Tuesday, December 31, 2013

How our advanced capabilities may have come from separation of our primary brain areas.

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Buckner and Krienen put forward the fascinating idea that our advanced human capabilities may be a spandrel (i.e. a byproduct of the evolut...
Monday, December 30, 2013

Your brain has many genomes.

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Life used to be simple. We had one set of genes, found in all cells of the body. Skin cells, liver cells, and brain cells were different o...
1 comment:
Friday, December 27, 2013

Cognitive benefits of music lessons?

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I’ve done numerous posts on effects that early music training has on the brain. Adults with early music training in general show enhanced c...
Tuesday, December 24, 2013

Oxytocin and the strength of romantic bonds in men.

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Here is an interesting bit from Scheele et al. : Significance: Sexual monogamy is potentially costly for males, and few mammalian speci...
1 comment:
Friday, December 20, 2013

In praise of failure

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Costica Bradatan offers these thoughts (which I’ve clipped from a longer piece). The design of a superior kind of human being – healthi...
Thursday, December 19, 2013

My grandsons - making it in the brave new world - part III

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This is the final post in my ramblings on the world my grandsons will face. The first two posts dealt with professional achievement, this fi...
Wednesday, December 18, 2013

My grandsons making it in the brave new world - part II

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The first post in this series dealt with mental capabilities required to be included in the small fraction of future workers who live a comf...
Tuesday, December 17, 2013

My grandsons - making it in the brave new world - part I

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I will be going soon to Austin Texas, to spend the holiday with my son's family, who live in the same house I grew up in. Every grandfat...
Monday, December 16, 2013

Sequence your microbiome!

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Some months ago I paid 23andMe about a $100 to analyze a mouth swab of epithelial cell and report back information on my genetic makeup, a...
1 comment:
Thursday, December 12, 2013

Psychobiotics - gut bacteria changing our brains?  

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Walking through the aisles of my local health food store, the Williamson Street Co-op, I’ve often been tempted by the claims of exotic yoghu...
Wednesday, December 11, 2013

Three psychological regions of the U.S. - economic, health, social, political correlates

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Rentfrow and collaborators probe the possibility of dividing regions of the United States, not in terms of traditional social and economic ...
Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Imaging the the updating of true and false memories.

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When we recall, or reactivate a memory, we render it susceptible to alterations such as incorporating relevant new information, so that it m...
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Monday, December 09, 2013

Naked bodies and mind perception.

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Numerous studies have found that viewing people’s bodies, as opposed to their faces, makes us judge them as less intelligent, ambitious, lik...
Friday, December 06, 2013

Unconscious, not conscious, attitudes predict relationship success.

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There has been some recent criticism of 'priming" experiments, in which subliminal presentation, particularly of emotional, stimuli...
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Thursday, December 05, 2013

Digital Passivity

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This piece by Jaron Lanier is well worth reading. A few clips: I fear that 2013 will be remembered as a tragic and dark year in the digit...
Wednesday, December 04, 2013

Childhood poverty changes adult brain emotion regulation pathways.

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Kim et al. add sobering detail to the story of how the chronic stress experienced by children in poverty correlates with long term change i...
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Tuesday, December 03, 2013

Do you use your head or follow your heart?

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Fetterman and Robsinon do a piece of work that tries to provide evidence of what we all commonly suppose: that where we physically locate o...
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Monday, December 02, 2013

Homage to idleness.

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All of a sudden this past Saturday morning there was a subtle "poof" from somewhere in my now-cyborg body and it just started thin...
Thursday, November 28, 2013

Still alive....

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...but in no mood to think or write. 4 hours of rehab exercises every day. Happy Thanksgiving to all!
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Thursday, November 21, 2013

MindBlog on medical leave.

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I'm heading into knee surgery early tomorrow morning, and may not be feeling in shape to continue doing posts for awhile.
6 comments: