Michael Gazzaniga, Professor of Psychology, UCSB; Law and Neuroscience Project (we like him) in an hour-long interview by Carl Zimmer, Professor of Saying Ummm All The Damn Time, and writer for The Loom (we like him but not when his mouth moves).I really like this session (minus Carl Zimmer's ummmms). In the course of talking about law, ( Read more... )

Amusingly written article on the basic neurochemistry of love"There are two shrimp-size things on either side of your brain called the caudate nuclei. This is the gear that operates bodily movements and the body's reward system: "the mind's network for general arousal, sensations of pleasure, and the motivation to acquire rewards," Fisher writes. ( Read more... )

Is psychology still relevant now that we have neuroscience?

Early Daylight Saving didn't save any energy - but a lot of people liked it anyway.

Courtroom confidence, reliable witnesses, and errors. Basically, if you say you're sure of something and you're wrong, that's worse than being kinda unsure and wrong, but being unsure and right carries ( Read more... )

Scheduled for advance online publication Jan. 1 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the study sheds new light on how the human mind relies on the vivid recollection of past experiences to prepare itself for future challenges, suggesting that envisioning the future may be a critical prerequisite for many higher-level planning ( Read more... )

People with generally positive outlooks show greater resistance to developing colds than do individuals who rarely revel in upbeat feelings, a new investigation finds.
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However, have you ever been so ecstatic that you cannot sit down and focus on paying bills or proofreading your child's homework? There might be a scientific basis to your ( Read more... )

Dehumanization and the brain.

Blink Method in the classroom.

"Youth with bipolar disorder misread facial expressions as hostile and show heightened neural reactions when they focus on emotional aspects of neutral faces, researchers at the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) have discovered. The study provides some of the first clues to the underlying workings of ( Read more... )

Ok, this is wicked cool.

"Working in Benowitz's lab, Yin took a closer look and found that the macrophages secreted an essential but as-yet unidentified protein. Further studies revealed it to be oncomodulin, a little-known molecule first observed in association with cancer cells.

"Out of the blue, we found a molecule that causes more nerve ( Read more... )

This is way cool. Many thanks to danjite for sending it my way. The emphasis in the quote below is mine. The entire article is here: Nanotech Helps Blind Hamsters See. It's worth reading, but for those in a hurry ( Read more... )

(Yeah, I have a new obsession with the anterior cingulate. I might even need to get an icon for it.)

Tom Beckman sez"Scientists say they have identified a section of the brain which, when damaged by stress hormones, can cause the onset of dementia. High levels of stress hormone have been found to shrink the anterior cingulate cortex at the centre ( Read more... )