Can you eat bacteria to boost ‘brain power’ (personally, I keep my brain power level on HIGH at all times)? But be wary of books about your brain on food.
Life without a cerebellum isn’t all bad. The pons isn’t all it’s cracked up to be either.
Syntax processing may not be in Broca’s area. Instead, evidence is accumulating that it’s in the anterior temporal lobe. So what’s the connectivity between the two areas like?
Chimps prefer to copy from those who are more prestigious
When the onlookers were given tokens of their own, they were far more likely to stick them in the box favoured by the older, high-ranking female, whether it was striped or spotty. As groups, they opted for her choice on around 70% and 90% of the time. As individuals, they also showed the same favouritism.
Examining data on autism and myelination, this blog post proposes a connection with creativity and psychosis.
Bipolar disorder sufferers commonly shows circadian rhythm disfunction. What’s the evidence that bipolar disorder is actually a circadian rhythm problem?
Cool study on event causality and how it relates to perceived time compression.
Again on creativity: dopamine receptor (D2) levels in the thalamus correlate negatively with ‘creativity scores’. I hadn’t fully realized there were dopamine receptors in thalamus. Where do the projections arise from? It looks complicated.
Attentional bias is related to gaydar?
Record spikes on your iPhone. Too cool.
Is depression linked to (lack of) neurogenesis? They use a CREB-deficient mouse in a kind of reverse-depression test.
Hub neurons have been identified in hippocampus, and they’re primarily GABAergic. They also have extensive axonal arborisations and low response latency. An old (~1 year) paper, but important for our understanding of the graph structure of the brain. If neurons are described by a small world network, you need hub neurons.
New lessons from sensory representations in auditory cortex. Subthreshold maps were more ordered than suprathreshold maps. I think this is in opposition to visual cortex where subthreshold responses are more broadly tuned, and spiking activity drastically narrows the activity. Or am I wrong?
What happens when you mutate genes required for proper bilateralization? Unsurprisingly, messing with the axons that connect across the midline causes motor difficulties.
I just watched La Jetee which is a pretty amazing movie. Find it on youtube or get it legally (or torrent). It’s worth half an hour of your time.
Children of Cajal 