JP’s strained relationship with Facebook’s algorithm
Really gets to how Facebook sucks us in deeper and deeper until… [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6PixKW4BGI]
Brain training doesn’t work
From this article: “Being an academic neuroscientist, I didn’t limit my research to the Google perspective, let’s call it. I leveraged an advantage that few consumers have—access to peer-reviewed research and the training to critically interpret it. […] With help from colleagues, I sifted through thousands of academic papers that investigated neurofeedback. Our main finding? At the time of our research, only nine neurofeedback studies had used an adequate control group and a double-blind design (where neither the experimenters nor…
Affective neuroscience of self-generated thought
By Fox et al. (2018), Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 12 May, pp. 1 – 27. The abstract: “Despite increasing scientific interest in self-generated thought—mental content largely independent of the immediate environment—there has yet to be any comprehensive synthesis of the subjective experience and neural correlates of affect in these forms of thinking. Here, we aim to develop an integrated affective neuroscience encompassing many forms of self-generated thought—normal and pathological, moderate and excessive, in waking and in…
Can tai chi and qigong postures shape our mood?
Subtitle: “Toward an embodied cognition framework for mind-body research,” by Osypiuk et al. in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, May 1, 2018. The abstract: “Dynamic and static body postures are a defining characteristic of mind-body practices such as Tai Chi and Qigong (TCQ). A growing body of evidence supports the hypothesis that TCQ may be beneficial for psychological health, including management and prevention of depression and anxiety. Although a variety of causal factors have been identified as potential mediators of such…
Saturday Subjective
For something a little different to start your weekend, here is a glimpse into one man’s subjective world. He asks himself what consciousness is. He observes, “Life is fear,” yet his mind has found a way to peace. What is the adaptive significance of magical thinking? What is the value of cozying up to ambiguity? CUCLI from Xavier Marrades on Vimeo.
Consciousness Regained:
“Disentangling mechanisms, brain systems, and behavioral responses” by Johan F. Storm et al., Journal of Neuroscience 8 November 2017, 37 (45) 10882-10893. The abstract: “How consciousness (experience) arises from and relates to material brain processes (the “mind-body problem”) has been pondered by thinkers for centuries, and is regarded as among the deepest unsolved problems in science, with wide-ranging theoretical, clinical, and ethical implications. Until the last few decades, this was largely seen as a philosophical topic, but not widely accepted…
Neuroscience of Consciousness Journal
Their blurb: “Neuroscience of Consciousness is an open access journal which publishes papers on the biological basis of consciousness, with an emphasis on empirical neuroscience studies in healthy populations and clinical settings. The journal also publishes empirically and neuroscientifically relevant psychological, methodological, theoretical, and philosophical papers. As well as the primary phenomenon of consciousness itself, relevant topics include interactions between conscious and unconscious processes; selfhood; metacognition and higher-order consciousness; intention, volition, and agency; individual differences in consciousness; altered states of…
On the evolution of the mammalian brain
Torday and Miller, Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience, 19 April 2016. The abstract: “Hobson and Friston have hypothesized that the brain must actively dissipate heat in order to process information (Hobson et al., 2014). This physiologic trait is functionally homologous with the first instantation of life formed by lipids suspended in water forming micelles- allowing the reduction in entropy (heat dissipation). This circumvents the Second Law of Thermodynamics permitting the transfer of information between living entities, enabling them to perpetually glean…
70-year-old Hebbs synaptic learning theory wrong
Neural learning occurs at dendrite roots, not in synapses. The newly suggested learning scenario indicates that learning occurs in a few dendrites that are in much closer proximity to the neuron, as opposed to the previous notion. … The new learning scenario occurs in different sites of the brain and therefore calls for a reevaluation of current treatments for disordered brain functionality. … In addition, the learning mechanism is at the basis of recent advanced machine learning and deep learning…
Prosthetic memory system successful in humans
“This is the first time scientists have been able to identify a patient’s own brain cell code or pattern for memory and, in essence, ‘write in’ that code to make existing memory work better, an important first step in potentially restoring memory loss” … “We showed that we could tap into a patient’s own memory content, reinforce it and feed it back to the patient,” Hampson said. “Even when a person’s memory is impaired, it is possible to identify the…