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Contents contributed and discussions participated by Tero Toivanen

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Dan Pink on the surprising science of motivation | Video on TED.com - 1 views

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    Dan Pink's fantastic talk about motivation in TED.
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Classics in the History of Psychology - 0 views

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    Classic documents in the History of Psychology.
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The power of one - neuron | Brain Health Hacks - 2 views

  • The researchers found that by inducing repetitive high frequency firing of a single neuron they could switch the brain state from slow-wave sleep, to rapid-eye movement sleep.
  • Therefore, judging by these three high profile journal papers, a single neuron can make a difference - one neuron firing can change your sleep state, motor movement, or induce a behavior.
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    Therefore, judging by these three high profile journal papers, a single neuron can make a difference - one neuron firing can change your sleep state, motor movement, or induce a behavior.
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YouTube - alien hand syndrome - 0 views

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    Woman with alien hand syndrome.
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Carl Rogers - 0 views

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    Carl Rogers (1902-1987) is truly the central figure in the humanistic orientation. Rogers' person-centered theory emphasized the concept of "self-actualization." This concept implies that there is an internal, biological force to develop one's capacities and talents to the fullest.
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BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | Simulated brain closer to thought - 1 views

  • A detailed simulation of a small region of a brain built molecule by molecule has been constructed and has recreated experimental results from real brains.
  • While many computer simulations have attempted to code in "brain-like" computation or to mimic parts of the nervous systems and brains of a variety of animals, the Blue Brain project was conceived to reverse-engineer mammal brains from real laboratory data and to build up a computer model down to the level of the molecules that make them up.
  • The first phase of the project is now complete; researchers have modeled the neocortical column - a unit of the mammalian brain known as the neocortex which is responsible for higher brain functions and thought.
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  • "It starts to learn things and starts to remember things. We can actually see when it retrieves a memory, and where they retrieved it from because we can trace back every activity of every molecule, every cell, every connection and see how the memory was formed."
  • "The next phase is beginning with a 'molecularisation' process: we add in all the molecules and biochemical pathways to move toward gene expression and gene networks. We couldn't do that on our first supercomputer."
  • Organised columns of neurons have been simulated molecule by molecule
  • "This is very interesting research and I'm not criticising it, but it doesn't help us in computer science in having the intelligent behaviour of humans replicated." Professor Markram believes that by building up from one neocortical column to the entire neocortex, the ethereal "emergent properties" that characterise human thought will, step by step, make themselves apparent.
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    A detailed simulation of a small region of a brain built molecule by molecule has been constructed and has recreated experimental results from real brains.
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Cognitive Daily: A quick eye-exercise can improve your performance on memory tests (but... - 1 views

  • If you're taking a test of rote memorization, like words from a list, move your eyes from side to side for about 30 seconds before you start.
  • It may be that this quick activity helps facilitate interaction between the brain hemispheres.
  • any activity that encourages communication between the hemispheres is likely to increase recall.
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  • people who have poorer interactions between the hemispheres should benefit more than others. Who has less interactions between hemispheres? People who are strongly right-handed.
  • Strongly right-handed students remembered significantly more words if they moved their eyes compared to keeping their eyes still. Non-strongly-right-handed students (including left-handers) remembered the same number of words regardless of whether they moved their eyes before the test.
  • strongly right-handed students had significantly fewer false alarms after they moved their eyes back and forth. But for non-strongly-right-handed people, the reverse occurred; moving their eyes caused them to falsely remember more words. So overall, while the eye-saccade exercise helped right-handers, for lefties and for those who didn't have a strongly dominant hand, the exercise actually harmed their performance.
  • You might think that only side-to-side movement would improve performance, but Lyle's team found that moving your eyes up and down caused the same effect.
  • researchers say that other studies have shown that any eye movements increase bilateral activity in the frontal eye field, so it's still possible that hemispheric connectivity can explain the improved performance after eye movements.
  • So why doesn't the exercise work the same way for left-handers? Left handers (and ambidextrous individuals) already have a high level of hemispheric connectivity. Lyle's team speculates that there might be such a thing as too much connectivity, which results in a decrease in performance.
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Kwabena Boahen on a computer that works like the brain | Video on TED.com - 0 views

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    Kwabena Boahen's interesting talk in TED about computer copaired with the brain.
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Exploring-Psychology: Teaching Pigeons To Bowl. The Story of How B.F. Skinner Discovere... - 0 views

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    In formulating his theories, B.F Skinner conducted numerous behaviour experiements with rats and pigeons, as can be seen in the following video.
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Investing in the Developing Brain : The Frontal Cortex - 2 views

