the nerve blog |
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 […]
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 […]
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.
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 […]
Forced Exercise: A Mental Workout?
We all know that we should hit the gym so we can look good, marry a rich dude, and not need to do science anymore. But can dragging yourself to the gym improve your cognitive assets as well? Recent studies show that even in normal, healthy brains, that forced exercise has effects. Rats who ran […]
Do You See What I See?
Philosophy of Mind came into its most compelling forms during the age of modern philosophy beginning with René Descartes. Perhaps infamously, Descartes claimed that mind and body are two distinct substances – philosophical jargon for what exists without the aid of any other thing. For Descartes, the world was clearly and distinctly physical in one […]
#Successful?
As I’ve struggled to think of a topic to kick off my sophomore year blog series, I’ve scanned over practically every YouTube video and online article trying to find some sort of inspiration to come up with the next hot topic. While pop culture is at a stand still at this point with the media […]
Rat Brains Get an Upgrade
At Universitat Tel Aviv in Israel, scientists have successfully engineered and implanted an artificial cerebellum into the brain of a rat. Designed by Dr. Matti Mintz, it is a microchip attached to the rat’s head that receives sensory information from the brain stem and sends it to other parts of the brain. The artificial cerebellum has […]
Hot Headed or Simply Tired?
We’ve all seen it happen, marveled at the constancy, and even blamed the friends around us for our own personal breathing. Does this sound strange? I am talking of course about contagious yawning; this is the phenomenon that seeing someone yawn will cause you to immediately do the same. But why, and for that matter, […]
Emerging Research on Crowd Behavior
City dwellers are all too familiar with crowds. In Boston, students regularly navigate through them on their way to class, and more broadly, natives and visitors all have to navigate through sports crowds. These can be particularly dense and sometimes rowdy crowds (have you ever been near Fenway Park after a Red Sox-Yankees game?!). With crowds occasionally come […]