Why Time Slows Down When We’re Afraid, Speeds Up as We Age, and Gets Warped on Vacation by Maria Popova “Time perception matters because it is the experience of time that roots us in our mental reality.” Given my soft spot for famous diaries, it should come as no surprise that I keep one myself. Perhaps the greatest gift of the practice has been the daily habit of reading what I had written on that day a year earlier; not only is it a remarkable tool of introspection and self-awareness, but it also illustrates that our memory “is never a precise duplicate of the original [but] a continuing act of creation” and how flawed our perception of time is — almost everything that occurred a year ago appears as having taken place either significantly further in the past (“a different lifetime,” I’d often marvel at this time-illusion) or significantly more recently (“this feels like just last month!”). Discus chronologicus, a depiction of time by German engraver Christoph Weigel, published in the early 1720s; from Cartographies of Time. So what makes us date events more accurately?
Drugs That May Cause Memory Loss Side Effect How they can cause memory loss: Benzodiazepines dampen activity in key parts of the brain, including those involved in the transfer of events from short-term to long-term memory. Indeed, benzodiazepines are used in anesthesia for this very reason. When they're added to the anesthesiologist's cocktail of meds, patients rarely remember any unpleasantness from a procedure. Midazolam (Versed) has particularly marked amnesic properties. Alternatives: Benzodiazepines should be prescribed only rarely in older adults, in my judgment, and then only for short periods of time. If you take one of these meds for insomnia, mild anxiety or agitation, talk with your doctor or other health care professional about treating your condition with other types of drugs or nondrug treatments. Be sure to consult your health care professional before stopping or reducing the dosage of any benzodiazepine.
The Psychological Mistakes People Make That Lead to Misery Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons/New York World-Telegram and the Sun Newspaper staff photographer February 18, 2014 | Like this article? Join our email list: Stay up to date with the latest headlines via email. The following is an excerpt from Jonathan Rottenberg's new book, The Depths: The Evolutionary Origins of the Depression Epidemic (Basic Books, a member of the Perseus Books Group, 2014). The puzzling reality is that human depression is increasing in an era when environmental conditions are relatively benign. There is no scientific consensus about why human depression rates are rising in the industrialized world, but several compelling possibilities exist. Humans have a host of unique thoughts and reactions to low mood, many of which are highly cognitive. Sinking Through Thinking A hallmark human response to low mood is to try to explain it—as we do with moods generally. However, exactly what “analyze more carefully” means depends on which species is doing the analyzing.
Smithsonian X 3D Why some memories last and others fade We are more likely to form lasting memories when there is coordinated activity between two specific brain regions, MRI scans show. “When memories are supported by greater coordination between different parts of the brain, it’s a sign that they are going to last longer,” says Lila Davachi, an associate professor in the Department of Psychology and Center for Neural Science at New York University. It is commonly understood that the key to memory consolidation—the cementing of an experience or information in our brain—is signaling from the brain’s hippocampus across different cortical areas. Moreover, it has been hypothesized, but never proven, that the greater the distribution of signaling, the stronger the memory takes hold in our brain. To determine if there was scientific support for this theory, Davachi and a colleague examined how memories are formed at their earliest stages through a series of experiments over a three-day period. Source: NYU
The Hidden Brain: How Ocean Currents Explain Our Unconscious Social Biases by Maria Popova “Those who travel with the current will always feel they are good swimmers; those who swim against the current may never realize they are better swimmers than they imagine.” Biases often work in surreptitious ways — they sneak in through the backdoor of our conscience, our good-personhood, and our highest rational convictions, and lodge themselves between us and the world, between our imperfect humanity and our aspirational selves, between who we believe we are and how we behave. In the introduction, Vedantam contextualizes why this phenomenon isn’t new but bears greater urgency than ever: Unconscious biases have always dogged us, but multiple factors made them especially dangerous today. Globalization and technology, and the intersecting faultlines of religious extremism, economic upheaval, demographic change, and mass migration have amplified the effects of hidden biases. Illustration from the 1970 book 'I’m Glad I’m a Boy! Vedantam writes: Donating = Loving Share on Tumblr
Map of the Brain’s Connections We knew anatomy could be gorgeous, but this is beyond anything else we’ve ever seen, and it’s guaranteed to be something you haven’t seen, being the first 3D image of a brain’s connections. Van Wedeen, a Harvard radiology professor, is awestruck: “We’ve never really seen the brain – it’s been hiding in plain sight.” Conventional scanning has offered us a crude glimpse, but scientists such as Wedeen aim to produce the first ever three-dimensional map of all its neurons. They call this circuit diagram the “connectome”, and it could help us better understand everything from imagination and language to the miswirings that cause mental illness. Photographed above is the 3D image of an owl-monkey’s brain. Link [via]
