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Tero Toivanen

New Light On Nature Of Broca's Area: Rare Procedure Documents How Human Brain Computes ... - 0 views

  • The study – which provides a picture of language processing in the brain with unprecedented clarity – will be published in the October 16 issue of the journal Science.
  • "Two central mysteries of human brain function are addressed in this study: one, the way in which higher cognitive processes such as language are implemented in the brain and, two, the nature of what is perhaps the best-known region of the cerebral cortex, called Broca's area," said first author Ned T. Sahin, PhD, post-doctoral fellow in the UCSD Department of Radiology and Harvard University Department of Psychology.
  • The study demonstrates that a small piece of the brain can compute three different things at different times – within a quarter of a second – and shows that Broca's area doesn't just do one thing when processing language.
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  • The procedure, called Intra-Cranial Electrophysiology (ICE), allowed the researchers to resolve brain activity related to language with spatial accuracy down to the millimeter and temporal accuracy down to the millisecond.
  • "We showed that distinct linguistic processes are computed within small regions of Broca's area, separated in time and partially overlapping in space," said Sahin. Specifically, the researchers found patterns of neuronal activity indicating lexical, grammatical and articulatory computations at roughly 200, 320 and 450 milliseconds after the target word was presented. These patterns were identical across nouns and verbs and consistent across patients.
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    "Two central mysteries of human brain function are addressed in this study: one, the way in which higher cognitive processes such as language are implemented in the brain and, two, the nature of what is perhaps the best-known region of the cerebral cortex, called Broca's area," said first author Ned T. Sahin, PhD, post-doctoral fellow in the UCSD Department of Radiology and Harvard University Department of Psychology.
Marija Shatilo

Philip Zimbardo: The psychology of evil - 0 views

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    Video on TED.com
Tero Toivanen

YouTube - Cognitive Neuroscience of Mindfulness Meditation - 0 views

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    Speaker: Philippe Goldin. Mindfulness meditation, one type of meditation technique, has been shown to enhance emotional awareness and psychological flexibility as well as induce well-being and emotional balance. Scientists have also begun to examine how meditation may influence brain functions.
Tero Toivanen

Adult Learning - Neuroscience - How to Train the Aging Brain - NYTimes.com - 1 views

  • One explanation for how this occurs comes from Deborah M. Burke, a professor of psychology at Pomona College in California. Dr. Burke has done research on “tots,” those tip-of-the-tongue times when you know something but can’t quite call it to mind. Dr. Burke’s research shows that such incidents increase in part because neural connections, which receive, process and transmit information, can weaken with disuse or age.
  • But she also finds that if you are primed with sounds that are close to those you’re trying to remember — say someone talks about cherry pits as you try to recall Brad Pitt’s name — suddenly the lost name will pop into mind. The similarity in sounds can jump-start a limp brain connection. (It also sometimes works to silently run through the alphabet until landing on the first letter of the wayward word.)
  • Recently, researchers have found even more positive news. The brain, as it traverses middle age, gets better at recognizing the central idea, the big picture. If kept in good shape, the brain can continue to build pathways that help its owner recognize patterns and, as a consequence, see significance and even solutions much faster than a young person can.
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  • The trick is finding ways to keep brain connections in good condition and to grow more of them.
  • Educators say that, for adults, one way to nudge neurons in the right direction is to challenge the very assumptions they have worked so hard to accumulate while young. With a brain already full of well-connected pathways, adult learners should “jiggle their synapses a bit” by confronting thoughts that are contrary to their own, says Dr. Taylor, who is 66.
  • Teaching new facts should not be the focus of adult education, she says. Instead, continued brain development and a richer form of learning may require that you “bump up against people and ideas” that are different. In a history class, that might mean reading multiple viewpoints, and then prying open brain networks by reflecting on how what was learned has changed your view of the world.
  • Such stretching is exactly what scientists say best keeps a brain in tune: get out of the comfort zone to push and nourish your brain. Do anything from learning a foreign language to taking a different route to work.
  • “As adults we have these well-trodden paths in our synapses,” Dr. Taylor says. “We have to crack the cognitive egg and scramble it up. And if you learn something this way, when you think of it again you’ll have an overlay of complexity you didn’t have before — and help your brain keep developing as well.”
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    Dr. Burke has done research on "tots," those tip-of-the-tongue times when you know something but can't quite call it to mind. Dr. Burke's research shows that such incidents increase in part because neural connections, which receive, process and transmit information, can weaken with disuse or age.
David McGavock

