neurontic
Posts by this author
August 12, 2006
I'd like to replicate an experiment I recently read about in Harvard Psychologist Daniel Gilbert's new book Stumbling On Happiness, a philosophical tract masquerading as a self-help book.
Despite residing in the nose bleed section of the ivory tower, Gilbert is a lucid, common-sense thinker with…
August 6, 2006
A new Neurontic feature, Sunday's Silly Science Roundup showcases scientific findings that make you go "duh."
After spending a great deal of time and money, a group of researchers at University College London are willing to go out on a limb and say "Irrational Decisions are Based on Emotion."…
July 30, 2006
While we're on the subject of brain size, I wanted to share another interesting Temple Grandin theory. In Animals in Translation, Grandin suggests that we humans may be suffering from a species superiority complex. While she agrees that domestication was responsible for a 10 percent reduction in…
July 26, 2006
Okay, I know I promised the next entry would be devoted to Temple Grandin's views on language -- a subject well worth exploring -- but I've found myself distracted by some of my other reading this week. (So much to read, so little time.) Be assured, we'll delve into "Grandin on Language" at a later…
July 17, 2006
I've been meaning to read Temple Grandin ever sense reading about her in Oliver Sacks' 1995 book, An Anthropologist on Mars. But for some reason, her books continually ended up on the bottom of the pile on my nightstand. What a shame. Having just finished Grandin's Animals in Translation, I regret…
May 5, 2006
Men's brains weigh about 2.5 pounds. Women's brains are 100 grams less, the equivalent of one teaspoon. To most people, this difference seems negligible--hardly the stuff of controversy.
Scientists have yet to determine the reason for the size differential. Neuroscience is still in its infancy, and…
April 9, 2006
I know I'm dating myself by referencing an SNL bit circa 1986, but I couldn't resist. Those of you who've read Microscopic Mind Control know that toxoplasma, the bacteria people pick up from house cats, is purported to make women more "outgoing and warmhearted." Well, according to New York State…
April 6, 2006
Most people don't know that Sigmund Freud was a frustrated neurologist. Before he abandoned himself to abstraction, the father of psychoanalysis was a practicing physician, intent on developing "a neural model of behavior." (Kandel Interview) But Freud found neuroscience too blunt a tool, in the…
April 4, 2006
We've all noted the fickleness of the nutritional standards. One week we're told that eating eggs is tantamount to courting death; the next week, they're deemed safe in moderation. One second eating pasta is called the Mediterranean Diet; the next second, enjoying a spaghetti dinner is the…
April 3, 2006
I have spent most of my life losing keys, driver's licenses, cigarette lighters--even the occasional car. I couldn't tell you which direction is west to save my life. My math skills are abysmal. I'm clumsy, forgetful, and utterly useless when it comes to names.
I can, however, tell you that…
April 1, 2006
Phantom limbs are not a modern phenomenon. There are records of people "haunted" by amputated appendages dating all the way back to the sixteenth century. Consequently, we have more than 500 years worth of theories about what causes phantom limbs--some quite ingenious. After losing his right arm in…
March 31, 2006
I'm sure someone has come up with an elaborate theory to explain why Blade Runner had such a profound impact on GenXers, but I've yet to read it. All I know is that ever since I watched Daryl Hannah doing somersaults in that black leotard, I've been obsessed with the idea of androids.
The slow…
March 10, 2006
Would you rather be miserable and smitten, or serene and passionless? If you're suffering from depression and your doctor has prescribed SSRIs (or serotonin selective reuptake inhibitors) these are your options, according to anthropologist Helen Fisher. Fisher, who has been called the "doyenne of…
March 7, 2006
In the wake of World War II, stunned by the German peoples adoption of Hitler's horrific vision of Aryan purity, psychologists set out to discover the mechanisms of social control. One of the most famous studies to emerge during this period was conducted by Gestalt Therapist Solomon Asch. In the…
March 5, 2006
As a born skeptic, I was always convinced that hypnosis was quack science. Then I reached the end of my tether. I'd promised myself I would quit smoking before I turned 30. In the months approaching my birthday, I still found myself sucking down a pack a day. I tried self-control. I tried tapering…
March 4, 2006
I've been talking a lot about genes lately (because I'm obsessed) and what I'm finding is that many people are alarmed by genetics. I believe there are two primary reasons for this--one quite valid.
