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March 27, 2009
Category: Medicine & Health
If someone told you that they wanted to have a perfectly good leg amputated, or that they have three arms, when they clearly do not, you would probably be inclined to think that they are mentally disturbed. Psychiatrists, too, considered...
Posted by Mo at 7:01 PM • 22 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
March 24, 2009
Category: Neuroscience
Optogenetics is a recently developed technique based on a group of light-sensitive proteins called channelrhodopsins, which were isolated recently from various species of micro-organism. Although relatively new, this technique has already proven to be extremely powerful, because channelrhodopsins can be...
Posted by Mo at 6:50 AM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
March 20, 2009
Category: Neuroscience
Italian researchers show that looking at photos of faces being touched enhances the perception of touch on the observer's face when the photos are of people who belong the same ethnic or political group
Posted by Mo at 7:17 PM • 7 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
March 18, 2009
Category: Neuroscience
Memory has intrigued us for millenia, and is today one of the most active areas of neuroscience research. Much of this research has aimed to understand how memories are laid down, and a picture of how this happens is beginning...
Posted by Mo at 11:57 AM • 9 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
March 17, 2009
Category: Neuroscience
Using electrodes implanted into the brains of epileptics undergoing pre-surgical evaluation, a group of French researchers have measured the neural correlates of conscious awareness in unprecedented detail.
Posted by Mo at 4:40 AM • 9 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
March 12, 2009
Category: Neuroscience
UCL researchers report that they can decode the activity of the hippocampus to accurately predict an individual's exact location within a simple virtual reality environment.
Posted by Mo at 8:49 PM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
March 10, 2009
Category: Neuroscience
The first evidence of LTP-induced large-scale reorganization of neural networks
Posted by Mo at 3:19 PM • 15 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
March 9, 2009
Category: Neuroscience
More than 100 years ago, Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, proposed a mechanism called repression, whereby desires and impulses are actively pushed into the unconscious mind. For Freud, repression was a defence mechanism - the repressed memories are often...
Posted by Mo at 4:02 PM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
March 3, 2009
Category: Palaeontology
Nervous tissue is extremely fragile, and so is very well protected. The brain, which has a jelly-like consistency, is encased in the skull, and is surrounded by cerebrospinal fluid, which acts to cushion it against blows that might cause...
Posted by Mo at 4:24 PM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
March 2, 2009
Category: Memory
Despite occuring only rarely, amnesia (or memory loss) has featured often in Hollywood films for almost a century. By 1926, at least 10 silent films which used amnesia as a plot device had been made; more recent productions, such as...
Posted by Mo at 7:20 PM • 19 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
PZ Myers 11.19.2009
PZ Myers 11.14.2009
Tim Lambert 11.18.2009
James Hrynyshyn 11.20.2009
Ed Brayton 11.20.2009
