Brain and Behavior
gregladen | March 13, 2008Neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor had an opportunity few brain scientists would wish for: One morning, she realized she was having a massive stroke. As it happened -- as she felt her brain functions slip away one by one, speech, movement, understanding -- she studied and remembered every moment. This is a powerful story about how our brains define us and connect us to the world and to one another.
gregladen | March 6, 2008There is a new paper out suggesting that the Flores hominids, known as Hobbits, were "human endemic cretins."
From the abstract of this paper:
... We hypothesize that these individuals are myxoedematous endemic (ME) cretins, part of an inland population of (mostly unaffected) Homo sapiens. ME cretins are born without a functioning thyroid; their congenital hypothyroidism leads to severe dwarfism and reduced brain size, but less severe mental retardation and motor disability than neurological endemic cretins. We show that the fossils display many signs of congenital hypothyroidism, including…
gregladen | February 27, 2008In this open access publication in PLoS it is
...suggest that, compared with placebo, the new-generation antidepressants do not produce clinically significant improvements in depression in patients who initially have moderate or even very severe depression, but show significant effects only in the most severely depressed patients. The findings also show that the effect for these patients seems to be due to decreased responsiveness to placebo, rather than increased responsiveness to medication. Given these results, the researchers conclude that there is little reason to prescribe new-…
gregladen | February 15, 2008What if human consciousness isn't the end-all and be-all of Darwinism? What if we are all just pawns in corn's clever strategy game, the ultimate prize of which is world domination? Author Michael Pollan asks us to see things from a plant's-eye view -- to consider the possibility that nature isn't opposed to culture, that biochemistry rivals intellect as a survival tool. By merely shifting our perspective, he argues, we can heal the Earth. Who's the more sophisticated species now?
gregladen | February 13, 2008OK, here's a quiz for you. You have a tube that is fixed in space. You cannot move it. It is too small for you to get your hands into it, and there is a peanut in the bottom. You want the peanut. How do you extract the peanut?
Have a look at how this chimp did it:
gregladen | January 16, 2008People from different cultures use their brains differently to solve the same visual perceptual tasks, MIT researchers and colleagues report in the first brain imaging study of its kind.
This is not that surprising, but it is very interesting research. We already knew, for instance, that people who read and write different "kinds" of languages ... pictographic vs. non-pictographic ... use different regions of their brain for this function, and thus are differentially affected by strokes or other damage.
This news comes to us from an MIT press release...
Psychological research has…
grrlscientist | September 21, 2007tags: blog carnivals, encephalon, cognition, learning
Okay, this is the last time I will ask you to send me submissions for the upcoming issue of the blog carnival, Encephalon, which I am hosting on Monday, 24 September. A few submissions have trickled in so far, but I want my efforts to be recognized as the best ever on behalf of this carnival so I am going to ask you all again to send me your submissions! Encephalon is THE carnival that focuses on blog writing about all aspects of neuroscience, from the molecular to the cognitive. So if you want your brainy words to be read by a larger and…
tfk | June 27, 2007The Chinese Room is a thought experiment in artificial intelligence. John Searle proposed it as a way to falsify the claim that some computer algorithm could be written which could mimic the behavior of an intelligent human so precisely that we could call it an artificial intelligence. Searle proposed that we imagine a log cabin (though it has been observed that it must be an enormous log cabin, perhaps a log aircraft carrier), in which a person sits. Around that person lie reams of paper, full of rules in English, as well as a story written in Chinese (or any other language that the…
tfk | June 1, 2007While writing an email lamenting that there aren't more hours in the day, or at least fewer smart people saying interesting things on the intarweb and the literature, I signed off "Oy."
Then, as I was doing a last editing pass, I thought of changing it to "Argh." Or perhaps even "Arrrrrgh."
Which got me thinking about the difference between "oy" and "argh." If you were translating a Woody Allen movie to a language where "oy" wouldn't work, could you substitute "argh"?
The basic concept is certainly the same. They both express profound frustration. On the other hand. "Oy" has a resigned…
tfk | January 25, 2007Study finds regional differences in US serial killings:
Did you know that people living in the Western region of the United States are more likely to become victims of a serial killer than people living in the Northeast?
Ah, science. The study by University of Connecticut Emeritus Sociology Professor James DeFronzo examined male serial killers in the United States from 1970 to 1992. It is published in Homicide Studies. Yet another reason to fear those odd Westerners.
tfk | December 19, 2006Yes, I'm stealing Yakov Smirnoff jokes, but it's true. According to Improbable Research, Russian scientists have tested a theory:
If a depressed individual receives a physical punishment, whipping that is, it will stir up endorphin receptors, activate the ‘production of happiness’ and eventually remove depressive feelings.
Russian scientists recommend the following course of the whipping therapy: 30 sessions of 60 whips on the buttocks in every procedure. A group of drug addicts volunteered to test the new method of treatment: the results can be described as good and excellent.
I wouldn't…
tfk | December 11, 2006The first bill filed for next year's state senate session would ban thimerosal in vaccines. Thimerosal is a preservative formerly used in many vaccines, now mostly found only in flu vaccines. Because it contains a form of mercury, people have tried to link its use in childhood vaccines with rising autism rates. As the Lawrence Journal-World's Scott Rothschild notes:
Federal officials maintain there is no association between the disorders and thimerosal. Critics, however, say the studies are flawed and note that mercury is a known toxin.
Unfortunately, he leaves out a lot of background.…
tfk | October 10, 2006Frontal Cortex, reviewing An Elephant Crackup in the Times, writes about Elephants Gone Wild:
This shouldn't be too surprising. The neurobiology of stress is an extremely well conserved biological pathway. Our brain experiences stress in much the same way as a chimp, or an elephant, or a rat. And since Post-Traumatic-Stress-Disorder is now a well documented phenomenon in humans - up to 40 percent of all soldiers coming home from Iraq experience some of PTSD - we should expect that other animals also display abberant behavior in response to chronic levels of elevated stress.
What I find odd…