neurophilosophy | August 3, 2008You've probably noticed the yellow banner ads at the top of the page. They're advertising a reader survey being conducted by ScienceBlogs at the moment. The survey is open to everyone and if you fill it out - it'll take about 10 minutes - you'll be in with a chance of winning a 40Gb iPod, iPhone and MacBook Air.
ScienceBlogs has also added the 72nd blog to its network. Built on Facts is a physics blog written by Matt Springer, a graduate student at Texas A&M University.
neurophilosophy | August 2, 2008A team of researchers from Harvard and Columbia University Medical Center have reprogrammed skin cells from an 82-year-old woman suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis to generate first stem cells and then motor neurons. This is a significant advance which could aid in the development of drug treatments and cell replacement therapies for the condition and related neurodegenerative disorders.
The study, due to be published in the journal Science, demonstrates that skin cells from a chronically diseased elderly patient can be induced to de-differentiate into stem cells and then re-…
neurophilosophy | August 2, 2008Here's Isaac Hayes performing his extremely funky rendition of Burt Bacharach's The Look of Love.
neurophilosophy | July 31, 2008I don't have internet access where I'm working at the moment, hence the lack of updates this week. For the same reason, blogging is likely to be intermittent for the next week or two.
During that time, I'll be doing some background reading about potential research projects for the final year of my Masters. I also have nearly a dozen books that have been sent to me by authors and publicists.
I'll be posting reviews of those books over the next month. I'm also preparing my interview with Heather Perry (the woman who performed a self-trepanation), and have a major piece of work in the pipeline…
neurophilosophy | July 26, 2008Today's Daily Telegraph contains a fascinating extract from Norman Doidge's new book The Brain That Changes Itself, about a woman who feels that she is constantly falling because she has lost her sense of balance as a result of damage to the vestibular system.
Cheryl Schiltz, who is now 50 years old, contracted a bacterial infection following a hysterectomy, and was subsequently treated with gentamicin. Excessive use of this antibiotic damages the semi-circular canals, three joined structures in the inner ear which give us our sense of balance by acting like spirit levels to provide…
neurophilosophy | July 25, 2008
Looking down from the steps of the Museu National d' Art Catalunya, we see the Fira de Barcelona, a complex of 8 large buildings which together make up one of the largest exhibition centres in Europe. One of these buildings, in the lower right of the above photograph, was the venue for ESOF2008.
The Palau de Congressos de Barcelona accommodated some 3,000 registered attendees and participants, among them scientists, journalists, business people, policy makers and students.
The building contained dozens of rooms spread out over 4 floors. Downstairs, one large room was filled with booths for…
neurophilosophy | July 24, 2008This quote comes from Recollections of My Life, by Santiago Ramon y Cajal:
Like the entomologist in search of colorful butterflies, my attention has chased in the gardens of the grey matter cells with delicate and elegant shapes, the mysterious butterflies of the soul, whose beating of wings may one day reveal to us the secrets of the mind.
neurophilosophy | July 24, 2008Depression is a common neuropsychiatric disorder which affects at least 1 in 7 adults. The condition can have a major effect on patients' quality of life, and is a major cause of both disability and suicide.
Many patients with depression can be treated effectively with antidepressant medications, such as the specific serotonin re-uptake inhibitor (SSRI) fluoxetine (more popularly known as Prozac). However, a significant proportion of patients - up to 20% - do not respond to these drugs, or to other forms of treatment.
Now a study published online in the journal Biological Psychiatry suggests…
neurophilosophy | July 23, 2008
I'm back in London now, after 5 days in Barcelona for ESOF2008. The trip has been rather hectic, and I neither attended as many sessions, nor saw as much of the city, as I would have liked. I still had a very nice time, but, as is always the case when travelling, it's good to be home. I still have more material on the event, so I'll continue to post about it for the next few days.
During my time in Barcelona, Tobias Maier was kind enough to act as my host. Tobias and I met every day in the conference centre, attended a couple of functions together, and hit the town in the evenings. One…
neurophilosophy | July 22, 2008What are the difficulties facing science journalists in developing countries, and what can we do to support them? These were the main issues raised in a session I attended this morning.
Session: Building Networks: How to Support Science Journalists in Developing Countries
Organiser: Lynda Lich-Knight, German Science Journalists' Association (WPK), Germany
Abstract: Developing countries need science journalism just as much as developed countries. In order to reach the UN millennium development goals and to build open societies, they must be able to rely on independent sources of scientific…
neurophilosophy | July 22, 2008While wandering around looking at the outreach activities at ESOF2008, I came across this interesting booth for the PS3GRID project, by members of the Multiscale Lab, which is located in the University of Pompeu Fabra's Computational Biochemistry and Biophysics Laboratory at the Barcelona Biomedical Research Park.
