Understanding the Anxious Mind. A good article on the psychology of anxiety and how an anxious temperament at birth can ebb and flow during one's lifetime. [Via]
posted by homunculus on Oct 2, 2009 - 22 comments

Torturing the brain (PDF). Extreme pain and stress can actually impair a person's ability to tell the truth. [Via]
posted by homunculus on Sep 22, 2009 - 28 comments

Neurosecurity: security and privacy for neural devices. "An increasing number of neural implantable devices will become available in the near future due to advances in neural engineering. This discipline holds the potential to improve many patients' lives dramatically by offering improved—and in some cases entirely new—forms of rehabilitation for conditions ranging from missing limbs to degenerative cognitive diseases. The use of standard engineering practices, medical trials, and neuroethical evaluations during the design process can create systems that are safe and that follow ethical guidelines; unfortunately, none of these disciplines currently ensure that neural devices are robust against adversarial entities trying to exploit these devices to alter, block, or eavesdrop on neural signals. The authors define 'neurosecurity'—a version of computer science security principles and methods applied to neural engineering—and discuss why neurosecurity should be a critical consideration in the design of future neural devices." [Via Mind Hacks]
posted by homunculus on Jul 8, 2009 - 22 comments

The universal grammar of birdsong is genetically encoded. "A new study, published online in the journal Nature, shows that the songs of isolated zebra finches evolve over multiple generations to resemble those of birds in natural colonies. These findings show that song learning in birds is not purely the product of nurture, but has a strong genetic basis, and suggest that bird song has a universal grammar, or an intrinsic structure which is present at birth."
posted by homunculus on May 5, 2009 - 23 comments

David Kessler Knew That Some Foods Are Hard to Resist; Now He Knows Why. Former FDA commissioner David Kessler goes dumpster-diving to investigate the neurological impact of eating junk food. [Via]
posted by homunculus on Apr 27, 2009 - 40 comments

Brain Gain: The underground world of “neuroenhancing” drugs. [Via]
posted by homunculus on Apr 21, 2009 - 42 comments

Philosophy’s great experiment. "Philosophers used to combine conceptual reflections with practical experiment. The trendiest new branch of the discipline, known as x-phi, wants to return to those days. Some philosophers don’t like it." [Via]
posted by homunculus on Mar 4, 2009 - 45 comments

Rewiring the Brain: Inside the New Science of Neuroengineering. Dial H for Happiness: How Neuroengineering May Change Your Brain.
posted by homunculus on Mar 2, 2009 - 7 comments

That Voodoo That Scientists Do. "When findings are debated online, as with a yet to be released paper (PDF) that calls out the field of social neuroscience, who wins?"
posted by homunculus on Feb 27, 2009 - 53 comments

Neuroscience and Nostalgia. [Via]
posted by homunculus on Feb 23, 2009 - 19 comments

Newborn brain cells "time-stamp" memories. [Via]
posted by homunculus on Jan 31, 2009 - 7 comments

How Google Is Making Us Smarter: Humans are "natural-born cyborgs," and the Internet is our giant "extended mind."
posted by homunculus on Jan 15, 2009 - 50 comments

The Beautiful Mind. An online gallery of neuroscience photographs. [Via]
posted by homunculus on Dec 15, 2008 - 10 comments

If I Were You: Perceptual Illusion of Body Swapping. Expanding on previous experiments, researchers discover how to induce a "body-swap" illusion, whereby subjects perceive the body of another as if it were their own.
posted by homunculus on Dec 4, 2008 - 22 comments

Art as Visual Research: Art and neuroscience combine in creating fascinating examples of illusory motion.
posted by homunculus on Nov 18, 2008 - 7 comments

How to Run a Con. A neuroeconomist looks at the Pigeon Drop. [Via]
posted by homunculus on Nov 15, 2008 - 49 comments

Brain's 'Hate Circuit' Identified. "People who view pictures of someone they hate display activity in distinct areas of the brain that, together, may be thought of as a 'hate circuit', according to new research by scientists at UCL (University College London)."
posted by homunculus on Oct 29, 2008 - 34 comments

