neurophilosophy | September 11, 2008Hallucinations are often associated with psychiatric conditions such as schizophrenia or with LSD and related drugs. Hearing voices is a characteristic symptom which is reported by about 70% of schizophrenic patients, as well as by some 15% of patients with mood disorders such as depression; and those under the influence of LSD often experience extreme spatial distortions and surreal visions.
Most common are auditory and visual hallucinations, but the other senses can also produce mirages. Temporal lobe epilepsy or brain injury can lead to phantosmia, or olfactory hallucinations, during…
neurophilosophy | September 5, 2008
In this clip from The Simpsons, Homer explains why he wouldn't benefit from an adult education course: "How is education supposed to make me feel smarter? Every time I learn something new, it pushes some old stuff out of my brain."
As you watched the clip, multiple brain regions were engaged and acted in parallel to generate a coherent conscious experience. For example, the visual cortical in the occipital lobes process the stream of information entering the eyes; the auditory regions in the temporal lobes process the sound entering the ears; and cells in the hippocampus encode certain…
neurophilosophy | September 3, 2008In the Nature Neuroscience podcast NeuroPod, presenter Kerri Smith talks to authors of new papers from that journal about their research. The August 2008 episode (which is embedded below) includes discussions about the development of the concept of fairness in children and the effects of how imprinting of maternal and paternal genes affects development of the brain. There's also more about how magic can inform neuroscience.
neurophilosophy | September 3, 2008Last week, the number of subscribers to this blog's RSS feed passed the 2,000 mark, after teetering just below that number for a couple of months. It's very gratifying to know that so many people enjoy my writing, and although this increase in subscriptions is tiny compared to the total number of subscribers, it somehow feels like leaping over a high hurdle.
Perhaps you haven't subscribed to my feed because you think you'll have to pay. Actually, it's completely free, as are all other feeds. Or maybe it's because you're unfamiliar with RSS. If so, here's a very short primer on this very…
neurophilosophy | September 3, 2008The 53rd edition of Encephalon is online now at Ionian Enchantment and includes entries about grid cells, cochlear implants and how culture affects the perception of faces.
The carnival comes back to it's original home for the next edition - I'll be hosting it here on 15th September. If you'd like to contribute, send permalinks to your neuroscience and psychology blog posts to encephalon{dot}host{at}gmail {dot}com.
Also, there's a new blog carnival called Hourglass that you might like to take a look at. It's about biogerontology (the biology of aging), and the first and second editions are…
neurophilosophy | September 2, 2008
The past few days have been rather hectic, hence the lack of updates. On Saturday, I attended and took part in Europe's first science blogging conference, and there were also several other events which had been organized for those who came to the event from abroad.
Last Thursday evening, I was forced to go on a scientific pub crawl, and on Friday I joined a group of about 20 others for a London science tour. Both events were organized and led by Matt Brown, who pretended that it was part of his job rather than an excuse for him to indulge in his hobbies and show off his extensive knowledge…
neurophilosophy | August 27, 2008The patient lies on the operating table, with the right side of his body raised slightly. The anaesthetist sterilizes his scalp and injects it with Nupercaine to produce analgesia - the patient will remain fully conscious throughout the procedure. Behind the surgical drapes, three large incisions are made in his scalp. A large flap of bone is then cut from his skull, and turned downward to expose the surface of his brain. The ultraviolet lights which illuminate the operating theatre and keep the air sterile are positioned in such a way that they do not shine directly upon the cortex.
Using an…
neurophilosophy | August 27, 2008At Bioephemera, Jessica has a fascinating post about depictions of madness in 15th-17th century art, during which time mental illness was popularly attributed to the presence of a "stone of madness" (or "stone of folly") in the head.
One of the earliest depictions of this is found in the above painting, Hieronymous Bosch's The Cure of Folly (The Extraction of the Stone of Madness), and similar scenes were subsequently depicted by other Renaissance artists.
As Jessica explains, historians of art and medicine are in dispute about the underlying meaning of the paintings. Were they depictions…
neurophilosophy | August 26, 2008Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher has dementia.
In her forthcoming book, which is serialized in the Mail on Sunday (a paper which, I hasten to add, I do not read), Carol Thatcher reveals that her mother's mental faculties have been in decline for the past 7 years:
When she learned Latin at school, she absorbed the vocabulary and declensions with her blotting-paper brain. It was a skill honed to perfection during her chemistry degree at Oxford, when scientific equations added yet another dimension to an already orderly mind.
...
Whereas previously you would never have had to…
neurophilosophy | August 26, 2008In an effort to get you, my readers, to actively participate in this blog, and also because some of you have been so generous in the past, I've decided to offer prizes to those of you who leave comments.
I will send a recently published science book to the reader who posts the most interesting, insightful or amusing comment. I'd like to do this regularly, so if it proves to be successful, I'll do it on a monthly basis.
