Neuroscience posts
- March 14, 2010
- 05:24 PM
- 13 views
If graves could talk, Patrick Wall’s would be screaming (oh, and genes affect pain)
by Lorimer Moseley in BodyInMind
In 1986, Pat Wall and Steve McMahon commented on the folly of talking about nociception as though it is pain -
‘the labelling of nociceptors as pain fibres was not an admirable simplification but an unfortunate trivialization’ and
‘…pain is an integrated package of analysed results related to meaning, significance and imperative action’ [1]
Almost 25 years have [...]... Read more »
[1] Wall, P., & McMahon, S. (1986) The relationship of perceived pain to afferent nerve impulses. Trends in Neurosciences, 254-255. DOI: 10.1016/0166-2236(86)90070-6
[2] Reimann, F., Cox, J., Belfer, I., Diatchenko, L., Zaykin, D., McHale, D., Drenth, J., Dai, F., Wheeler, J., Sanders, F.... (2010) Pain perception is altered by a nucleotide polymorphism in SCN9A. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0913181107
- March 14, 2010
- 02:59 PM
- 17 views
The Cocaine Conundrum
by Dirk Hanson in Addiction Inbox
Effective treatment remains elusive.
For addiction to cocaine, amphetamine, and other stimulants, the treatment picture has been complicated by the lack of any truly significant anti-craving medications. (See post, “No Pill for Stimulant Addiction"). The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) has yet to approve any medications for the treatment of either cocaine or amphetamine addiction.
Take the case of cocaine. Partly the problem stems from the direct effect cocaine has on dopamine transm........ Read more »
Hiranita, T., Soto, P., Newman, A., & Katz, J. (2009) Assessment of Reinforcing Effects of Benztropine Analogs and Their Effects on Cocaine Self-Administration in Rats: Comparisons with Monoamine Uptake Inhibitors. Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics, 329(2), 677-686. DOI: 10.1124/jpet.108.145813
- March 13, 2010
- 05:45 PM
- 38 views
Brain scans read memories
by Mo in Neurophilosophy
FORMATION of a memory is widely believed to leave a 'trace' in the brain - a fleeting pattern of electrical activity which strengthens the connections within a widely distributed network of neurons, and which re-emerges when the memory is recalled. The concept of the memory trace was first proposed nearly a century ago, but the nature of the trace, its precise location in the brain and the underlying neural mechanisms all remain elusive. A new study by researchers from University College London ........ Read more »
Chadwick, M. J., et al. (2010) Decoding Individual Episodic Memory Traces in the Human Hippocampus. Curr. Biol. info:/
- March 12, 2010
- 09:20 PM
- 66 views
fMRI becomes big, big science
by Tal Yarkoni in citation needed
There are probably lots of criteria you could use to determine the relative importance of different scientific disciplines, but the one I like best is the Largest Number of Authors on a Paper. Physicists have long had their hundred-authored papers (see for example this individual here; be sure to click on the “show all authors/affiliations” [...]... Read more »
Biswal, B., Mennes, M., Zuo, X., Gohel, S., Kelly, C., Smith, S., Beckmann, C., Adelstein, J., Buckner, R., Colcombe, S.... (2010) Toward discovery science of human brain function. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 107(10), 4734-4739. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0911855107
- March 12, 2010
- 07:51 AM
- 41 views
Wired for Music
by Kevin Mitchell in Wiring the Brain
Music has a bizarre power to engage and affect us – to move us emotionally or literally, whether it’s foot-tapping, finger-drumming or booty-shaking. It seems to have properties that make it automatically and powerfully salient for human beings. An obvious question is whether this reflects some innate properties of the human brain or whether it emerges over time due to experience with types of music. Put another way, does the brain shape the music or the other way around?........ Read more »
Perani, D., Saccuman, M., Scifo, P., Spada, D., Andreolli, G., Rovelli, R., Baldoli, C., & Koelsch, S. (2010) Functional specializations for music processing in the human newborn brain. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 107(10), 4758-4763. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0909074107
Sun, T. (2005) Early Asymmetry of Gene Transcription in Embryonic Human Left and Right Cerebral Cortex. Science, 308(5729), 1794-1798. DOI: 10.1126/science.1110324
- March 12, 2010
- 03:35 AM
- 31 views
Friston is Freudian
by The Neurocritic in The Neurocritic
Professor Karl Friston is one of the most prominent (and prolific) researchers in the field of neuroimaging. His contributions to methodological development in functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) are immense:He invented statistical parametric mapping; SPM is an international standard for analysing imaging data and rests on the general linear model and random field theory (developed with Keith Worsley). In 1994, his group developed voxel-based morphometry. VBM detects differences in n........ Read more »
Carhart-Harris, R., & Friston, K. (2010) The default-mode, ego-functions and free-energy: a neurobiological account of Freudian ideas. Brain. DOI: 10.1093/brain/awq010
- March 11, 2010
- 03:30 PM
- 28 views
When You Expect Rapid Feedback, the Fire to Perform Gets Hotter
by David DiSalvo in Neuronarrative
Let’s say that you’re preparing for an extremely important test that you and roughly 100 other classmates will be taking in a week. A few days before the test, you find out that your instructor will be going on a trip not long after the test is over and will be providing written and verbal feedback to the students within a day of the test.
