Deric Bownds

LATEST ARTICLES ( 2661 )

• A Mechanism Underlying Our Current Political Paralysis

  Thomas Edsall points to the fascinating work of Berkeley graduate students Broockman and Ahler, who puncture the common assumption that a large segment of the... Read more

  Posted on 01 November 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Neural and Cognitive Characteristics of Extraordinary Altruists.

  I pass on this fascinating piece from Marsh et al., who find that a larger than average size of the right amygdala in extreme altruists who are very responsive... Read more

  Posted on 31 October 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Anti-aging Interventions: from Elixirs to Fasting.

  

  de Cabo et al. have done a useful review of different approaches to delaying or reversing aging, and I pass on their abstract and two nice summary graphics.... Read more

  Posted on 30 October 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Update on ‘fitness Age’ Calculators…

  The research group that originated the fitness age calculator that I mentioned in a post a year ago has tweaked their online calculator just a bit, so I pass... Read more

  Posted on 29 October 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Brain Resting State Network Stimulation for Psychiatric and Neurological Diseases

  

  Fox et al. do a survey of therapy using either invasive approaches, such as deep brain stimulation (DBS), or noninvasive approaches, such as transcranial... Read more

  Posted on 29 October 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• The Amygdala as the Hub of Three Brain Networks Supporting Our Social Life.

  

  I pass on this very useful summary by Bickart et al. that summarizes brain connectivity experiments in rodents, monkeys, and humans to develop a description tha... Read more

  Posted on 28 October 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Breath Counting as an Objective Behavioral Measure of Mindfulness.

  Another fascinating piece of work from Richard Davidson's group at the University of Wisconsin, evaluating breath counting as a potential objective and... Read more

  Posted on 27 October 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• The Power of Play - Portal2 Better Than Brain Training Software?

  My son, who does what I consider to be magic with his coding of internet commercial websites (see Praxisis.com) has been playing computer games since the first... Read more

  Posted on 26 October 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• How to Chill on Aggression...get Blood Glucose Levels Up.

  Here is an interesting and quirky piece by Bushman et al. that has been languishing in my queue of potential posts for quite a while: People are often the most... Read more

  Posted on 24 October 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Happiness and Well-being Sources.

  I’m passing on three items from my queue of potential posts that touch on well-being and happiness. First, of course, there’s an App for that! Kit Eaton... Read more

  Posted on 24 October 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Speaking out in a Group Correlates with Gender.

  The effectiveness of group decision-making depends on whether the best informed members actually contribute to the discussion. Read more

  Posted on 23 October 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Scientific Evidence Does Not Support Anti-aging Claims of the Brain Game...

  MindBlog has done numerous posts on brain training games as possible antidotes to cognitive decline in the elderly. (I've played with both Merzenich's BrainHQ... Read more

  Posted on 22 October 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Humans and Robots.

  A recent issue of Science magazine has a special section of articles on the social life of robots. The introduction by Stone and Lavine provides links to the... Read more

  Posted on 22 October 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Pianists’ Brains Are Different from Everyone Else...

  Because I'm a pianist who started lessons at age 6 and now usually give two concerts a year, I'm always fascinated by articles like this one from a music site... Read more

  Posted on 21 October 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Vitamin D Prevents Cognitive Decline

  ...in aging rats, to be sure. Work like the following piece from my colleagues at the University of Wisconsin reinforces my determination to continue my... Read more

  Posted on 20 October 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• How Culture Shapes Spatial Conceptions of Time - Is Your Past in Front Of, Or...

  A interesting perspective from Fuente et al. on spatial conceptions of time. Some clips from their article: Across many of the world’s languages, the future is... Read more

  Posted on 17 October 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Why Are We Fooled by the Ventriloquist?

  As we watch the movement's of a dummy's mouth while it is sitting in a ventriloguist's lap, we perceive the speech as coming from the dummy's mouth, rather... Read more

  Posted on 16 October 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Our Microbial Aura - in the House and in the Garden

  I've always been fascinated by the fact that in "our" bodies most of the cells are not our own, they are microbial symbionts. I pass on here two more takes on... Read more

  Posted on 15 October 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Boredom = Stress.... and Misbehavior

  From Merrifield and Danckert, a crisp piece of work (using the usual covey of college undergraduate as subjects) demonstrating that boredom increases stress... Read more

  Posted on 14 October 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Improvement of Performance by Transcranial Stimulation Depends on Existing Degre...

  Furuya et al. make the interesting observation that the fine motor hand performance of musically untrained people is improved by transcranial direction current... Read more

  Posted on 13 October 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE