Neuroscience posts
- February 9, 2010
- 05:43 PM
- 658 views
What's an "Opinion" in journal reviews?
by Greg Hickok in Talking Brains
Some journals have subcategories of reviews that include labels like "opinion" or "perspective". For example, our 2007 paper in Nature Reviews Neuroscience (Hickok, G., & Poeppel, D. (2007). The cortical organization of speech processing Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 8 (5), 393-402 DOI: 10.1038/nrn2113) appeared in the "Perspectives" section, not the "Reviews" section, and was further branded with the dreaded label, OPINION. I find it amusing how some folks use this in their citation of our wo........ Read more »
Hickok, G., & Poeppel, D. (2007) The cortical organization of speech processing. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 8(5), 393-402. DOI: 10.1038/nrn2113
- February 9, 2010
- 02:40 PM
- 599 views
Mobile Phones' Impact on Health
by amiya in Physiology physics woven fine
Mobile phones have drastically transformed our lives. Also known as cellular phones or cell phones, these gadgets not only incorporate a phone, as the name suggests, but also a lot of other technologically advanced features. They include a camera, a sound recorder cum music system, a Bluetooth device and many more depending on the model and the maker of the phone. They are called mobile phones since they can be used while on the move.A mobile phone maintains a two way (transmit and receive) comm........ Read more »
Gary W. Arendash, Juan Sanchez-Ramos, Takashi Mori, Malgorzata Mamcar, Xiaoyang Lin, Melissa Runfeldt, Li Wang, Guixin Zhang, Vasyl Sava, Jun Tan.... (2010) Electromagnetic Field Treatment Protects Against and Reverses Cognitive Impairment in Alzheimer's Disease Mice . Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, 191-210. info:/
- February 9, 2010
- 05:20 AM
- 838 views
Evolutionary origins of religion: weak relation to morality
by Björn Brembs in bjoern.brembs.blog
It is a long-standing argument among religious believers that religiosity were necessary for morality. In a recent Trends in Cognitive Sciences article (requires subscription), Pyysiäinen and Hauser argue that morality can arise and indeed can be found without and before any religious education and thus religion is a by-product of pre-existing cognitive properties of the brain. Indeed, religion is not ubiquitous, as for instance the Hadza's religion has been described as 'minimal', and yet, coo........ Read more »
Ilkka Pyysiäinen, & Marc Hauser. (2010) The origins of religion: evolved adaptation or by-product?. Trends in Cognitive Sciences. info:/10.1016/j.tics.2009.12.007
- February 9, 2010
- 02:08 AM
- 896 views
Optimal Target for Deep Brain Stimulation for Depression
by Dr Shock in Dr Shock MD PhD
The strongest evidence exists for Broadman Area 25 in the subcallosal cingulate gyrus (SCG) as target for deep brain stimulation in treatment resistant depression. This area in the brain is depicted in the figure above and is from the most important publication about DBS and depression in Neuron march 2005 by Helen Mayberg. Functional neuroimaging [...]
Related posts:Deep Brain Stimulation for Treatment Resistant depression New data are being published about deep brain stimulation...
