Deric Bownds
These articles, from Deric's MindBlog at http://mindblog.dericbownds.net report new ideas and work on mind, brain, and behavior - as well as random curious stuff.
MY BLOGS
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Deric Bownds' MindBlog
http://mindblog.dericbownds.net/
This blog reports new ideas and work on mind, brain, and behavior - as well as random curious stuff.
LATEST ARTICLES ( 2494 )
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Quality of Early Parent Input Predicts Child Vocabulary 3 Years Later
Here is a fascinating result from Cartmill et al.: Children vary greatly in the number of words they know when they enter school, a major factor influencing... Read more
Posted on 16 July 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
The Obesity Paradox - Fat People May Live Longer!
Virginia Hughes writes about accumulating data on obesity and longevity that many researchers wish would just go away, after all the effort that has been put... Read more
Posted on 12 July 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
The Gospel According to Me...
I want to pass on a few clips from the stimulating essay by Critchley and Webster in "The Stone" forum of the New York Times: …many citizens in rich Western... Read more
Posted on 11 July 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Order Your DIY Brain Stimulation Kit to Improve Your Cognition?
Nature Magazine has an interesting editorial on dealing with the fact that transcranial direct-current stimulation (tDCS) kits (costing ~ $200) are likely to... Read more
Posted on 09 July 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Want to See the Metadata on Yourself (like the NSA Already Has)??
Intrigued by two recent articles by Lapidos and Chen, I've taken myself to the MIT media program called "Immersion". "... it only works with Gmail and you have... Read more
Posted on 08 July 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
How Our Brain Cortex Receives Information About the World
This post is for that subset of MindBlog readers interested in details of brain wiring. Constantinople and Bruno have upset a basic dogma taught to budding... Read more
Posted on 08 July 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Eye Widening in Fear - Sensory and Social Benefits
An interesting bit from Lee et al. Their abstract: Facial expressions may have originated from a primitive sensory regulatory function that was then co-opted an... Read more
Posted on 05 July 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Inflammation Links Ageing to the Brain.
Gabuzda et al. do a nice review of work by Zhang et al., that suggests that manipulation of hypothalamus regulation, and especially levels of the hormone GnRH... Read more
Posted on 04 July 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
A Spiritual Home for Atheists.
For many of us secular humanists, agnostics, or atheists, life after our alienation from conventional religious congregations that offer prayers to an... Read more
Posted on 03 July 2013 SPIRITUALITY -
Enhanced Emotion Regulation Persists After Meditation Training.
Desbordes and collaborators have looked at the effects of training in both mindful attention meditation and compassion meditation in two groups of subject with... Read more
Posted on 01 July 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Are You Married? Did You Meet On-line Or Off-line?
Interesting bit from Cacioppo et al. Marital discord is costly to children, families, and communities. The advent of the Internet, social networking, and on-lin... Read more
Posted on 26 June 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Brain Science Backlash, Throwing out the Baby with the Bathwater.
A recent NYTimes Op-Ed piece by David Brooks' ("Beyond the Brain") references the recent book "“Brainwashed: The Seductive Appeal of Mindless Neuroscience. Read more
Posted on 25 June 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Paternal Stress Changes Stress Axis in Offspring
A study from Bale and colleagues shows that stress on preadolescent and adult male mice induces an epigenetic mark in their sperm that reprogramms their... Read more
Posted on 24 June 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Neuroimaging Our Self Esteem - Be Happy!
There are more papers coming out on brain correlates of whatever aspect of our behaviors you care to name than anyone could possibly keep up with. Read more
Posted on 19 June 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Young Blood Makes Younger Hearts (and Brains) - Also, Aging Resistant Brains
I've previously mentioned work showing that providing young blood to an older brain can be beneficial, and now want to note work by Loffredo et al. Read more
Posted on 18 June 2013 BIOLOGY, PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Heart Rate Variability, ANS Aging - a New Device from "Phyode" - Therapeutic...
I want to put in this post a comment by reader "Andre" on my June 11 post ("Changes as an autonomic nervous system ages 11 years - The "Wild Divine" is a bit... Read more
Posted on 17 June 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Carrying Human (and Mouse) Babies Reduces Their Crying and Heart Rate.
Esposito et al. present some really nice observations. They demonstrate for the first time that the infant calming response to maternal carrying is a coordinate... Read more
Posted on 17 June 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Our Memory Can Be Selectively Rewritten During Its Reconsolidation.
Chan and LaPaglia make an interesting observation in humans that had previously only been reported in animal studies. We can mess with an existing declarative... Read more
Posted on 14 June 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Private Behaviors from Public Records...
The exposure of the PRISM surveillance system by Edward Snowden gave me a sort of "So what else is new?" reaction... I thought we knew this unfortunate stuff wa... Read more
Posted on 13 June 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Changes as an Autonomic Nervous System Ages 11 Years - The "Wild Divine" is a Bi...
Just after I retired from being a Univ. of Wisconsin department chair in 2001 I bought a set of finger sensors that fit on one's three middle fingers to report... Read more
Posted on 11 June 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE