Editor's Selections: Methodology, Autistic Pigs, Invasive Brains, and OCD

Here are my Research Blogging Editor's Selections for this week.

  • "Most neuroscientists would subscribe to the sensorimotor hypothesis, according to which brains mainly evaluate sensory input to compute motor output," writes Bjorn Brembs. But is it possible that the sensorimotor hypothesis is just the result of some laboratory artifacts?
  • "What happens to a pig if it has a gene for autism?" This is the question that Neuroskeptic addressed earlier this week. Do Pigs Get Autism?
  • What is it that makes an invasive species so successful at invading a new ecosystem? At NeuroDojo, Zen Faulkes asks if the brain could be involved. "Normally, we think of invaders as being able to turn out lots of babies, or having defenses that natives don't, or all sorts of other factors. But could invaders be winning because they are smarter?"
  • How are OCD behaviors formed? Historically, it was thought that there was no physiological basis for this mental illness, but this week at B Good Science, Ben Good discussed some new research that sheds some light on the biological etiology for OCD.

That's it for this week... Check back next week for more great psychology and neuroscience blogging!

Categories

More like this

Or at least "Darwinism" whatever the hell that means these days. I guess they couldn't keep quiet all day. UD's new argument is an easily dismissed straw man. It goes like this. Scientists discover fruit flies put in a sensory-deprivation chamber,instead of flying around randomly, or in a…
There are 19 new articles in PLoS ONE today. As always, you should rate the articles, post notes and comments and send trackbacks when you blog about the papers. You can now also easily place articles on various social services (CiteULike, Connotea, Stumbleupon, Facebook and Digg) with just one…
Being away at AAAS meeting also meant I did not have much time and opportunity until right now to check what's new in PLoS ONE yesterday and today. But I checked now, after coming back home. As always, you should rate the articles, post notes and comments and send trackbacks when you blog about…
I'm trying to understand "morgellons syndrome". Based on Morgellons Research Foundation reports, there are a lot of people out there who believe they have this so-called disease. But what is it? I decided to dig deeper on the research end of things. I went to the MRF website, and to MedLine,…

Dude, it's allele, not gene!!

we all have the same genes. It's the alleles that differ.

By persnickity (not verified) on 14 Jun 2011 #permalink