neuroscience
neurophilosophy | September 23, 2007
(Image credit: John B. Carnett)
The September issue of Popular Science magazine has an article about one of the first clinical trials in which deep brain stimulation is being used to treat patients with severe depression who do not respond to drugs or electroconvulsive therapy.
The image above shows Diane Hire, one of 17 patients enrolled in the trial, which is being conducted at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio. The X-ray on the right shows the position of the electrodes that have been implanted in Hire's brain.
According to the article, the procedure takes about 4 hours. It…
neurophilosophy | September 21, 2007
This 3D reconstruction of the presynaptic terminal show the nuts and bolts of intercellular communication in the nervous system. They were generated by Siksou et al, from serial electron micrographs of neurons from the rat hippocampus.
The blue spheres are synaptic vesicles containing neurotransmitter molecules. They are docked at the presynaptic membrane (white). The arrival of an action potential (or nervous impulse) at the nerve terminal leads to an influx of calcium ions, which causes the vesicles to fuse with the membrane and release their contents into the synapse.
The gold…
neurophilosophy | September 21, 2007A study by a team of German researchers shows that the brains of paedophiles respond differently to those of healthy controls to erotic images.
Martin Walter, of the Department of Psychiatry at Otto-von-Guricke University in Magdeburg, and his colleagues used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to compare neural activity in 13 paedophilic patients and 14 healthy control subjects during visual erotic stimulation.
They found that, compared to the controls, activity in several areas of the brain, including the hypothalamus, was reduced in the paedophilic patients.
The hypothalamus…
neurophilosophy | September 21, 2007
Yellow Red Blue, by Wassily Kandinsky.
After attending a performance of Wagner's opera Lohengrin in St. Petersburg, Kandinsky said, "I saw all my colours in spirit, before my eyes. Wild, almost crazy lines were sketched in front of me."
Kandinsky was describing his experience of a condition called tone-colour synaesthesia, in which sounds elicit visual sensations. In his paintings, Kandinsky tried to evoke the visual equivalent of a symphony.
The word synaesthesia comes from the Greek roots syn, meaning 'together', and aesthesis, meaning 'sensation'. The condition was first described…
neurophilosophy | September 20, 2007
I found this two-part documentary on YouTube. It's about a musician called Clive Wearing, who became amnesic following a herpes encephalitis infection that damaged his hippocampus, as well as parts of his frontal and temporal lobes.
Wearing's is the most severe case of anterograde amnesia ever recorded. Unlike the famous amnesic Henry M., who can learn simple motor skills, Wearing is incapable of forming any new memories whatsoever.
Wearing is the subject of this article in The New Yorker, by Oliver Sacks, whose new book about music and the mind is to be published soon.
[The…
omnibrain | September 20, 2007MMmmmm..... Brains!
Mixed chocolate human mini brains treats with cherries is a set of twelve anatomically correct mini Chocolate Brains. Each brain is 1x1.25x.75"
-via Neatorama-
neurophilosophy | September 18, 2007(Image credit: Karolinska University Hospital)
A study led by neuroscientist Peter Fransson of the Karolinska Institute in Sweden shows that there is spontaneous activity in at least 5 resting-state networks in the brains of sleeping babies.
Fransson and his colleagues used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to scan the brains of 12 sleeping babies, for 10 minutes each. They found that there was activity in parts of the brain associated with the processing of visual, motor and auditory information.
This type of activity had previously been observed in sleeping adults, but until now…
neurophilosophy | September 17, 2007
This film clip shows Michael Gazzaniga carrying out a behavioural study of a split brain patient named Joe.
The split brain procedure (or corpus callosumectomy) involves severing of the corpus callosum, the bundle of approximately 100 million nerve fibres that connect the two hemispheres of the brain.
The procedure was performed on patients with intractable epilepsy, the idea being that preventing the left and right hemispheres from communicating with each other would stop the abnormal electrical activity associated with epilepsy from spreading across the whole brain.
Split brain…
sb admin | September 16, 2007 David Amodio responds to The Neurocritic's post about his hot study on [American] political thinking, Neurocognitive correlates of liberalism and conservatism, published in Nature Neuroscience.
While criticism in the blogosphere was mostly based on newspaper reporting (and a Slate article), The Neurocritic examined merits of the study itself. Amodio says,
Though I've generally not worried about the "lay" coverage (how can you argue science with pundits?), it might be worthwhile to respond to a blog that is read by neuroscientists (including myself from time to time).
Check it out if you're…
neurophilosophy | September 15, 2007
This week, I've received three books which I'll be writing about in the near future:
My Lobotomy, by Howard Dully and Charles Fleming. Dully was lobotomized at the age of 12 at the behest of his stepmother - that's him on the right, holding an instrument identical to the one he was lobotomized with; this book is his memoir.
The Lobotomist, by Jack El-Hai, a biography of Walter Freeman, the psychiatrist who, in 1960, performed Dully's lobotomy.
