Showing posts with label Neuroscience. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Neuroscience. Show all posts

Thursday, April 28, 2016

Neurologist explains why it’s hard to look at Ted Cruz’s creepy ‘unsettling’ face

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As he has risen in the polls, more attention is being paid to Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’s overall electability as a man who looks, as one fellow Princeton classmate described him: “about as telegenic as an undertaker.”

The answer as to why so many people dislike the Texas Republican instinctively is one that intrigued Dr. Richard E. Cytowic, a professor of neurology at George Washington University.

Writing in Psychology Today,  Cytowic noted that Cruz’s “atypical expressions” left him “uneasy,” and that he was not alone among people who have watched Cruz up-close and from afar.

“Note how many colleagues and former associates ‘loathe’ him. A Bush alumnus told the New York Times’ Frank Bruni, ‘Why do people take such an instant dislike to Ted Cruz? It just saves time.’ Former Senate Majority leader Bob Dole says, ‘Nobody likes him,’ while Rep. Peter King sees ‘malice.’” Cytowic wrote. “According to The Washington Post, screenwriter Craig Mazin, Cruz’s former Princeton roommate, has called him a ‘huge asshole,’ and ‘creepy.’ He’s Tweeted, ‘Getting emails blaming me for not smothering Ted Cruz in his sleep in 1988.’ The distaste for Cruz even extends beyond the US: Germans say Backpfeifengesicht, meaning a face in need of a good punch.”

According to Cytowic, the distaste for Cruz’s face starts with his smile.

Source: Neurologist explains why it’s hard to look at Ted Cruz’s creepy ‘unsettling’ face


Thursday, January 28, 2016

Scientists Claim to Perform Head Transplant on Monkey, Experts Say Prove It

An international team of neuroscientists claims to have successfully carried out a head transplant on a monkey, along with other related experiments. But because the details haven’t been published, experts remain skeptical.

Source: Scientists Claim to Perform Head Transplant on Monkey, Experts Say Prove It


Monday, January 18, 2016

Should Mom stop driving?

I am an advocate of “choice” but @neuromooc explains that “choice” and “appreciation” ain’t necessarily the same thing.

The brain is sooooo cool!

My mom and I sitting on the steps of the Art Institute this past summer. My mom and I sitting on the steps of the Art Institute this past summer.

I have tried, repeatedly, to get my mother to stop driving. She just celebrated her 88th birthday. Every time I raise this issue, she emphatically insists that she is not giving up driving. I reason that the cost of taxis would easily be less than what she spends on gas, car maintenance, and insurance. She tells me that she absolutely needs the car in case there is an emergency and ____ (fill in the child or grandchild) is stranded (something that happened once roughly 15 years ago).

My friend Alex Karczmar and I share a laugh. My friend Alex Karczmar and I share a laugh.

This parent-driving-problem is not mine alone. For a long time, I would discuss parent-driving with my friend Greg Karczmar. Greg’s father, who is also my friend, Alex Karczmar, was born in 1915. He is proud of the fact that he…

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Sunday, January 3, 2016

There is no average patient

S. S. Post writes about “The Death of Normalcy.” here, Prof. Peggy Mason @neuromooc slaps around the idea of “average”.

The brain is sooooo cool!

As many of you know, I love to hear your stories of your encounters with your brains. Through a circuitous route (no other type appears to exist in my world) that involves a marvelous final MOOC project by Luiz Meier (more on that another time), I was privileged to receive the following description of a subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) from Paul Van Uytrecht, a mutual Facebook friend to Luiz and me. The account below is unedited except for the insertion of a few paragraphs to make it easier to read. Please read it and then stay with me for some comments on the average SAH experience followed by comments on the concept of average more generally.

Paul Van Uytrecht’s subarachnoid bleed

On Sunday 3rd August 2014, at around lunchtime, I developed what I now know are the classic signs of an SAH – sudden-onset severe headache, neck stiffness, nausea and some loss of balance. I…

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Sunday, December 13, 2015

10 Ways to Increase the Dopamine In Your Brain

“Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that helps control the brain’s reward and pleasure centers. Dopamine also helps regulate movement and emotional response, and it enables us not only to see rewards, but to take action to move toward them.”  – Psychology Today

Source: 10 Ways to Increase the Dopamine In Your Brain


Monday, December 7, 2015

The funniest, best-sung song by an epigenetic neuroscientist ever!

The singer, Dr. Rachel Yehuda showed that the gene expression of pregnant Holocaust & 9/11 survivors were altered by the experiences, as were those of their children. But here she’s just having fun!


Sunday, December 6, 2015

“Neuro-Complete” Infant Formula!

“When you see Neuro Complete on the label, know that our infant formula offers complete nutrition for babies 0-12 months. Neuro Complete contains key ingredients that are on the minds of healthcare professionals that address cognitive, motor, communications, and social function.+

formula-infant

Member’s Mark “Neuro Complete” Ad site


Wednesday, December 2, 2015

IFL eye movements

Excitable Ape:

The longer your dog stares at you, the more you love her!

Originally posted on The brain is sooooo cool!:

Whenever I teach eye movements, I am reminded of how exciting they are. I like that eye movements appear mundane, common, and perhaps even uninteresting. They fly under most people’s wow-o-cool-o-radar, giving all the appearance of a nuts-and-bolts system without lofty aspirations. Despite this unpretentious appearance, eye movements are incredibly interesting and also of the utmost importance to our social selves. There is so much more to eye movements than may at first meet our gaze.

I remember first learning the basics of gaze control in graduate school. The system is delightfully logical and beautifully aligned with our vestibular system. But that is a story for another day. Today I want to tell three stories.

Unilateral eye movement

Virtually all eye movements are conjugate, meaning that the eyes both move and that they move in the same direction. Examples of this are:

  • when looking to the left, both eyes move left
  • when looking down, both eyes move down

and so…

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Thursday, November 26, 2015

#Thankful for #Science and “Sciencers” #Thanksgiving

I am thankful for science and people who science. Not just because I have epilepsy and without pharmacology I would sporadically behave like an alien breakdancer. I’m not just thankful for the surgeons who implanted my cyborg hip and Alice in my synthetic hip, Trixie. I’m grateful to the material sciences who developed the titanium and ceramic substances to the engineers figure out the exact angle that the implants should good rest most strongly and snugly within. I’m grateful to the immunologist who rigorously test the parts to make sure my body won’t rejecting it.

And again, through my various surgeries, big love to the pharmacologists for the Dilaudid.

I am specifically grateful to those who science human behavior even more acutely, sciencers of the brain for making it easier to forgive people.

You have to struggle to be mad at someone when you realize their argumentativeness may be nothing more sinister than an overactive insula or their lethargy a mere underproduction of dopamine receptors for their appearance heartlessness a not uncommon malfunction in the either the anterior or posterior pituitary.

Studying the effects of brains on human behavior reminds me best we are all born in the bodies we did not design, into a world we did not create having reactions to which on one can explain.

The writer Evelyn Waugh says to, understand all is to condone all. I do not condone all but hey, I’m still studying here.


Tuesday, November 24, 2015

The Neuroscience of Conversion Optimization – Neuromarketing

[Guest post by Nick Kolenda] If you’re a digital marketer, then you know the feeling. You poured your heart and soul into a recent campaign, and you can’t wait to see the results. A few days later, you check the […]

Source: The Neuroscience of Conversion Optimization – Neuromarketing