Cool Brain Art Last month was the conclusion of Brain-Art Competition 2011, and some of the entries are really intriguing. There were four categories of entry: Best 3-Dimensional Brain RenderingBest Representation of the Human ConnectomeBest Abstract Brain IllustrationBest Humorous Brain Illustration The winner in the 3-D category was Rebrain by Robert Toro (above). More brain art: The Brain Tree by Silje Soeviknes Andy Warhol for Neuroscientists I by Valerie van Mulukom View the entire gallery of entries in this year’s competition here. art, brain art
The neuroscience of happiness They say money can’t buy happiness. But can a better understanding of your brain? As recent breakthroughs in cognitive science break new ground in the study of consciousness — and its relationship to the physical body — the mysteries of the mind are rapidly becoming less mysterious. But does this mean we’ll soon be able to locate a formula for good cheer? Shimon Edelman, a cognitive expert and professor of psychology at Cornell University, offers some insight in “The Happiness of Pursuit: What Neuroscience Can Teach Us About the Good Life.” Salon spoke with Edelman over the phone about the brain as computer, our cultural investment in happiness, and why knowing how our brains work might make us happier. In the book, you approach neuroscience from a popular perspective, using language and allegories laypeople can understand. Well, I think the principles in question are actually pretty accessible on what you call a superficial level. That’s a really good question.
NEURONS V FREE WILL Our Top 12 of 2012. No. 4: The notion of free will is under attack again, this time from the advance of neuroscience. Anthony Gottlieb explains... From INTELLIGENT LIFE magazine, March/April 2012 On the evening of October 10th 1769, in one of his typically curt dismissals of a philosophical problem, Dr Johnson silenced Boswell, who wanted to talk about fate and free will, by exclaiming: “Sir...we know our will is free, and there’s an end on’t.” Nearly two and a half centuries later, free will and responsibility are debated as much as ever, and the issue is taking some new twists. Every age finds a fresh reason to doubt the reality of human freedom. In the 20th century, the new science of psychology also seemed to undermine the idea of free will: Freud’s theory of unconscious drives suggested that the causes of some of our actions are not what we think they are. Really? That may be an understatement as far as experiments on thinking, emotion and personality are concerned.
Personality Traits Correlate With Brain Activity Your personality says a lot about you. To categorize people by their disposition, psychologists have long relied on questionnaires. Now, however, researchers may be closing in on a tangible view of character in the brain. According to a recent study in PLoS One, resting brain activity varies with a person’s scores on a well-established personality test. When awake but not engaged in a task, each subject displayed activity patterns distinct from those found in someone with different traits. Even at rest, the brain hums with neural activity. Using functional MRI, the researchers monitored the resting state of 39 healthy participants and looked for regions that tended to activate together. Because the brain activity only correlated with the traits, Milham says it is too soon to tell whether the patterns reflect the neural embodiment of personality.
Neuroscience and Marketing Books Subliminal Messages, SXSW Neuromarketing, Formula for a Bestseller, More – Roger’s Picks Another week, another batch of content for your reading pleasure. Whether you want to turn your book into a bestseller or develop an app that’s as addictive as an illegal drug, we’ve got something for you! Continue Reading... Hooked by Nir Eyal Book Review: Hooked: A Guide to Building Habit-Forming Products by Nir Eyal and Ryan Hoover Were you surprised when Facebook acquired Instagram for $1 billion? Continue Reading... Everyday Stress Can Shut Down the Brain's Chief Command Center The entrance exam to medical school consists of a five-hour fusillade of hundreds of questions that, even with the best preparation, often leaves the test taker discombobulated and anxious. For some would-be physicians, the relentless pressure causes their reasoning abilities to slow and even shut down entirely. The experience—known variously as choking, brain freeze, nerves, jitters, folding, blanking out, the yips or a dozen other descriptive terms—is all too familiar to virtually anyone who has flubbed a speech, bumped up against writer’s block or struggled through a lengthy exam. For decades scientists thought they understood what happens in the brain during testing or a battlefront firefight. In recent years a different line of research has put the physiology of stress in an entirely new perspective. Select an option below: Customer Sign In *You must have purchased this issue or have a qualifying subscription to access this content
An Off Switch for Pain Chemists build light-controlled neural inhibitor. The notion of a pain switch is an alluring idea, but is it realistic? Well, chemists at LMU Munich, in collaboration with colleagues in Berkeley and Bordeaux, have now shown in laboratory experiments that it is possible to inhibit the activity of pain-sensitive neurons using an agent that acts as a photosensitive switch. For the LMU researchers, the method primarily represents a valuable tool for probing the neurobiology of pain. The system developed by the LMU team, led by Dirk Trauner, who is Professor of Chemical Biology and Genetics, is a chemical compound they call QAQ. One half of QAQ closely resembles one of the active analogs of lidocaine, a well-known local anesthetic used by dentists. Neuroreceptors are proteins that span the outer membrane of nerve cells. In their experiments, the researchers exploited the fact that QAQ can percolate through endogenous ion channels to get the molecule into nerve cells. Contact: Prof.
