Our unconscious brain makes the best decisions possible
http://www.physorg.com/news149345120.html

Researchers at the University of Rochester have shown that the human brain—once thought to be a seriously flawed decision maker—is actually hard-wired to allow us to make the best decisions possible with the information we are given.

Probability

Social networking websites are causing alarming changes in the brains of young users, an eminent scientist has warned.

uh oh

IBM has announced it will lead a US government-funded collaboration to make electronic circuits that mimic brains. Part of a field called "cognitive computing", the research will bring together neurobiologists, computer and materials scientists and psychologists. As a first step in its research the project has been granted $4.9m (£3.27m) from US defence agency Darpa.

"The key idea of cognitive computing is to engineer mind-like intelligent machines by reverse engineering the structure, dynamics, function and behaviour of the brain."

IBM has announced it will lead a US government-funded collaboration to make electronic circuits that mimic brains. Part of a field called "cognitive computing", the research will bring together neurobiologists, computer and materials scientists and psychologists. As a first step in its research the project has been granted $4.9m (£3.27m) from US defence agency Darpa.

IBM has announced it will lead a US government-funded collaboration to make electronic circuits that mimic brains.

IBM will join five US universities in an ambitious effort to integrate what is known from real biological systems with the results of supercomputer simulations of neurons. The team will then aim to produce for the first time an electronic system that behaves as the simulations do. The longer-term goal is to create a system with the level of complexity of a cat's brain.

Pessoas paralizadas conseguem se comunicar através de eletrodos conectados a um computador. Fantastico!

People who are completely paralyzed due to illness or trauma are getting help communicating with a new technology that connects their brains to a computer. Scott Pelley reports.

DTI is a variant of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) that can measure the structural integrity of the brain's white matter, which is made up of cells that carry nerve impulses from one part of the brain to another. The greater the structural integrity, the faster nerve impulses travel. >Personal Note: I worked with DTI during my internship at the MRRC (Magnetic Resonance Research Center) at Yale University. Our signals looked more similar to the second image except that we didn't have a 3d model extracted from the raw signal (the second one shows a raw DTI signal with an overlay of its 3d model representation).

The smarter the person, the faster information zips around the brain, a UCLA study finds. And this ability to think quickly apparently is inherited. The study, published in the Journal of Neuroscience, looked at the brains and intelligence of 92 people. All the participants took standard IQ tests. Then the researchers studied their brains using a technique called diffusion tensor imaging, or DTI. Capturing Mental Speed DTI is a variant of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) that can measure the structural integrity of the brain's white matter, which is made up of cells that carry nerve impulses from one part of the brain to another. The greater the structural integrity, the faster nerve impulses travel. "These images really give you a picture of the mental speed of the brain," says Paul Thompson, Ph.D., a professor of neurology at UCLA School of Medicine. They're also "the most beautiful images of the brain you could imagine," Thompson says. "My daughter, who's 5, says they look like

Smart People Really Do Think Faster http://bit.ly/ey8Db So...that means all us twitter users are wicked smart [from http://twitter.com/AdamPieniazek/statuses/1375120864]

this is an awesome article.

Sailors are given 30 seconds to answer or they're kicked out of the program. If they say they want to keep going, they're given another 30 seconds to recover and then they're thrown back into the pool. It may sound sadistic, but the Navy is simply trying to identify who will survive the most dangerous missions and who won't. Through this grueling test, it finds soldiers and sailors who refuse to give up, who can suppress the need to breathe, who trust that they'll be rescued if something goes wrong and who are prepared to lose consciousness—or even die—following orders.

The underground world of “neuroenhancing” drugs.

The underground world of "neuroenhancing" drugs.

The underground world of "neuroenhancing" drugs Reporting & Essays: The New Yorker

The Boston Globe

an interesting article about baby's brain

Brain research can help us craft spaces that relax, inspire, awaken, comfort, and heal. By Emily Anthes.

interesting title

Is Google Rewiring Our Brains? http://is.gd/m748 [from http://twitter.com/msdaibert/statuses/1881375194]

Is Google Rewiring Our Brains, very interesting, http://bit.ly/lsRAr [from http://twitter.com/gregbond/statuses/1288562619]

Gord Hotchkiss: Are Our Brains Becoming “Googlized?” http://is.gd/m9nr / Is Google Rewiring Our Brains? http://is.gd/m748 searchengineland [from http://twitter.com/bibliothekarin/statuses/1289466114]

Jeff Hawkins

Jeff Hawkins kertoo aivotutkimuksen teorianmuodostuksesta sekä esittelee parhaan kuulemani älykkyyden määritelmän. Kiva kuullaa miestä, kun on aikoinaan lukenut tämän saman hänen kirjastaan.

