The Trust Molecule
Paul Zak, the director of The Center for Neuroeconomic Studies at the Claremont Graduate University, for years has been searching for what makes us moral, and he thinks he has the answer. In this short talk Zak explains why massage, dance and prayer may increase donation to charity up to 50%, and how morals from a Californian high schooler to a primative Papua New Guinea subsistence farmer may have an identical physiological basis. The answer he claims, is Oxytocin. Here is the talk (via Youtube):
Trust, morality — and oxytocin – Ted.com
The Mantis Shrimp
The mantis shrimp diverged evolutionarily from the crustacean mainline about 400 years ago and have since developed unique characteristics. Unlike most other crustaceans, they actively hunt prey and kill it with a crushing blow which has been theorized to be strong enough to create bubbles containing gas at temperatures upwards of 2000 Kelvin. This quality, however, is nowhere near as stunning as the mantis shrimp's most incredible attribute: their eyes. In April 2001, the most comprehensive paper to date describing the mantis shrimp's visual system was published by Justin Marshall and Thomas Cronin in The Biological Bulletin. In their paper, the authors described the unusual characteristics of the mantis shrimp visual system and hypothesized the applications of this system in the development of machine vision. More
A Brain Constructed from an Artist's Mind
Artist Yaron Steinburg's installation piece for any brain-lover is a masterpiece. This piece is not only stunningly beautiful but also thought provoking. At first glance, it may look merely like brain model made out of cardboard boxes. After taking a deeper look inside, however, a myriad of complex ideas can be observed. The complexity of the piece is deceptively hidden within the brain itself, wherein a booming city lies. The city looks like a seemingly unorganized mess, much like the many interacting regions of the human brain itself. The true brilliance of the piece though lies in looking past this cluttered city, and viewing the piece (and its message about the nature of the brain) for what it really is: an organized mess of infinite complexity and beauty.
In Lieu of Halloween…
Yup, that's all I've got. Enjoy being spooky!
Tarman Wants More Brains - YouTube
Le Horla
This semester I decided it was a good idea to take up French again. So I signed up for “LF 303,” which is now where I sit for fifty minutes every Monday, Wednesday and Friday trying to convince my professor (and myself) that I am a halfway-competent French speaker. Which, it turns out, I could be. I have a feeling it won’t be long before I start dreaming in French again, at which point I’m sure I will have something neuroscience-related to say about that. 
That hasn’t happened yet, but French class has actually had some direct mind and brain content. Last month we read a short story called “Le Horla” by Guy de Maupassant. The story is written from the perspective of Dr. Marrande, a psychiatrist who comes across an interesting case and calls on some of his colleagues for their opinions. Dr. Marrande introduces his coworkers to the patient (referred to as such - “le malade”), and he lets the patient tell his own story. More
A.I. in the "Cloud"
The world seems as though it is starting to move faster and faster, and thus the demand for information and information accessibility is drastically speeding up as well. Modern computers and related technologies, however, have done a remarkable job with both creating and keeping up with the ever growing demand for data and access people need to it. Perhaps one of the interesting innovations on the scene as of late is the emergence of a new form of information sharing and storing colloquially called "cloud computing". More
You Can't Always Get What You Want
According to a recent study, there are at least two neural correlates for decision-making in the brain.
If you're the scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz who yearns for a brain, you have neither of these correlates. However, if you are someone who has frontal lobe damage to the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), you have one functional neural correlate: for action value comparisons. You can make optimal decisions about how to get a brain (...although you obviously would already have one). Alternatively, you could have suffered damage to the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) - in which case you would be able to make stimulus value comparisons and choose which objects are optimal, such as the wittiest or the most creative brain, but not how to get the chosen object. More
Put Your Hands Up for Intelligence
Ever wonder why people still “talk with their hands” when they’re on the telephone? We often use hand gestures while speaking even at times when the listener cannot see them. Gestures are processed in the same areas of the brain as speech (think sign language): the left inferior frontal gyrus (Broca’s) and the posterior middle temporal gyrus (Wenicke’s area). Hand movements help us to communicate more efficiently and emphasize certain points of the message 
we are trying to convey to our conversational partners. They’re an indication of our thought process throughout the discussion. Evolutionary insight proposes that the language brain regions, which originally supported the pairing of body language and meaning, have been adapted in humans for spoken language; however, we still don’t know precisely the reason why people gesture, and more interestingly, why some people use gestures more often than others. More
Dr. Jekyll or Mr. Hyde?
Have you ever wondered what pushes normal people to become hellacious monsters? Have you ever considered that the same person that turns evil has an equal chance of becoming a hero? If any of these questions have ever crossed your mind, Dr. Philip Zimbardo may have answers for you. More
Music Makes the Brain Grow Stronger
A recent study found that musical aptitude seems to have a relationship with reading ability. This study directly relates literacy with inherent musical aptitude that the researchers are able to measure, which is something that you're born with and that does not magically appear by listening to classical music on repeat. While they do examine the inherent musical aptitude, the study suggests that we might be able to prescribe some sort of musical curriculum that could potentially improve literacy in children. So, yes, all those weird to-be-moms holding heavy duty headphones up to their baby bumps blasting Mozart may be on to something. More