What is intelligence ? | BrainFacts.org Blog - 0 views

  • What do we mean when we say someone is intelligent and is there any scientific basis for defining intelligence? These questions have been at the center of a more than century-old debate in psychology.
  • Although it may be practical for people to think of intelligence as something that exists, whether science should consider intelligence and how it would define it remains very controversial.
  • A recent study published by Hampshire et al.1 from the University of Western Ontario has looked into the brain areas that are activated by tasks that are typically used to test for intelligence. In doing so they hoped to determine if brain areas related to cognitive demands are activated altogether as demands increase during intelligence tests of various kinds, or if some areas were activated during tests for a specific intelligence domain and not for others.
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  • The study is interesting because it provides three candidate intelligence factors (instead of 1) that have been built not from intuition about what tasks do but based on the set of brain areas that might contribute to those tasks. However don’t get too excited, the methods used have severe limitations and we are still only at the hypothesis level. We do not know how these areas contribute to performance in intelligence tests and we do not know why they are activated and how they interact together to create the behavior.
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    A recent study published by Hampshire et al.1 from the University of Western Ontario has looked into the brain areas that are activated by tasks that are typically used to test for intelligence. In doing so they hoped to determine if brain areas related to cognitive demands are activated altogether as demands increase during intelligence tests of various kinds, or if some areas were activated during tests for a specific intelligence domain and not for others.
Michael Manning

Christmas Lectures 2011 - Meet your Brain : Ri Channel - 2 views

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    Lectures on the human brain and the innovations and discoveries of neuroscience
Tero Toivanen

YouTube - bf skinner on reinforcement - general psychology - 0 views

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    Skinner explains about reinforcement and "free will".
Tero Toivanen

Creativity and the Aging Brain | Psychology Today Blogs - 0 views

  • So instead of promoting retirement at age 65, perhaps we as a society should be promoting transition at age 65: transition into a creative field where our growing resource of individuals with aging brains can preserve their wisdom in culturally-valued works of art, music, or writing.
  • Numerous studies suggest that highly creative individuals also employ a broadened rather than focused state of attention. This state of widened attention allows the individual to have disparate bits of information in mind at the same time. Combining remote bits of information is the hallmark of the creative idea.
  • Other studies show that certain areas of the prefrontal cortex involved in self-conscious awareness and emotions are thinner in the aging brain. This may correlate with the diminished need to please and impress others, which is a notable characteristic of both aging individuals and creative luminaries.
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  • Finally, intelligence studies indicate that older individuals have access to an increasing store of knowledge gained over a lifetime of learning and experience. Combining bits of knowledge into novel and original ideas is what the creative brain is all about.
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    The aging brain resembles the creative brain in several ways. For instance, the aging brain is more distractible and somewhat more disinhibited than the younger brain (so is the creative brain). Aging brains score better on tests of crystallized IQ (and creative brains use crystallized knowledge to make novel and original associations).
Tero Toivanen

Let me sleep on it: Creative problem solving enhanced by REM sleep - 0 views

  • "Participants grouped by REM sleep, non-REM sleep and quiet rest were indistinguishable on measures of memory," said Cai. "Although the quiet rest and non-REM sleep groups received the same prior exposure to the task, they displayed no improvement on the RAT test. Strikingly, however, the REM sleep group improved by almost 40 percent over their morning performances."
  • The study by Sara Mednick, PhD, assistant professor of psychiatry at UC San Diego and the VA San Diego Healthcare System, and first author Denise Cai, graduate student in the UC San Diego Department of Psychology, shows that REM directly enhances creative processing more than any other sleep or wake state. Their findings will be published in the June 8th online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
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    "Participants grouped by REM sleep, non-REM sleep and quiet rest were indistinguishable on measures of memory," said Cai. "Although the quiet rest and non-REM sleep groups received the same prior exposure to the task, they displayed no improvement on the RAT test. Strikingly, however, the REM sleep group improved by almost 40 percent over their morning performances."
Tero Toivanen

