neurophilosophy | August 13, 2007After writing this recent post about Fyodor Dostoyevsky's epilepsy, I decided it was time I re-read one of the great author's novels, and chose The Idiot, because it contains Dostoyevsky's most vivid descriptions of the epileptic aura. (It is widely believed that Dostoyevsky based the protagonist, Prince Myshkin, on himself.) I'm reading a Penguin Classics edition of the book, which was translated by David McDuff, and was first published in 2004.
In The Idiot, Myshkin's epilepsy is first mentioned in chapter one. In the online edition of the book, which I quoted in the post about…
neurophilosophy | August 13, 2007 Head over to Memoirs of a Postgrad for the 29th edition of Encephalon.
The 30th edition will be hosted at Neurofuture on 27th August. If you'd like to contribute, please email permalinks to your neuroscience/ psychology blog posts to encephalon{dot}host{at}gmail{dot}com, or use this submission form.
neurophilosophy | August 12, 2007 There's an interesting case study in The Lancet, about a woman who began hearing voices with speech impairments following a bicycle accident.
The 63-year-old woman was treated at the University Hospital of Psychiatry in Bern, Switzerland, after falling from her bicycle and hitting her head. Following the accident, she suffered a brain hemorrhage and lost consciousness.
Upon her arrival at the hospital, it was found that the woman had an aneurysm (a blood-filled dilation of a blood vessel in the brain). This was treated, and a craniotomy was performed to after tests showed damage in the…
neurophilosophy | August 12, 2007At Open Access News, there's an interview with Pat Brown, cofounder of the Public Library of Science.
neurophilosophy | August 11, 2007From The Times:
A ruling by the national drug watchdog to limit access to an Alzheimer's drug has been upheld by the High Court.
The drug company Eisai challenged the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) over its guidance that for most patients Eisai's drug Aricept was not a cost-effective use of NHS resources.
This is a complex judgement. In November, the government body NICE, which issues guidelines regarding all aspects of healthcare in the National Health Service, stated that the acetylcholinesterase inhibitors Aricept (Donepezil), Reminyl (…
neurophilosophy | August 11, 2007Catherine Watt, of the Koestler Parapsychology Unit at the University of Edinburgh, claims that teaching students how to study paranormal phenomena is "great...for stimulating critical thinking."
neurophilosophy | August 9, 2007
(From the Gilbert Lab at the University of Texas)
This carpenter ant (genus Campanotus), and the bullet ant in the first film clip below (Paraponera clavata), have fallen victim to parasitic fungi of the genus Cordyceps, which manipulate the behaviour of their host in order to increase their own chances of reproducing.
The spores of the fungus attach themselves to the external surface of the ant, where they germinate. They then enter the ant's body through the tracheae (the tubes through which insects breathe), via holes in the exoskeleton called spiracles. Fine fungal filaments called…
neurophilosophy | August 9, 2007
Slate Magazine has a report from the DARPATech conference, containing details of the contraptions under development by those mad Pentagon scientists, including the robotic surgeon trauma pod and this prosthetic arm:
At one display area, a pair of armless volunteers and a young veteran missing his right hand demonstrate some fancy new models. We don't yet have bionic arms that hook up directly to the cortex, but one machine uses electrical signals from the muscle tissue remaining in a patient's stump to drive a mechanical hand: After extended training, the veteran could open and close his…
neurophilosophy | August 9, 2007
I've just received a copy of Best of the Brain from Scientific American, courtesy of the publishers, Dana Press.
Best of the Brain is fantastic a collection of essays from SciAm and SciAm Mind, by leading neuroscientists, such as Antonio Damasio and Eric Kandel, and top science writers like Carl Zimmer.
The essays provide a fantastic summary of current thinking and research in a wide variety of areas, from addiction, mental illness and consciousness to brain-computer interfaces and neuromorphic microchips.
The book will be published in the U. K. on 20th August. The full contents, and…
neurophilosophy | August 8, 2007 Alzheimer's is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder characterised by the formation of senile plaques consisting of amyloid-beta protein. The molecular genetic basis of Alzheimer's is very complex. Amyloid-beta is a toxic protein fragment produced by abnormal processing of amyloid precursor protein (APP), which accumulates to form the insoluble plaques found within cells. (This occurs by a seeding mechanism similar to that of prion proteins.)