Treo creator Jeff Hawkins urges us to take a new look at the brain -- to see it not as a fast processor, but as a memory system that stores and plays back experiences to help us predict, intelligently, what will happen next.

TED talk - currently no theory about how brain works because there is not framework for the theory - The framework is memory and prediction not behavior and computational ability.

"Tricks work only because magicians know, at an intuitive level, how we look at the world," says Macknik, lead author of the paper. "Even when we know we're going to be tricked, we still can't see it, which suggests that magicians are fooling the mind at a very deep level." By reverse-engineering these deceptions, Macknik hopes to illuminate the mental loopholes that make us see a woman get sawed in half or a rabbit appear out of thin air even when we know such stuff is impossible. "Magicians were taking advantage of these cognitive illusions long before any scientist identified them," Martinez-Conde says.

GReader: Magic and the Brain: Teller Reveals the Neuroscience of Illusion http://ow.ly/5xUu [from http://twitter.com/ChipRiley/statuses/1725035126]

Retweeting @copyblogger: Penn & Teller Reveal the Neuroscience of Illusion - http://is.gd/vRUV [from http://twitter.com/apoorvgadwal/statuses/1698147950]

""People take reality for granted," Teller says shortly before stepping onstage. "Reality seems so simple. We just open our eyes and there it is. But that doesn't mean it is simple." For Teller (that's his full legal name), magic is more than entertainment. He wants his tricks to reveal the everyday fraud of perception so that people become aware of the tension between what is and what seems to be. Our brains don't see everything—the world is too big, too full of stimuli."

"A group of Spanish researchers reported today in Science that they may have stumbled upon a substance that could become the ultimate memory-enhancer. The group was studying a poorly-understood region of the visual cortex. They found that if they boosted production of a protein called RGS-14 (pictured) in that area of the visual cortex in mice, it dramatically affected the animals' ability to remember objects they had seen. Mice with the RGS-14 boost could remember objects they had seen for up to two months. Ordinarily the same mice would only be able to remember these objects for about an hour. The researchers concluded that this region of the visual cortex, known as layer six of region V2, is responsible for creating visual memories. When the region is removed, mice can no longer remember any object they see."

Imagine if you could look at something once and remember it forever. You would never have to ask for directions again. Now a group of scientists has isolated a protein that mega-boosts your ability to remember what you see.

nifty!

I'm not staring into space, I'm trying to live a balanced life

Everyone who knows me needs to read this article

science technology

Memristors... The 6th missing basic electronic factor..

Bio computers

"Systems on the edge of chaos are said to be in a state of "self-organised criticality". These systems are right on the boundary between stable, orderly behaviour - such as a swinging pendulum - and the unpredictable world of chaos, as exemplified by turbulence... Brain scans used to map the connections between regions of the human brain discovered that they form a "small-world network" - exactly the right architecture to support self-organised criticality. Small-world networks lie somewhere between regular networks, where each node is connected to its nearest neighbours, and random networks, which have no regular structure but many long-distance connections between nodes at opposite sides of the network. Small-world networks take the most useful aspects of both systems. In places, the nodes have many connections with their neighbours, but the network also contains random and often long links between nodes that are very far away from one another. It's the perfect compromise."

Do ideas sometimes pop into your head from, it seems, nowhere? Yes, and it’s because your brain actually operates on the edge of chaos. In fact, your brain is like a pile of sand, but don't worry: that's why it has such remarkable powers

via http://habrahabr.ru/blogs/popular_science/65236/

BBC NEWS | Technology | Artificial brain '10 years away' http://nm14b.tk [from http://twitter.com/stevepuma/statuses/2802534611]

a newly invented technology for an artificial brain will be available in the market 10 years away.

Blue Brain project says within 10 years we can have a fully functional replica of the human brain.

Content Type: text/html

hyperthymestic syndrome,

This piece blew my mind.

Researchers had never found a subject with a perfect memory — then along came Jill Price.

a mulher que não esquece nada

The woman remembers dates to the day. Amazing. But know few quizzers who can do the same.