The Unspeakable Odyssey of the Motionless Boy. "How much of our humanity are we prepared to cede to machines? This is a dilemma of the future, but it's not much of a concern for Erik Ramsey. Erik can't move. He can't blink his eyes. And he hasn't said a word since 1999. But now, thanks to an electrode that was surgically implanted in his brain and linked to a computer, his nine-year silence is about to end." [Via]
posted by homunculus on Oct 8, 2008 - 32 comments

Wilder Penfield, Neural Cartographer.
posted by homunculus on Aug 28, 2008 - 14 comments

Picturing our thoughts. "We're looking for too much in brain scans." [Via]
posted by homunculus on Aug 19, 2008 - 16 comments

A New State of Mind. "New research is linking dopamine to complex social phenomena and changing neuroscience in the process."
posted by homunculus on Aug 12, 2008 - 25 comments

How magicians control your mind. "Magic isn't just a bag of tricks - it's a finely-tuned technology for shaping what we see. Now researchers are extracting its lessons (PDF)." [Via BB and MH]
posted by homunculus on Aug 5, 2008 - 34 comments

Punk band Neurotic and the PVCs perform with three discerning robots who pogo for punk. [Via]
posted by homunculus on Jul 14, 2008 - 4 comments

Mapping the Structural Core of Human Cerebral Cortex. A new study of the connections in the brain has identified the brain's central hub.
posted by homunculus on Jul 4, 2008 - 14 comments

You know the feeling that something is on the tip of your tongue? It offers deep insights into the nature of the mind. [Via The Frontal Cortex]
posted by homunculus on Jun 3, 2008 - 24 comments

"Attention regulation and monitoring in meditation" (PDF). A recent article in Trends in Cognitive Sciences on the neuroscience of meditation, focusing on how meditation alters and sharpens the brain's attention systems. The research is being done at the Waisman Laboratory for Brain Imaging and Behavior (previously), who have also recently published research on the "Regulation of the neural circuitry of emotion by compassion meditation" (PDF), which describes how meditation can cultivate compassion by physically affecting brain regions that play a role in empathy. They shared this research with the Dalai Lama at the recent Seeds of Compassion forum.
posted by homunculus on Apr 27, 2008 - 13 comments

The Government Is Trying to Wrap Its Mind Around Yours. Why the Next Civil Rights Battle Will Be Over the Mind.
posted by homunculus on Apr 13, 2008 - 54 comments

Out of the Blue: "Can a thinking, remembering, decision-making, biologically accurate brain be built from a supercomputer?"
posted by homunculus on Mar 3, 2008 - 38 comments

Encephalon: Briefing the Next US President on 24 Neuroscience and Psychology Issues. Encephalon, the neuroscience blog carnival has returned after a brief hiatus and is being hosted at Sharp Brains. [Via Mind Hacks, which will host the next edition.]
posted by homunculus on Feb 19, 2008 - 9 comments

The Moral Instinct. "Evolution has endowed us with ethical impulses. Do we know what to do with them?" [Via The Mahablog.]
posted by homunculus on Jan 13, 2008 - 68 comments

Interactive Features at the Children's Hospital Boston's Website. [Via Mind Hacks.]
posted by homunculus on Dec 17, 2007 - 4 comments

The New New Philosophy. "Philosophers are increasingly eager to go out into the world and conduct experiments. But will their results settle any arguments?" [Via Mind Hacks]
posted by homunculus on Dec 11, 2007 - 69 comments

I Am the Very Model of a Psychopharmacologist. [Via Omni Brain.]
posted by homunculus on Nov 19, 2007 - 33 comments

Mapping Memory. "Turn the human brain upside down and all around to see how memories are saved (or lost)." National Geographic has a great interactive 3D map of the brain as part of an excellent feature on memory. [more inside]
posted by homunculus on Oct 24, 2007 - 5 comments

