Neuroscience and psychology tricks to find out what's going on inside your brain.
The eternal quest for the cut-and-dry brain injury
18 Nov 2008 at 7:00 am
The annual Society for Neuroscience conference is currently underway in Washington DC and Technology Review has a couple of article that reports on some of the highlights.
One piece is particularly interesting as it focuses on the use diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), a type of MRI scan that identifies the white matter nerve pathways in the brain, to detect otherwise undetectable brain damage.
The
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Mirror's Edge as proprioception hack
18 Nov 2008 at 3:53 am
Mirror's Edge is a first person computer game in which you play an urban free-runner, leaping, sliding, and generally acting fly across the roofs of a dystopian city (see the trailer here). It looks good. In fact, it looks amazing. But, reportedly, to actually play it is even better, sickeningly better.
Clive Thompson, writing for wired.com, suggests that the total interactivity of the environme
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Jumping Brain
17 Nov 2008 at 1:00 pm
The Jumping Brain is a limited edition toy created by artist Emilio Garcia that is a detailed plastic model of the brain, with, erm... webbed feat.
It comes in traditional lab demo gray, as well as red, green and blue and even has its own MySpace page.
The development of the project is even documented online, so you can see how the curious idea went from drawing board to webbed wonder.
Link to
Ganzfeld hallucinations
17 Nov 2008 at 7:00 am
The cognitive science journal Cortex has just released a special issue on the neuropsychology of paranormal experiences and belief, and contains a fantastic article on hallucinations induced by the Ganzfeld procedure.
The Ganzfeld procedure exposes the participant to 'unstructured' sensations usually by placing half ping-pong balls over the eyes so they can only see diffuse white light and by pla
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New psychiatric diagnoses developed in secret
17 Nov 2008 at 3:00 am
The LA Times has an op-ed piece on the current arguments over whether the new version of the DSM, the influential diagnostic manual of mental illness, should be developed transparently or whether decisions should continue to be made in secret as is currently the case.
The DSM-V is due out in May 2012, and all mental illness and proposals for the classifications of new mental illness are currently
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An unusual and poignant brain injury
16 Nov 2008 at 7:00 amSometimes, medical case studies are powerful as much because of what they leave out as what they contain, as in an uncomfortably moving 1935 case report of a young lady who attempted suicide with a hand gun.
It's available online as a pdf and the point of the article is to report the remarkable fact that she survived and was apparently neurologically normal afterwards, despite losing a considerab
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The dance of consciousness
16 Nov 2008 at 3:00 am
Edge has a fascinating video interview with philosopher Alva Noë who discusses his work on the philosophy of consciousness, arguing that we will be led astray if we think of consciousness solely as a brain process that happens within us without reference to how we act in the world.
Noë is primarily arguing for a form of embodied cognition which argues that the mind and brain can only be underst
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She Blinded Me with Science
14 Nov 2008 at 7:00 am
It's an age old story. Boy meets girl. Boy loses girl. Boy is psychoanalysed, psychologically tested, strapped into a brain machine and plays the girl like a giant cello before escaping on a motorbike and throwing the wheelchair-bound doctor into the river.
Yes, it's the video for Thomas Dolby's 1982 synth-pop hit She Blinded Me with Science, which presumably doesn't refer to the psychoanalysis p
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2008-11-14 Spike activity
14 Nov 2008 at 3:00 amQuick links from the past week in mind and brain news:
Do women get bitchier as they get older? Only if they’re faced with research like this, says Dr Petra.
Cognitive Daily ask another one of their compelling questions: can a blind person whose vision is restored understand what she sees?
Temporarily open-access special issue of Criminal Justice and Behaviour discusses pseudoscientific pol
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Neuroscience In Our Time
13 Nov 2008 at 5:00 am
BBC Radio 4's excellent discussion programme In Our Time just had an interesting edition on neuroscience - what it does, how it does it, and what it's telling us about the function of the mind and brain.
It's generally a very interesting discussion, although does get a bit confused towards the end during a discussion of conscious - largely due to a misunderstanding of a famous study.
The discuss
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Online psychosis
13 Nov 2008 at 3:00 am
The New York Times has an article about the interaction between the internet and psychosis that explored online communities that may be focused on delusional beliefs or comprised almost entirely of people who are having psychotic experiences.
If this seems slightly familiar, it's because it's partly based on a social network analysis study I did in 2006 with some UK colleagues (which we covered p
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Chick sent me high e
12 Nov 2008 at 3:00 am
Psychologist Mihály Csíkszentmihályi is best known for his research on 'flow'. Sometimes known as being 'in the zone', it's where people lose themselves in their particular talent. His talk to the TED conference has just been put online where he describes how he's being trying to capture this particular form of peak experience.
The Hungarian psychologist was one of the pioneers of positive psy
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Gladwell on Outliers
11 Nov 2008 at 5:00 pm
New York Magazine profiles prolific mind-focused science writer Malcom Gladwell and previews his upcoming book on the unpredictable factors that propel the super-successful to the top.
Gladwell writes incredibly compelling books about psychology and culture that have been wildly popular. The article mentions a multi-million dollar advance for his forthcoming book Outliers.
I have to say, I read
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Purple brain death
11 Nov 2008 at 7:00 am
In 1964 the journal Medicine, Science and the Law published an article entitled 'Unusual Cases 2 - The Purple Brain Death'.
Sadly, the journal is no longer in print and the article isn't available so I have absolutely no idea what it was about, but it sounds intriguing doesn't it?
If anyone ever does find out what made this case so unusual, and what a purple brain death is exactly, do get in tou
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Parental gene fight theory of mental illness
11 Nov 2008 at 3:00 am
The New York Times discusses a new theory on the link between schizophrenia and autism that suggests that each may depend on the outcome of a battle between the genetic information we inherit from each parent. According to the theory - more genes from the father increases the chance of autistic traits, while more from the mother increases the tendency to experience psychotic experiences.
The theo
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