Lucid Dreaming and Creativity

Dreaming can get very complicated, especially lucid dreaming. In seventh grade, my friends and I started a club dedicated to learning Spanish, called the Hablaba Club. We joked around, talking about how we could improve membership if we created our own clothing merchandise. Later that night, when I fell asleep, I realized that I was…

Alzheimer’s Disease: A Worldwide Crisis

            Ever since I was young, there have always been instances of neurodegenerative disease in my family. My great-uncle has suffered from Parkinson’s disease for many years and though Parkinson’s is very debilitating, he has lived with it for a quite a while and embraces it as a part of his identity. He continues to live…

Cerebral Achromatopsia

Resulting from the trauma of cerebral cortex, cerebral achromatopsia is a special form of color-blindness that is subtly different from other kinds of color-blindness. However, such subtle difference is indispensable since the cortical damage it involves is from infarction of a specific area in the ventral occipitotemporal cortex of humans which always results in injury or illness….

Night Blindness

As I entered my teen years, I was so excited to start driving. As expected, I loved the freedom it made me feel. As I started driving more often at night however, I realized I didn’t like it so much. I sometimes had a harder time seeing. It felt like the lights from oncoming traffic…

How do we tell if something is beautiful

Thinking about arts and learning about the relationship between arts and the brain make me wonder several questions: what it means when people say you have a good taste; why do we feel amused going to art galleries; and how do we know if something is beautiful? A word jumped out of my mind when…

Let’s Talk About Pain

Do you understand our sensation of pain? Before everything, the pain I’m talking about today is physical, not some types of emotional pain you feel after a huge fight or a breakup. Speaking of physical pain, we usually tend to relate them to injuries –  well, that’s partially correct. Let’s try and understand pain from…

What Makes the Food We Eat Delicious?

Eating is necessary for humans to survive, and now many enjoy delicious food created by great cooks from all around the world. I myself am a food lover – I love to eat everything ranging from a regular McDonald’s cheeseburger to an expensive steak served in a Lawry’s. I enjoy travelling to different places to…

The Colors of Interior Design and Emotional Association

In this day and age, the way homes, work spaces, and other buildings appear on the inside can be very reflective of the environment we are walking into, or at least this is what our brains cause us to believe. The colors involved in interior design can bring out different emotions in people without us…

Bridget Hurley

Hi! My name is Bridget Hurley. I am from St. Louis, Missouri. I am currently on the pre-business track and will be applying for the business school next year. I will most likely study marketing and finance. I love playing sports, especially soccer and volleyball, hanging out with friends, and trying new restaurants. I really…

Olfaction and Memory

When we are asked to think of a specific taste and smell, like aroma and salty, it’s very easy for us to recall what exactly it is as you are actually smelling or tasting it. Is it indicating a strong association between olfaction and memory? Basically, there are two distinct cognitive-perceptual processes associated with odor…