This is unusual, because ordinarily the instructor waits a week or more before providing feedback. About half of the class finds out that the........ Read more »
Kettle, K., & Haubl, G. (2010) Motivation by Anticipation: Expecting Rapid Feedback Enhances Performance. Psychological Science. DOI: 10.1177/0956797610363541
- March 11, 2010
- 05:34 AM
- 96 views
"Why do we believe", and are atheists really more intelligent?
by Daniel in Ego sum Daniel
ResearchBlogging.org editor Dave Munger has written an article for SEED magazine entitled "Why do we believe". The article summarizes recent blog entries regarding studies on the origins of religiosity. It's really worth reading to get a good overview of the subject, and what do you know he links my entry on god's will and beliefs in it.
Among the studies that are mentioned is a controversial study entitled "Why Liberals and Atheists Are More Intelligent" (link at the end of this post).
Medic........ Read more »
Kanazawa, S. (2010) Why Liberals and Atheists Are More Intelligent. Social Psychology Quarterly. DOI: 10.1177/0190272510361602
- March 10, 2010
- 05:10 PM
- 52 views
Can We Rely on fMRI?
by Neuroskeptic in Neuroskeptic
Craig Bennett (of Prefrontal.org) and Michael Miller, of dead fish brain scan fame, have a new paper out: How reliable are the results from functional magnetic resonance imaging?Tal over at the [citation needed] blog has an excellent in-depth discussion of the paper, and Mind Hacks has a good summary, but here's my take on what it all means in practical terms.Suppose you scan someone's brain while they're looking at a picture of a cat. You find that certain parts of their brain are activated to ........ Read more »
Bennett CM, Miller MB. (2010) How reliable are the results from functional magnetic resonance imaging?. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences. info:/
- March 10, 2010
- 12:20 PM
- 44 views
Immune response to brain infection may trigger Alzheimer's
by Mo in Neurophilosophy
ALZHEIMER'S Disease is the most common form of dementia, affecting an estimated 30 million people worldwide. The cause of the condition is unknown, but the prime suspect is amyloid-beta (Aβ), a 42-amino acid peptide which accumulates within neurons to form insoluble structures called senile plaques that are thought to be toxic. Aβ is synthesized in all neurons; it is associated with the cell membrane, and is thought to be involved in cell-to-cell signalling, but its exact role has eluded resea........ Read more »
Soscia, S., Kirby, J., Washicosky, K., Tucker, S., Ingelsson, M., Hyman, B., Burton, M., Goldstein, L., Duong, S., Tanzi, R.... (2010) The Alzheimer's Disease-Associated Amyloid β-Protein Is an Antimicrobial Peptide. PLoS ONE, 5(3). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0009505
- March 10, 2010
- 08:00 AM
- 26 views
Rattling neuroethology’s windows
by Zen Faulkes in NeuroDojo
As I’ve written recently, I don’t feel all that at home and comfortable in the field of neuroscience. I feel much more at home in the discipline of neuroethology, which investigates the neural bases of naturally occurring animal behaviour. It is populated by people who still appreciate diversity.
Having said that neuroethology is my intellectual home, I would like to rattle the windows in my own house a bit.