Run by volunteers, the project involves building computer simulations of molecules to study protein dynamics and interactions. This is done using gaming hardware such as the PlayStation 3 and NVIDIA graphics card, which have more processing power than the CPUs found in standard…
neurophilosophy | July 21, 2008This morning I attended a talk about the research behind, and clinical applications of, brain-computer interfaces (BCIs). I've written about BCIs many times in the past; they monitor the electrical activity of the brain, either invasively by means of implanted electrodes, or non-invasively by means an electroencephalogram cap, and this activity is analyzed and used to drive a peripheral device, such as a prosthetic limb, or a computer.
Nevertheless, it was an interesting talk, as it featured prominent researchers in the field, and included an application that was hitherto unknown to me. It…
neurophilosophy | July 21, 2008The 50th edition of Encephalon is now online at SharpBrains. It includes entries about the path planning by hippocampal place cells, the role of calcium ion homeostasis in Alzheimer's Disease and the potential applications of transcranial magnetic stimulation.
neurophilosophy | July 20, 2008If you're at all familiar with Ben Goldacre's Bad Science blog and Guardian column, you'll have some idea of what his talk was about - debunking nutritionists, the multi-billion dollar industry nutritional supplement industry they have built, and the overblown claims about the benefits of various food products.
Title: Food, Fads & Fantasies
Abstract: We are frequently bombarded with very specific claims on food and health by the media, the food supplement pill industry, the "functional foods" industry, and the new unregulated "nutritionists". Diet is undoubtedly one of many important…
neurophilosophy | July 19, 2008
Antoni Gaudi's masterpiece of modern architecture is like something from a fairytale.
neurophilosophy | July 19, 2008The keynote Speaker for the Human Mind and Behaviour theme is Pierre Magistretti of the Brain-Mind Institute at Ecole Polytechnique Federal de Lausanne in Switzerland.
Title: Looking Inside Your Brain
Abstract: Prof. Magistretti will outline current brain-imaging technology and explore the ethical and societal implications of how, in addition to conventional medical diagnostic applications, it might be sed. He is professor of Neuroenergetics and Cellular Dynamics at the Brain Mind Institute.
Magistretti began his talk by emphaising that despite major developments of neuroimaging techniques…
neurophilosophy | July 18, 2008
I landed in Barcelona at around 10am local time, and, after checking in to my hotel, made my way towards Placa d'Espanya to find the conference hall. This magnificent building - an art gallery I think - is right next to the venue at which ESOF2008 is being held.
I'm sitting in one of the conference rooms right now, where the keynote speech for "The Human Mind and Behaviour" theme is about to begin. I'll report back on the session later...
neurophilosophy | July 17, 2008This image comes from Marc Steinmetz's photoessay about plastination, the tissue preservation technique invented by the controversial German anatomist Gunther von Hagens.
Plastination involves replacing the water and fats in the tissues with silicon or some other polymer. The specimen is first fixed in alcohol, then dehydrated, impregnated with the polymer and finally allowed to harden.
In the photograph above, the coronal brain sections have been placed under ultraviolet light for curing. The black stains visible in the slices show the sites of a massive haemorrhage which killed this…
neurophilosophy | July 17, 2008In the January 4th, 1961 episode of One Step Beyond, director and presenter John Newland ingests psilocybin under laboratory conditions, to investigate whether or not the hallucinogenic mushroom can enhance his abilities of extra-sensory perception.
The programme was apparently inspired by a 1959 book called The Sacred Mushroom, by parapsychologist Andrija Puharich, who is known for taking the spoon-bending fraudster Uri Geller to the United States for investigation.
In the first part of the programme (embedded below), Newland, Puharich and others travel to Mexico to collect mushroom samples…
neurophilosophy | July 16, 2008It is well established that certain types of memory are consolidated during sleep. Now Nature News reports on findings presented at the Federation of European Neuroscience Societies Forum in Geneva last weekend, which suggest that sleep loss can lead to the formation of false memories:
Susanne Diekelmann in Jan Born's lab at the University of Lubeck, Germany, and her colleagues asked volunteers to learn lists of words, each list relating to a particular topic. For example, they might learn the words 'white', 'dark', 'cat' and 'night' -- all of which can be linked to the word 'black' -- but…