How the brain hard-wires us to love Google, Twitter, and texting. And why that's dangerous.

brain research and new social media

by Emily Yoffe. Summary of research by Jaak Panskeep and Kent Berridge into our desire for additional information. Speculates this desire is akin to addiction systems. "How the brain hard-wires us to love Google, Twitter, and texting. And why that's dangerous."

"The dopamine system does not have satiety built into it," Berridge explains. "And under certain conditions it can lead us to irrational wants, excessive wants we'd be better off without." So we find ourselves letting one Google search lead to another, while often feeling the information is not vital and knowing we should stop. "As long as you sit there, the consumption renews the appetite," he explains. Actually all our electronic communication devices—e-mail, Facebook feeds, texts, Twitter—are feeding the same drive as our searches. Since we're restless, easily bored creatures, our gadgets give us in abundance qualities the seeking/wanting system finds particularly exciting. Novelty is one. Panksepp says the dopamine system is activated by finding something unexpected or by the anticipation of something new. If the rewards come unpredictably—as e-mail, texts, updates do—we get even more carried away. No wonder we call it a "CrackBerry."

Well worth the read http://bit.ly/J9ctr [from http://twitter.com/JacksonATL/statuses/3385969448]

If humans are seeking machines, we've now created the perfect machines to allow us to seek endlessly. This perhaps should make us cautious.

Seeking. You can't stop doing it. Sometimes it feels as if the basic drives for food, sex, and sleep have been overridden by a new need for endless nuggets of electronic information. We are so insatiably curious that we gather data even if it gets us in tr

Another pellet, please

Ever find yourself sitting down at the computer just for a second to find out what other movie you saw that actress in, only to look up and realize the search has led to an hour of Googling? Thank dopamine. Our internal sense of time is believed to be controlled by the dopamine system.

p. 2 is the fun bit.

How the internet impacts our thinking

Is it you pachamama?

I'm not actually sure what this is -- links to a bunch of related NPR stories, I guess. But it looks interesting.

More than half of adult Americans report they have had a spiritual experience that changed their lives. Now, scientists from universities like Harvard, Pennsylvania and Johns Hopkins are using new technologies to analyze the brains of people who claim they have touched the spiritual — from Christians who speak in tongues to Buddhist monks to people who claim to have had near-death experiences. Hear what they have discovered in this controversial field, as the science of spirituality continues to evolve.

More than half of adult Americans report they have had a spiritual experience that changed their lives. Now, scientists from universities like Harvard, Pennsylvania and Johns Hopkins are using new technologies to analyze the brains of people who claim they have touched the spiritual — from Christians who speak in tongues to Buddhist monks to people who claim to have had near-death experiences. Hear what they have discovered in this controversial field, as the science of spirituality continues to evolve.

Lehrer is interested in the historic dichotomy between "emotional" decision-making and "rational" decision-making and what modern neuroscience can tell us about these two modes of thinking. One surprising and compelling conclusion is that people who experience damage to the parts of their brain responsible for emotional reactions are unable to decide, because their rational mind dithers endlessly over the possible rational reasons for each course of action. The Platonic ideal of a rational being making decisions without recourse to the wordless gut-instinct is revealed as a helpless schmuck who can't answer questions as basic as "White or brown toast?"

Neuroscience

Offensive Play How different are dogfighting and football? by Malcolm Gladwell

The effect of football on the human brain is stomach-turning.

“I remember, every season, multiple occasions where I’d hit someone so hard that my eyes went cross-eyed, and they wouldn’t come uncrossed for a full series of plays. You are just out there, trying to hit the guy in the middle, because there are three of them. You don’t remember much. There are the cases where you hit a guy and you’d get into a collision where everything goes off. You’re dazed. And there are the others where you are involved in a big, long drive. You start on your own five-yard line, and drive all the way down the field—fifteen, eighteen plays in a row sometimes. Every play: collision, collision, collision. By the time you get to the other end of the field, you’re seeing spots. You feel like you are going to black out. Literally, these white explosions—boom, boom, boom—lights getting dimmer and brighter, dimmer and brighter.

Emergent, formerly PDP++

comprehensive simulation environment for creating complex, sophisticated models of the brain and cognitive processes using neural network models. These same networks can also be used for all kinds of other more pragmatic tasks, like predicting the stock market or analyzing data.

emergentTM (a major rewrite of PDP ) is a comprehensive simulation environment for creating complex, sophisticated models of the brain and cognitive processes using neural network models. These same networks can also be used for all kinds of other more pragmatic tasks, like predicting the stock market or analyzing data.

a comprehensive simulation environment for creating complex, sophisticated models of the brain and cognitive processes using neural network models

now in 3d

Neural network simulator

Amazing.

