Neuroscience:
Since everyone is posting about spiders this week, I though I'd republish a sweet old post of mine, which ran on April 19, 2006 under the title "Happy Bicycle Day!" I hope you like this little post as much...
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Posted on April 13, 2008 4:57 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
There have recently been several articles in the media about brain enhancers, so-called Nootropics, or "smart drugs". They have been abused by college students for many years now, but they are now seeping into other places where long periods of...
Posted on April 1, 2008 11:47 AM • 15 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
News from SCONC: Linda Buck is the Nobel-Prize winner that may live farthest from NC (but still in the U.S.). She will give a seminar Monday, March 10 at 4 p.m. in the Grand Ballroom of the Talley Center at...
Posted on March 4, 2008 7:38 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Science Cafe on Teenage Brains : Teenagers sometimes act as though they were from a different planet. On Tuesday February 19, the Museum of Natural Sciences will host a science cafe entitled "Altered States: Inside the Teenage Brain" at Tir...
Posted on February 18, 2008 6:36 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
I had no time to read this in detail and write a really decent overview here, perhaps I will do it later, but for now, here are the links and key excerpts from a pair of exciting new papers in...
Posted on January 7, 2008 8:14 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Hmm, I did not know this - apparently the left hemisphere of the human brain falls asleep first, and the right one a little bit later in most people. I wonder if that has any connection with the reason we...
Posted on December 6, 2007 8:42 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
It's been a long time since I last hosted a carnival, but who could resist Mo when he asked so nicely if I would be interested in hosting Encephalon? Of course I will! And here it is and I hope...
Posted on December 3, 2007 9:53 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Attention! How your brain manages its need to heed: Two perennial polarities beloved by brain geeks -- networks versus modules and top-down versus bottom-up attention -- get linked in this week's essay, in which UC Berkeley's Mark D'Esposito reviews...
Posted on October 16, 2007 6:42 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
My former SciBling David Dobbs regularly posts on the SciAm Blog, usually bringing in guest contributors highlighting novel research in neuroscience. Today, he invited Charles Glatt to review an interesting study on the interaction between genes and environment in development...
Posted on October 9, 2007 11:54 AM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Galilei kicked us out of the Center of the Universe. Darwin kicked us off the Pinnacle of Creation Freud kicked the Soul out of our Brains. Few remain adherents of Geocentrism. The opponents of evolution are legion and very vocal...
Posted on October 3, 2007 2:37 AM • 36 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
A few days ago PZ Myers announced he will have some special guest bloggers on Pharyngula soon. While the first commenters were guessing Big Names, like Dawkins, my comment was: "I am hoping for your students....". A little later, PZ...
Posted on September 14, 2007 7:19 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Over the past several months, Alvaro of SharpBrains blog interviewed eleven neuroscientists on the topic of the ability to use various techniques to affect the way our brains function - brain training. He has now put together a collection of...
Posted on September 6, 2007 9:50 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
If we are not there at the moment of birth, how come we can bond with the baby and be good fathers or good adoptive parents? Kate explains. Obligatory Reading of the Day. Update: Related is this new article by...
Posted on August 28, 2007 1:48 PM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
I have linked to and posted pictures of Eva Vertes from SciFoo before and you may ask: "Who is she? Why was she invited there?" The Wikipedia page I linked to earlier is a short stub and full of errors....
Posted on August 11, 2007 4:19 PM • 6 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Bjoern Brembs is at the ICN meeting and is blogging about the talks he saw. If I went, I would have probably attended a completely different set of talks, e.g., on birdsong, memory in food-caching birds, aggression in crustaceans, strange...
Posted on July 26, 2007 4:53 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
It is certainly possible. Compared to some people I know, I am definitely not. I have read each of the books once (more than halfway through the 7th - so do not give me spoilers yet!) and I have seen...
Posted on July 26, 2007 2:12 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Mo is really spoiling us with exciting, well-researched posts from the history of science and medicine (remember the trepination post from a month ago?). And here he does it again: The rise & fall of the prefrontal lobotomy, the most...
Posted on July 26, 2007 11:59 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Our former scibling David Dobbs has posted/published two interesting articles about recent findings in neuroscience and behavior: The Gregarious Brain in New York Times Magazine, about the Williams Syndrome: If a person suffers the small genetic accident that creates Williams...
Posted on July 11, 2007 11:01 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Modern Brains Have An Ancient Core: Hormones control growth, metabolism, reproduction and many other important biological processes. In humans, and all other vertebrates, the chemical signals are produced by specialised brain centres such as the hypothalamus and secreted into the...
Posted on June 29, 2007 11:36 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
The history of trepanation. An utterly amazing post! And, Bioephemera posted an appropriate illustration to go with it.......
Posted on June 13, 2007 3:06 AM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Bjoern Brembs is attending and liveblogging from the Gastropod Neuroscience meeting at Friday Harbor Laboratories and has posted about several talks already and will likely post more over the next couple of days. Something struck me in his coverage of...