The Body Has a Mind of Its Own, by Sandra and Matthew Blakeslee. This is about the somatosensory cortex, that part of the brain on which the…
sb admin | September 14, 2007 Artist Katelyn Sack emailed me earlier to clarify some info. She shares truth:
The post you link to incorrectly states the series is composed of fridge magnets. While I can make prints, magnets, T-shirts, and even baby bubbles featuring any of my artwork, 'Baby, Be A Brain Surgeon!' as featured on The Science Creative Quarterly this Tues., Sept. 11 is oil paint on 4.25" x 4.25" ceramic tiles. You can see my original blog post on the artwork here, and I also list it for sale on my website here.
In her original post, she describes the vision behind her designs. Nursery room decor for a…
clock | September 14, 2007A few days ago PZ Myers announced he will have some special guest bloggers on Pharyngula soon. While the first commenters were guessing Big Names, like Dawkins, my comment was: "I am hoping for your students....". A little later, PZ Myers updated his post to announce that yes, indeed, it will be his Neuroscience students who will be guest-blogging this semester.
And today, they started. They were thrown into a lions' den, but they are doing great, holding their own against the famously ruthless Pharynguloids who call them 'kids' and then slam them anyway in many, many comments (they are…
neurophilosophy | September 14, 2007
Recently, I've written a couple of posts about the use of microfluidics-based devices in neurobiology research.
First, I wrote about microfluidics chips for imaging neuronal activity and behaviour in the nematode worm, and then about chips for culturing neurons.
Today, Technology Review has an article about the use of this technology in developing drug treatments for Parkinson's disease:
Mehmet Fatih Yanik, assistant professor of electrical engineering and computer science at MIT, is developing microfluidic devices that could greatly facilitate experiments, including whole-genome…
omnibrain | September 14, 2007Since it's short.... here's the entire snipit from The Onion:
BETHESDA, MD--After an extensive six-month study using an electroencephalogram and a finger, researchers at the National Institutes of Health have discovered the section of the human brain that responds unfavorably to poking.
"We found a direct link between this negative effect and our finger pressing on a particular area of the brain," said neuroscientist Matthew Redman Monday, who conducted the study on 12 healthy participants. "After analyzing our data and testing and retesting our subjects, we finally identified this region as…
neurophilosophy | September 12, 2007On March 4th 1991, four days after the end of the Persian Gulf War, ground troops from the U.S. 37th Engineering Battalion destroyed large caches of weapons found at the Khamisiyah Ammunitions Storage Facility, a site approximately 25 square kilometres in size, located some 350km south east of Baghdad.
The U.S. Department of Defense initially denied that its troops may have been exposed to nerve agents during the demolitions at Khamisiyah, but following an inspection of the site by the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) in 1997, it emerged that the munitions destroyed on that day…
omnibrain | September 11, 2007Head over to Mind Hacks for more MRI madness! There you will read about the many examples of all the stupid shit people brought into the room with a big freakin' magnet and ended up flying across the room (and sometimes tragically killing someone). Here at Omni Brain we figured we'd just give you the great B movie about MRI safety.
Wow is that bad!
neurophilosophy | September 11, 2007
A is for Amygdala
B is for Brainstem
C is for Cerebellum
D is for Diencephalon
E is for Epithalamus
F is for Frontal lobe
G is for Gray matter
H is for Hypothalamus
I is for Interbrain
J is for Joints of Luschka
K is for Kolliker's reticulum
L is for Lateral sulcus
M is for Medulla oblongata
N is for Neuroglia
O is for Occipital lobe
P is for Pons
Q is for Corpora Quadrigemina
R is for Reticular formation
S is for Somatic sensory area (within Parietal lobe)
T is for Temporal lobe
U is for Unclassified tumor, malignant
V is for Visual cortex
W is for White matter
X…
neurophilosophy | September 10, 2007 Dr. Deb Serani has just posted the 31st edition of Encephalon.
The next edition will be hosted by GrrlScientist at Living the Scientific Life on September 24th. If you'd like to contribute, send your links to encephalon{dot} host{at}gmail{dot}com, or use this submission form.
Encephalon needs hosts from October 22nd onwards, so if you'd like to host the carnival on your blog, then get in touch.
neurophilosophy | September 10, 2007 Sport and recreational activities account for some 21% of traumatic brain injuries in American children and adolescents, and football players are particularly prone to head injuries that can lead to permanent brain damage.
American football is associated with more head injuries than any other. Last year, for example, more than 34,600 football players were treated for head injuries in U.S. hospital emergency rooms. But the incidence of traumatic brain injury among footballers maybe far higher, as injuries that could cause damage to the brain often go unnoticed.
Players experience repeated…
neurophilosophy | September 9, 2007Research suggests that liberals and conservatives have different personality traits and "cognitive styles": while liberals are more intellectually curious and tolerant of ambiguity, conservatives have a greater desire to reach decisions quickly and are more consistent in the way they make those decisions.
A new study, published online today in Nature Neuroscience, suggests that there may be a neural basis for these differences in cognitive style. The study provides evidence that there are differences in the way the brains of liberals and conservatives respond to situations involving…