Neuroethology has a bunch of great people working on cool stories. And yet it is n........ Read more »
Bullock, T. (1999) Neuroethology has pregnant agendas. Journal of Comparative Physiology A: Sensory, Neural, and Behavioral Physiology, 185(4), 291-295. DOI: 10.1007/s003590050389
- March 9, 2010
- 03:40 PM
- 52 views
Where are the rats at the cage fights
by Lorimer Moseley in BodyInMind
I sometimes wonder if we have all been hoodwinked about the whole Roman Colosseum stories of thousands of supposedly normal everyday Romans, presumably wearing sandals (not that that is important to this), cheered on as their fellow humans were slain, eaten, speared and mutilated. Then again, cage fighting, described by Senator John McCain as human [...]... Read more »
[1] Jeon D, Kim S, Chetana M, Jo D, Ruley HE, Lin SY, Rabah D, Kinet JP, & Shin HS. (2010) Observational fear learning involves affective pain system and Ca(v)1.2 Ca(2 ) channels in ACC. Nature neuroscience. PMID: 20190743
[2] Phan KL, Fitzgerald DA, Nathan PJ, & Tancer ME. (2006) Association between amygdala hyperactivity to harsh faces and severity of social anxiety in generalized social phobia. Biological psychiatry, 59(5), 424-9. PMID: 16256956
[3] Tsuchiya N, Moradi F, Felsen C, Yamazaki M, & Adolphs R. (2009) Intact rapid detection of fearful faces in the absence of the amygdala. Nature neuroscience, 12(10), 1224-5. PMID: 19718036
[4] Nieuwenhuis S, Ridderinkhof KR, Blom J, Band GP, & Kok A. (2001) Error-related brain potentials are differentially related to awareness of response errors: evidence from an antisaccade task. Psychophysiology, 38(5), 752-60. PMID: 11577898
- March 9, 2010
- 09:04 AM
- 57 views
Sleep deprivation impairs emotion recognition
by William Lu in The Quantum Lobe Chronicles
The ability to read emotions is an important part of the human experience; the only way to successfully navigate through complex social environments. It comes in handy especially if you don the title of psychotherapist or professional poker player. Without it, you become socially inept. You enter the world of the autistic individual.Thanks to Charles Darwin we now know that it’s not just the eyes that are “the windows to the soul”. He first wrote about the subject of facial expressions in ........ Read more »
van der Helm E; Gujar N; Walker MP. (2010) Sleep Deprivation Impairs the Accurate Recognition of Human Emotions. SLEEP, 33(3), 335-342. info:/
Ekman P, & Friesen WV. (1971) Constants across cultures in the face and emotion. Journal of personality and social psychology, 17(2), 124-9. PMID: 5542557
Steadman, L. (1980) : Kuru Sorcery: Disease and Danger in the New Guinea Highlands . Shirley Lindenbaum. American Anthropologist, 82(3), 692-694. DOI: 10.1525/aa.1980.82.3.02a01130
- March 9, 2010
- 08:00 AM
- 39 views
A neuron for free will
by Zen Faulkes in NeuroDojo
The question for neuroscience is how nervous systems generate behaviour and cognition. In general, we think there’s a hierachical command scheme, as the quick and dirty sketch below shows.
It’s been hard to move from general principles and “black boxes” to real neurons. A good chunk of effort in neuroethology has gone into understanding the sensory capabilities of different animals, and cracking how pattern generators could generate the detailed plan for movements, especially rhythmic ........ Read more »
Kagaya, K., & Takahata, M. (2010) Readiness Discharge for Spontaneous Initiation of Walking in Crayfish. Journal of Neuroscience, 30(4), 1348-1362. DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.4885-09.2010
- March 8, 2010
- 10:42 PM
- 29 views
Brain Change Patterns in Developing Children
by Livia in Reading and Word Recognition Research
Accessibility Level: Intermediate-Advanced
What changes in the brain as children mature? Are there patterns in the way the changes occur? Do some regions mature more quickly than others?
Last time, we talked about a paper by Schlaggar et al that examined brain differences between children and adults during a word generation task. A study published in Cerebral Cortex by Brown and colleagues
... Read more »
Brown, T. (2004) Developmental Changes in Human Cerebral Functional Organization for Word Generation. Cerebral Cortex, 15(3), 275-290. DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhh129
- March 8, 2010
- 03:45 PM
- 139 views
Life Without Serotonin
by Neuroskeptic in Neuroskeptic
Via Dormivigilia, I came across a fascinating paper about a man who suffered from a severe lack of monoamine neurotransmitters (dopamine, serotonin etc.) as a result of a genetic mutation: Sleep and Rhythm Consequences of a Genetically Induced Loss of SerotoninNeuroskeptic readers will be familiar with monoamines. They're psychiatrists' favourite neurotransmitters, and are hence very popular amongst psych drug manufacturers. In particular, it's widely believed that serotonin is the brain's "happ........ Read more »