In the past year, researchers have developed technology that makes it possible to use thoughts to operate a computer, maneuver a wheelchair or even use Twitter — all without lifting a finger. But as neural devices become more complicated — and go wireless — some scientists say the risks of “brain hacking” should be taken seriously.

scientists say the risks of “brain hacking” should be taken seriously.

you know...we really should call it 'Ghost-hacking'...

RT @wiredscience: The next target for hackers could be your brain. http://is.gd/1svMA [from http://twitter.com/reinikainen/statuses/2557678128]

Computer security for prosthetics http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/07/neurosecurity/ [from http://twitter.com/JacksonATL/statuses/2621731930]

A Harvard Psychiatrist Explains Zombie Neurobiology

Yawn It’s one of the best things you can do for your brain.

It’s one of the best things you can do for your brain.

"My advice is simple. Yawn as many times a day as possible: when you wake up, when you’re confronting a difficult problem at work, when you prepare to go to sleep, and whenever you feel anger, anxiety, or stress. Yawn before giving an important talk, yawn before you take a test, and yawn while you meditate or pray because it will intensify your spiritual experience."

News from UC Berkeley

In a study recently accepted for publication by the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, scientists at UC Berkeley's Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute and the School of Public Health report that normal 9- and 10-year-olds differing only in socioeconomic status have detectable differences in the response of their prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain that is critical for problem solving and creativity.

EEGs show brain differences between poor and rich kids

By Robert Sanders, Media Relations | 02 December 2008

How to concentrate and get rid of distractions

Screw ups, disasters, misfires, flops. Why losing big can be a winning strategy.

"There are advantages to thinking on the margin. When we look at a problem from the outside, we’re more likely to notice what doesn’t work. Instead of suppressing the unexpected, shunting it aside with our 'Oh shit!' circuit and Delete key, we can take the mistake seriously. A new theory emerges from the ashes of our surprise."

"This is why other people are so helpful: They shock us out of our cognitive box."

Over the past few decades, psychologists have dismantled the myth of objectivity. The fact is, we carefully edit our reality, searching for evidence that confirms what we already believe. Although we pretend we’re empiricists — our views dictated by nothing but the facts — we’re actually blinkered, especially when it comes to information that contradicts our theories. The problem with science, then, isn’t that most experiments fail — it’s that most failures are ignored.

Article about the messiness of science, its failures and how an “in vivo” investigation that attempted to learn from the messiness of real experiments -

Research behind design

Provides examples that include 'Kingsdale School in London [which] was redesigned, with the help of psychologists, to promote social cohesion; the new structure also includes elements that foster alertness and creativity.'

How Room Designs Affect Your Work and Mood

ists are giving their hunches an empirical basis

Recently, researchers have found even more positive news. The brain, as it traverses middle age, gets better at recognizing the central idea, the big picture. If kept in good shape, the brain can continue to build pathways that help its owner recognize patterns and, as a consequence, see significance and even solutions much faster than a young person can. The trick is finding ways to keep brain connections in good condition and to grow more of them. “The brain is plastic and continues to change, not in getting bigger but allowing for greater complexity and deeper understanding,” says Kathleen Taylor, a professor at St. Mary’s College of California, who has studied ways to teach adults effectively. “As adults we may not always learn quite as fast, but we are set up for this next developmental step.” [via xeks]

“As adults we have these well-trodden paths in our synapses,” Dr. Taylor says. “We have to crack the cognitive egg and scramble it up. And if you learn something this way, when you think of it again you’ll have an overlay of complexity you didn’t have before — and help your brain keep developing as well.”

Annotated link http://www.diigo.com/bookmark/http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2010%2F01%2F03%2Feducation%2Fedlife%2F03adult-t.html%3Fem

Jack Mezirow, a professor emeritus at Columbia Teachers College, has proposed that adults learn best if presented with what he calls a “disorienting dilemma,” or something that “helps you critically reflect on the assumptions you’ve acquired.”

Memory tips

"Science is a deeply frustrating pursuit." ... "This is why other people are so helpful: They shock us out of our cognitive box."

Recomm. by Francois R.

