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The effort-decision brain circuitry

What are the brain areas responsible for decision making? And is there a difference between easy and hard decisions? In an article in Cerebral Cortex, researchers find that amygdala and prefrontal cortex form an interconnected ...
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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Genetic Mechanism Helps Explain Chronic Pain Disorders

Researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have discovered that commonly occurring variations of a gene trigger a domino effect in chronic pain disorders. The finding might lead to more effective treatments ...
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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Journal of Phenomenological Psychology: New issues

Did you know that there is a journal that seeks to combine phenomenology and psychology? Phenomenology is, among other things, described as “an approach to philosophy that takes intuitive experience of phenomena (what pre...
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
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Inducing a dreamy state

Brain stimulation provides an interesting tool to study the functions of a given area of the brain. In a study by Vignal et al. published in Brain, artificial stimulation or seizures in specific mesial temporal lobe structures ...
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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Personality and Individual Differences: new issue

A new issue of Personality and Individual Differences is out. It includes articles on self-injury in female vs. male psychiatric patients self-monitoring style and suggestibility thought suppression memory distortions in self-e...
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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Functional neuroimaging in unconscious states

Steven Laureys and colleagues ask whether functional imaging methods such as fMRI and PET can be used to detect consciousness in individual patients. Recent studies have showed activation patterns in a vegetative patient that a...
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
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New issue of Psyche: Rosenberg

A new issue of Psyche is out, focusing on the work of Gregg Rosenberg. It is a special issue focusing on consciousness, causation and the links to the physical structure of the brain. Rosenberg has a page about the book, with s...
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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The mutation that takes away pain

Imagine being unable to feel any pain at all. For a tiny handful of people, that is the reality — and medical researchers have now pinpointed the mutation that removes their ability to perceive painful sensations.The study be...
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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New issue of Cognition & Emotion

A new issue of Cognition & Emotion is out. It contains articles on emotionally evocative music, emotional intelligence, and gender-by-race emotional differences.
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
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What was the hobbit?

PloS Biology has a very nice feature article on the “hobbit”, aka Homo floresiensis. From the article: Who—or what—is Homo floresiensis? The tiny hominid bones, which a joint Australian-Indonesian team unearthed...