I still haven't decided exactly how this will work. I could choose the comment myself - and, as it's my blog, my decision would be final - or I might select a handful of…
neurophilosophy | August 24, 2008The BBC has produced an interesting series called Blood and Guts about the modern history of surgery and the first episode, which is about neurosurgery, is now available online at the BBC iPlayer website. (For those outside the U.K., it is also available as a torrent.)
Presented by surgeon Michael Mosley, the program begins with the pioneering work of Harvey Cushing, then continues with a discussion of Phineas Gage, the Yale physiologist Jose Delgado and the lobotomist Walter Freeman. Mosley also meets Howard Dully, who was lobotomized at the age of 12 by Freeman.
In one particularly…
neurophilosophy | August 24, 2008Here's some awesome footage of the one and only Jimi Hendrix performing at Woodstock. At around 11 minutes in, he plays the guitar with his teeth. Yes...with his teeth. And it still sounds great.
Some of the hippies at the event take a much-needed dip in a lake, so the film does contain a tiny bit of nudity, as well as some drug-taking.
neurophilosophy | August 23, 2008NEARLY 70 years ago, Karl von Frisch described the alarm response in a species of small freshwater fish called the European minnow (Phoxinus phoxinus). Frisch, who was one of the founders ethology - the scientific study of animal behaviour - demonstrated that when a minnow was eaten by a predator, a chemical released from its damaged skin elicited defensive behaviour in other minnows that were close by. In response to the chemical, they would at first dart about randomly, form a tight school and then retreat from the source of the chemical.
Frisch called this substance schreckstoff, meaning…
neurophilosophy | August 23, 2008Clay rendered three-dimensional model of the UCL campus, created by Andrew Hudson-Smith of the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, using SketchUp and 3DMax. Nature News reports that UCL will host a centre of excellence for neuroscience research:
University College London (UCL) will host the new centre, after beating rival universities Oxford and Cambridge, Nature has learned. The £140-million (US$261-million) institute will be funded by the Wellcome Trust, the largest UK research charity, and the Gatsby Charitable Foundation, founded by David Sainsbury, a British politician and businessman…
neurophilosophy | August 22, 2008Stroke can be extremely debilitating, but if the damage is not too severe, and appropriate rehabilitation is administered, the brain can reorganize itself to compensate for the loss of function. This reorganization can occur because the brain remains 'plastic' throughout life; it leads to recovery, but can also have unexpected consequences.
Something very unexpected happened to Ken Walters, a 51-year-old former engineer from Lancashire, following his cerebrovascular accident. According to the Daily Mail, Walters suffered a "mild stroke" (possibly a transient ischaemic attack) in 2005, and…
neurophilosophy | August 22, 2008Harvey Cushing (1869-1939) is considered to be the father of modern neurological surgery. In the early part of the 20th century, he developed basic techniques and instruments for operating on the brain and, as a result, founded the discipline as a distinct surgical speciality. Before Cushing began his career, brain tumours were considered to be inoperable, and the mortality rate for any surgical procedure which involved opening the skull was around 90%. Early in his career, Cushing dramatically reduced the mortality rate for neurosurgery to less than 10%, and by the time of his retirement in…
neurophilosophy | August 22, 2008Six more new ones:
Encefalus
Missives from the Frontal Lobe
Neuromics
NeoCorTEXT
Neurospeculation
Nothing's Shocking
Plastic, Elastic, the PFC
neurophilosophy | August 22, 2008Where is this wonderful place? You're already there!
Neurophilosophy gets reviewed for the first time:
Neurophilosophy presents a unique opportunity to explore the many facets of the human condition with the guidance of a very well educated tour guide. From cannibalism to athleticism, "molecules, minds and everything in between," Neurophilosophy offers us a look at the human brain as most of us have never seen (or considered) it before.
Neurophilosophy is a place of interest, education, contemplation, and curiosity. It's hard to imagine what you might learn here, but it's safe to…
neurophilosophy | August 22, 2008This advertisement for Ritalin comes from a 1966 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). Ritalin, or methylphenidate, is widely - and controversially - prescribed to children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
The drug is an amphetamine-like stimulant which blocks reuptake of the neurotransmitters dopamine and noradrenaline (norepinephrine) in the prefrontal cortex. This seems paradoxical given that it improves concentration and reduces impulsivity in hyperactive children, and exactly why it is an effective treatment for ADHD is still unclear.
In the…
neurophilosophy | August 21, 2008In 2000, researchers from the Yale University School of Medicine made a surprising discovery that would start to change the way we think about the causes of depression. Ronald Duman and his colleagues chronically administered different classes of antidepressants to rats, and found that this stimulated the growth of new neurons in the hippocampus. As a result, researchers and clinicians began to think of depression as something like a mild neurodegenerative disorder, rather than as a chemical imbalance in the brain.
Earlier studies had already suggested that depression involves shrinkage of…