"...thinking fast made participants feel more elated, creative and, to a lesser degree, energetic and powerful."

thinking and happiness. Annotated link http://www.diigo.com/bookmark/http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sciam.com%2Farticle.cfm%3Fid%3Drapid-thinking-makes-people-happy

Rapid Thinking Makes People Happy

...mirror neurons fire when you merely watch another person perform a similar act. It's as if the neuron (more strictly the network of which the neuron is part) was using the visual input to do a sort of "virtual reality simulation" of the other person's actions—allowing you to empathize with her and view the world from her point of view.

Brain stuff from VS Ramachandran

Ramachandran - recent piece (Jan. 09) on what various bizarre neurological disorders might imply about the self.

Is this what Antony is saying when he writes about Epilepsy? "Now imagine these same circuits become hyperactive as sometimes happens when you have seizures originating in the temporal lobes (TLE or temporal lobe epilepsy). The result would be an intense heightening of the patient's sensory appreciation of the world and intense empathy for all beings to the extent of seeing no barriers between himself and the cosmos—the basis of religious and mystical experiences. (You lose all selfishness and become one with God.) Indeed many of history's great religious leaders have had TLE. My colleague, the late Francis Crick, has suggested that TLE patients as well as priests may have certain abnormal transmitters in their brains that he calls "theotoxins"."

The underground world of neuroenhancing drugs. Such is the zeitgeist.

Brain Gain ?

using mind enhancing drugs to improve performance

The underground world of “neuroenhancing” drugs.

Review of "Rapt" by Winifred Gallagher -- focuses on the culture of distraction

For the focused life, forget multitasking and try meditating.

The book’s theme, which Ms. Gallagher chose after she learned she had an especially nasty form of cancer, is borrowed from the psychologist William James: “My experience is what I agree to attend to.”

A detailed simulation of a small region of a brain built molecule by molecule has been constructed and has recreated experimental results from real brains. "It starts to learn things and starts to remember things. We can actually see when it retrieves a memory, and where they retrieved it from because we can trace back every activity of every molecule, every cell, every connection and see how the memory was formed."

A detailed simulation of a small region of a brain built molecule by molecule has been constructed and has recreated experimental results from real brains.

It's a matter of if society wants this. If they want it in 10 years, they'll have it in 10 years.

advances

Sleep may be a way to sweep out the brain and get it ready for a new day of building connections between neurons, according to two new studies of fruit flies. The studies support the controversial theory that sleep weakens or entirely dissolves some synapses, the connections between brain cells. “We assume that if this is happening, it is a major function, if not the most important function, of sleep” [Science News], says Chiara Cirelli, a coauthor of the first study, published in Science.

future of health

Learn about the frontiers of human health from seven of Stanford's most innovative faculty members. Inspired by a format used at the TED Conference (http://www.ted.com), each speaker delivers a highly engaging talk in just 10-20 minutes about his or her research. Learn about Stanford's newest and most exciting discoveries in neuroscience, bioengineering, brain imaging, psychology, and more.

7 youtube videos from Stanford University

amazing advances in brain studies

Critical of Paul MacLean

“So-called lower animals, such as fish, reptiles and birds, display a startling array of cognitive capabilities. Goldfish, for instance, have shown they can negotiate watery mazes similar to the way rats do in intelligence tests in the lab…”

# Despite cartoons you may have seen showing a straight line of fish emerging on land to become primates and then humans, evolution is not so linear. The brains of other animals are not merely previous stages that led directly to human intelligence. # Instead—as is the case with many traits—complex brains and sophisticated cognition have arisen multiple times in independent lineages of animals during the earth’s evolutionary history. # With this new understanding comes a new appreciation for intelligence in its many forms. So-called lower animals, such as fish, reptiles and birds, display a startling array of cognitive capabilities. Goldfish, for instance, have shown they can negotiate watery mazes similar to the way rats do in intelligence tests in the lab.

Brain-Twitter

Adam Wilson posted on twitter "SPELLING WITH MY BRAIN." No keyboards, just a red cap fitted with electrodes that monitor brain activity, hooked up to a computer flashing letters on a screen. Wilson sent the messages by concentrating on the letters he wanted to "type," then focusing on the word "twit" at the bottom of the screen to post the message.

