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POPSIs he sexy? well that depends if she is ovulating :) At other points during the cycle, women will prefer more feminized male faces, as they might signal a higher willingness of the males to invest in offspring. This is a great example to the biases that constantly dictate ones sense of reality! the way out is not easy...
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POPSCooling the Brain Michale Fee and his colleagues created the cooling device using technology similar to that used in portable electronic beverage coolers. They say that it could be used to study other complex behaviors, such as walking or swimming. "We can also use this cooling technology to discover which brain regions control the timing of different complex behaviors in different animals, something that has been very difficult to assess until now," Fee said in the release. "We know that HVC is related in some ways to human cortex, so it could be showing us a very general mechanism for representing the passage of time within the brain." The research was published today in the journal Nature.
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POPS"Bullies may be sadists"
continues: The boys with the conduct disorder had exhibited disruptive behavior such as starting a fight, using a weapon and stealing after confronting a victim. They showed both groups video clips of someone inflicting pain on another person and tracked brain activity with a type of imaging called functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI. In the aggressive teens, areas of the brain linked with feeling rewarded -- the amygdala and ventral striatum -- became very active when they observed pain being inflicted on others. But they showed little activity in an area of the brain involved in self-regulation -- the medial prefrontal cortex and the temporoparietal junction -- as was seen in the control group. "It is entirely possible their brains are lighting in the way they are because they experience seeing pain in others as exciting and fun and pleasurable," Lahey said. "We need to test that hypothesis more, but that is what it looks like," he said. Lahey said the di
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POPSThe search for the roots of psychopathy Research is being done to study the brains of psychopaths in prison using a portable functional magnetic-resonance-imaging scanner, looking for a defect , with the goal of discovering a treatment. "Although the number of psychopaths who are not in prisons is thought to exceed the number who are—if the one-per-cent figure is correct, there are more than a million psychopaths at large in the United States alone—they are much harder to identify in the outside world. Some are “successful psychopaths,” holding down good jobs in many types of industries. It is generally only if they commit a crime and enter the criminal-justice system that they become available for research." I've known at least two psychopaths personally, neither incarcerated. They are scary people.
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POPSWorld First: Brain Tissues from Stem Cells continues: "In regenerative therapy, only a limited number of diseases can be cured with simple cell transplants. Transplanting tissues could raise hopes for greater functional recovery," the institute said in a statement. "Cultivated tissues are still insufficient and too small to be used to treat stroke patients. But study of in-vitro cultivation of more mature cortex tissues, such as those with six zones like in the adult human brain, will be stepped up," it said. The tissues could also serve as "a mini organ" for use in studying the cause of the Alzheimer's disease and developing vaccines, it said. Embryonic stem cells are harvested by destroying a viable embryo, a process that some people find unacceptable. Riken said cortex tissues were also obtained from "induced pluripotent stem cells," which are similar to embryonic stem cells but artificially induced, typically from adult cells such as skin cells. The research was led by Yoshiki Sasai at Riken Centre for Devel
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POPSHow Hatred Transforms Your Brain "What is surprising is the degree to which hatred is associated with logic and planning. The researchers write in their paper: What seems not to be in doubt is that this cortical zone involves the premotor cortex, a zone that has been implicated in the preparation of motor planning and its execution. We hypothesize that the sight of a hated person mobilizes the motor system for the possibility of attack or defense. In addition, the involvement of the frontal pole consider to be critical in predicting the action of others, arguably an important feature when confronted by a hated person . . . it is more likely that in the context of hate the hater may want to exercise judgment in calculating moves to harm, injure or otherwise extract revenge."
