Annals Graphic Medicine – She Never Woke UpShe Never Woke Up | Annals of Internal Medicine

 

A lovely and moving comic by William Doan originally published in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

 

Source: Annals Graphic Medicine – She Never Woke UpShe Never Woke Up | Annals of Internal Medicine

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

Great use of journalism, neuroscience, and animation to tell a moving, 1st-person story of living with Alzheimer’s disease.

Stanford psychologist’s 18-month study of his own brain reveals surprises

Russell Poldrack scanned his brain to create the most detailed map of brain connectivity ever.

Source: Stanford psychologist’s 18-month study of his own brain reveals surprises

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!

#Vaping may not just help quit cigarettes, it may delay onset of #Alzheimers & even IMPROVE #cognitive function!

#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.

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

Mad Scientists: Brainpower next frontier in Army’s arsenal | Article | The United States Army

“Cognitive dominance is critical to winning in a complex world, experts say.”

WASHINGTON (Army News Service, Nov. 10, 2015) — “Human performance will be as important, if not more important, than technology in 2030,” predicted a high-level Army intelligence expert.

The reason is that “we’ve seen an erosion in our technological advantage to overmatch adversaries,” a trend that will continue, said Thomas Greco, G-2 for the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command.

Greco and Dr. Kira Hutchinson, director, intelligence/engagement, TRADOC, G-2, spoke during a Nov. 9 media teleconference that summarized findings of the Mad Scientist 2015 conference’s “Human Dimension 2025 and Beyond: Building Cohesive Teams to Win in a Complex World,” held Oct. 27 – 28 on Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

Mad Scientist is an annual event that brings together thousands of U.S. and international leading scientists, innovators and thinkers from industry and academia at the conference and through virtual attendance.

“It’s about asking disruptive questions,” Greco said of the goal of Mad Scientist, and it’s about “challenging the Army’s traditional-held beliefs and group think.”

Read more: Mad Scientists: Brainpower next frontier in Army’s arsenal | Article | The United States Army

How the Brain Forms Original and Creative Ideas | Neuroscience News

 

You COULD call “creativity” a collaboration between the “liberal” and “conservative” parts of our brains.

According to the researchers, creativity is our ability to think in new and original ways to solve problems.

Source: How the Brain Forms Original and Creative Ideas | Neuroscience News

#Neuroscience has proved that #porn is literally making #men’s #brains more childish. Seriously. | Blogs | LifeSite

‘Adult entertainment’ may be the ultimate misnomer.

[This is a great example of an article having little to so with neuroscience save the use of the word.]

Two hundred years ago in the U.K., if you said you were going to a “gentleman’s club,” it was understood you were going to a private upper-class establishment where you could relax, read, play parlor games, get a meal, and gossip with others of your class. Today, in the U.S., if you said you were going to a “gentleman’s club,” it is assumed you will be paying to see a striptease in a low-lit bar.

Is this really what should typify a “gentleman”?

Pornography is often classified, along with other sexually oriented businesses, as “adult” entertainment—something for “mature” audiences. If this meant that these kinds of entertainment are “not suitable for children” then few would protest.

The very thing in the brain that is the mark of adulthood and maturity is the thing that is eroded as we view more porn. It is as if the brain is reverting, becoming more childlike. “Adult” entertainment is actually making us more juvenile.

That said, it would be foolish to use this as an argument that pornography is suitable for adults. Heroin and methamphetamines are also “not suitable for children,” but this does not mean, ipso facto, that they are healthy for those over the age of 18.

 

Source: Neuroscience has proved that porn is literally making men’s brains more childish. Seriously. | Blogs | LifeSite

Men’s brains don’t make our memories worse than women’s. It’s simply that… what was I saying?

Differences Between Male and Female Brain Area? Big Data Says Not Really

A research study at Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science has debunked the widely-held belief that the hippocampus, a crucial part of the brain that consolidates new memories and helps connect emotions to the senses, is larger in females than in males.

Lise Eliot, PhD, associate professor of neuroscienceat the university’s medical school, headed a team of students in a meta-analysis of structural MRI volumes that found no significant difference in hippocampal size between men and women. Meta-analysis is a statistical technique that allows researchers to combine the findings from many independent studies into a comprehensive review. The team examined findings from 76 published papers, involving more than 6,000 healthy individuals.