(CNN)

Adam Wilson posted two messages on Twitter on April 15. The first one, "GO BADGERS," might have been sent by any University of Wisconsin-Madison student cheering for the school team.

i

RT @andrea_r @sherina: WOW. http://xrl.in/22to <= Twitter direct from the brain, right here in my hometown! (Telepathy, here we come!) [from http://twitter.com/CircleReader/statuses/1594935657]

Brain-Twitter project offers hope to paralyzed patients: http://bit.ly/pDt8i (via my Dad) [from http://twitter.com/sherrymain/statuses/1604887892]

RT @sherina: WOW. http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/04/22/twitter.locked.in/index.html { AMAZING } [from http://twitter.com/andrea_r/statuses/1594843677]

:| (Also, wait, poverty-influenced stress can affect... your genes? Erm, what?)

"To test their hypothesis, Evans and Schamberg analyzed the results of their earlier, long-term study of stress in 195 poor and middle-class Caucasian students, half male and half female. In that study, which found a direct link between poverty and stress, students' blood pressure and stress hormones were measured at 9 and 13 years old. At 17, their memory was tested. Given a sequence of items to remember‚ teenagers who grew up in poverty remembered an average of 8.5 items. Those who were well-off during childhood remembered an average of 9.44 items. So-called working memory is considered a reliable indicator of reading, language and problem-solving ability — capacities critical for adult success. When Evans and Schamberg controlled for birth weight, maternal education, parental marital status and parenting styles, the effect remained. When they mathematically adjusted for youthful stress levels, the difference disappeared."

Does being poor make you physically less intelligent?

Growing up poor isn't merely hard on kids. It might also be bad for their brains. A long-term study of cognitive development in lower- and middle-class students found strong links between childhood poverty, physiological stress and adult memory.

Looking at a sexy photo of my wife "activated part of your 'new brain' that represents the sensation of touch in your genital area,"

For me, translating love into biology is actually kind of reassuring. Yes, it takes away some of the mystery — but also the fear. Think of it like a drug: If you're high and feel like you're sliding off the face of the earth, you can tell yourself, Hey, I'm having a horrible chemical reaction, but I'll get over it. I will stabilize.

'Brain decline' begins at age 27 Concentration Mental abilities decline at a relatively young age, experts suspect Mental powers start to dwindle at 27 after peaking at 22, marking the start of old age, US research suggests. Professor Timothy Salthouse of the University of Virginia found reasoning, spatial visualisation and speed of thought all decline in our late 20s.

Mental powers start to dwindle at 27 after peaking at 22, marking the start of old age, US research suggests.

Thought that your mental prime years were in your thirties? Think again: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7945569.stm [from http://twitter.com/mpondu/statuses/1340264706]

An overview of a study on the shape of our learning. I suppose it is no mistake that tertiary education systems follow the curve. "A seven-year study (published in the journal Neurobiology of Aging) reveals the average age at which the top performance was achieved as 22 in nine out of the 12 tests given. The first age at which there was any marked decline was at 27 in tests of brain speed, reasoning and visual puzzle-solving ability. Things like memory stayed intact until the age of 37, on average, while abilities based on accumulated knowledge, such as performance on tests of vocabulary or general information, increased until the age of 60."

Six more years to go before I get the dumb.

Whether or not God exists, thinking about Him or Her doesn't require divinely dedicated neurological wiring. Instead, religious thoughts run on brain systems used to figure out what other people are thinking and feeling. The findings, based on brain scans of people contemplating God, don't explain whether a propensity for religion is a neurobiological accident. But at least they give researchers a solid framework for exploring the question. "In a way, this is a very cold look at religious belief," said National Institutes of Health cognitive scientist Jordan Grafman, co-author of a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "We're only trying to understand where in the brain religious beliefs seem to be modulated."

Whether or not God exists, thinking about Him or Her doesn't require divinely dedicated neurological wiring.

"In a way, this is a very cold look at religious belief," said National Institutes of Health cognitive scientist Jordan Grafman, co-author of a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "We're only trying to understand where in the brain religious beliefs seem to be modulated."

Whether or not God exists, thinking about Him or Her doesn't require divinely dedicated neurological wiring. Instead, religious thoughts run on brain systems used to figure out what other people are thinking and feeling. The findings, based on brain scans of people contemplating God, don't explain whether a propensity for religion is a neurobiological accident. But at least they give researchers a solid framework for exploring the question.

In research published recently in Neuron, Marcos Frank, PhD, Assistant Professor of Neuroscience, at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, postdoctoral researcher Sara Aton, PhD, and colleagues describe for the first time how cellular changes in the sleeping brain promote the formation of memories.