  • But there has been one major payoff from our investigations of the brain: an increasing emphasis on educating young children, before they reach kindergarten. Decades of research have demonstrated that the cortex is astonishingly plastic at a young age and that many important traits and habits seem to solidify before the age of 4.
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    But there has been one major payoff from our investigations of the brain: an increasing emphasis on educating young children, before they reach kindergarten. Decades of research have demonstrated that the cortex is astonishingly plastic at a young age and that many important traits and habits seem to solidify before the age of 4.
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Growing evidence of the brain's plasticity could benefit stroke victims or those suffer... - 1 views

  • With the right training, scientists now know the brain can reshape itself to work around dead and damaged areas, often with dramatic benefits.
  • Therapies that exploit the brain's power to adapt have helped people overcome damage caused by strokes, depression, anxiety and learning disabilities, and may one day replace drugs for some of these conditions.
  • Children with language difficulties have been shown to make significant progress using computer training tools that are the equivalent of cerebral cross-training.
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  • Neuroplasticity does not see the different regions of the brain as completely versatile and certainly not interchangeable. But it recognises that if part of the brain is damaged, it can be possible to train other areas to take on, at least to some extent, the job of the lost brain matter.
  • Doidge says he is not anti-medication, but wonders if therapies that tap into neuro-plasticity will soon replace drug treatments for certain conditions. "We can change our brains by sensing, imagining and acting in the world. It's economical and mostly low-tech, and I'm very, very hopeful"
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    With the right training, scientists now know the brain can reshape itself to work around dead and damaged areas, often with dramatic benefits.
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The DoveSong Foundation -- The effect of Music on Plants (The Plant Experiments) - 0 views

  • Next Mrs. Retallack tried another experiment again using the three chambers. In one chamber she played North Indian classical music performed by sitar and tabla, in another she played Bach organ music, and in the third, no music was played. The plants "liked" the North Indian classical music the best. In both the Bach and sitar chambers, the plants leaned toward the speakers, but he plants in the Indian music chamber leaned toward the speakers the most.
  • Mrs. Retallack placed plants in each chamber and speakers through which she played sounds and particular styles of music. She watched the plants and recorded their progress daily. She was astounded at what she discovered.
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    Mrs. Retallack placed plants in each chamber and speakers through which she played sounds and particular styles of music. She watched the plants and recorded their progress daily. She was astounded at what she discovered.
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How The Brain Rewires Itself - TIME - 1 views

  • What the scientists found was that after a week of practice, the stretch of motor cortex devoted to these finger movements took over surrounding areas like dandelions on a suburban lawn.
  • He extended the experiment by having another group of volunteers merely think about practicing the piano exercise. They played the simple piece of music in their head, holding their hands still while imagining how they would move their fingers. Then they too sat beneath the TMS coil.
  • they glimpsed a revolutionary idea about the brain: the ability of mere thought to alter the physical structure and function of our gray matter. For what the TMS revealed was that the region of motor cortex that controls the piano-playing fingers also expanded in the brains of volunteers who imagined playing the music--just as it had in those who actually played it.
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  • the discovery showed that mental training had the power to change the physical structure of the brain.
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    -they glimpsed a revolutionary idea about the brain: the ability of mere thought to alter the physical structure and function of our gray matter. For what the TMS revealed was that the region of motor cortex that controls the piano-playing fingers also expanded in the brains of volunteers who imagined playing the music--just as it had in those who actually played it.

Genes to Cognition Online - 0 views

shared by Tero Toivanen on 05 Apr 09 - Cached
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Phasic Firing Of Dopamine Neurons Is Key To Brain's Prediction Of Rewards - 0 views

  • Our research findings provide a direct functional link between the bursting activity of midbrain dopamine neurons and behavior. The research has significant applications for the improvement of health, because the dopamine neurons we are studying are the same neurons that become inactivated during Parkinson's Disease and with the consumption of psychostimulants such as cocaine and amphetamine
  • Midbrain dopamine neurons fire in two characteristic modes, tonic and phasic, which are thought to modulate distinct aspects of behavior. When an unexpected reward is presented to an individual, midbrain dopamine neurons fire high frequency bursts of electrical activity. Those bursts of activity allow us to learn to associate the reward with cues in our environment, which may predict similar rewards in the future.
  • When researchers placed the mice in reward-based situations, they found that the mice without the NMDA receptor in their dopaminergic neurons could not learn tasks that required them to associate sensory cues with reward. Those same mice, however, were able to learn tasks that did not involve an association with rewards.
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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).
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Eide Neurolearning Blog: fMRI of Learning Styles: Confirmation of Visual and Verbal Lea... - 0 views

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    Using a simple True/False Learning Styles questionnaire(like this, see below), researchers found that people could reliably predict whether they are predominantly visual or verbal learners.
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Learn Psychology For Free - 0 views

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    Here you can learn psychology for free. Fantastic!
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YouTube - Brain-Computer Interfaces (Krishna Shenoy, Stanford University) - 0 views

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    Video of Krishna Shenoy of Stanford University about brain-computer interfaces, wich could help people suffering problems to communicate.
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