Learn more quickly by transcranial magnetic brain stimulation Public release date: 28-Jan-2011 [ Print | E-mail Share ] [ Close Window ] Contact: Dr. Klaus Funkefunke@neurop.rub.de 49-023-432-23944Ruhr-University Bochum This release is available in German. What sounds like science fiction is actually possible: thanks to magnetic stimulation, the activity of certain brain nerve cells can be deliberately influenced. Magnetic pulses stimulate the brain Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is a relatively new method of pain-free stimulation of cerebral nerve cells. Repeated stimuli change cerebral activity Since the mid-1990's, repetitive TMS has been used to make purposeful changes to the activability of nerve cells in the human cortex: "In general, the activity of the cells drops as a result of a low-frequency stimulation, i.e. with one magnetic pulse per second. Contact points between cells are strengthened or weakened It is unknown to a great extent how precisely the activity of nerve cells is changed by repeated stimulation. Literature Prof.
Crop Rotation Memory in the Brain [Interactive] Although most people think of memory as a vault for storing information, it is more like a seamstress who stitches together logical threads into scenes that make sense. In this view, a good memory is therefore not one that holds lots of data but that can deftly separate what is useful from what could distract or upset you. Getting rid of what is not necessary—forgetting—is thus an important part of memory and of thought. It is also critical to emotional wellbeing. To learn more about memory and the power of forgetting, see the January 2012 Scientific American Mind. More to Explore8 Ways To Forget Your TroublesLet It GoA Feeling for the PastTrying to ForgetTotaling Recall10 Novels That Will Sharpen Your Mind [Interactive]
Mobile phone use increases brain activity, study suggests | Science Radio waves from mobile phones appear to boost activity in parts of the brain that are closest to the devices' antennas, according to US government scientists. Researchers found that a 50-minute call led to a localised increase in brain activity of 7%, but they said there was no evidence to suggest the rise was harmful. To rule out the variation in brain activity that would be expected when someone listens to a call normally, changes in activity were monitored while the phone was taking a call but was muted. The team, led by Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse in Maryland, found that brain activity rose in line with the strength of the electromagnetic field to which the particular brain region was exposed. Mobile phones use radio waves to send and receive calls and these produce small electromagnetic fields that can be absorbed by the head and brain. In the new study, 47 volunteers were given two brain scans, each on different days.
Writing Life – Self-publish eBooks with Kobo Kobo Writing Life is where it all begins Do you have a story to tell? Are you an author with a bestseller just waiting to be discovered? Want to reach out to millions of readers in over 190 countries? How does it work? Publish! The Kobo Ebookstore and you Once you hit publish, your eBook will be available to Kobo customers around the globe (or in the regions you've selected). Dashboard dynamics Kobo Writing Life makes monitoring your sales quick and easy. Track by region Track by eBook Beautiful visuals keep it all front and centre. Frequently Asked Questions Does Kobo Writing Life cost anything to join?
Attacked by Donald Trump — a PEOPLE Writer's Story Manage Push Notifications If you have opted in for our browser push notifications, and you would like to opt-out, please refer to the following instructions depending on your device and browser. For turning notifications on or off on Google Chrome and Android click here, for Firefox click here, for Safari click here and for Microsoft's Edge click here. Manage Push Notifications If you have opted in for our browser push notifications, and you would like to opt-out, please refer to the following instructions depending on your device and browser. For turning notifications on or off on Google Chrome and Android click here, for Firefox click here, for Safari click here and for Microsoft's Edge click here.
The lost art of total recall | Science | The Observer A few middle-aged couples are chatting at a dinner party when one husband, Harry, starts talking enthusiastically about a new restaurant he has just visited with his wife. What's its name, demands a friend. Harry looks blank. There is an awkward pause. "What are those good-smelling flowers with thorns called again?" he eventually asks. It's a vintage joke but it makes a telling point, one that forms the core of a newly published book on memory, Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything, by American journalist Joshua Foer. As Foer points out, we no longer need to remember telephone numbers. As a result, we no longer remember long poems or folk stories by heart, feats of memory that were once the cornerstones of most people's lives. Hence Foer's book, which is published by Penguin this month. Using methods like this, it becomes possible to achieve great feats of memory quite easily, Foer says. In this way, all sorts of feats become possible.
