What can neuroscience teach us about zombies?
A pair of neurology blogs go over nine common symptoms:
Aggression,
Lumbering Walk,
Memory Loss,
Aphasia,
Capgras-Delusion,
Impaired Pain Reception,
Locked Attention,
Flesh Addiction,
Insatiable hunger,
Conclusions.
posted by empath
on Oct 31, 2011 -
45 comments
Autistic and Seeking a Place in the World. Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times reporter Amy Harmon spent a year observing a young man with autism named Justin Canha, who took part in a new kind of “transition to adulthood” program for special education students at Montclair High School in NJ. The experimental program was intended to ready him for an independent life as an adult and integrate him into the community.
[more inside]
posted by zarq
on Sep 18, 2011 -
26 comments
More evidence of brain plasticity: Some blind people are able to use echolocation to perceive space and objects around them in surprising detail, even though the time differences in echoes necessary to do this are two small to be consciously perceived. An fMRI study by Lore Thaler, Stephen Arnott and Melvyn Goodale revealed that people who are especially adept at this use their calcarine cortex (a.k.a. V1 or primary visual cortex) to process spatial information from the echoes.
The original paper. A shorter discussion. (
Previously)
posted by nangar
on Jun 20, 2011 -
13 comments
A Real Science of Mind Neurobabble piques interest in science, but obscures how science works. Individuals see, know, and want to make love. Brains don’t. Those things are psychological — not, in any evident way, neural.
posted by shivohum
on Dec 27, 2010 -
21 comments
Monogamouse Prairie voles have many vasopressin receptors in the reward centres of their brains. It seems as though these are wired up in a way that causes the animal to take pleasure from monogamy. (previously
1|
2)
posted by kliuless
on Jan 9, 2010 -
20 comments
"We were concerned that the study would raise a lot of controversy and be misused," Pardo said. "We were right." Some practitioners treat autistic children with the anti-inflammatory
intravenous immunoglobulin, citing
a study by Carlos Pardo, et al. showing inflammation in the brains of deceased autistic patients. Pardo:
"modulators of immune reactions (e.g. intravenous immunoglobulins, IVIG) WOULD NOT HAVE a significant effect." Others, following the work of Simon Baron-Cohen on
autism and the male brain,
treat autistic children with testosterone inhibitors, a prospect which Baron-Cohen says "fills me with horror." Another anti-inflammatory treatment, hyperbaric therapy, is supported by
one recent clinical trial, but looks bad in
another. Side effects include
horrible death by fire.
(via the Chicago Tribune)
posted by escabeche
on Nov 23, 2009 -
49 comments
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.
posted by phrontist
on Jun 18, 2009 -
50 comments
Are these people qualitatively different from us? "I would think yes," says Hare. "Do they form a discrete taxon or category? I would say probably -- the evidence is suggesting that.
Psychopaths. They form about 1% of the population. They enjoy the excitement of power. Some choice
bits from Hare's book. The obligatory
Bush link, but, hey, it's got the test sections and the sad truth is that we do have some psychopaths in positions of power, though probably not the Presidency. [Gosh this is getting long] It turns out there's a
biological basis for it. Here's the
DSM description and some
detailed analysis/description (gosh,
I identify with some of those traits!) And here's some AskMe
fodder, "Are You Involved With A Psychopath?" And because of that lust for power... well, it could well be
your boss.
posted by five fresh fish
on May 28, 2007 -
112 comments
Jeff Hawkins, co-founder of
Palm and Handspring, has started a new company, called
Numenta, to test his
controversial theory of intelligence. Whether you find his theory plausible or not, his
book, "
On Intelligence" is fascinating. Numenta is attempting to build A.I.s using Hawkins' theory as a backbone. They've developed a software engine and a
Python-based API, which they've made public (
as free downloads), so that hackers can start playing. They've also released
manuals,
a whitepaper (pdf) and videos [
1] [
2]. (At about 30:18 into the first video, Hawkins demonstrates, with screenshots, the first app which uses his system.)
posted by grumblebee
on Apr 4, 2007 -
22 comments
The Brain on the Big Screen: films of patients in a neurology ward of a Romanian hospital circa 1899. Between 1899 and 1902, Gheoghe Marinescu perfected the use of cinematography as a research method in neurosciences and published five articles based on cinematographic documents. He focused his studies particularly on organic gait disorders, locomotor ataxia, and hysteria. He adapted Charcot's method of lining up several patients with the same disorder and showing them together to permit appreciation of archetypes and formes frustes. He decomposed the moving pictures into sequential tracings for publication. He documented treatment results with cases filmed before and after therapy.
Films 1-4 and
films 5-8
posted by derangedlarid
on Feb 8, 2005 -
9 comments
2003 Reith Lectures. Neuroscientist Vilayanur S. Ramachandran, Director of the Centre for Brain and Cognition at the University of California, talks about a number of fascinating neurological disorders and the insights they provide into mental functioning.
posted by srboisvert
on May 24, 2003 -
10 comments
Rock n Roll! We know that Sex and Drugs ain't good for us, but researchers at McGill University are using very fancy devices to learn how our brains react to music. (Probably not much to discuss, but it's an interesting article)
posted by adamms222
on Nov 27, 2002 -
6 comments
Tumor-induced Pedophilia - the BBC reports on an american man who, at the age of 40, developed completely uncontrollable and ammoral sexual impulses after developing a tumor in the right lobe of the orbifrontal cortex. After the tumor was removed, he returned to normal. More inside...
posted by Irontom
on Oct 21, 2002 -
28 comments
Do you know me? "I am a white male, Caucasian, about five feet, nine inches. I weigh 150lbs. I have no visible marks on my body. I have no memory of any events prior to waking up in the hospital in November of 1999."
"
Philip Staufen" has naturally dark brown hair and he has brown eyes. He doesn't have any tattoos, distinguishing marks, or scars. He is a Vegan and has a digestive disorder called Celiac.
"
Philip Staufen" is living a nightmare.
posted by o2b
on Aug 25, 2001 -
30 comments