Source: Differences Between Male and Female Brain Area? Big Data Says Not Really | Neuroscience News

Virtual Hair Cut (Amazing sound effect) – YouTube

Believe or not this is also a delightful example and explanation of how brains handle sounds.

#Neuroplasticity and Training the Older Brain #neuroscience #seniorsrock

Neuroplasticity is the brain and nervous systems ability to evolve and to repair deficits.

At a basic level it represents the ability to learn and develop a structural and functional system to interact with the environment.

The brain’s neuroplasticity is maximized during childhood and adolescence. This adaptability wanes with age. However, some neuroplasticity ability persists in the older brain.

This persistence was highlighted in a study from Hong Kong recently published in the journal Neural Plasticity.

Natalie Leung and colleagues studied a group of older adults with an average age of 70 years. Two hundred nine older adults were randomized to a cognitive training protocol or a control video education intervention.

The cognitive training protocol involved three one-hour training sessions for 13 weeks (39 hours total cognitive training). The training in this protocol was adapted from the Brain Fitness Program of Posit Science. Elements including tasks focusing on reaction time, visual discrimination, verbal memory, attention and working memory. All subjects completed neuropsychological assessment at baseline and at the end of the 13-week trial.

The active training groups demonstrated significant improvement in a variety of cognitive domains compared to the control group including:

• Higher sustained attention scores on the Seashore Rhythm Test
• Better performance on working memory digit span tasks
• Better performance on visual-spatial cognition 

This study did not include a brain imaging component. However, the author’s note their findings suggest sensitive imaging tools might complement their results and provide better understanding of structural and functional elements of neuroplasticity in the older brain.

 

The role of brain training in modifying the effects of aging on the brain is still in early stages of research. However, the current study supports the ability of elderly individuals to respond to cognitive training interventions.

Individuals with more interest in this study can access the full free-text manuscript by clicking on the PMID link below.

Screenshot of frontal lobes in brain is from the iPad Brain Tutor app.

Can You Get Smarter? – The New York Times

YOU can increase the size of your muscles by pumping iron and improve your stamina with aerobic training. Can you get smarter by exercising — or altering — your brain?

This is hardly an idle question considering that cognitive decline is a nearly universal feature of aging. Starting at age 55, our hippocampus, a brain region critical to memory,shrinks 1 to 2 percent every year, to say nothing of the fact that over 40 percent of Americans age 74 and older have Alzheimer’s disease. The number afflicted is expected to grow rapidly as the baby boom generation ages. Given these grim statistics, it’s no wonder that Americans are a captive market for anything, from supposed smart drugs and supplements to brain training, that promises to boost normal mental functioning or to stem its all-too-common decline… read more: Can You Get Smarter? – The New York Times

#Neuroscience of #Chicago #Cubs Fans – YouTube

C2ST Artist in Residence Aaron Freeman pretends to interview Stanford University Neurobiology professor Robert Sapolsky on the difference between the brains of Chicago Cubs fans and those of lesser beings.  According to Sapolsky part of the difference may have  to do with higher sustained levels of the neurotransmitter dopamine.

Banned TED Talk: The Science Delusion – Rupert Sheldrake at TEDx Whitechapel – YouTube

Can you feel the stare of someone behind you? I can’t say that I do but people in front of me sometimes seem to.

“YOU WON’T BELIEVE YOUR EYES!” – Smarter Every Day 142 – YouTube

Best Day of My Life in Italian w/#neuroscience! – YouTube

The fusiform gyrus if famed for facial recognition. Certain faces fill us with joy and inspire us to shout our delight!

aaron interviews Aaron abt “Sex, Science, and Jokes” Tues 9/15 7p @ the geek bar in Bucktown

Chicago Council on Science and Technology’s Artist in Residence interviews science comedian Aaron Freeman about his upcoming presentation “Sex, Science, and Jokes” on Tuesday 15 September 2015 at 7pm.  The performance is part of c2st’s Speakeasy series at the Geek Bar 1941 West North Avenue in Chicago, Illinois.