Blogging on the Brain 2/24/07

The story of a patient who awoke after a 20-year coma, induced by traumatic brain injury.

Epidemic proportions of TBI in soldiers returning from Iraq: a new problem.

Second chance to live: a new blog written by a TBI survivor.

It is becoming clear that we have little idea of how the sleep medication Ambien (zolpidem) actually works. A few months ago it was shown to awaken some people from "persistent" vegetative states, but now is being implicated in bizarre behavior.

Douglas Hofstadter has a new book on consciousness. So does Gerald Edelman, also on consciousness.

Computers can now play go, a significantly greater achievement than getting them to play chess.

Biologically plausible models of vision used in street scene object recognition.

Videos from the 2005 Neural Information Processing Systems conference!

More videos about machine learning (including a tutorial on reinforcement learning).

More than 1 million neurons simulated in silico: Kwabena Boahen's project at Stanford. Also covered here.

A special issue of Social Neuroscience focusing on Theory of Mind.

Do video gamers make better surgeons?

Playing video games is good for your eyes?

Shelley covers the psychology of video game addiction.

Is it easier to exert cognitive control on money than other items? (Similar things have been demonstrated in children).

Dopaminergic- and cognitive-control of motor actions: the basal ganglia.

The Shrine of Wa-King and the Dopamonks: A neuroscience allegory.

Low levels of folate and B12 are associated with cognitive impairment

The synaesthesia battery: currently there is no established test for synaesthesia, and it has been difficult to unequivocally classify/identify synaesthetes for this reason.

Spear-wielding chimps snack on skewered bushbabies (can't mess with that title). Also here, here, and here.

Chimps make hammers, too.

Birds plan ahead: or maybe they're just serious about hunger. Also covered here and here.

Collective Bird Brains!

Mechanics of the bee waggle dance.

Isaac Asimov on intelligence.

Additions to the blogroll:
YW's Machine Learning Blog (at Gatsby Computational Neurosciences unit)
Natural Language Processing blog
Scientific American's "Seminar Blog:" Mind Matters
Cognitive Labs
Learning RX

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