List of cognitive biases Systematic patterns of deviation from norm or rationality in judgment Cognitive biases are systematic patterns of deviation from norm and/or rationality in judgment. They are often studied in psychology, sociology and behavioral economics.[1] Although the reality of most of these biases is confirmed by reproducible research,[2][3] there are often controversies about how to classify these biases or how to explain them.[4] Several theoretical causes are known for some cognitive biases, which provides a classification of biases by their common generative mechanism (such as noisy information-processing[5]). Explanations include information-processing rules (i.e., mental shortcuts), called heuristics, that the brain uses to produce decisions or judgments. There are also controversies over some of these biases as to whether they count as useless or irrational, or whether they result in useful attitudes or behavior. Belief, decision-making and behavioral[edit] Anchoring bias[edit] Apophenia[edit]
The Best of Neuromarketing 2011 Once again, it’s time for the “Readers’ Choice” Neuromarketing picks for the year. These posts aren’t my own choices, but are selected because they garnered the most traffic from tweets, Facebook shares, Stumbleupon clicks, and so on. Without further ado, here are the top articles of 2011, as chosen by our Neuromarketing readers: 1. Simple Slogans Double Sales We think of brands as amazingly powerful. 2. Are you focusing on your product’s features and benefits, or are you seducing your customer’s brain? 3. Which brands are the most desirable to consumers, as measured by neuromarketing firm Buyology? 4. What did Guy Kawasaki learn about favors from influence expert Robert Cialdini? 5. Find out why you really need to respond to customer criticism! 6. What you call your product changes how customers perceive it, and even its unchanging characteristics. 7. Some ads use humor, some surprise you with a twist… Take a look at this ad and see if you can guess what the product is before the end.
David Eagleman: The human brain runs on conflict This article was taken from the May 2011 issue of Wired magazine. Be the first to read Wired's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online. Throughout the 60s, pioneers in artificial intelligence worked late nights trying to build simple robotic programs capable of finding, fetching and stacking small wooden blocks in patterns. It was one of those apparently simple problems that turn out to be exceptionally difficult, and it led AI scientists to think: perhaps the robot could solve the problem by distributing the work among specialised subagents -- small computer programs that each bite off a piece of the problem. The society-of-mind framework was a breakthrough, but, despite initial excitement, a collection of experts with divided labour has never yielded the properties of the human brain. Artificial intelligence has become stuck because it has so far not adopted the idea of a democratic architecture.
A unique on-off switch for hormone production After we sense a threat, our brain center responsible for responding goes into gear, setting off a chain of biochemical reactions leading to the release of cortisol from the adrenal glands. Dr. Gil Levkowitz and his team in the Molecular Cell Biology Department have now revealed a new kind of ON-OFF switch in the brain for regulating the production of a main biochemical signal from the brain that stimulates cortisol release in the body. This finding, which was recently published in Neuron, may be relevant to research into a number of stress-related neurological disorders. This signal is corticotropin releasing hormone (CRH). CRH is manufactured and stored in special neurons in the hypothalamus. The research -- on zebrafish -- was performed in Levkowitz's lab and spearheaded by Dr. The team found that both receptors are encoded in a single gene. Together with Drs. Faulty switching mechanisms may play a role in a number of stress-related disorders.
Why The Future of Neuroscience Will Be Emotionless In Phaedrus, Plato likens the mind to a charioteer who commands two horses, one that is irrational and crazed and another that is noble and of good stock. The job of the charioteer is to control the horses to proceed towards Enlightenment and the truth. Plato’s allegory sparked an idea that perpetuated throughout the next several millennia in western thought: emotion gets in the way of reason. This makes sense to us. We know a lot more about how the brain works compared to the ancient Greeks, but a decade into the 21st century researchers are still debating which of Plato’s horses is in control, and which one we should listen to. A couple of recent studies are shedding new light on this age-old discourse. Pham created two groups. Pham and his team conclude the following: Results from eight studies show that individuals who had higher trust in their feelings were better able to predict the outcome of a wide variety of future events than individuals who had lower trust in their feelings….
Multitasking: This Is Your Brain On Media From Rasmussen College, Multitasking: This Is Your Brain On Media is a cool infographic design that looks at some of the research behind multitasking. New reports find that multi-taskers are “lousy at everything that’s necessary for multi-tasking.” Considering the amount of time people spend with around-the-clock access to TV, the Internet and mobile devices, it’s not surprising.This infographic looks at the causes and effects of multi-tasking. From a design perspective, I like the clean look with a simple color palate that is easy on the eyes. The statistics in the Media Addiction section could have been visualized to make them easier to comprehend. Without visualizations, this section feel less important compared to the rest of the data. I love the brain diagrams. Found on Infographics Journal
The Upside of Pessimism The theory of defensive pessimism suggests that imagining—and planning for—worst-case scenarios can be more effective than trying to think positively. I have pretty low expectations for this article. Oh sure, I spent a lot of time on it, and I personally think it’s a great read. Or at least, that’s how I would start out thinking if I were prone to defensive pessimism, a phenomenon in which people imagine worst-case scenarios in order to manage their anxiety. This type of negativity might sound like apostasy by American standards. I recently spoke with Norem, a pioneer of the defensive pessimism theory. A lightly edited transcript of our conversation follows, and you can take a test to find out if you’re a defensive pessimist here. Olga Khazan: What is defensive pessimism? Julie Norem: It’s a strategy for dealing with anxiety and helping to manage anxiety so that it doesn’t negatively influence performance. Khazan: How would I apply this in real life?