New Kin........ Read more »
Hamani, C., Mayberg, H., Snyder, B., Giacobbe, P., Kennedy, S., & Lozano, A. (2009) Deep brain stimulation of the subcallosal cingulate gyrus for depression: anatomical location of active contacts in clinical responders and a suggested guideline for targeting. Journal of Neurosurgery, 111(6), 1209-1215. DOI: 10.3171/2008.10.JNS08763
- February 8, 2010
- 03:37 AM
- 560 views
Bad to the bone; altered connections in the brains of psychopaths
by Kevin Mitchell in Wiring the Brain
The manipulative con-man. The guy who lies to your face, even when he doesn’t have to. The child who tortures animals. The cold-blooded killer. Psychopaths are characterised by an absence of empathy and poor impulse control, with a total lack of conscience. About 1% of the total population can be defined as psychopaths, according to a detailed psychological profile checklist. They tend to be egocentric, callous, manipulative, deceptive, superficial, irresponsible and parasitic, ev........ Read more »
Craig, M., Catani, M., Deeley, Q., Latham, R., Daly, E., Kanaan, R., Picchioni, M., McGuire, P., Fahy, T., & Murphy, D. (2009) Altered connections on the road to psychopathy. Molecular Psychiatry, 14(10), 946-953. DOI: 10.1038/mp.2009.40
- February 7, 2010
- 04:00 PM
- 964 views
Getting your thesis out there
by Lorimer Moseley in BodyInMind
We are trying to assist new Doctors of Philosophy to get their findings ‘out there’ by including them here. We will put up a really quick summary, written by the New Doctor and, wherever possible, a link to where the thesis can be downloaded. We think this is a good way of both supporting new [...]... Read more »
Schön-Ohlsson CU, Willén JA, & Johnels BE. (2006) Optoelectronic movement analysis to measure motor performance in patients with chronic low back pain: test of reliability. Journal of rehabilitation medicine , 38(6), 360-7. PMID: 17067969
Schön-Ohlsson CU, Willén JA, & Johnels BE. (2005) Sensory motor learning in patients with chronic low back pain: a prospective pilot study using optoelectronic movement analysis. Spine, 30(17). PMID: 16135974
- February 7, 2010
- 06:35 AM
- 824 views
Beware The Clam of Forgetfulness
by Neuroskeptic in Neuroskeptic
Every day, PubCrawler emails to tell me about the latest papers that match various search terms. It means I never miss a relevant paper, but it also means I get told about an awful lot of irrelevant ones. Sometimes though, the title alone grabs my attention and demands a read. Such as yesterday's Risk assessment of the amnesic shellfish poison, domoic acid, on animals and humans. Shellfish causing amnesia?It turns out that there's a neurotoxin, domoic acid, which can indeed cause brain damage in........ Read more »
Kumar KP, Kumar SP, & Nair GA. (2009) Risk assessment of the amnesic shellfish poison, domoic acid, on animals and humans. Journal of environmental biology / Academy of Environmental Biology, India, 30(3), 319-25. PMID: 20120452
- February 7, 2010
- 12:25 AM
- 551 views
Psychodynamic Psychotherapy in the Scanner?
by The Neurocritic in The Neurocritic
Arrangement for psychotherapy fMRI studies using the couch of Sigmund Freud.[No not really, although the authors did stretch the implications of their findings in the Discussion...]Whether the proprietors of this blog want to admit it or not, neuropsychoanalysis appears to be a new field of study. What does psychoanalysis do to the brain? In a new Psychotherapy Research paper, Loughead et al. (2010) collected autobiographical relationship narratives from 16 healthy control participants free of a........ Read more »
Loughead, J., Luborsky, L., Weingarten, C., Krause, E., German, R., Kirk, D., & Gur, R. (2010) Brain activation during autobiographical relationship episode narratives: A core conflictual relationship theme approach. Psychotherapy Research, 1-16. DOI: 10.1080/10503300903470735
- February 5, 2010
- 05:53 AM
- 809 views
the rise of neuroscience
by Alex Holcombe in ceptional
So I knew neuroscience has exploded over the last few decades, but I didn’t know its emergence as a more autonomous discipline is “the biggest structural change in scientific citation patterns over the past decade”. In the authors’ words that follow, they are referring to their figure showing neuroscience emerging as a new citation [...]... Read more »
Rosvall, M., & Bergstrom, C. (2010) Mapping Change in Large Networks. PLoS ONE, 5(1). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0008694
- February 4, 2010
- 09:30 PM
- 977 views
Can unconscious brains think? Coma, philosophy of mind, and the media.
