Quick links from (roughly) the past week in mind and brain news:
BBC Radio 4’s Thinking Allowed has discussions on myths about sex trafficking and the history of hunger.
Science and Consciousness Review has a feature on whether Theory of Mind is dependent on episodic memory?
Omni Brain finds a spoof video on installing a DIY brain-computer interface.
There’s a great review of new book ‘Freud: Inventor of the Modern Mind’ on Metapsychology that looks at some of the skeletons in the psychoanalytic closet.
An article for the Washington Post describes one of Stanley Milgram’s lesser known but enormously endearing experiments.
Oliver Sacks describes the case of Mrs O’C and her musical hallucinations for NPR Radio. He first described her in The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and updated her story in Musicophilia. He presents the complete version in this short programme.
On the same theme, Scientific American had a good ‘music and the brain‘ article in November’s issue that I missed earlier.
Bad headline but interesting sleep study. A better headline would be ‘quality of sleep influences how the brain stores memories’ – a subtle but important difference.
The New York Times reports that adverts aiming to ‘promote awareness’ about childhood psychiatric disorders are cancelled after complaints about scaremongering and insensitivity.
A genetic test for genes that may alter response to antidepressant drugs becomes commercially available, and Corpus Callosum has a great analysis of its limitation and significance.
Is it possible to be too happy? Cognitive Daily discusses a study which investigated whether there is an optimal happiness level.
Mind Hacks 