CategoryNeuroscience
How Believing You’ll Get Better May Affect Your Brain
A placebo effect experiment in mice pinpointed a change in an area of the brain not previously known to be involved in pain control
Do We Need the Right Half of the Human Brain?
Generally, we do. Yet what happened when one woman lost the right half of her brain as an adult was unexpectedA little-reported 2021 case study published in Neurology Clinical Practice shows how resilient the human brain can be. A 29-year-old woman, CB, with no neurological or psychiatric history had a stroke, possibly due to medication issues. The damage was serious enough that a decision was made, with her consent, to remove almost all of the right side of her brain (hemispherectomy). As the study authors put it, “only a small disconnected right occipital pole was retained.” What impact would that have on her mind? The right hemisphere of the brain is thought by neuroscientists to play a specific role in “nonverbal” cognitive abilities. From Simply Psychology, we learn, Left hemisphere function The left hemisphere controls the right-hand side of the Read More ›
Is Panpsychism Putting Francis Crick’s Pack of Neurons to Flight?
Science writer John Horgan remembers Crick in the ‘90s when reductionism was riding high in neuroscience. What’s happened since?
Sleeping Mice Show How the Brain Lays Down Memories
Studies of mice running mazes have shed light on the sharp waves of neurons that assist in forming memories
Neuroscientist: The Mind Is Just the Brain
He cites studies using transcranial magnetic stimulation, which caused subjects to see flashing lights
Research: Our Brains Float Between Two Phases, Dodging Disorder
Our minds just never quite get used to that
Why Does a Brainless Sponge Have a Toolkit for a Nervous System?
A neuroscientist wrestles with the question of where the kit arose? From the one-celled life forms that preceded the sponge?
A Third Big Consciousness Theory: Each Neuron Is a Computer
Dendritic information theory (DIT) may not explain consciousness any better than other theories but it may shed light on how anesthesia produces LOSS of consciousness
Consciousness Wars: Researcher Tries Negotiating a Truce
Witch hunts against leading theories are bad for a discipline’s reputation; Johan Storm thinks that all the prominent theories of consciousness are a little bit right
Tiny Dot of Human Brain Tissue Reveals Unexpected Insights
A speck of your brain can hold the data for 250 movies
Could Neanderthals Speak? It Depends on Who You Talk To
Theorists who will, sadly, never converse with a living Neanderthal imagine things they could and couldn’t do linguistically
At Scientific American, free will seems very much alive
The concept is incompatible with their “mind is just the brain” thesis but they can’t let go of it anyway
Neuroscientist: The “I” of Consciousness Cannot Be Explained Away
Skeptical philosopher David Hume tried it and, Raymond Tallis says, things collapsed almost immediately
Thinking of the “Bigger Picture”
New study on how transcendent thinking enhances and improves the brain in adolescents
Human Subject Moves Computer Mouse with Neuralink Chip
So Big Tech companies might know your inner thoughts, now. What could possibly go wrong?
Fine-Tuning of Universe Makes a Top Neuroscientist “Very Hopeful”
Allen Institute’s Christof Koch talks about the assumptions underlying his consciousness theory — which led many other neuroscientists to try to Cancel him
Neuroscientist: How the Brain-as-Computer Myth Led Science Astray
Michael Merzenich explains neuroplasticity — how the brain organizes itself in detail — to Robert Lawrence Kuhn at Closer to Truth
Neuroscientist: Human Brain More Complex Than the Models Show
The weird “homunculus” — the way the brain maps the body — was pioneer neurosurgeons’ best guess nearly a century ago