In high school I always remember feeling fuzzy-headed after my school lunches.  Well, now it turns out that school lunches do more than just create transient mental haziness.  A study in the December 2010 issue of the American Heart Journal looked at 2000 sixth-graders and concluded that there was a clear relationship between obesity and school lunch programs.  Of...Read More

Reuters reports that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is pouring money into the development of biometric devices that will be worn as bracelets by students to monitor their “attentiveness” and “engagement.”  The biometric bracelets will send a small current across the skin and measure subtle changes in electrical charges as the nervous system responds...Read More

This excerpt from my book The Power of Neurodiversity: Unleashing the Advantages of Your Differently Wired Brain (published in hardcover as Neurodiversity), appeared in Ode Magazine. People with conditions like ADHD, dyslexia and mood disorders are routinely labeled “disabled”. But differences among brains are as enriching—and essential—as differences among plants and animals. Welcome to the...Read More

Two recent articles highlight the positive dimensions of mental health conditions such as autism, schizophrenia, and bipolar disorder. In the journal Nature, an article by Canadian neuroscientist Laurent Mottron, emphasizes the advantages of autism (Mottron, 2011). Mottron suggests that, in addition to the well-known savant abilities of a small sub-section of autistic individuals, there are...Read More

Imagine that all of the people in the world have been magically transformed into flowers. Some of us are petunias.  Others are begonias.  Still others are tulips.  Now, let’s say for the sake of argument that the psychiatrists in this culture are the roses. I want you to imagine the rose psychiatrist beginning his work...Read More