Author Archive
mammalian brain
From The Web – 7 kittens and a flying toy
A spectacular video of eye-paw coordination in 3-month old kittens. It could almost be faked, but it’s not. The kittens have different fur patterns, and their movements are not exactly timed. But it’s darned close!...
attention
The sexiest mammal on earth?
Meadow voles could show Miss Piggy a thing or two. (Copyright Disney, under fair use, via Wikipedia). Consider the love life of the meadow vole, the sexiest little mammal on Planet Earth. Voles are small mouse-like mammals wh...
aging
Microbes may trigger Alzheimer’s Disease.
A fascinating update on Alzheimer’s Dementia has just been published by James Hill and colleagues in Frontiers in Aging. AD is a lethal form of brain degeneration. It is currently incurable, and is now one of the major cause...
artificial intelligence
Has the Turing test really been cracked?
It’s every headline writer’s dream: A scientific breakthrough! Named after the great mathematician Alan Turing, so it has to be important! It was a dream nobody could resist. When the The University of Reading (UK) announ...
My Conscious Brain
Where does visual input become conscious? (Baars, hat tip to Prof. Alumit Ishai)
There are at least forty visual “maps” in the visual cortex — each sensitive to a different aspect of vision. The first map in visual cortex, conveniently dubbed V1, responds to a visual scene pixel-by-pixel. At higher le...
acupuncture
Winter SADness? Stick a light in your ear!
An wonderful English madrigal from 1598 by Thomas Weelkes goes “To shorten Winter sadness see where the nymphs with gladness Falala lala lala Falala lala lala” And the nymphs go dancing and singing through the tow...
brain disorders of aging
New Insights into Nerve Regeneration
Nerve regeneration is the Holy Grail of medical neuroscience. The traditional dogma is that in humans — unlike other animals — nerve regeneration simply does not occur. We start life with those 80+ billion neurons i...
Scicon Review
Trends in Cognitive Sciences: Table of Contents June 2011
The June issue of Trends in Cognitive Sciences is available online. Volume 15, Issue 6, pp. 241-288 Letters Letters Response Book Review Opinion Review ____________________________________________________________________
Scicon Review
Consciousness and Cognition: Table of Contents June 2011
The June issue of Consciousness and Cognition is available online. Volume 20, Issue 2, pp.173-488 _________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________________________________...
Scicon Review
Short Video: Before and After Deep Brain Stimulation
Although there is still a lot to be learned about deep brain stimulation (DBS), the potential use of DBS seems like it could be promising. Click here to watch a video of a Tourette syndrome patient before and after his DBS oper...