hippocampus
The Power of Meditation
When the word meditation comes up, people usually think of Monks or Buddhists first. However, there is a reason they meditate so often; meditation does wonders for your brain, and here is how. There are two main types of meditation: 1) Focused-attention meditation or ‘Mindful meditation‘ and 2) Open-monitoring meditation. In Mindful meditation, you focus […]
The Elusive Engram: An Experiment in Memory Implantation
With each passing minute, multitudes of memories surge through our minds as we recollect past experiences and encode new ones. Since the dawn of introspective thought, humans have wondered where such experiences might be encoded, if a physical encoding is even possible [1]. Fast forward to the 20th century and we now have pioneering works from the […]
Temptation: The Effects of Immediate and Delayed Rewards
As we approach the loved holiday season, we also approach the dreaded weight gain that comes along with it. It probably won’t come as a surprise to you that our brain, specifically the hippocampus, plays a role in resisting immediate or delayed temptation. The hippocampus deals with memory, including recalling past events and imagining them […]
Don’t Panic! – Mice Aren’t Actually the Smartest
“Man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much — the wheel, New York, wars and so on — whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were […]
A Blacked Out Memory
“White Mike and his father moved after his mother died of breast cancer. It ate her up and most of their money. They can’t control the old radiators and its very hot in the spring time. In White Mike’s room, old unpacked boxes stick out of the closet so he can see them. Maybe you […]
Spatial Cognition in Philosophy and Neuroscience
In this post, I attempt to present two major metaphysical accounts of space by Kant and Leibniz, then present some recent findings from cognitive neuroscience about the neural basis of spatial cognition in an attempt to understand more about the nature of space and the possible connection of philosophical theories to empirical observations. Immanuel Kant’s […]
Memory 101: Understanding How We Remember
Do you ever wonder how you are able to remember the name of your third-grade teacher, or the skills you use to ride a bike, or even lines from your favorite movie? Well, if you haven’t then you should, because it takes the workings of many regions of our brain to combine all the different […]