Smaranda Leu-Semenescu et al. (2010) Sleep and Rhythm Consequences of a Genetically Induced Loss of Serotonin. Sleep, 33(03), 307-314. info:/
- March 8, 2010
- 10:08 AM
- 80 views
Brief Review of the P-CAPT Filter
by Brian Appleby in CJD Blogger
Following my last post regarding prion blood filtration, I was asked to cover the P-CAPT filter. Because leukoreduction only reduced prion infectivity by 72%, there is a need to develop other ways of eliminating prion infectivity in blood products. The P-CAPT Prion Capture Filter originated from a collaboration with Prometic, the American Red Cross, and several researchers. The majority of the initial research was performed by Luisa Gregori and colleagues in Bob Rohwer's lab, located at the Ve........ Read more »
Gregori, L., Lambert, B., Gurgel, P., Gheorghiu, L., Edwardson, P., Lathrop, J., MacAuley, C., Carbonell, R., Burton, S., Hammond, D.... (2006) Reduction of transmissible spongiform encephalopathy infectivity from human red blood cells with prion protein affinity ligands. Transfusion, 46(7), 1152-1161. DOI: 10.1111/j.1537-2995.2006.00865.x
Gregori L, Gurgel PV, Lathrop JT, Edwardson P, Lambert BC, Carbonell RG, Burton SJ, Hammond DJ, & Rohwer RG. (2006) Reduction in infectivity of endogenous transmissible spongiform encephalopathies present in blood by adsorption to selective affinity resins. Lancet, 368(9554), 2226-30. PMID: 17189034
Murphy CV, Eakins E, Fagan J, Croxon H, & Murphy WG. (2009) In vitro assessment of red-cell concentrates in SAG-M filtered through the MacoPharma P-CAPT prion-reduction filter. Transfusion medicine (Oxford, England), 19(3), 109-16. PMID: 19566667
Wiltshire, M., Thomas, S., Scott, J., Hicks, V., Haines, M., Cookson, P., Garwood, M., & Cardigan, R. (2009) Prion reduction of red blood cells: impact on component quality. Transfusion. DOI: 10.1111/j.1537-2995.2009.02500.x
- March 7, 2010
- 09:39 PM
- 46 views
Milk, Prions and Evolution
by Pablo Astudillo in astu's science blog
Prion protein (PrP) is the focus of some neurodegenerative diseases. It is believed that misfolded prion protein (PrPsc, or “scrapie”) is the infectious agent responsible for bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), and Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease (CJD), among others. PrPsc propagates by conversion of normal (healthy) prion protein (PrPc).
Several questions arise in the research community. Two of [...]... Read more »
Didier A, Gebert R, Dietrich R, Schweiger M, Gareis M, Märtlbauer E, & Amselgruber WM. (2008) Cellular prion protein in mammary gland and milk fractions of domestic ruminants. Biochemical and biophysical research communications, 369(3), 841-4. PMID: 18325321
Konold T, Moore SJ, Bellworthy SJ, & Simmons HA. (2008) Evidence of scrapie transmission via milk. BMC veterinary research, 14. PMID: 18397513
Supattapone S. (2010) Biochemistry. What makes a prion infectious?. Science (New York, N.Y.), 327(5969), 1091-2. PMID: 20185716
Li J, Browning S, Mahal SP, Oelschlegel AM, & Weissmann C. (2010) Darwinian evolution of prions in cell culture. Science (New York, N.Y.), 327(5967), 869-72. PMID: 20044542
- March 7, 2010
- 09:36 PM
- 44 views
The Perils of Fair-Weather Cocaine
by Dirk Hanson in Addiction Inbox
The higher the temp, the higher the death rate.
As spring approaches, cocaine users might take note of further evidence of a connection between high ambient air temperatures and accidental overdoses.
A study published recently in the journal Addiction used mortality data from the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in New York City from 1990 to 2006 to determine the frequency of cocaine-related overdoses (itself an enterprise fraught with uncertainty and argument over listed causes of death)......... Read more »
Bohnert, A., Prescott, M., Vlahov, D., Tardiff, K., & Galea, S. (2010) Ambient temperature and risk of death from accidental drug overdose in New York City, 1990-2006. Addiction. DOI: 10.1111/j.1360-0443.2009.02887.x
- March 5, 2010
- 09:44 PM
- 67 views
functional MRI and the many varieties of reliability
by Tal Yarkoni in citation needed
Craig Bennett and Mike Miller have a new paper on the reliability of fMRI. It’s a nice review that I think most people who work with fMRI will want to read. Bennett and Miller discuss a number of issues related to reliability, including why we should care about the reliability of fMRI, what factors influence [...]... Read more »
Bennett, C. M., & Miller, M. B. (2010) How reliable are the results from functional magnetic resonance imaging?. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences. info:/
topics
join us!
Do you write about peer-reviewed research in your blog? Use ResearchBlogging.org to make it easy for your readers — and others from around the world — to find your serious posts about academic research.
If you don't have a blog, you can still use our site to learn about fascinating developments in cutting-edge research from around the world.
