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The Big Bad Brain
I’m high, staring at the ceilingSending my love, what a wonderful feelingWhat comes next, I see a lightI’m along for the ride as I’m taking flight-Sir Sly, HighPlus a cool brain tattoo to boot. AND the...
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What Is Thought?
Is that some sort of trick question? Everyone knows what thought is. Or do they... My questions for you today are:How do you define “a thought” (yes, a single thought)? Where is the boundary from one...
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Role of the Vestibular System in the Construction of Self
How do we construct a unified self-identity as a thinking and feeling person inhabiting a body, separate and unique from other entities? A “self” with the capacity for autobiographical memory and...
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Olfactory Deterrence
A military aide carries the “nuclear football” aboard the Marine One helicopter in which President Trump was waiting to depart the South Lawn of the White House on Feb. 3. (Michael Reynolds/European...
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Smell as a Weapon, and Odor as Entertainment
The use of smell as a weapon, or a deterrent, was explored in a fanciful way in my previous post on nuclear threats. While poking around the literature, I found a fascinating unclassified document from...
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Survival and Grief
There is no transcendent moment of growth or meaning in watching a childhood friend die of cancer. There is no learning experience that will somehow make me stronger. Only horror, helplessness, loss,...
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Neuroexistentialism: A Brain in Search of Meaning
[image from Huth et al., 2016]No, not “meaning” in the semantic sense... “Neuroexistentialism” is the angst that some humans feel upon realizing that the mind and spirit have an entirely physical...
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BROADEN Trial of DBS for Treatment-Resistant Depression No Better than Sham
Website for the BROADEN™ study, which was terminated bythe sponsor.A multi-site, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial of deep brain stimulation (DBS) for treatment-resistant...
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The Devilish Side of Psychiatry
Final Destination 3 (2006)The devil always experienced malicious pleasure in imposing himself in neuropsychiatric nosologyOlry and Haines (2017) published a mischievous article in the Journal of the...
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Can a Computer Algorithm Identify Suicidal People from Brain Scans? The...
Just et al. 2017Death by suicide is a preventable tragedy if the suicidal individual is identified and receives appropriate treatment. Unfortunately, some suicidal individuals do not signal their...
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Brief Guide to the CTE Brains in the News. Part 1: Aaron Hernandez
Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) is the neurodegenerative disease of the moment, made famous by the violent and untimely deaths of many retired professional athletes. Repeated blows to the head...
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Brief Guide to the CTE Brains in the News. Part 2: Fred McNeill
Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) is the neurodegenerative disease of the moment, made famous by the violent and untimely deaths of many retired professional athletes. Repeated blows to the head...
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Amygdala Stimulation in the Absence of Emotional Experience Enhances Memory...
The amygdala is a small structure located within the medial temporal lobes (MTL), consisting of a discrete set of nuclei. It has a reputation as the “fear center” or “emotion center” of the brain,...
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Least Popular Posts of 2017
2017 was a really bad year. The U.S. is more divided than ever, the truth is meaningless, well-researched journalism is called FAKE NEWS, the President lies once every minute, white supremacist rallies...
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Sexual Violence is Horrible, But First Look at Causes Outside the Brain
"At the brain level, empathy for social exclusion of personalized women recruited areas coding the affective component of pain (i.e., anterior insula and cingulate cortex), the somatosensory components...
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I should have done this by now...
Today marks the day of 12 years of blogging. Twelve years! During this time, I've managed to remain a mysterious pseudonym to almost everyone. Very few people know who I am.But a lot has changed since...
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Head Impact and Hyperphosphoralated Tau in Teens
We all agree that repeated blows to the head are bad for the brain. What we don't yet know is:who will show lasting cognitive and behavioral impairmentswho will show only transient sequelae (and for...
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Policy Insights from The Neurocritic: Alarm Over Acetaminophen, Ibuprofen...
Just in time for Valentine's Day, floats in a raft of misleading headlines:Scientists have found the cure for a broken heartPainkillers may also mend a broken heartTaking painkillers could ease...
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Universal Linguistic Decoders are Everywhere
Pereira et al. (2018) - click image to enlargeNo, they're not. They're really not. They're “everywhere” to me, because I've been listening to Black Celebration. How did I go from “death is everywhere”...
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25 Years of Cognitive Neuroscience in Boston
The 25th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Neuroscience Society starts off with a big bang on Saturday afternoon with the Big Theory versus Big Data Debate, moderated by David Poeppel.1Big Theory versus...
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