How clearly you can picture mental images might influence your memory and creativity. Plus, cursive is making a comeback in schools and how to move the Global Plastics Treaty forward.
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Writing by hand activates parts of the brain associated with learning that typing words does not.Credit: Three Lions/Getty
Some schools that dropped the requirement to teach cursive — handwriting characterized by flowing, connected letters — to embrace digital learning are re-introducing penmanship into the classroom. Whether cursive has benefits over print handwriting is up for debate — some studies suggest that learning cursive equips children with better syntax skills. But there are also other, cultural reasons for keeping handwriting alive. “I feel that the next generation should be able to write a love letter or a poem by hand, or at least the grocery list, because it’s part of being human, really,” says neuroscientist Audrey van der Meer.
Nature | 6 min read
The American Psychiatric Association has announced plans to update The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Psychiatric Disorders (DSM) — the textbook that lists symptoms for all known mental conditions and aims to steer health professionals towards a correct diagnosis. The updates aim to address longstanding criticisms of the current edition, such as the lack of acknowledgement of sociocultural or environmental drivers of mental illness. The new version could also focus on dimensionality: the idea that the diagnosis of psychiatric conditions should not be fixed in discrete categories, but instead operate along scales of shared symptoms.
Nature | 6 min read
Reference: Five papers in The American Journal of Psychiatry
Biotech company Merge Labs plans to make brain–computer interface (BCI) devices that use ultrasound to read people’s minds and treat mental conditions without implanting electrodes deep into the brain. The firm has emerged as a rival to billionaire Elon Musk’s Neuralink and is backed by US$252 million in investment from funders that include artificial-intelligence firm OpenAI. The approach is less invasive than Neuralink-style devices and could offer an alternative to deep-brain stimulation therapies for conditions such as epilepsy. But the technology is still in its infancy, and the company acknowledges that it’s thinking “in decades rather than years”.
Nature | 6 min read
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