MetaFilter posts tagged with brain and neuroscience

Optimizing Your Brain At Work

Vulpyne — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 11:26:28 -0800

Optimizing Your Brain at Work is a pretty fascinating talk at Google by David Rock about managing your brain's internal states and attention, as well as threat responses with the goal of optimizing information processing. It is a Youtube link, and fairly long (~55min). He also mentions The Neuroscience of Mindfulness during the talk, so here is a convenient link to that.

Genes that cause depression?

mdpatrick — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 17:19:24 -0800

A gene variant associated with serotonin transport (STG) , and normally associated with depression is strangely more prevalent, but also less likely to induce depression in collectivistic East Asian cultures. The study took data from 29 countries, and found a consistent trend towards this same genetic variant being strongly associated with episodes of major depression in Western cultures.

A Few Strange Notes About Schizophrenia

mdpatrick — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 09:50:44 -0800

Here's a strange one for the books: Science has taken notice that a really, really LARGE proportion of schizophrenic patients smoke. In fact, Scientific American Mind reports that an average of 85% of schizophrenic patients smoke cigarettes compared to only 20% in the general population. Many schizophrenics also appear to have abnormal thermoregulation, an impaired ability to understand body language, an inability to perceive an optical illusion called "the hollow mask illusion," an impaired ability to produce a brain protein known as the muscarinic M1 receptor, and an abnormally large number of genetic mutations known as CNV's or "copy number variations."

Is there no problem the internet can't solve - Flickr finds only known photo of Phineas Gage

jessamyn — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 21:43:41 -0800

While many quirky news buffs may be aware of the story of Phineas Gage -- the Vermont railroad foreman who had a three foot iron rod penetrate his skull as the result of an explosion and lived to tell about it -- fewer know that the only known photograph of him was recently discovered. Fewer still know that the identification of that photograph happened via a Flickr comment. (no thanks to you LA Times, previously) - More on Gage from the owners of the photograph - other interesting pictures from their collection - Wikipedia article on Gage - "The American Crowbar Case and nineteenth century theories of cerebral localization" - More stories like this over at Flickr Discoveries - Other cool stuff over at the Harvard Medical School's Warren Museum - obligatory slideshare deck (actually pretty interesting)

Neurosecurity

homunculus — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 20:29:23 -0800

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]

I await Trepanation with great Trepidation.

phrontist — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 12:01:21 -0800

We've discussed trepanation, the boring of holes in the head as practiced in antiquity and by a fringe do it yourself-ers, before. There now seems to be research indicating that the procedure may have medical merit, and even help stave off age related cognitive decline. This curious research brought to you by the Beckly Foundation which "promotes the investigation of consciousness and its modulation from a multidisciplinary perspective" and has a sweet logo.

Kick, Punch, It's All in the Mind

Christ, what an asshole — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 11:01:08 -0800

How Music Works - UK Channel 4 documentary (~180 mins.)
Why do some rhythms get our toes tapping, while others make us feel mellow? How does a love song bring tears to our eyes? What links African drumming to J S Bach?
Part 1 - Melody (alt)
Part 2 - Rhythm (alt)
Part 3 - Harmony (alt)
Part 4 - Bass (alt)
Then: Music producer and neuroscientist Daniel Levitin, author of This is Your Brain on Music: The Science of Human Obsession and The World in Six Songs: How the Musical Brain Created Human Nature, shares some of his thoughts at Google Talk.

"Genius is nothing more nor less than childhood recovered at will."

amyms — Fri, 01 May 2009 23:47:14 -0800

There are times when having a fully developed brain can almost seem like an impediment. Are babies more aware of the world around them than adults are? Can "thinking like a baby" lead us to be more in tune with our creativity and our ability to learn? Scientists have taken a new look inside the baby mind, which is "unfocused, random, and extremely good at what it does."

Fat, Salt and Sugar Alter Brain Chemistry

homunculus — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 17:26:11 -0800

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]

Neuroenhancing Drugs

homunculus — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 13:15:14 -0800

Brain Gain: The underground world of “neuroenhancing” drugs. [Via]

Eternal Sunshine Within Reach.

grapefruitmoon — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 11:26:36 -0800

Brain Researchers Open Door to Editing Memory : spotless minds might be closer than we think.

Neuroengineering

homunculus — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 22:15:04 -0800

Rewiring the Brain: Inside the New Science of Neuroengineering. Dial H for Happiness: How Neuroengineering May Change Your Brain.

Neuroscience of Nostalgia

homunculus — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 22:10:31 -0800

Neuroscience and Nostalgia. [Via]

New Neurons Get Timestamped

homunculus — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 13:01:42 -0800

Newborn brain cells "time-stamp" memories. [Via]

Extending the Mind

homunculus — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 22:50:55 -0800

How Google Is Making Us Smarter: Humans are "natural-born cyborgs," and the Internet is our giant "extended mind."

The Beautiful Mind

homunculus — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 09:18:20 -0800

The Beautiful Mind. An online gallery of neuroscience photographs. [Via]

Dreaming is a private thing.

teraflop — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 20:47:59 -0800

A team of researchers at the ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories in Kyoto have managed to reconstruct black-and-white visual images from an fMRI scan of a test subject's brain. Some more examples of the recovered data. The organization responsible claims that the technology to record thoughts and dreams is just around the corner. The paper, "Visual Image Reconstruction from Human Brain Activity using a Combination of Multiscale Local Image Decoders", is the cover article of the December 10 issue of the journal Neuron. [via]

The Body Swap Illusion

homunculus — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 16:18:25 -0800

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.

Neural Correlates of Hate

homunculus — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 15:21:20 -0800

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)."

Locked-In Syndrome

homunculus — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 00:00:17 -0800

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]

Wilder Penfield

homunculus — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 13:15:39 -0800

Wilder Penfield, Neural Cartographer.

The Limits of fMRI

homunculus — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 12:20:54 -0800

Picturing our thoughts. "We're looking for too much in brain scans." [Via]

Dopamine

homunculus — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 11:30:25 -0800

A New State of Mind. "New research is linking dopamine to complex social phenomena and changing neuroscience in the process."

I sense you want to plead the 5th

Gyan — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 06:42:06 -0800

For the first time in the Indian state of Maharashtra, life sentences were meted out based on the findings of Brain Electrical Oscillation Signature(BEOS) profiling. "During BEOS profiling, an accused is asked not to give answers verbally; experiential knowledge is retrieved from his brain. ... The technique detects and differentiates whether the accused was actually involved in committing a crime or only learnt of it. It helps in the reconstruction of events." The developer of the technique appeared on the BBC Radio show All in the Mind a PubMed search turned up nothing

Journey to the center of the brain

homunculus — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 19:50:28 -0800

Mapping the Structural Core of Human Cerebral Cortex. A new study of the connections in the brain has identified the brain's central hub.