Possibility of selectively erasing unwanted memories The human brain is exquisitely adept at linking seemingly random details into a cohesive memory that can trigger myriad associations -- some good, some not so good. For recovering addicts and individuals suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), unwanted memories can be devastating. Former meth addicts, for instance, report intense drug cravings triggered by associations with cigarettes, money, even gum (used to relieve dry mouth), pushing them back into the addiction they so desperately want to leave. Now, for the first time, scientists from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have been able to erase dangerous drug-associated memories in mice and rats without affecting other more benign memories. The surprising discovery, published this week online ahead of print by the journal Biological Psychiatry, points to a clear and workable method to disrupt unwanted memories while leaving the rest intact. Changing the Structure of Memory
Freud’s Life and Legacy, in a Comic by Maria Popova “You have to listen carefully. The unconscious mind is crafty.” While Freud may have engineered his own myth and many of his theories may have been disputed in the decades since his heyday, he remains one of the most influential figures in the history of psychiatry and psychology. And yet for many, Freud is more metaphor than man and his name summons only a vague idea of his work — “something to do with penises,” our marginally informed collective conscience might whisper — rather than a true understanding of just how profoundly he influenced contemporary culture, from our mechanisms of consumerism to our notions about the self. From how his own childhood informed his ideas to his most famous cases, the captivating story weaves its way through Freud’s life to shed light on both the man and his metaphors for the mind. Freud is absolutely fantastic from cover to cover. Images courtesy of Nobrow Donating = Loving Brain Pickings has a free weekly newsletter. Share on Tumblr
The Science Behind Intuition Almost every Radical Remission cancer survivor I’ve studied used their intuition to help make decisions related to their healing process. Research on intuition and following your ‘gut’ instinct may explain why. Scientists have discovered that humans appear to have two, very different “operating systems.” System 1 is our quick, instinctual, and often subconscious way of operating – it is controlled by our right brain and by other parts of our brain that have been around since prehistoric times, known as the “limbic” and reptilian” parts of our brain. System 2 is our slower, more analytical, and conscious way of operating – it is controlled by our left brain and by newer parts of our brain that have only developed since prehistoric times (also known as the “neocortex”). But why, exactly, should we trust our gut instinct? Note: This post was based on an excerpt from the New York Times Bestselling book, Radical Remission: Surviving Cancer Against All Odds. Dr. ©Kelly A.
Journal of Nuclear Physics George Lakoff: 'Conservatives don't follow the polls, they want to change them … Liberals do everything wrong' "The progressive mindset is screwing up the world. The progressive mindset is guaranteeing no progress on global warming. The progressive mindset is saying, 'Yes, fracking is fine.' The progressive mindset is saying, 'Yes, genetically modified organisms are OK', when, in fact, they're horrible, and the progressive mindset doesn't know how to describe how horrible they are. George Lakoff, professor of cognitive science at the University of California, Berkeley, has been working on moral frames for 50 years. Lakoff is affable and generous. When he talks about the collapse of the left, he clearly doesn't mean that those parties have disintegrated: they could be in government, as the Democrats are in the US. Lakoff predicted all this in Moral Politics, first published in 1996. If we accept Lakoff's conclusion, what would it mean to accept his prescription? A classic liberal pitfall is the idea that by repeating one of the opposition's ridiculous lines, you make it look even more absurd.
Intuition, Gut Feeling, and the Brain Has there ever been a time when you swear that you know about certain things and events that will happen, although you cannot describe how you come to know it? While you might call this as your ‘gut feeling,’ this sense – known as intuition – does not necessarily arise from your stomach. Below you can learn more your nexplainable instinct – and how your brain gives you the sense of ‘doing what you need to do.’ What is Intuition? Also known as a hunch or gut feeling, it is defined as convincing, hasty feelings whose origins cannot be explained by the individual himself. The Brain and Intuition Intuition is not a figment of a person’s imagination or is it literally coming from a person’s gut– it is the result of the activities within the different brain regions. The cerebral cortex, also known as the cerebellum, also affects the development of hunches in humans. Locus ceruleus, a minute nucleus located in the pons, is said to generate one’s gut feeling as well. The Real Deal
How Scientists Are Learning To Shape Our Memory Roadside bombs, childhood abuse, car accidents—they form memories that can shape (and damage) us for a lifetime. Now, a handful of studies have shown that we’re on the verge of erasing and even rewriting memories. The hope is that this research will lead to medical treatments, especially for addiction and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Researchers have known for decades that memories are unreliable. Studies have found chemical compounds that can be used to subdue or even delete memories.Several studies have found chemical compounds that can be used to subdue or even delete memories in mice (and maybe someday in people). To make more targeted treatments, researchers will ultimately need to understand how the brain’s neurons encode each memory. The idea of scientists manipulating memory does, naturally, sound a bit creepy. This article originally appeared in the December 2013 issue of Popular Science.