by Michael Slezak in Good, Bad, and Bogus
“Ok brain. I don’t like you and you don’t like me. Let’s just do this and I can go back to killing you with beer.” - Homer Simpson
A new piece of research has elicited headlines around the world in today’s newspapers such as “Coma patient ‘talks’ with his thoughts” and “Coma victim talks via brain [...]... Read more »
Monti MM, Vanhaudenhuyse A, Coleman MR, Boly M, Pickard JD, Tshibanda L, Owen AM, & Laureys S. (2010) Willful Modulation of Brain Activity in Disorders of Consciousness. The New England journal of medicine. PMID: 20130250
Martin M. Monti, & Audrey Vanhaudenhuyse. (2010) Willful Modulation of Brain Activity in Disorders of Consciousness. The New England Journal of Medicine. info:/10.1056/NEJMoa0905370
- February 4, 2010
- 04:06 PM
- 968 views
Adult neurogenesis in humans: Murine Features of Neurogenesis in the Human Hippocampus
by Jason Snyder in Functional Neurogenesis
Studies of adult neurogenesis often begin with the following sentence: “Adult neurogenesis occurs in all mammals examined, including humans.” More detail-oriented papers might say, “Adult neurogenesis occurs in all mammals examined, including humans…but not bats.” Here, the similarities between bats and humans become more evident than one might expect: it could be an equally long [...]... Read more »
Knoth, R., Singec, I., Ditter, M., Pantazis, G., Capetian, P., Meyer, R., Horvat, V., Volk, B., & Kempermann, G. (2010) Murine Features of Neurogenesis in the Human Hippocampus across the Lifespan from 0 to 100 Years. PLoS ONE, 5(1). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0008809
- February 4, 2010
- 01:35 PM
- 1,076 views
The cutaneous rabbit illusion hops out of the body
by Mo in Neurophilosophy
IF a rapid series of taps are applied first to your wrist and then to your elbow, you will experience a perceptual illusion, in which phantom sensations are felt along the skin connecting the two points that were actually touched. This feels as if a tiny rabbit is hopping along your skin from the wrist to the elbow, and is therefore referred to as the "cutaneous rabbit". The illusion indicates that our perceptions of sensory inputs do not enter conscious awareness until after the integration of ........ Read more »
Miyazaki, M., Hirashima, M., & Nozaki, D. (2010) The "Cutaneous Rabbit" Hopping out of the Body. Journal of Neuroscience, 30(5), 1856-1860. DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3887-09.2010
- February 4, 2010
- 08:00 AM
- 871 views
Can crayfish feel electricity?
by Zen Faulkes in NeuroDojo
The sensory abilities of vertebrates and invertebrates are generally more similar than they are different: both groups can detect light, sound, pressure, and so on. One of the few cases of a sensory ability that seemed to be the domain of vertebrates alone was the ability to detect electrical signals: electroreception. Several fish have it, and use electrical signals to communicate. Platypus have it. Electroreception in fish is one of the best examples of
For a long time, people argued that in........ Read more »
Patullo, B., & Macmillan, D. (2010) Making sense of electrical sense in crayfish. Journal of Experimental Biology, 213(4), 651-657. DOI: 10.1242/jeb.039073
- February 3, 2010
- 11:55 PM
- 390 views
Neury Thursday: Recent Success with Neural Stem Cells
by Allison in Dormivigilia
Neural stem/progenitor cells have been co-grafted with growth factors into damaged spinal cord tissue. Prior to this, the tissue was infused with an enzyme that not only reduces chondroitin sulfate proteoglycans, which appear in the CNS following damage, but also increases the survival of the neural stem cells. The article can be found in this week's Journal of Neuroscience... Read more »
Soheila Karimi-Abdolrezaee, Eftekhar Eftekharpour, Jian Wang, Desiree Schut, and Michael G. Fehlings. (2010) Synergistic Effects of Transplanted Adult Neural Stem/Progenitor Cells, Chondroitinase, and Growth Factors Promote Functional Repair and Plasticity of the Chronically Injured Spinal Cord. Journal of Neuroscience. info:/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3111-09.2010
- February 3, 2010
- 07:13 PM
- 775 views
Brodmann's Map -- 101 years old
by Greg Hickok in Talking Brains
In celebration of the centenary of the publication of Korbinian Brodmann's famous map, Karl Zilles & Katrin Amunts have just published a great little piece on its history and current influence (too bad Nature Reviews Neuroscience couldn't have brought it to press in 2009). The paper highlights some interesting tidbits, like the influence of evolutionary theory on Brodmann's work, how Brodmann's map relates to those that followed, how it lost favor and how it was given new life with the advent o........ Read more »
Zilles K, & Amunts K. (2010) Centenary of Brodmann's map - conception and fate. Nature reviews. Neuroscience, 11(2), 139-45. PMID: 20046193
- February 3, 2010
- 04:00 PM
- 1,256 views
Where is my back?