A new study, by researchers at UCL's Institute of Ophthalmology, in collaboration with French and Italian colleagues, now confirms the role of…
neurophilosophy | August 8, 2007 Vaughan discusses the recent revelations that psychologists play a key role in military "interrogations", and provides plenty of links about the subject, including this article from Vanity Fair about two psychologists who developed torture techniques for the CIA.
As I have mentioned, my father was tortured during his time as a political prisoner in Egypt in the late 1950s. So campaigning against this abhorent practice is something that I'm extremely passionate about.
neurophilosophy | August 8, 2007A new study by researchers at Stanford University shows that fast food branding affects the taste preferences of preschoolers.
3- to 5-year-old children from low-income families were given pairs of five identical foods and drinks and asked to indicate if which, if any, tasted better.
The children consistently reported preferring the foods and drinks in packaging form McDonald's over those presented to them in unbranded packaging. This was the case even if the food or drink tasted was not on the McDonald's menu.
The effect of branding was found to be greater in those children who had more…
neurophilosophy | August 8, 2007Can single neurons be replaced by artificial ones, perhaps nano-bots
of some kind?
No. Artificial neurons have not been developed.
Could a cluster of neurons be replaced by an artificial cluster?
No, but devices such as cochlear implants and the electrode arrays used for deep brain stimulation can perform the functions of groups of neurons.
...or perhaps hooked up to a computer which
replicates their function?
Some research groups have developed neuron-semiconductor interfaces which can communicate with neurons bidirectionally (i.e. artificial synapses). So, information from spontaneously-…
neurophilosophy | August 7, 2007
From the BBC:
Microbes locked in Antarctic ice for as much as eight million years have been "resuscitated" in a laboratory.
Researchers melted five samples of ice from the debris-covered glaciers of Antarctica which range in age from 100,000 years to eight million years.
When given nutrients and warmth, the microbes resumed their activity - although younger microorganisms grew more successfully than the older ones.
According to the news story, the paper is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, but I couldn't find it at the time of writing…
neurophilosophy | August 7, 2007Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is said to be one of the signature injuries of the conflict in Iraq, and accounts for a larger proportion of troop casualties than it has in previous wars fought by the United States. According to the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center, the U. S. military formally diagnosed 2,121 cases of TBI between October 2001 and January 2007.
The incidence of TBI among troops may actually be much higher than these official statistics suggest, largely because of the increasing use of the signature weapon of the Iraq war: the improvised explosive device (IED).…
neurophilosophy | August 7, 2007A few new additions to my feed reader:
Advances in the History of Psychology - whose "primary mission...[is] to notify readers of publications, conferences, and other events of interest to researchers and students of the history of psychology." By Jeremy Trevelyan Burman, Ph.D. student in the history and theory of psychology at York University.
Brain in a Vat - "a neuroscience research digest." By Noam, who "recently graduated from Yale with a double major in Philosophy and Molecular Biochemistry and Biophysics [and is] conducting laboratory research at the University of Pennsylvania…
neurophilosophy | August 7, 2007And it's my identity that's been stolen: there's somebody else masquerading as the neurophilosopher.
neurophilosophy | August 6, 2007
It is well known that traumatic memories, or those with other emotional significance, are more persistent than trivial or mundane ones. The death of a loved one, for example, is far more readily recalled than an uneventful car journey to work.
Evolutionarily, enhanced memory of a highly emotional event - say, a situation when one's life is in danger - is an advantage, because that information will be potentially life-saving if that situation is encountered again. But persistent memories of such events can have adverse effects, as they can lead to conditions such as post-traumatic stress…
neurophilosophy | August 6, 2007 Some readers seem to be having problems posting comments.
I've alerted the ScienceBlogs technical support team, so this should be resolved soon.
neurophilosophy | August 6, 2007Here are 5 short clips from a film called The Squid and its Giant Nerve Fiber, which was made at the Plymouth Marine Laboratory in the 1970s. One of the clips includes footage of Alan Hodgkin performing patch voltage clamp experiments on the squid axon.
Hodgkin, together with Andrew Huxley, used the voltage clamp technique to elucidate the mechanism of the action potential. The pair were awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology in 1963 for their work.
(Via Pharyngula.)