Why Runners Need to Strength Train For most runners, the time spent on the road is very rarely in pursuit of big guns and a killer six-pack to match. But that doesn’t mean strength training shouldn’t complement all of those miles for other beneficial reasons. Experts say incorporating just 20 minutes of strength training a few times a week can help runners prevent injuries, aid recovery and reach their full athletic potential. So why don’t all runners strength train? “It’s a combination of feeling like you don’t have enough time and simply not valuing the non-running activities as much as you do the running activities,” says Jay Johnson, a former Division I track coach, expert on strength training for runners and founder of RunningDVDs.com. “With that in mind, I think runners of all abilities need to be doing some sort of general strength and mobility training every day.” The first step toward integrating strength training into a runner’s workout is to understand why it shouldn’t be viewed as something “extra.” 1. 2. 3.
Do we live in a computer simulation? | Mo Costandi In today’s New York Times, John Tierney discusses an argument by Nick Bostrom, director of the Future of Humanity Institute at the University of Oxford, that our existence could be nothing more than a computer simulation being run by posthumanists. Dr. Bostrom assumes that technological advances could produce a computer with more processing power than all the brains in the world, and that advanced humans, or “posthumans,” could run “ancestor simulations” of their evolutionary history by creating virtual worlds inhabited by virtual people with fully developed virtual nervous systems. Some computer experts have projected, based on trends in processing power, that we will have such a computer by the middle of this century, but it doesn’t matter for Dr. The article includes links to four others related to Bostrom’s argument, and there’s a lengthy discussion going on at the TierneyLab blog. Like this: Like Loading...
Berkeley on Biphasic Sleep If you see a student dozing in the library or a co-worker catching 40 winks in her cubicle, don’t roll your eyes. New research from the University of California, Berkeley, shows that an hour’s nap can dramatically boost and restore your brain power. Indeed, the findings suggest that a biphasic sleep schedule not only refreshes the mind, but can make you smarter. Students who napped (green column) did markedly better in memorizing tests than their no-nap counterparts. (Courtesy of Matthew Walker) Conversely, the more hours we spend awake, the more sluggish our minds become, according to the findings. “Sleep not only rights the wrong of prolonged wakefulness but, at a neurocognitive level, it moves you beyond where you were before you took a nap,” said Matthew Walker, an assistant professor of psychology at UC Berkeley and the lead investigator of these studies. In the recent UC Berkeley sleep study, 39 healthy young adults were divided into two groups — nap and no-nap.
Free ePub Converter - PDF To ePub - Convert Books to ePub Format How Spatial Navigation Correlates with Language Cognitive neuroscientists from the Higher School of Economics and Aarhus University experimentally demonstrate how spatial navigation impacts language comprehension. The results of the study have been published in NeuroImage. Language is a complicated cognitive function, which is performed not only by local brain modules, but by a distributed network of cortical generators. Nikola Vukovic and Yury Shtyrov carried out an experiment at the HSE Centre for Cognition & Decision Making, which explains the relations between the systems responsible for spatial navigation and language. “When we read or hear stories about characters, we have to represent the inherently different perspectives people have on objects and events, and ‘put ourselves in their shoes’. Previous studies have shown that humans have certain spatial preferences that are based either on one’s body (egocentric) or are independent from it (allocentric). The participants of the experiment solved two types of tasks.
Neuroscience, free will and determinism: 'I'm just a machine' What does this mean in terms of free will? "We don't have free will, in the spiritual sense. What you're seeing is the last output stage of a machine. The conclusions are shocking: if we are part of the universe, and obey its laws, it's hard to see where free will comes into it. "If you see a light go green, it may mean press the accelerator; but there are lots of situations where it doesn't mean that: if the car in front hasn't moved, for example. Slowly, however, we are learning more about the details of that complexity. "What happens if someone commits a crime, and it turns out that there's a lesion in that brain area? This runs shockingly contrary to the sense of freedom that we feel in terms of controlling our actions, on which we base our whole sense of self and system of morality. "It's a rule that we need to have as social animals. Maybe, I suggest, we've over-defined free will. "Yes, interacting intelligently with your environment might be enough. Prof Haggard is dismissive.