A Vast Social Engineering Project?
This fear of genetics arises, in part, from the belief that we…
March 4, 2006
You know those guys in high school who never learned to talk to girls? The ones who didn't bother with acne medication, sported glasses that appeared to have been passed down from a long-dead uncle, and knew an alarming amount of Star Trek trivia? Well, apparently, they've all grown up and become…
March 3, 2006
"It is better to tackle ten fundamental [scientific] problems and succeed in only one, than to tackle ten trivial ones and solve them all," Francis Crick once told his devoted pupil V.S. Ramachandran, director of San Diego State's Center for Brain and Cognition.
Ramachandran, apparently, took this…
March 2, 2006
In Mind Wide Open, Steven Johnson writes about advances in neurofeedback technology. "Your Attention Please" describes Johnson's attempts to peddle a virtual bicycle using the power of his brain.
He's at a training session organized by a firm called The Attention Builders. As the name suggests, the…
March 1, 2006
Clarence Darrow famously said: "I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure." It's likely that Dr. John Halpern experienced a similar kind of schadenfreude on hearing of Timothy Leary's death in 1996.
For those of you too young to remember him as anything other…
February 6, 2006
I live with a man who can easily dredge up the names of people who testified in the Watergate hearings, because he watched them on TV--when he was four. He can recite dialogue from movies he hasn't seen since the early '80s. And he can tell you with absolute certainty that Admiral Ackbar, the fish-…
February 5, 2006
Introversion is a loaded word. Just look it up in the dictionary and here's what you'll find:
Introversion: The state or tendency toward being wholly or predominantly concerned with and interested in one's own mental life
(Mirriam-Webster Online)
Doesn't sound so good, does it? Sounds downright…
February 4, 2006
I've never read anything that captures the torment of a bad day of writing as well as the following passage from the preface of Joan Didion's Slouching Towards Bethlehem:
. . . I sit in a room literally papered with false starts and cannot put one word after another and imagine that I have suffered…
February 3, 2006
Psychology is supposed to be the empathetic science. So, it surprised me to learn that many psychologists believe the entire range of human feeling can be distilled down to a list of ten. On the off chance this list grew too unwieldy, it was subdivided into two categories: primary emotions:…
February 3, 2006
Think neuroscience is boring? Think again, says V.S Ramachandran, director of San Diego State's Center for Brain and Cognition. In the coming years, Ramachandran says, neuroscience promises to revolutionize the way "we view ourselves and our place in the cosmos." (BBC Reith Lecture 1) If he sounds…
February 2, 2006
What would you say if I told you that parasites are infesting the brains of half the human population? Or creepier still, that these little buggers have the power to control people's behavior, making some irascible, others docile, and still others certifiably insane? You'd probably say I'd watched…
January 4, 2006
I recently started reading Blank Slate, by Steven Pinker, an MIT psychologist, much lauded for his poetic approach to science writing.
There can be no doubt, the man's a great writer. But he's also far smarter than the average bear (i.e., me) and I occasionally get lost in the dense thicket of his…
January 3, 2006
The New York Times Magazine ran a fascinating article by Charles Siebert, The Animal Self, last weekend about a newly minted field of psychology called Animal Personality. The burgeoning psychological school subscribes to the theory that animals, like humans, are born with innate character traits,…
January 2, 2006
Okay, so let's do a quick recap. How exactly do mirror neurons work? And why do they suggest that normally functioning human beings are hard wired for empathy?
Here's my working definition. (Those with a firmer grasp on the specifics will be sure to correct any faulty assumptions.)
Mirror neurons…
January 1, 2006
The New York Times (Cells That Read Minds) and The Wall Street Journal (How Mirror Neurons Help Us to Empathize) published a couple of articles at the beginning of this month about mirror neurons. Now, I don't generally scour the paper for breaking news on neurons, but I started scanning the Times…