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POPSThin line between love and hate? But there were important differences as well. A bigger part of the cerebral cortex -- an area linked to judgment and reasoning -- de-activates with love compared to hate. While both emotions are all-consuming passions, it may be that people in love are often less critical and judgmental about their partner but need to maintain their focus when dealing with a hated rival, the researchers said
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POPSMarshmallow temptations, brain scans could yield vital lessons in self-control The marshmallow test -It is a simple test, but has surprising power to predict a child's future. A 4-year-old is left sitting at a table with a marshmallow or other treat on it and given a challenge: Wait to eat it until a grown-up comes back into the room, and you'll get two. If you can't wait that long, you'll get just one. Some children can wait less than a minute, others last the full 20 minutes. The longer the child can hold back, the better the outlook in later life for everything from SAT scores to social skills to academic achievement,
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POPSThe Thin Line Between Love and Hate The brain scans identified a pattern of activity in different areas of the brain the researchers called a "hate circuit" that switched on when people saw faces they despised, the researchers said. Hate circuit "As far as we can determine it is unique to the sentiment of hate even though individual sites within it have been shown to be active in other conditions that are related to hate," the researchers wrote. The so-called hate circuit includes structures in the cortex and the sub-cortex and represented a pattern distinct from emotions such as fear, threat and danger, Zeki said in a telephone interview. One part of the brain that switched on was an area considered critical in predicting other people's actions, something that is likely key when confronting a hated person, the researchers said. The brain activity also occurred in the putamen and insula, two areas activated when people viewed the face of a loved person. Scientists have linked the regions to aggressive a
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POPSAn End to Paralysis with Artificial Brain-to-Muscle Connectors Say the researchers: Until now, brain-computer interfaces were designed to decode the activity of neurons known to be associated with movement of specific body parts. Here, the researchers discovered that any motor cortex cell, regardless of whether it had been previously associated with wrist movement, was capable of stimulating muscle activity. This finding greatly expands the potential number of neurons that could control signals for brain-computer interfaces and also illustrates the flexibility of the motor cortex. Human implementations for the technology are at least a decade away, but this discovery could be a game-changer for dealing with paralysis. One possibility would be to connect the motor cortex with an area of the spine below an injury. Signals would be re-routed around the damaged spinal cord, and could allow the brain to regain control of the paralyzed body parts affected by the injury.
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POPSMan 'roused from coma' by a magnetic field after around 15 sessions something happened. "You started talking to him and he would turn his head and look at you," "Villa started obeying one-step commands, such as following the movement of a thumb and speaking single words." "Villa is by no means cured. But he is easier to care for and can interact with visitors "
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POPSBrain surgery with a banjo In this case, the surgeons used the banjo to fine tune the treatment. Because of his tremors, Adcock no longer had the dexterity required for his characteristic fast picking style. He played the instrument during his operation so that the surgeons could pinpoint exactly where the electrodes would most effective.
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POPSScientists adapt economics theory to trace brain's information flow Scientists believed the frontoparietal cortex was influencing the visual cortex, but the brain scanning approach they were using, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), can only complete scans about once every two seconds, which was much too slow to catch that influence in action. When researchers applied Granger causality, though, they were able to show conclusively that as volunteers waited for the stimulus to appear, the frontoparietal cortex was influencing the visual cortex, not the reverse.
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POPSMusical training enhances integration of the senses This study shows that sensorimotor and auditory training induces cortical reorganization to a greater extent than does auditory training alone. It also shows that sensorimotor and auditory training cause more changes in the auditory cortex than auditory training alone. This phenomemon, called cross-modal plasticity, has been investigated only rarely. In 2003, the same group showed that professional trumput players have enhanced interactions between the auditory cortex and the regions of the somatosensory cortex devoted to the lip. The new study therefore provides another demonstration that the sensorimotor and auditory cortices are connected to each other.
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POPSYou're in Good Hands... with computer games Allstate insurance has contracted Posit Science to deliver its InSight software to older drivers to help them improve their cognitive abilities. So tell the kids they have to get off the joystick so granddad can do his homework.
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POPSBrain Regions Responsible for Warding off Negative Emotion Identified Researchers found that subjects most successful in warding off negative emotions activated the nucleus accumbens and amygdala regions of the brain more than unsuccessful subjects. They hypothesize that the nucleus accumbens is used to suppress the negative emotional response generated by the amygdala.
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POPSLearning From Mistakes Only Works After Age 12, Study Suggests "There is also an area of the brain that responds strongly to positive feedback: the basal ganglia, just outside the cerebral cortex. The activity of this area of the brain does not change. It remains active in all age groups: in adults, but also in children, both eight-year-olds and twelve-year-olds."
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POPSSarah Palin and elitism Great article. The only thing I would have to point out is where the author states: "The point is that she comes to us, seeking the second most important job in the world, without any intellectual training relevant to the challenges and responsibilities that await her." I mean - hell Bush had no intellectual training either (not to mention no intellect) and things have gone so well over the last 8 years, right?
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POPSGender differences seen in brain connections While the effect of high synaptic density in this region is unknown, the team suspects that there may be other regions where women out-synapse men. In any case, says DeFelipe, although different synaptic densities indicates different circuitry between men and women, men shouldn't get too cocky: the density of synapses in mice is greater than in humans.
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