Monthly Archives: October 2009

Little Albert, lost and found

October 22, 2009 – 8:00 am

One of the most famous and most mythologised studies in psychology concerns John Watson’s experiment to condition ‘Little Albert’ to be afraid of a white rat. ‘Little Albert’ and his mother moved away afterwards and no-one knew what happened to him, leading to one of the most enduring mysteries in psychology. Finally, it seems, his […]

By vaughanbell | Posted in Other People | Comments (6)

Disembodied voices of joy, silence and rage

October 21, 2009 – 12:00 pm

ABC Radio National’s All in the Mind has a powerful and moving programme on the experience of ‘hearing voices’ that meets with two young women with quite different experiences of auditory hallucinations. One of the young women, Kat, has largely positive voices and has come to understand and work with them, while another, Mel, has […]

By vaughanbell | Posted in Togetherness | Leave a Comment

Beautiful from the inside out

October 21, 2009 – 8:00 am

Technology Review has a fantastic photo essay that tracks how we’ve visualised the brain from times past and includes some of the most stunning images from the last century of neuroscience. It’s been put together by Mo Costandi, the writer you may know from the Neurophilosophy blog, with each image concisely described so you can […]

By vaughanbell | Posted in Inside the Brain | Comments (1)

The birth of the ‘psychic energizer’

October 20, 2009 – 6:00 pm

With uncanny echoes of the modern interest in ‘cognitive enhancers’, a 1958 edition of Popular Science hails a new drug that “tunes up the brain” allowing us “to perform at peak efficiency all the time”. The drug is iproniazid, marketed then as Marsilid. It was the first ever antidepressant, but the concept of an ‘antidepressant’ […]

By vaughanbell | Posted in Integrating | Comments (1)

Encephalon 77 teams up

October 20, 2009 – 12:00 pm

The 77th edition of the Encephalon psychology and neuroscience writing carnival has just appeared online, this time ably hosted by Sharp Brains. This edition is rather special as it’s a crossing of the streams with the medical carnival Grand Rounds. A couple of my favourites include Brain Blogger on whether religion can be understood as […]

By vaughanbell | Posted in Linkage | Leave a Comment

Cheese, dreams and drugs

October 20, 2009 – 8:00 am

A common belief says that eating cheese causes vivid dreams or nightmares. However, I couldn’t find any support for the idea in the scientific literature except for one bizarre case study. Although the case report really tells us nothing about the link between cheese and dreaming, it’s lovely to read because it’s from a bygone […]

By vaughanbell | Posted in Nonsense | Comments (4)

Inhabiting a robot hand

October 19, 2009 – 10:00 pm

BBC News has a fascinating short video report of a robotic hand that is connected to the nerve fibres of an amputated arm and which allows the patient to actually feel touches with the robot fingers. Although it doesn’t mention it in the report, the technology is from the SmartHand research group who are attempting […]

By vaughanbell | Posted in Inside the Brain | Comments (1)

Hallucinations in sensory deprivation after 15 minutes

October 19, 2009 – 12:00 pm

Sensory deprivation lasting only 15 minutes is enough to trigger hallucinations in healthy members of the public, according to a new study published in the Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease. The researchers were interested in resurrecting the somewhat uncontrolled research done in the 50s and 60s where participants were dunked into dark, silent, body […]

By vaughanbell | Posted in Integrating | Comments (3)

How many shrinks does it take to change a diagnosis?

October 19, 2009 – 8:00 am

With debates still raging over the new version of the psychiatrists’ diagnostic manual, the DSM-V, a selection of radical new diagnoses have been submitted which may give the committee pause for thought. They have been carefully reviewed by Matthew Hutson over at Psychology Today and we include a couple so you can see how this […]

By vaughanbell | Posted in Nonsense | Leave a Comment

Around the brain in forty years

October 18, 2009 – 12:00 pm

The latest edition of the Journal of Neuroscience has a fantastic collection of articles by leading neuroscientists who look back on the last 40 years of discoveries in brain research. The collection is to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Society for Neuroscience. As the articles make clear, the last four decades have seen a […]

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

Science of slumber

October 18, 2009 – 8:00 am

Science News has a brilliant special issue on the ‘science of slumber’ that tackles sleep disorders, the mental impact of sleep deprivation, how sleep differs across species and the still mysterious question of why we need to sleep. I found the article on two seemingly straightforward sleep disorders, insomnia and narcolepsy, the most interesting. They […]

By vaughanbell | Posted in Inside the Brain | Comments (3)

Neuroanthropology, a rough guide

October 16, 2009 – 6:00 pm

There’s a comprehensive and compelling introduction to neuroanthropology over at the blog of the same name that outlines why we can’t fully understand the brain or culture while thinking of them as separate entities. The Neuroanthropology blog is run by two of the main researchers in the field and this recent article was written to […]

By vaughanbell | Posted in Theory | Leave a Comment

2009-10-16 Spike activity

October 16, 2009 – 12:00 pm

Quick links from the past week in mind and brain news: <img align="left" src="http://mindhacks-legacy.s3.amazonaws.com/2005/01/spike.jpg&quot; width="102" height="120" Slate has a brilliant article on the links between face structure and aggression and whether we can see criminality in the face. Contains the wonderful euphemism ‘muscular unreasonableness’. Video games are good for the brain, according to an article […]

By vaughanbell | Posted in Linkage | Comments (1)

Neuroethics at SfN 2009

October 16, 2009 – 8:40 am

The world’s largest scientific conference, the Society for Neuroscience meeting, starts tomorrow in Chicago. Tens of thousands of researchers from all areas of neuroscience will meet to discuss all aspects of the brain. The conference always has a full programme of social events, as well as the usual scientific programme (I am still filled with […]

By tomstafford | Posted in News | Comments (1)

Tea intoxication

October 15, 2009 – 10:00 pm

An interesting case study from a 2002 edition of The Lancet of a man who suffered paralysis from drinking too much Earl Grey tea owing to the toxic effects of huge doses of bergamot oil – taken from orange rind and used as flavour: A 44-year-old man presented in May, 2001, with muscle cramps. He […]

By vaughanbell | Posted in Integrating | Comments (1)

A brain signature for literacy

October 15, 2009 – 12:00 pm

Not Exactly Rocket Science covers a fantastic study on how the structure of the brain changes as illiterate adults learn to read and write. The research was conducted on rather a novel group of participants. Most were ex-members of guerilla forces in Colombia that had recently put down their weapons to re-integrate in society. Colombia […]

By vaughanbell | Posted in Integrating | Leave a Comment
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