The key cellular player is the molecule N-methyl D-aspartate receptor (NMDAR), which acts like a combination listening post & gate-keeper. It both receives extracellular signals in the form of glutamate & regulates the flow of calcium ions into cells. Once the brain is triggered to reorganize its neural networks in wakefulness (by visual deprivation, eg), intra- & intercellular communication pathways engage, setting a series of enzymes into action w/in the reorganizing neurons during sleep. To start the process, NMDAR is primed to open its ion channel after the neuron has been excited. The ion channel then opens when glutamate binds to the receptor, allowing calcium into the cell. In turn, calcium, an intracellular signaling molecule, turns other downstream enzymes on and off. Some neural connections are strengthened as a result of this process, & the result is a reorganized visual cortex. &, this only happens during sleep.

If you ever argued with your mother when she told you to get some sleep after studying for an exam instead of pulling an all-nighter, you owe her an apology, because it turns out she's right. And now, scientists are beginning to understand why.

In research published recently in Neuron, Marcos Frank, PhD, Assistant Professor of Neuroscience, at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, postdoctoral researcher Sara Aton, PhD, and colleagues describe for the first time how cellular changes in the sleeping brain promote the formation of memories. ... "We find that the biochemical changes are simply not happening in the neurons of animals that are awake," Frank says. "And when the animal goes to sleep it's like you’ve thrown a switch, and all of a sudden, everything is turned on that's necessary for making synaptic changes that form the basis of memory formation. It's very striking." The team used an experimental model of cortical plasticity – the rearrangement of neural connections in response to life experiences. "That's fundamentally what we think the machinery of memory is, the actual making and breaking of connections between neurons,” Frank explains

What a long, strange trip it's been!

Nicholas Carr: The Web Shatters Focus, Rewires Brains

The book excerpt: the Shallows

ation of an imag

RT @HoagiesGifted: 'Thirst for knowledge' may be opium craving http://bit.ly/YHoJP [from http://twitter.com/bfwriter/statuses/14961074185]

motion induced blindness, optical illusion, rotating array, yellow dots, green dot

.

Does anyone know if Gilbert Van Tassel Hamilton's studies were published into a coffee table book? If they were, then my gift shopping for the year just got a whole lot easier.

There must be something in the water here in Lanesboro, Minnesota, because last night I dreamt of an encounter with a very muscular African-American centaur, an orgiastic experience with – gasp – drunken members of the opposite sex and (as if

Good read > The Creativity Crisis http://bit.ly/an2WvJ /RT @invisiblepilot

Back in 1958, Ted Schwarzrock was an 8-year-old third grader when he became one of the “Torrance kids,” a group of nearly 400 Minneapolis children who completed a series of creativity tasks newly designed by professor E. Paul Torrance. Schwarzrock still vividly remembers the moment when a psychologist handed him a fire truck and asked, “How could you improve this toy to make it better and more fun to play with?”

Important article detailing research that indicates that tests of creative performance by children, after rising steadily from the 1950s to 1990, have been dropping sharply since that point. Story attempts to discuss some of the reasons why, how educators (here and abroad) are attempting to inculcate innovative thinking and action in schoolchildren and what sorts of familial and societal conditions spark creativity.

Setting your mind on a goal may be counterproductive. Instead think of the future as an open question.

Willingness is a core concept of addiction recovery programs—and a paradoxical one. Twelve-step programs emphasize that addicts cannot will themselves into healthy sobriety—indeed, that ego and self-reliance are often a root cause of their problem. Yet recovering addicts must be willing. That is, they must be open to the possibility that the group and its principles are powerful enough to trump a compulsive disease.

I'm not totally sure that I understand the conclusions the the scientist came to about goal setting, but I'm interested in figuring out what it means and how to apply it to more effective goal setting...

"Setting your mind on a goal may be counterproductive. Instead think of the future as an open question."

Setting your mind on a goal may be counterproductive. Instead think of the future as an open question

People with wondering minds completed significantly more anagrams than did those with willful minds. In other words, the people who kept their minds open were more goal-directed and more motivated than those who declared their objective to themselves.

will i

Tan Le: A headset that reads your brainwaves

Tan Le's astonishing new computer interface reads its user's brainwaves, making it possible to control virtual objects, and even physical electronics, with mere thoughts (and a little concentration). She demos the headset, and talks about its far-reaching applications.

The early stages of neural HCI.