Category Archives: Inside the Brain

The delightful science of laughter

April 28, 2012 – 3:54 pm

Neuroscientist Sophie Scott gave a fantastic talk on the science of laughter for a recent TEDx event that you can now watch online. Talks on the science of humour are famously humourless (usually made all the more dire by the desperate inclusion of some not very funny ‘funny cartoons’) but this discussion of laughter is […]

By vaughanbell | Also posted in Togetherness | Leave a Comment

Snakes on a brain

April 27, 2012 – 9:16 pm

The latest Journal of Neuroscience features a study on the neuroscience behind Akiyoshi Kitaoka’s famouse Rotating Snakes illusion and to celebrate they’re made a ‘Rotating Brain’ illusion for the front cover. This type of illusion, often called a peripheral drift illusion, was thought to occur due to slow drifting eye movements but this new study […]

By vaughanbell | Also posted in Seeing | Comments (2)

Don’t tase my lobe

April 27, 2012 – 8:54 pm

A case report in Forensic Science International describes a man who had a taser dart penetate his skull and damage his frontal lobes after getting in a drunken confrontation with police. Curiously, the man was unaware he had a taser dart in his brain and only went to hospital after he got home and noticed […]

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Sound trip

April 8, 2012 – 9:34 pm

A fascinating excerpt about a hallucinogenic drug called DiPT that only causes hearing distortions – from p310 of the book Hallucinations: Research and Practice: A member of the tryptamine chemical family, diisopropyltryptamine (DiPT) is a fascinating substance because, unlike most hallucinogens, its effect are predominantly auditory. It is also probably less sensitive than other hallucinogens […]

By vaughanbell | Also posted in Hearing and Language | Comments (1)

The future of fMRI

April 4, 2012 – 4:02 pm

Nature has an article looking at the future of fMRI brain scanning in light of its long-lasting hype and recently discovered problems. Brain scanning has become massively popular both in the scientific community and in the media, in great part because the pictures it produces seem quite intuitive: images of the brain with colours on […]

By vaughanbell | Also posted in News | Comments (3)

Inside The Ailing Brain

March 30, 2012 – 8:31 am

The Ailing Brain is a fantastic documentary series on the brain and its disorders that’s freely available online. It has been produced in Spanish but the first part is now on YouTube with English subtitles. The series is among the best neuroscience documentary series I have even seen (along with Susan Greenfield’s Brain Story – […]

By vaughanbell | Also posted in News | Leave a Comment

Bring the love

March 27, 2012 – 4:10 pm

The world of art, neuroscience and, er… competitive affection, collide in a delightful film about a love competition held in an fMRI scanner. The piece is by film-maker Brent Hoff who seems to be making a series of films based on the idea of emotion competitions. In this film, competitors are asked to ‘love someone […]

By vaughanbell | Also posted in Togetherness | Comments (1)

The hidden history of lobotomy’s non-inventor

March 25, 2012 – 12:40 pm

A fascinating snippet on the notorious supposed inventor of the frontal lobotomy, Egas Moniz, from an article in the Polish Journal of Neurology and Neurosurgery: Egas Moniz: a genius, unlucky looser or a Nobel Committee error? Neurol Neurochir Pol. 2012;46(1):96-103. Lass P, Sławek J, Sitek E. Portuguese neurologist António Egas Moniz is one of the […]

By vaughanbell | Also posted in Remembering | Comments (1)

Neurotoxic e-waste recycling

March 22, 2012 – 2:36 pm

The Lancet has an extensive news piece on how the recycling of old electronics in developing countries may be a serious neurological risk owing to the high levels of neurotoxic chemicals in modern electronics. “The recycling of e-waste is big business in developing countries”, explains Javier Carod-Artal (Virgen de la Luz Hospital, Cuenca, Spain). “But […]

By vaughanbell | Comments (1)

A thread of hope from a shooting

March 16, 2012 – 8:39 am

No-one knows why Steven Kazmierczak snapped. When he kicked his way into a packed lecture hall in Northern Illinois University, shooting dead five students and injuring 21 more, those who knew him expressed surprise that he was capable of such brutal violence. He killed himself at the end of the spree, meaning his motives remain […]

By vaughanbell | Also posted in Integrating | Comments (3)

A non hysterical view of ‘cheerleader hysteria’

March 1, 2012 – 11:56 pm

I’ve written an article for the Discover Magazine blog The Crux about mass hysteria and conversion disorder in light of the not-very-good-coverage given to the issue after a group of cheerleaders with unexplained neurological symptoms made the headlines. The New York Times described the situation as a ‘nutty story’ and said hysteria is ‘not supposed […]

By vaughanbell | Also posted in Integrating | Comments (2)

Dinner table neuropsychology

February 28, 2012 – 6:30 pm

Common sense or ‘folk psychology‘ is what your average person in the street uses to make sense of human behaviour. It says people have affairs because their relationship is unsatisfying, that people steal because they want money and that people give to charity because they want to help people. Scientists tend to say ‘well, it’s […]

By vaughanbell | Also posted in Theory | Comments (4)

Filming the rabbit hole

February 27, 2012 – 7:59 pm

I’ve just managed to watch a few editions of Hamilton’s Pharmacopeia, an online documentary series about mind altering drugs, and was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the programmes. If you think hearing about other people’s drug experiences is about as interesting as watching someone staring at the wallpaper, you’ll be pleased to hear that […]

By vaughanbell | Also posted in Togetherness | Comments (1)

Moments of the self

February 20, 2012 – 1:15 am

A study just published in the Journal of Forensic Sciences gives a wonderful example of the little recognised complexity of epileptic seizures. The article describes three cases of people who take their clothes off during seizures and discusses the potential legal consequences of engaging in such behaviour when it was caused by epilepsy. However ‘Case […]

By vaughanbell | Also posted in Togetherness | Leave a Comment

Of both lovers and epilepsy

February 14, 2012 – 12:53 am

Saint Valentine is the patron saint of both lovers and epilepsy – sadly, a little known fact. There is one wonderful example of this divine coupling, however, where the passionate saint appears alongside EEG traces on 1998 postage stamp from Italy. This description is from a brief 2003 article from the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery […]

By vaughanbell | Also posted in Togetherness | Comments (1)

Individual ecstasies: the revelatory experience conference

February 12, 2012 – 6:52 pm

On March 23rd London will host a unique conference on the neuroscience, psychiatry and interpretation of revelatory visionary experiences. It’s been put together by Quinton Deeley from our research group at the Institute of Psychiatry and brings together cognitive neuroscientists, anthropologists, religious studies scholars, psychologists and psychiatrists to discuss different ways of understanding ‘revelatory experiences’. […]

By vaughanbell | Also posted in Theory, Togetherness | Comments (10)
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