Posted on June 7, 2007 9:18 AM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Review of some very cool new papers on Drosophila circadian clocks
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Posted on May 19, 2007 12:56 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Google was really no help in finding the exact quote, but everyone in the animal behavior field has heard some version of the Harvard Rule of Animal Behaviour: "You can have the most beautifully designed experiment with the most carefully...
Posted on May 15, 2007 10:36 PM • 21 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Lots of interesting Neuro/Behavioral stuff came out lately, some really cool, some questionable...so you let me know what you think: Brain's White Matter: More 'Talkative' Than Once Thought: Johns Hopkins scientists have discovered to their surprise that nerves in the...
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Posted on May 9, 2007 9:06 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
It could be the seasonal use of pesticides, as this study suggests, or it could be seasonality in nutrition of mothers and infants, or seasonality of environmental stressors, or seasonality of mothers' hormone profiles. Most likely all or most of...
Posted on May 8, 2007 7:12 PM • 7 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Sex And Prenatal Hormone Exposure Affect Cognitive Performance: Yerkes researchers are using their findings to better understand sex differences in cognitive performance, which may lead to increased understanding of the difference in neuropsychological disorders men and women experience. In one...
Posted on April 16, 2007 2:56 AM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
I have written about the relationship between circadian clocks and food numerous times (e.g., here, here and here). Feeding times affect the clock. Clock is related to hunger and obesity. Many intestinal peptides affect the clock as well. There is...
Posted on March 20, 2007 4:49 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
It has been known for quite a while now that bipolar disorder is essentially a circadian clock disorder. However, there was a problem in that there was no known animal model for the bipolar disorder. Apparently that has changed, if...
Posted on March 20, 2007 2:29 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Every time someone proposes a radical rewriting of science textbooks, one needs to proceed with caution. There is so much evidence for electrical potentials in nerve cells, this sounds really fishy: Action Of Nerves Is Based On Sound Pulses, Anesthetics...
Posted on March 19, 2007 11:14 AM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
The penultimate installment of lecture notes in the BIO101 series. Help me make it better - point out errors of fact and suggest improvements:...
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Posted on February 8, 2007 10:58 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
While study of Time-Perception is, according to many, a sub-discipline of chronobiology, I personally know very little about it. Time perception is defined as interval timing, i.e., measuring duration of events (as opposed to counting, figuring which one of the...
Posted on January 31, 2007 3:59 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
In a time-crunch like this, one can always count on Buzz Skyline to save the day........
Posted on January 12, 2007 10:41 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Encephalon #13 is up on Neurotopia. Lots of great stuff!...
Posted on December 20, 2006 2:05 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Identification Of Carbon Dioxide Receptors In Insects May Help Fight Infectious Disease: Mosquitoes don't mind morning breath. They use the carbon dioxide people exhale as a way to identify a potential food source. But when they bite, they can pass...
Posted on December 15, 2006 12:39 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Let me state up front that this is not a topic I know anything about, but I have always had a curiosity for it, so let me just throw some thoughts out into the Internets and see if commenters or...
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Posted on December 13, 2006 11:58 AM • 12 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
The Synapse #13 is up on Neurocontrarian. Go take a look. This will be the last edition of The Synapse. The two neuro-carnivals are going to fuse into one, so in the future, only submit your entries to Encephalon....
Posted on December 11, 2006 10:35 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
The Synapse #12 is up on Dr. Deborah Serani's blog...
Posted on November 26, 2006 10:26 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Encephalon #11 is up on The Mouse Trap....
Posted on November 20, 2006 10:28 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
The Synapse #11 is up on Developing Intelligence. As expected, I am most excited about this post on Mouse Trap....
Posted on November 12, 2006 6:30 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Cell transplant for eyes? In the current study, the scientists looked at these photoreceptors' development -- from the embryonic stages to those in the newborn. They found that the cells that worked best came from animals between the first and...
Posted on November 9, 2006 11:27 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Welcome to the 10th edition of the Encephalon, the blog carnival of brains, minds, neurons, behavior and cognition. This was a busy week (and weekend) for me, so I decided to give up on the spectacularly difficult idea I had...
Posted on November 6, 2006 9:01 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
This is the last reminder to send me permalinks to your recent posts related to neurons, brains, behavior and cognition for the next edition of Encephalon, the neuroscience carnival. I need them by midnight today. I'll post the carnival tomorrow...
Posted on November 5, 2006 11:05 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
The Synapse #10 is up on Neurocritic. Next week, it is the turn for Encephalon (the two neurocarnivals appear on alternate weeks) and it will be hosted by me, right here. Send your entries by November 5th at 5pm EST...
Posted on October 30, 2006 10:07 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Encephalon #9 is up on Migrations. The next edition will be here on November 6th. Send your entries to: Coturnix AT gmail DOT com...
Posted on October 23, 2006 8:48 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Shelley went to the Society for Neuroscience meeting and saw a talk on sleep deprivation, memory and hippocampus....
Posted on October 20, 2006 9:20 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
The Synapse #9 - the special Society for Neuroscience Edition is up on Pure Pedantry...
Posted on October 19, 2006 10:45 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
The brand new edition of Encephalon is up on Cognitive Daily. Could you be accepted to attend Encephalon University?...
