Deric Bownds

LATEST ARTICLES ( 2628 )

• Fat Hurts, and Exercise Helps, the Brain.

  Gretchen Reynolds points to work by Erion et al.. showing that in obese mice inflammatory cytokines released by fat tissue enter the brain and cause nerve... Read more

  Posted on 14 March 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Several Perspectives on Rich Versus Poor.

  The latest issue of Psychological Science has several articles reflecting different perspectives on rich and poor people: An analysis noting that residents of... Read more

  Posted on 13 March 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• A Technique for Enhancing Error Awareness in Older Age.

  Harty et al. note yet another salutary effect of transcranial direct current stimulation. A small voltage applied across the right dorsolateral prefrontal corte... Read more

  Posted on 12 March 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Time, Money, and Morality

  Gino and Mogilner note "It seems that a day does not go by without some unethical behavior by a politician, movie star, professional athlete, or high-ranking... Read more

  Posted on 11 March 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Default Mode Network: the Seat of Literary Creativity?

  

  Wise et al. offer an article with the title of this post in Trends in Cognitive Sciences that comments on the brain areas that consistently become active in... Read more

  Posted on 10 March 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Optimism Correlates with Poor Results

  Richtel points to work by Sevincer et al. that makes the counter-intuitive observation that optimistic language in newspaper articles and presidential... Read more

  Posted on 07 March 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Dangerous Behaviors and the Corporate Consumption Complex.

  Mark Bittman points to Nicholas Freudenberg's new book, a right-on exposition and summary of ...“the corporate consumption complex,” an alliance of corporations... Read more

  Posted on 06 March 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• More on Building Brains with Video Games

  Nick Bilton does a brief piece on how trying to win various kinds of video games enhances subsequent performance on real world attention and memory tests. Read more

  Posted on 05 March 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Want to Remember Something? Have Some Coffee!

  

  Here is the brief abstract from Borota et al., followed by a graphic summary of the results offered by Favila and Kuhl: It is currently not known whether... Read more

  Posted on 04 March 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Cognitive Aging - a Dark Side to Environmental Support?

  Lindenberger and Mayr make some very interesting points on the consequences of shifting during aging from self initiation to environmental support in... Read more

  Posted on 03 March 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• A Brain Basis for Musical Hallucinations

  Kumar et al. report their findings from an unusual opportunity that presented itself when a retired London schoolteacher, Sylvia, reported to her doctors that... Read more

  Posted on 28 February 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• The Right Temperature for a Stroking Caress

  We apparently have sensory nerves in our skin that are exquisitely tuned for human hedonic, affiliative contact. From Ackerley et al. Read more

  Posted on 27 February 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Passing ADHD from One Generation to the Next.

  Prenatal and early postnatal exposure of the developing brain to nicotine (PNE) is a major risk factor for inducing attention deficit hyperactivity disorder... Read more

  Posted on 26 February 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Restoring Vision to Blind Mice (and Humans with RP Or AMD?) with a Photoswitch.

  

  Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and retinitis pigmentosa (RP) affect millions of people around the world and in their advanced stages lead to blindness. Read more

  Posted on 25 February 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Predicting Risky Choices from Brain Activity Patterns

  Helfinstein et al. find some predictive neural correlates of avoiding versus taking risks. Even course global patterns of brain activity reflect enhanced... Read more

  Posted on 24 February 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Senior Coolness

  Swiss researchers Zimmermann and Grebe describe the outcome of analysis of in-depth interviews in German with 65 people aged 77 to 101, which runs counter to th... Read more

  Posted on 21 February 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Mindfulness and Corporate America’s Bottom Line.

  New Republic senior editor Evgeny Morozov writes a piece called “The Mindfulness Racket”. (I have been working on a brain/mind web lecture on the... Read more

  Posted on 20 February 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Meditation and Brain Imaging of Two Kinds of Love.

  Judson Brewer and collaborators perform fMRI scans of experienced practitioners of loving kindness meditation, which fosters feelings of selfless love for... Read more

  Posted on 19 February 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Neural Signature of Our Own-race Bias.

  Wiese et al. examine the N170 signal (a component of event related potentials, or ERP recorded from electrodes placed on the head, which is maximal over... Read more

  Posted on 18 February 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Awesome Images

  

  I want to pass on to MindBlog reader two striking galleries of open access images. The first is Science Magazine's Visualization Challenge. Read more

  Posted on 17 February 2014 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE