A life's journey in neuroscience
New Scientist has an excellent cover article on 'The five ages of the brain', looking at how the brain changes as we grow and how these transformations are reflected in our lives. It breaks the life...
View ArticleImaging the transgendered brain
For the first time, the brain structure of male-to-female transsexuals has been investigated in living individuals using MRI brain scans, helping to fuel the debate over the possible neural basis of...
View ArticleImprove Your Maths by Eating Chocolate?
Itâs a good month for coffee and chocolate. First, there was news about a study that found that caffeine reduces muscle pain caused by exercise and now researchers in England seem to think that...
View ArticleWhen dreams come to life
This study specifically focused on the less researched non-violent sleep behaviours, as the disorder is more typically associated with acting out aggressive dreams. This is possibly because the...
View ArticleHealthbolt Funtimes: Word Play.
Have you heard about The Mensa Invitational ? It’s a ‘play on words’Â list that’s been floating around the internet and emails for a few years now. image from sxc.hu Each of the words that have had a...
View ArticleHemispheres of influence
Discover Magazine has an interesting Carl Zimmer article on one of the most intriguing questions in neuroscience - why do we have two cortical hemispheres? And why are they not quite the same? It turns...
View ArticleSeized by the anti-storm
Newsweek has an excellent article on the neuroscience and personal impact of epilepsy. It's well-researched, gripping in parts and bang up-to-date as it takes us through how neurologists tackle the...
View ArticleThe risks of cognitive enchantment
The New Yorker has a fantastic in-depth article about 'cognitive enhancement' that talks to some of the neuroscientists studying the effects and some of the mind tweakers who regularly pop pills to...
View ArticleThe beautiful baby brain
Jonah Lehrer has an excellent piece in today's Boston Globe about how babies' brains develop and what psychologists are starting to understand about the infant mind. It's largely riffing on the work of...
View ArticleDodging the border agency of the brain
I just noticed that neurotechnology analyst Zack Lynch has a forthcoming article in Epilepsy and Behavior on the latest developments in the commercial brain science field. Avid neuroscience fans may be...
View ArticleA Trance of Pleasure
A 2003 study in Epilepsy and Behavior has some descriptions of the ecstatic seizures experienced by some patients with epilepsy. They include intense erotic and spiritual experiences, feelings of...
View ArticleThe Brain Tweets on Twitter
A University of Wisconsin biomedical engineering doctoral student posted a message on Twitter, a popular social media network, simply by thinking about it. His  message âusing EEG to send tweetâ...
View ArticleAging paragons
We all know a few older-aged paragons, individuals who are still storming through life in their 9th or 10th or 11th decade. I was delighted to read two articles in the New York Times last week that...
View ArticleExtreme altitude climbs and the Sherpa brain
It's know well known that high altitude mountain climbing damages the brain and causes a marked reduction in mental functioning. I naively assumed this was true for everyone but I just found an...
View ArticleFrom Brain Waves to Music
A few days ago I posted about the brain on twitter. Well, it appears scientists everywhere are determined to prove that you don’t need your hands to do things like, for example, make make music. Meet...
View ArticleBrain plasticity principles, in the words of a leading therapist
I strongly encourage our readers to check out the newly published book “Move Into Life”, authored by a highly distinguished therapist (and personal friend) Anat Baniel. Anat was originally trained by...
View ArticleExploding head syndrome
I've just found an article with two interesting cases of 'exploding head syndrome' - a medical condition where affected people spontaneously hear an exceptionally loud explosion-like noise. The...
View ArticleThe morning after the knife before
In the long history of outrageous drinking stories, this has got to be one of the best. The Emergency Medical Journal has a case study of a man who woke up in hospital after being admitted for alcohol...
View ArticleDeeper into the neuroscience of hypnosis
A new article from Trends in Cognitive Sciences explores how cognitive neuroscientists are becoming increasingly interested in understanding hypnosis and are using it to simulate unusual states of...
View ArticleThe alien hand syndrome - caught on video
I've just found a video of someone with alien hand syndrome - a condition which usually occurs after brain injury or stroke where the affected person loses conscious control over the hand and where it...
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