have worked mainly at the Center for the Studies of Addiction in the Department of Psychiatry at University of…
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Unravelling Body image issues
Negative body image. We have all been there. In this day of Instagram perfection, body dysmorphia has become an epidemic, as we struggle with the idea that our health and wealth and happiness is 100% dependent on what we look like. This is of course not a new phenomenon – each society has had its…
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Dry needling trigger points
Pain treatment sometimes involves teasing apart trigger points. Everyone has knots in their muscles that are irritatingly painful. Sometimes these pains appear a ways away from the actual issue – referred pain. While such myofascial pain can be treated by exercise, or massage, a less known treatment is dry needling – insertion of a needle…
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On the observation of Evolution
What does Evolution mean to you? When we talk about evolution, we think of the adaptation of a species to an external environment stresses. But what happens in the host/pathogen scenario, where two species are interacting with each other, and fighting for survival? How does this evolution actually work on the micro level, both on…
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Violent Women
Extremism and radicalization are the first steps to propagation of violence. When one thinks of a radicalized terrorist or active shooter, one stereotypically thinks of men, who seem to be more often perpetrators of mass violence. So when we read about female criminals, we are often surprised. Psychologists have been fascinated by the subject of…
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The Animal Microbiome
What are microbes doing for animals? We all contain multitudes [1], and the microbiome field has grown by leaps and bounds. Most work has been done in humans and other model animals such as mice, where conditions can be very well controlled in the lab. However animals also have their own microbiome, including those in…
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The Mysteries of the Phage
The phage could save our future in health. A bacteriophage looks like the ultimate out-of-this-world structure, with a geometric head, attached to a tube, and ending in tail fibers that are essentially its landing gear. Watching a bacteriophage attach itself to its host bacteria is eerily reminiscent of a spaceship landing on a planet. The…
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The Science of Stigma
Being stigmatized is the antithesis of feeling safe. The reality of living in society is there is always a possibility that a minority group of people might be labeled as “different” due to their status. This devaluing is called stigmatization. Stigmatization could be due to a certain characteristic or identity of condition, including sexual orientation,…
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On Sharks
The wolf of the sea needs our help. When we think of sharks, we immediately conjure up images of villainous, scary creatures that can tear us apart limb from limb. Every megalomaniac in the movies has kept a pool full of sharks to liquidate their enemies. But what if you realize that sharks are actually…
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Cat Cognition
But…does my cat love me?? They say the world is divided into two sorts of people, the cat lovers and the dog lovers, never the two shall meet. Cat owners swear by their pets – apparently the most watched content on the internet is that of cats, while others render cats unloving, unreachable, aloof, sometimes…