We Croak: a Return to Joy

Can we share the joy of others? Empathic neural responses to distress vs joy.

The neural bases of empathy have been examined mainly in the context of reacting to others' distress, while almost no attention has been paid to the mechanisms by which we share others' joy. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we demonstrated that the same neural network mediates judgment of the emotional state of the other in response to both negative and positive events through empat...

Do We Know What We Do not Know? A Response to Celine Bonnet

Animal Behavior: Who Will Croak Next?

A recent study with the predatory bat Trachops cirrhosus has shown the importance for this species of social learning about novel prey using auditory, rather than visual or olfactory, cues.

A return to virtue.

T he dominant trend in contemporary medical ethics describes ethical behavior in terms of the principles and rules that must be followed to bring it about, most notably nonmaleficence, beneficence, justice, and respect for autonomy. An alternative approach to ethics, virtue ethics, emphasizes not principles and rules, but rather the virtues, or characteristics, whose exercise will bring about e...

Therapeutic clowns bring joy to Cuban patients.

A stranger proffers a smile. A friend tells a joke, eliciting a hearty laugh. Without realizing it, you’re singing along to a song on the radio. Who hasn’t felt the pick-me-up of a smile, song, or laugh? In 1971, Dr Hunter “Patch” Adams, (with tongue fi rmly in cheek), founded the Gesundheit Institute to promote laugh therapy as an important component of comprehensive clinical practice. Once co...