Deric Bownds

LATEST ARTICLES ( 2563 )

• Nocebo Pain Facilitation Occurs at Spinal Cord Level.

  I have had the impression that placebo and nocebo effects were the province of higher cortical brain machinations, the power of suggestion tweaking our... Read more

  Posted on 02 September 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• "Life Enhancement"

  A colleague sends me material he finds on longevity, life enhancement, etc. and I thought I would pass on two links on trendy compounds du jour, galantamine... Read more

  Posted on 30 August 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Meditation Factoids - Enhancement of “good” Genes Expression, Smoking Reduction

  Herbert Benson (of "relaxation response" fame) and collaborators have offered a study suggesting that meditation or relaxation down regulates expression of gene... Read more

  Posted on 29 August 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• More on the Neuro-Utopians

  A recent article by Benjamin Fong. "Bursting the neuro-utopian bubble" was so widely reported that I have delayed mention of it. Read more

  Posted on 28 August 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Song of Our Warming Planet

  A colleague in the chaos seminar group here at the Univ. of Wisconsin sent around this video translating global warming data into a musical piece. I wanted to... Read more

  Posted on 27 August 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• The Beethoven Mouse - a Key to Auditory Transduction

  

  I have to pass on this great montage cover and its legend from the journal Neuron. The article referenced described a gene mutation that leads to progressive... Read more

  Posted on 27 August 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Early Experience Shapes the Amygdala’s Sensitivity to Race.

  Here is a fascinating finding. Not surprising, I suppose, but Telzer et al. show that orphan human infants raised with exposure to only same-race faces (Europea... Read more

  Posted on 26 August 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Looking at the Posit Science Brain Renewal Training Program.

  I recently did a post pointing to Patricia Marx's article on brain exercises meant to counter aging. The authors went through the training regime of Mike... Read more

  Posted on 22 August 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• How the Brain Shifts Between Purpose and Habit.

  

  Gremel et al. do a nice explication of the brain's upstairs/downstairs story, illustrating with direct electrical recordings how the mouse brain switches betwee... Read more

  Posted on 21 August 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• A Brain Correlate of Near Death Hallucinations and Visions?

  Borjigin et al. make some fascinating observations on brain activity that occurs during the moments of cardiac arrest when brain glucose levels have dropped... Read more

  Posted on 20 August 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• War of Science and the Humanities Redux: Ross Douthat on The Scientism of...

  I enjoyed a very well written article by Steven Pinker in the New Republic titled "Science is not your enemy", which argued that an increasing melding of scienc... Read more

  Posted on 19 August 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Factoids on Exercise and Learning - the Kind of Exercise is Important

  In my scans of journals' tables of contents for potential MindBlog posts I keep an eye out for articles on exercise, probably the most life enhancing activity... Read more

  Posted on 16 August 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Do You Have a Tidy Or Messy Desk?

  Vohs et al. have done an interesting experiment that suggests that physical order enhances healthy choices, generosity, and conventionality, while disorder... Read more

  Posted on 14 August 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Imperceptible Current Applied to Our Scalp Enhances General Intelligence.

  

  Here is yet another of the increasing number of articles examining the effects of very weak electrical stimulation of our frontal scalp with surface electrodes. Read more

  Posted on 13 August 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Evidence That the Lunar Cycle Influences Human Sleep.

  

  I have kept a log for many years that has convinced me that I have roughly monthly oscillations in motivation and libido, but I've not come across convincing... Read more

  Posted on 12 August 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Personal Control Enhances Treatment Effectiveness.

  An interesting fragment, relating to the powerful vs helplessness theme of a recent post, subjects faced with alternative pain control drugs (both actually... Read more

  Posted on 09 August 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Think Your Radiologist Gets It Right? The Invisible Gorilla Strikes Again.

  A well known video shows the famous experiment of missing a gorilla walking through a basketball game when you have been instructed to count the number of... Read more

  Posted on 08 August 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Degree of Musical Expertise Modulates Higher Order Brain Functioning

  A piece like this one by Oechslin et al. gives me some hope that my piano playing and sight reading compensate for my aversion to spending any significant amoun... Read more

  Posted on 07 August 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Be Young in Perception and Behavior! Put Yourself in a Virtual Child’s Body!

  

  Banakou et al. show that if we use some simple tricks to project ourselves into a 4-year old's body, we overestimate object sizes and more readily associate... Read more

  Posted on 06 August 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE

• The Bad Kind of Stress - Perceived Helplessness

  Velasquez-Manoff does a nice discussion of a topic that has been recurrent in MindBlog, understanding the kind of stress that is really bad for us. Read more

  Posted on 05 August 2013 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE