neurophilosophy

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July 16, 2008
This three-dimensional reconstruction of an amyloid fibril (found at Discover) was created by Nikolaus Grigorieff and his colleagues at Brandeis University, by computer processing of a transmission electron cryomicroscopy image. It is the most detailed image yet of the abnormally folded protein…
July 15, 2008
This coming Friday is my 34th birthday, and the lovely people from ScienceBlogs/ Seed Media Group have given me a fantastic present: they're sending me on an all expenses paid long weekend to Barcelona to cover ESOF2008. The mission of the Euroscience Open Forum (ESOF) is to provide both the…
July 14, 2008
Back in January, the Daily Mail reported on "the helmet that could turn back the symptoms of Alzheimer's." The device is pictured above, held by its inventor, a British GP called Gordon Dougal. It consists of 700 light-emitting diodes which transmit near-infrared light into the brain and can,…
July 14, 2008
As I mentioned last month, the British Psychological Society (BPS) recently commissioned a report into the implications of memory research for the legal profession. The report, written by the Memory and Law Working Party, a research board established by the BPS and chaired by cognitive psychologist…
July 13, 2008
Dave Bonta has found this advertisement, which appeared on the back cover of an anthology of English poetry published in 1884 by Funk & Wagnalls: BRAIN AND NERVE FOODVITALIZED PHOS-PHITESCOMPOSED OF THE Nerve-Giving Principles of the Ox-Brain and Wheat-Germ. It restores the energy lost by…
July 12, 2008
In the July issue of the magazine Literary Review, Philip Davis discusses the effect of William Shakespeare's use of language on cognitive function. Davis, a professor of English at the University of Liverpool, and editor of The Reader is working with psychologist Guillaume Thierry and cognitive…
July 10, 2008
A hilarious scene from The Man With Two Brains.
July 10, 2008
Later on today, I'll be travelling to Bristol to meet Heather Perry and interview her about the self-trepanation she performed. If you have a question for Ms. Perry, submit it here. The first migraine-plagued caveman who countered his aching cranium with crudely pounded flint (and lived) surely…
July 9, 2008
A new study, published today in the open access journal PLoS One, provides evidence that remaining mentally active throughout life reduces the rate of age-related neurodegeneration and may therefore stave off Alzheimer's Disease and other forms of dementia. Valenzuela et al used the Lifetime of…
July 8, 2008
The humble nematode Caenorhabditis elegans is a millimeter-long roundworm which eeks out its existence in the soil and feeds on bacteria. Because it lives in a dark environment, and lacks specialized light-sensing organs, the nematode has always been assumed to be completely blind. However, a new…
July 7, 2008
Over the last two months, Nature has published a series of essays about the latest scientific research into music, and now that the series is complete, it has been made available as a free PDF. Among the authors of the essays are Aniruddh D. Patel, a theoretical neurobiologist at the Neurosciences…
July 6, 2008
The 49th edition of Encephalon, which is online now at Neuroscientifically Challenged, includes entries on the limitations of the use of gene therapy for psychiatric disorders, the sensationalization of neuroimaging data by the mass media, and how the relationship between music and movement is…
July 4, 2008
The Kaibo Zonshinzu is a beautiful collection of 83 anatomical illustrations on two scrolls, by a doctor named Yasukazu Minagaki from the Kyoto area. Painted in 1819, they are based on the observations he made during his dissections of more than 40 executed criminals. Minagaki adopted the style of…
July 4, 2008
Foreign accent syndrome (FAS) is a neurological condition that is acquired following a stroke or some other form of brain injury. It occurs as a result of damage to the brain's speech motor centres, so that syllables are mispronounced, making one sound as if they are speaking their native language…
July 3, 2008
Hollywood actress Sharon Stone hit the headlines recently, following her remarks that the massive earthquake which struck south-west China on May 12th could have occurred as a result of "bad karma" produced by Beijing's policy towards Tibet. Now, according to LA Times celebrity gossip blog The Dish…
July 3, 2008
The latest Seed Salon features highlights from an interesting discussion between Tom Wolfe and Michael Gazzaniga, one of the founders of cognitive neuroscience, who is best known for the work he carried out with Roger Sperry on split brain patients. Gazzaniga and Wolfe discuss, among other things,…
July 2, 2008
During a cerebrovascular accident (or stroke), the blood supply to part of the brain is interrupted. This is often caused by a blood clot which blocks an artery that carries blood to the brain. Consequently, neurons in the affected region of the brain die because they are deprived of oxygen.…
July 2, 2008
I was recently contacted by Heather Perry, one of the few people in the world who has performed self-trepanation. Ms. Perry has kindly agreed to let me interview her, so I'll be traveling to Gloucestershire later this month to meet her, ask her some questions about the experience, and perhaps take…
July 1, 2008
It's been exactly one year since I moved to ScienceBlogs.com. In that time, I've written 540 posts which have generated over half a million page views and about 1,800 comments. Below is a brief summary of other blog stats, including my top ten posts and referrers. My ten most popular posts are: 1.…
July 1, 2008
In a very cool paper published yesterday in the open access journal PLoS Biology, an international team of researchers report that they have produced the most detailed and comprehensive map yet of the connections in the human cerebral cortex. The cerebral cortex contains hundreds of billions of…
July 1, 2008
The folks at Nature Network have organized the Science Blogging 2008 Conference, which will take place on Saturday, August 30th at the Royal Institution in London. The programme for the event was put online earlier today. I'll be moderating this discussion between Anna Kushnir, Jenny Rohn and Grrl…
June 30, 2008
We are being constantly bombarded with news stories containing pretty pictures of the brain, with headings such as "Brain's adventure centre located". Journalists now seem to refer routinely to functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) as "mind reading", and exaggerated claims about its powers…
June 26, 2008
Technology pundits speculate that mind control is the future of gaming. They envision that the movements of computer game characters will be controlled not with joysticks but with non-invasive brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) which monitor the brain's electrical activity and transmit the signals to…
June 26, 2008
Nature News has an interesting article by Philip Ball about a dancing cockatoo named Snowball: Aniruddh Patel of the Neurosciences Institute in La Jolla, California, and his colleagues say that Snowball's ability to shake his stuff is much more than a cute curiosity. It could shed light on the…
June 25, 2008
Researchers from the Computational Neuroimaging Laboratory at New York University recently carried out a study of the effects of films on viewers' brains. Hasson et al scanned the brains of 45 participants whilst they watched scenes from a number of films and television programmes. Not…
June 24, 2008
The forthcoming issue of The New Yorker contains a fantastic article by surgeon and writer Atul Gawande about the neurobiology of itching. The article begins with the extraordinary case of a patient known as M., whose itch, which occurred following an episode of shingles, became so unbearable that…
June 24, 2008
Common cockles, by Nick Veasey, who "uses x-ray technology to create mesmerizing and intriguing art".
June 24, 2008
General anaesthetics activate a heat-sensitive protein found in pain pathways and may exacerbate post-operative pain, according to a new study published online yesterday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Anaesthetics suppress activity of the central nervous system, leading to…
June 24, 2008
The incredible case of Phineas Gage has now been translated into Spanish.
June 24, 2008
Here are some more new members of the ever-growing online neuroscience community: The Brain and the Sky Illusion Sciences N-Cog-Neato! Neurophilia Neurotonics