Psychology Today: Flavonoids: Antioxidants Help the Mind - 0 views

  • ApplesQuercetin is the flavonoid that enables apples to keep the doctor away. Quercetin has been shown to reduce cancer risk, prevent heart attacks, stave off cataracts, control asthma, prevent recurrent gout attacks, and speed healing from acid reflux. Green TeaGreen tea contains, among others, the cancer-fighting flavonoid epigallocatechin gallate (ECGC). ECGC is unique in that it seems to battle cancer at all stages, from thwarting chemical carcinogens, to suppressing the spread of tumors. ECGC is as much as 100 times more powerful an antioxidant as vitamin C, and 25 times more powerful than vitamin E. ECGC also may account for the antibacterial properties of green tea. ChocolateChocolate contains many of the same flavonoids found in tea. The darker the chocolate, the more flavonoids present. Cocoa powder is the richest source by weight, and to maximize your benefits, make your hot chocolate from scratch. Homemade hot chocolate will provide you with more flavonoids than a store-bought mix. Red WineFlavonoids are the source of the well-known "French Paradox"—the ability of the French to consume lots of fat-laden cheese without dropping like flies from heart attacks. The red wine they enjoy is flavonoid-rich, which lowers their risk of heart disease. And if you're not a drinker, you can get almost all the same benefits from purple grape juice.
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    Flavonoids: Antioxidants Help the Mind Naturally occurring plant pigments, flavonoids are one of the reasons fruits and vegetables are so good for you. Among the many benefits attributed to flavonoids are reduced risk of cancer, heart disease, asthma, and stroke. Apples, Green Tea, Chocolate and Red Wine
Ruth Howard

Global Consciousness Project -- consciousness, group consciousness, mind - 0 views

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    Global scale mind-matter via random number generators-map human conciousness
Ruth Howard

Jill Bolte Taylor's stroke of insight | Video on TED.com - 1 views

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    Neuroscientist returns from near death experience specifically to deliver this message to us all...tho it takes 8 years to fully recover from her stroke. She experiences conscious awareness of the nature of duality that we all live within...inside our L&R brain hemispheres!!! She points to a conscious choice...and a purpose.
Tero Toivanen

Mozart Effect and Premature Babies - Child Psychology Research Blog - 0 views

  • listening to classical music, and in particular Mozart, improved test performance in college students
  • In fact, a comprehensive meta-analysis (a statistical reviews of previous studies on the topic) concluded that listening to Mozart actually had no effect on intelligence.
  • Soon after, a series of studies showed that Mozart improves performance in some people because of its calming effects.
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  • Other studies also showed that playing Mozart to at risk infants (premature or those with severe medical complications) resulted in better medical outcomes, such as fewer hospitalization days and more rapid weight gain.
  • In the last issue of the journal Pediatrics, there was a very small yet fascinating study on the effects of Mozart on premature babies.
  • The authors found that within 10 minutes of the start of the music the infants experienced an average of a 10-13% reduction in their “Resting Energy Expenditure” (REE).
  • It is possible that exposing the infants to Mozart reduces their REE and this results in a higher ratio of ‘consumed calories’ to ‘calories used’, and thus more rapid weight gain and better medical outcomes.
  • these findings, combined to previous findings showing improved medical outcomes among at-risk infants exposed to music, makes you wonder whether neonatal intensive care units should consider music exposure as standard practice for at risk infants.
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    Mozart Effect: The effect of music on premature babies
Daly de Gagne

Lerner's Notebook: New Mindfulness Book for Therapists by Daniel J. Siegel - 0 views

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    Very interesting, positive review of psychiatrist Daniel J Siegle's new book on mindful for psychotherapists. 
Michael Manning

The Neuroscience of Addiction: A Conversation with Dr. Nora Volkow - 0 views

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    For many years, drug addictions were deemed to be largely behavioral disorders once the abuser went through a period of detoxification.  But advanced imaging technologies have now indicated that addiction is a physical process that occurs in addition to physical dependency. 
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