Neurophilosophy
Archives for June, 2009
Brain mechanisms of hypnotic paralysis
Posted by Mo on June 26, 2009 THE term ‘hypnosis’ was coined by the Scottish physician James Braid in his 1853 book Neurypnology. Braid defined hypnosis as “a peculiar condition of the nervous system, induced by a fixed and abstracted attention of the mental and visual eye”. He argued that it was a form of “nervous sleep”, and tried to distinguish his…
Mental time travel
Posted by Mo on June 15, 2009 MEMORY, Blake wrote, enables us to “traverse times and spaces far remote”. It constitutes mental time travel, with which we can recollect, in vivid detail, events that took place many years ago. We have known, for the best part of a century, that memory is reconstructive rather than reproductive. That is, recollection involves piecing together…
How we feel affects what we see
Posted by Mo on June 8, 2009 People who place an emphasis on positive things and are generally optimistic are sometimes said to “see the world through rose-tinted glasses”. According to a new study by Canadian researchers, this is more than just an idiom. The study, which has just been published in the Journal of Neuroscience, provides the first direct evidence that…