neurophilosophy

From Nature: Catherine Dulac and her colleagues at Harvard University genetically engineered female mice to lack a gene called TRPC2. This gene is essential for the functioning of a pheromone-sensing organ in the nose called the vomeronasal organ. Without the gene, female mice acted exactly like…

According to a new paper in the British Medical Journal, there is an association between duration of deployment and incidence of alcohol problems and post-traumatic stress disorder in British troops: Personnel who were deployed for 13 months or more in the past three years were more likely to…

IN The Matrix (Andy and Larry Wachowski, 1999) Keanu Reeves plays a computer programmer who leads a double life as a hacker called "Neo". After receiving cryptic messages on his computer monitor, Neo begins to search for the elusive Morpheus (Laurence Fishburn), the leader of a clandestine…

Resident ScienceBlogs psychiatrist Joseph has found some interesting papers about various types of cognition-induced epilepsy, including this one from the Hong Kong Medical Journal: Mah-jong induced seizures: case reports and review of twenty-three patients. Chang, R. S. K., et al…

Skeleton, brain, nerves, from John Banister's Anatomical Tables, c. 1580. From the Anatomy Acts Exhibition website (via Morbid Anatomy). 

In the English language, the term "bird brain" is often used in reference to intellectually challenged individuals. This is, of course, based on the notion that birds are dim-witted creatures whose behaviour is largely based on instinct. The main assumption is that a six-layered neocortex, like…

Researchers report in today's issue of Nature that they have improved brain function in a minimally conscious patient by implanting electrodes into his brain. Schiff et al used deep brain stimulation (DBS), an experimental surgical technique that has previously been used to treat Parkinson's…

This essay I wrote was shortlisted in the Association of British Science Writers competition in 2002. It was the first thing I posted on the old blog. It was written as an introduction to what were generally believed to be the fundamentals of brain function, starting from the molecular level and…

This one only has two, but Wolfgang Jacob and Bernd Schierwater, of Yale University and Hanover University of Veterinary Medicine, respectively, have created jellyfish with up to 12 heads. The multiple-headed hydromedusa (Eleutheria dichotoma) specimens were created by using RNA inhibition or…

Females have a natural preference for mating with dominant males, because this confers a genetic advantage upon the offspring produced. When selecting a mate, animals rely on chemical cues called pheromones, which relay information about the social status and genetic health of a potential mate.…

Encephalon #28 is now online at the Bohemian Scientist's blog. The next edition will be hosted at Memoirs of a Postgrad on August 13th. If you'd like to contribute, send permalinks to your neuroscience or psychology blog posts to encephalonb.hoat{at}gmail{dot{com}, or use this submission form.…

By Nucleus Medical Art, Inc. There are others on YouTube.

Black peoples' brains are, of course, no more or less peculiar than those of any other people. The human brain is an extraordinarily complex organ, and there are just as many differences between the brains of people from the same ethnic group as there between the brains of people from different…

We had the pleasure of entertaining the delightful Jessica Palmer at our place last night. And earlier today, Jessica and I ate pizza on the King's Road before visiting the Chelsea Physic Garden. Jessica writes the fantastic Bioephemera blog (where you can read more about her visit to…

This week's New Yorker contains an article by Oliver Sacks about a condition called musicophilia, in which one feels sudden urges to listen to, or play, music follwing brain injury: In 1994, when Tony Cicoria was forty-two, and a well-regarded orthopedic surgeon, he was struck by lightning. He…

This artificial big toe, which was found on the foot of an ancient Egyptian mummy, has been dated to 1069- 664 BCE, and is on display at the Cairo Museum in Egypt. Researchers from Manchester University's KNH Centre for Biomedical Egyptology have made a replica of the prosthesis to…

The single most famous case study in the history of neuropsychology is that of an anonymous memory-impaired man usually referred to only by the initials H.M. This patient has one of the most severe cases of amnesia ever observed; he has been followed for over 40 years by more than 100 researchers,…

Earlier this week, I posted an email I received about a nutritional supplement called EM Power Plus. The makers of this product, a Canadian company called TrueHope, claim that it can alleviate the symptoms of bipolar disorder.   In the comments to that post, PalMD, author of the…

My recent post on prefrontal lobotomy has been the most popular thing on this blog so far, and the comments on it are worth reading. While searching for more information about lobotomies and the neuroleptic drugs that replaced them, I came across this fantastic webpage at NobelPrize.org,…

  This week's issue of The Lancet contains the most comprehensive meta-analysis to date of the link between cannabis and psychosis: The evidence is consistent with the view that cannabis increases risk of psychotic outcomes independently of confounding and transient intoxication…

Shelley has written a nice summary of the neuroscience of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). As its name suggests, ADHD is characterized by inattention and hyperactivity. This is often accompanied by forgetfulness and an inability to control impulses. ADHD is a developmental…

"What is matter? Never mind. What is mind? Never matter." So says Homer, in one episode of The Simpsons. And although I'm not an adherent of Homerian dualism, the show is still my favourite thing on television. I think it's sheer genius. The Simpsons often contains science-based jokes and…

The New York Times has an obituary of Albert Ellis, a highly innovative psychotherapist who died yesterday at the age of 93.  In the 1950s, Ellis broke with tradition by rejecting the theories of Sigmund Freud, which were widely used at the time. As an alternative, Ellis developed a…

I received this email yesterday: Hello, I just read your post [on augmented cognition] and found it intriguing. I have been experimenting with a nutritional supplement for the past several years which was designed to treat bi-polar disorder (and it works amazing well for that purpose…

LOBOTOMY (from the Greek lobos, meaning lobes of the brain, and tomos, meaning cut) is a psychosurgical procedure in which the connections the prefrontal cortex and underlying structures are severed, or the frontal cortical tissue is destroyed, the theory being that this leads to the uncoupling…

The term 'Rashomon effect' is often used by psychologists in situations where observers give different accounts of the same event,and describes the effect of subjective perceptions on recollection. The phenomenon is named after a 1950 film by the great Japanese director Akira Kurosawa. It was with…

London City Skyline, 2006, by Stephen Wiltshire.  The neurologist Oliver Sacks, who devotes a chapter to Wiltshire in his 1995 book An Anthropologist on Mars, describes first meeting the autistic artist in a short article from the New York Times: When I first met Stephen in 1988, I was…

Since a number of other ScienceBloggers have posted lists of science websites for kids (Science sites for kids by Karmen; Online sources for hands-on chemistry for kids by Janet; Cool science sites for kids by Zuska; and Brain science is child's play by Sandra), I thought I'd share this cool…

We live in a time in which we are overwhelmed by information obtained from multiple sources, such as the internet, television, and radio. We are usually unable to give our undivided attention to any one source of information, but instead give 'continuous partial attention' to all of them by…

This beautiful illustration comes from a textbook called Cerrahiyetu'l Haniyye (Imperial Surgery) by Serefeddin Sabuncuoglo (1385-1470), who lived and practised medicine in Amasya in northern Anatolia. Sabuncuoglo's book, which was published in 1465, is the first illustrated textbook of…