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VikingSword (2)

Scientists have found that people with synesthesia, a condition wherein people have strong links between sensory experiences (such as hearing music as colours, or recalling a particular taste with a strong visual memory), may be caused by neural overstimulation in the visual cortex. The original paper (abstract and full text in pdf): Enhanced Cortical Excitability in Grapheme-Color Synesthesia and Its Modulation [more inside]
posted by guster4lovers on Nov 21, 2011 - 65 comments

Religious Experiences Shrink Part of the Brain. Scientific American analyses a study which links life-changing religious experiences, like being born again, with atrophy in the hippocampus. The study, “Religious factors and hippocampal atrophy in late life,” by Amy Owen and colleagues at Duke University, 'is a surprising result, given that many prior studies have shown religion to have potentially beneficial effects on brain function, anxiety, and depression.' [more inside]
posted by VikingSword on Jun 1, 2011 - 76 comments

'On the Hunt for Universal Intelligence' 'How do you use a scientific method to measure the intelligence of a human being, an animal, a machine or an extra-terrestrial? So far this has not been possible, but a team of Spanish and Australian researchers have taken a first step towards this by presenting the foundations to be used as a basis for this method in the journal Artificial Intelligence, and have also put forward a new intelligence test.' [more inside]
posted by VikingSword on Jan 28, 2011 - 11 comments