by Lorimer Moseley in BodyInMind
Chronic pain is associated with a loss of the normal capacity to know where your body is. Chronic pain is also associated with odd bodily feelings. To find out if people with chronic back pain had trouble ‘feeling’ their back, they were asked to draw on a piece of paper the outline of where they felt [...]... Read more »
Lorimer Moseley. (2010) I can't find it!. BodyinMind. info:/
- February 3, 2010
- 03:58 PM
- 631 views
Brodmann's Map 100 Years Later
by Neuropsych15 in The MacGuffin
Brodmann's map. Anyone who has taken a course in basic neuroanatomy has been exposed to his roadmap of the cerebral cortex. In this month's Nature Reviews Neuroscience, Zilles and Amunts (1) dedicated an article to Korbinian Brodmann and his map, celebrating its 100th anniversary (Brodmann's original work was published in 1909). First, a little background. Brodmann's original map contains 52 areas; however, areas 12-16 and 48-51 are only found in nonhuman primate brains, so only 43 areas are act........ Read more »
Zilles K, & Amunts K. (2010) Centenary of Brodmann's map - conception and fate. Nature reviews. Neuroscience, 11(2), 139-45. PMID: 20046193
- February 3, 2010
- 08:00 AM
- 500 views
When the going gets tough, do the puffs get going?
by Zen Faulkes in NeuroDojo
You would think that having a dedicated set of neurons that triggered super-fast escape responses to get away from fast predator attacks and other sudden events in your area would be something that you’d want to keep around. This is usually so, but it turns out, not always. This is a problem I’ve been struggling with for some time now, and I’m thrilled to bits to find another example.
Fish have a group of neurons that trigger escape responses called C-starts, so called because the fish b........ Read more »
Greenwood, A., Peichel, C., & Zottoli, S. (2010) Distinct startle responses are associated with neuroanatomical differences in pufferfishes. Journal of Experimental Biology, 213(4), 613-620. DOI: 10.1242/jeb.037085
- February 3, 2010
- 07:05 AM
- 587 views
Imaging the Brain Better, Faster,Thinner
by Neuroskeptic in Neuroskeptic
A lot of the studies that I cast my Neuroskeptical eye over are related to functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).This is because, in my opinion, quite a lot of today's fMRI work suffers from methodological flaws. But that's not to say that all fMRI work is suspect, or, worse, that there's something inherently unscientific about fMRI as such. fMRI's a tool, an amazing one in a lot of ways, but like any tool it needs to be used well. Along with others, I've criticized various aspects of re........ Read more »
Sabatinelli D, Lang PJ, Bradley MM, Costa VD, & Keil A. (2009) The timing of emotional discrimination in human amygdala and ventral visual cortex. The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience, 29(47), 14864-8. PMID: 19940182
- February 2, 2010
- 04:37 PM
- 1,219 views
Optimising Fat Burning on Non-HIIT days
by mc in begin to dig (b2d)
We can't HIIT all the time, nor can we work steady state at the top end of our aerobic capacit all the time. Our central nervous system would come up and strangle us. That's another word for overtraining. But if we still want to make sure that we're optimizing our non-HIIT time for both endurance capacity and fat mobilization, can we do both at the same time? Outlook looks good that there's a sweet spot for such work in the 60-80% MaxHR zone.... Read more »
Carey, DG. (2009) Quantifying Differences in the "Fat Burning" Zone and the Aerobic Zone: Implications For Training. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research: , 23(7), 2090-2095. info:/10.1519/JSC.0b013e3181bac5c5
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