Searching for God in the Brain. "Researchers are unearthing the roots of religious feeling in the neural commotion that accompanies the spiritual epiphanies of nuns, Buddhists and other people of faith." [Via MindHacks, which points out a few niggling omissions in the article.]
posted by homunculus on Oct 9, 2007 - 57 comments

The Philosophy and Neuroscience Movement (PDF). A paper by Andrew Brook and Pete Mandik on the relationship between neuroscience and philosophy. [Via MindHacks.] [more inside]
posted by homunculus on Oct 5, 2007 - 15 comments

How big is your crockus? In cutting edge neuroscience news, a new part of the brain has recently been identifed by the enigmatic Dr. Crockus. Described as "the detailed section of the brain, a part of the frontal lope," the crockus is apparently four times larger in females than in males, which is why girls see the details of experiences while boys see the whole but not the details. [more inside]
posted by homunculus on Sep 21, 2007 - 43 comments

The Abyss. Oliver Sacks writes about Clive Wearing (recently discussed here). [Via MindHacks.] [more inside]
posted by homunculus on Sep 19, 2007 - 30 comments

BrainPaint. Beautiful, real-time images created through neurofeedback by using the electrical activity of the brain to seed fractal patterns.
posted by homunculus on Sep 9, 2007 - 21 comments

Virtual Out-of-Body Experience. Using two procedures to deliberately scramble a person's visual and tactile senses, neuroscientists are able to induce "out-of-body" experiences in people. The effect is the same as the 'rubber hand illusion', but extends the effect to the whole body instead of just one limb (you can try the hand illusion for yourself).
posted by homunculus on Aug 24, 2007 - 11 comments

The Shapes of Thought is "an exploration of the visualization of emotion as EEG and other bioelectrical signals over time as retrievable data in three-dimesnional forms." It's part of the Einstein's Brain project. [Via Neurofuture.]
posted by homunculus on Jul 7, 2007 - 9 comments

Brains!
posted by homunculus on Apr 27, 2007 - 11 comments

When a Brain Forgets Where Memory Is. Interesting article on dissociative fugue, the poorly understood memory disorder where people seem to forget who they are. [Via MindHacks.]
posted by homunculus on Apr 21, 2007 - 45 comments

The Woman Who Thinks Like A Cow. A documentary about Temple Grandin (previously discussed here and here.) [Via MindHacks.]
posted by homunculus on Dec 18, 2006 - 42 comments

Video of a hemispherectomy, a neurosurgical procedure to remove a hemisphere of the brain, on a 6-year-old girl with epilepsy. Previous post about the procedure. [Via Mind Hacks.]
posted by homunculus on Dec 6, 2006 - 31 comments

Meditation found to increase brain size (maybe) according to research led by Harvard neuroscientist Sara Lazar. Meanwhile, Atheist Manifesto author Sam Harris recently went on a meditation retreat and seemed to find it pleasant enough.
posted by homunculus on Feb 22, 2006 - 79 comments

Two Sciences of Mind. A good article on the emerging dialogue between neuroscience and Buddhism (previously discussed here). Allan Wallace of the Meanwhile, the Dalai Lama's plan to speak at an upcoming neuroscience conference has led to controversy and petition wars.
posted by homunculus on Oct 2, 2005 - 50 comments

BrainMeta "is a community site that was established for the purpose of accelerating the development of neuroscience through web-based initiatives, which include the development, implementation and support of a wide range of neuroinformatics tools, services, and databases. BrainMeta also functions as an internet hub for fostering communication between individuals involved with the neurosciences." [Via Mind Hacks.]
posted by homunculus on Jun 9, 2005 - 5 comments

How well do you read faces? Better than this baby, I hope.
posted by homunculus on Apr 8, 2005 - 13 comments

Meditation and neuroplasticity. A new study (PDF) describes the changes in the brains of Buddhist monks, using fMRI to scan their brains while they practice compassion meditation. The project was a collaboration between the University of Wisconsin and the Shechen Monastery in Nepal.
posted by homunculus on Nov 16, 2004 - 17 comments