Quick links from the past week in mind and brain news:
Interesting Scientific American article looks at the how infections can increase risk for mental illness but suffers from some rather irresponsible and sensational statements in the summaries.
A classic study on how children learn the world isn’t flat, covered by PsyBlog.
Science Daily reports on research suggesting that the key language areas of the brain ‘shift’ as we age.
Some wonderful examples of 19th century Japanese brain art are discovered by In Two Minds.
Neuroscientifically Challenged has an excellent short piece on a brain scanning study on social hierarchy in humans.
The excellent Dana magazine Cerebrum has an article on the link between the heart and brain function. Healthy heart, healthy brain.
The Neuroethics and Law Blog rounds up some recent reviews of neuroethics books.
BBC News has a remarkably good article on ‘sex addiction‘ and why it’s not an addiction, even if it’s a problem.
A coooool visual illusion is discovered by Cognitive Daily.
Booze reduces the brain response to fearful faces finds study reported by Science News who seem to have had a few when they wrote the first rather over-generalised sentence.
The Frontal Cortex has a thoughtful piece on madness and creativity.
Female voices sound sexier when they’re at the peak of fertility in the menstrual cycle, reports New Scientist.
The latest research on deep brain stimulation for treatment resistant depression is covered by PsychCentral.
Scientific American has an article on whether age-related cognitive decline may be caused by a breakdown in connections between different brain systems.
The anthropology of Grand Theft Auto! A thinly veiled excuse to play video games at work leads to an interesting article on why Liberty City is such as success.
Furious Seasons on why new data reveals that the famously corrupt Paxil Study 329 is actually worse than we thought. Hard as that is to believe.
McGill University has some funky neuroscience images (thanks Sandra!).
Unix, Lacanian psychoanalysis, anarchy, David Cronenberg, the unconscious and Stanislaw Lem – together at last!
BPS Research Digest covers a curious debate over whether psychotherapy is over-hyped where a frankly delusional psychopharmacologist ignores evidence and seemingly makes up figures about levels of therapist abuse. He references his own paper, which quotes a different figure.
Mind Hacks 
re: sex addiction
If you are male…
“Addicts are usually men and they are of any age, she says, and from any background. The behaviour ranges from viewing online porn for a few hours a day, which is usually a starting point and then escalates, to visiting prostitutes at every opportunity.”
If you are female…
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,352357,00.html
In 1995, Jeannie Allen didn’t quite know how to tell her then-husband about her embarrassing health problem.
Her primary care physician told her it was all in her head and recommended she see a psychologist.
But Allen, now 56, knew better. She was suffering from persistent genital arousal disorder, also known as persistent sexual arousal syndrome