Posted on October 9, 2006 9:33 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Beauty And The Brain: Experiments led by Piotr Winkielman, of the University of California, San Diego, and published in the current issue of Psychological Science, suggest that judgments of attractiveness depend on mental processing ease, or being "easy on the...
Posted on September 28, 2006 11:51 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Encephalon #7 is up on Omni Brain...
Posted on September 25, 2006 5:14 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
It's looking good. Certainly much smaller than the roomful of metal we are used to seeing in hospitals. Do you remember when computers used to fill entire rooms? Now take a look at your cell phone. Now think MRI in...
Posted on September 17, 2006 11:03 AM • 7 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Nicotine Lessens Symptoms Of Depression In Nonsmokers: Nicotine may improve the symptoms of depression in people who do not smoke, Duke University Medical Center scientists have discovered. The finding does not mean that people with depression should smoke or even...
Posted on September 14, 2006 11:58 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Encephalon #6, the neuroscience blog carnival, is up on Retrospectacle...
Posted on September 11, 2006 1:53 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Synapse #6 is up on The Mouse Trap....
Posted on September 4, 2006 8:53 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Yesterday, we were putting down media reports on a study that purports that dolphins are not intelligent despite behavioral studies and big brains. Today, NYTimes has a much better article arguing that manatees, despite their small brains, are more intelligent...
Posted on August 29, 2006 3:54 PM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Encephalon #5, the NeuroCarnival, is up on Developing Intelligence...
Posted on August 28, 2006 11:05 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Where does one start with debunking fallacies in this little article? Oy vey! Dolphins and whales are dumber than goldfish and don't have the know-how to match a rat, new research from South Africa shows. For years, humans have assumed...
Posted on August 28, 2006 9:03 AM • 10 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Bumble Bees Can Estimate Time Intervals: In a finding that broadens our understanding of time perception in the animal kingdom, researchers have discovered that an insect pollinator, the bumble bee, can estimate the duration of time intervals. Although many insects...
Posted on August 26, 2006 2:41 PM • 2 Comments • 1 TrackBacks
...by giving your brain a workout - read The Synapse #5 at Retrospectacle...
Posted on August 20, 2006 5:01 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Mapping The Neural Landscape Of Hunger The compelling urge to satisfy one's hunger enlists structures throughout the brain, as might be expected in a process so necessary for survival. But until now, studies of those structures and of the feeding...
Posted on August 20, 2006 12:09 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Correct me if I am wrong, but I think this is really ground-breaking: Study Finds Brain Cell Regulator Is Volume Control, Not On/off Switch: He and his colleagues studied an ion channel that controls neuronal activity called Kv2.1, a type...
Posted on August 19, 2006 3:16 PM • 8 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Snuck into the very end of this, otherwise very interesting article on neurobiology of cephalopods and moths, is this little passage: As for flies, Tublitz outlined a tantalizing question, as yet unanswered, that has continued to take flight out of...
Posted on August 17, 2006 1:59 PM • 2 Comments • 1 TrackBacks
Jenna has been nagged by NAAG recently, to the point of obsession. It is also one of the molecules I included in the Synapse puzzle. So, if you want to learn a little bit of nitty-gritty detailed neurochemistry of this...
Posted on August 15, 2006 5:59 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
When I saw this article in SEED Maagazine, I had only one thought - Mokie-Koke!
Posted on August 2, 2006 8:59 AM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Encephalon #3 is up on Thinking Meat Blog....
Posted on July 31, 2006 4:49 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Survey questions themselves may affect behavior: Simply asking college students who are inclined to take drugs about their illegal-drug use in a survey may increase the behavior, according to a study that's making researchers understandably nervous. "We ask people questions,...
Posted on July 21, 2006 4:25 PM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
The second edition of Encephalon, the neuroscience carnival, is up on Pure Pedantry....
Posted on July 17, 2006 8:14 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
This post was a response to a decent (though not too exciting) study and the horrible media reporting on it. As the blogosphere focused on the press releases, I decided to look at the paper itself and see what...
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Posted on July 12, 2006 10:59 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Welcome to the second edition of The Synapse, the new neuroscience carnival. This time, you have a puzzle to solve. Next to each entry, there is an image depicting the structural formula of a neurotransmitter, neurohormone or neuromodulator. Your job...
Posted on July 8, 2006 10:52 PM • 8 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
The second installment of The Synapse, the neuroscience carnival, will be held right here this coming Sunday, on July 9th. Please send your submissions to me by Saturday night at 8pm EDT at: Coturnix1 AT aol DOT com....
Posted on July 7, 2006 12:27 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Yes, there are two neurocarnivals. They occur on alternate weeks. So, if you have written something this past week, send your entry to the Encephalon which will be posted on Neurophilosopher's blog on 3rd July, 2006. Posts you write afterwards,...
Posted on July 1, 2006 1:20 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Do Cnidaria have real circadian rhythms? Survey of daily rhythms in corals, sea anemones and jellyfish.
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Posted on June 27, 2006 11:59 AM • 0 Comments • 1 TrackBacks
