Monthly Archives: March 2006

2006-03-17 Spike activity

March 17, 2006 – 8:00 am

Quick links from the past week in mind and brain news: Science Central News discusses change blindness (with video demos). Researchers find that antibiotic D-cycloserine, used to treat tuberculosis, improves recovery rate in psychological treatment for social anxiety. CBS News has an in-depth article on the science of sexual orientation. Research suggests that solo exercise […]

By vaughanbell | Posted in Linkage | Leave a Comment

Open-access at Cortex Online

March 16, 2006 – 11:30 am

I love Cortex. I’m not referring to my brain (although I do think very highly of it – “my second favourite organ” to quote Woody Allen) but to the neuropsychology journal which has been around since 1965. Although the website doesn’t work properly in Firefox, and all the links seem to open as new windows, […]

By vaughanbell | Posted in Inside the Brain | Leave a Comment

USA Memory championship

March 16, 2006 – 8:00 am

Wired has some brief coverage of the USA Memory Championship, which was won by a journalist who entered as research for a book! This was Foer’s first time competing, but he’d covered it as a freelance science journalist, he said. This year, he decided to experience things from the inside as research for a book […]

By vaughanbell | Posted in News | Leave a Comment

Churchill in strait-jacket statue taken down

March 15, 2006 – 1:00 pm

It looks like the statue of Winston Churchill in a strait-jacket (see previously on Mind Hacks) has been removed by the owners of The Forum – the library and tourism centre where the monument was displayed for three days. There’s more information at the Rethink website, including a downloadable postcard of the statue!

By vaughanbell | Posted in News | Leave a Comment

A neuroscientist’s grief

March 15, 2006 – 9:29 am

Neuroscientist Ruth McKernan was a guest on Radio 4′s midweek this morning, talking about her father’s death from a mystery illness, and how her scientific background shaped her coping and grief, an experience she has described in her book Billy’s Halo. Here’s an excerpt from the book’s synopsis: Now, she tells the story of her […]

By christianjarrett | Posted in News | Leave a Comment

Sleep drug causes ‘sleep driving’?

March 15, 2006 – 8:00 am

AADT have some intriguing coverage on recent concerns that popular sleep drug Ambien is linked to ‘sleep driving’ and ‘sleep eating’ in some people. The issue has recently been covered by the New York Times owing to the increase in people who have had the drug detected in their body by toxicology tests after “bizarre” […]

By vaughanbell | Posted in News | Comments (2)

Why can’t we choose what makes us happy?

March 14, 2006 – 5:27 pm

This from Hsee, C. K. & Hastie, R. (2006). Decision and experience: Why don’t we choose what makes us happy? Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 10(1), 31-37 Another common belief is that more choice options are always better. In reality, having more options can lead to worse experiences. For example, if employees are given a free […]

By tomstafford | Posted in Reasoning | Leave a Comment

Amedeo Challenge now open to small donations

March 14, 2006 – 2:00 pm

Amedeo Challenge, the site aiming to fund the creation of high-quality open-access medical textbooks, is now taking small and private donations. On the donations page you can give towards a ‘bounty’ for the completion of a textbook on a number of different topics. Medical professionals and researchers can work towards creating books to claim the […]

By vaughanbell | Posted in News | Leave a Comment

Neuroimaging genetics

March 14, 2006 – 8:00 am

Thomas Rams√∏y, one of the guys responsible for the Brain Ethics blog, has written a fantastic introduction to the emerging field of ‘imaging genetics’ for Science and Consciousness Review. Imaging genetics uses neuroimaging (‘brain scanning’) to examine the differences in brain activation between people with different versions of a gene, both to understand the interaction […]

By vaughanbell | Posted in Inside the Brain | Leave a Comment

What tangled webs we weave

March 13, 2006 – 10:00 pm

Carl Zimmer has deleted his post on the controversy surrounding an upcoming TV programme about a Turkish family who walk on ‘all fours’ (see previously on Mind Hacks). Presumably, he could do without the headache (and who can blame him?). Nevertheless, there’s a good analysis over at Gene Expression, to which an interesting comment has […]

By vaughanbell | Posted in News | Leave a Comment

Mind Performance Hacks

March 13, 2006 – 4:10 pm

While I’ve been away, I’ve been reading Mind Performance Hacks by Ron Hale-Evans. (Full disclosure: There are a couple of Mind Hacks pieces in the book, so O’Reilly sent me a free copy.) What follows are some brief thoughts, so if you already know about the book then skip to the end of the post […]

By Matt W | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (3)

Start of brain awareness week

March 13, 2006 – 8:30 am

Today is the start of Brain Awareness Week with a number of events happening across the globe. Your local college, university or science museum might be putting on public events about the mind and brain, and encouraging lively debate and participation. The Brain Awareness Week website also has plenty of resources, including everything from in-depth […]

By vaughanbell | Posted in News | Leave a Comment

The creative brain and outsider art

March 13, 2006 – 8:00 am

ABC Radio National’s All in the Mind has had a couple of related editions over the last couple of weeks that have tackled the psychology and neuroscience of creative thought. Psychiatrist and one-time english literature professor Nancy Andreasan discusses the neuroscience of creativity and whether genius is related to particular brain states or measurable mental […]

By vaughanbell | Posted in Togetherness | Leave a Comment

Marshall smurf

March 12, 2006 – 8:00 am

I just found this great three-panel comic strip from Partially Clips that made me laugh out loud. It looks like a case of iatrogenic paraphasia, perhaps induced by an accidental lesion to the temporal lobe? I’ve just realised I’m diagnosing cartoon characters. I think I need to get out more. Link to ‘Brain surgeon’ comic […]

By vaughanbell | Posted in Nonsense | Leave a Comment

Churchill in a straitjacket

March 11, 2006 – 4:30 pm

As part of an anti-stigma campaign, mental health charity Rethink has unveiled a statue of Winston Churchill in a strait-jacket, to highlight the great war-leader’s struggles with mental illness. Churchill was subject to severe bouts of clinical depression throughout his life (which he called his “black dog”). Despite these, he managed to lead and inspire […]

By vaughanbell | Posted in News | Leave a Comment

Post-traumatic growth

March 10, 2006 – 3:30 pm

Trauma has been traditionally considered as intrinsically pathological. Some psychologists are now arguing that although damaging, the experience of trauma can also inspire some people to change in positive ways. The concept has been named ‘post-traumatic growth’ and is the subject of significant debate among contemporary researchers and clinicians. The debate is covered in a […]

By vaughanbell | Posted in Theory | Comments (5)
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