People with personality traits such as conscientiousness, extraversion and positive affect are less likely to be diagnosed with dementia than those with neuroticism and negative affect, according to a new analysis by researchers at the University of California, Davis and Northwestern University.

A team of psychologists in the College of Letters and Science has found that testosterone is the key hormone that drives gender-based differences in responses to social stress. The study encompassed six separate experiments with mice to isolate what changes in the brain drive these differences between males and females.

Psychologist Ross Thompson’s new book, “The Brain Development Revolution: Science, the Media, and Public Policy” tells the story of the 1997 “I Am Your Child” campaign with an incisive analysis spanning how the campaign captured everyone’s attention, the backlash from scientists and the continuing reverberations today.

An economics doctoral candidate in the College of Letters & Science at UC Davis has been studying how 25 corporate mega-projects have affected local markets. Among the findings so far are that tax breaks and other incentives often don’t pay off by creating jobs as they were meant to.