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 ( 2495 )
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Different Languages Use Different Systems of Nerve Cells.
From Xu et al.: A large body of previous neuroimaging studies suggests that multiple languages are processed and organized in a single neuroanatomical system... Read more
Posted on 28 July 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
The World’s Laziest Countries.
From Althoff et al.: To be able to curb the global pandemic of physical inactivity and the associated 5.3 million deaths per year, we need to understand the... Read more
Posted on 27 July 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
The Brain Circuits of a Winner.
Social dominance in mice depends on winning social contests. Zhou et al. manipulate synapses connecting the thalamus and dorsomedial prefrontal cortex to show... Read more
Posted on 26 July 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
When is Stress Good for You?
I want to point to an interesting essay by Bruce McEwen, a well known Rockefeller Univ. researcher who has studied mechanisms of stress for many years. Read more
Posted on 25 July 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Emotion Shapes the Diffusion of Moralized Content in Social Networks.
From Brady et al.: Political debate concerning moralized issues is increasingly common in online social networks. However, moral psychology has yet to... Read more
Posted on 24 July 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Rejuvenating Brain Plasticity
Blundon et al. have demonstrated that several pharmacological interventions that disrupt A1-adenosine receptor signalling can restore the brain's cortical... Read more
Posted on 21 July 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
A.I. Algorithms Analyze the Mood of the Masses.
I pass on this brief article by Matthew Hutson: With billions of users and hundreds of billions of tweets and posts every year, social media has brought big dat... Read more
Posted on 20 July 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Trust is Heritable, Whereas Distrust is Not
From Reimann et al.: Why do people distrust others in social exchange? To what degree, if at all, is distrust subject to genetic influences, and thus possibly... Read more
Posted on 19 July 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
A New ‘alternative’ Culture?
Reading Herrman’s recent NYTimes Magazine article was an eye-opener for me. On reading the second of the two paragraphs below, I asked google about Gab, Voat,... Read more
Posted on 18 July 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Nature Experience Reduces Our Brain Rumination.
From Bratman et al.: Significance More than 50% of people now live in urban areas. By 2050 this proportion will be 70%. Urbanization is associated with increase... Read more
Posted on 17 July 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Politics and the English Language - George Orwell
The 1946 essay by George Orwell with the title of this post was recently discussed by the Chaos and Complex Systems seminar group that I attend at the Universit... Read more
Posted on 14 July 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Can Utopianism Be Rescued?
I’ve been wanting to do a post on utopias for some time, notes on the subject have drifted to the bottom of my queue of potential posts. There are six cities i... Read more
Posted on 13 July 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
When the Appeal of a Dominant Leader is Greater Than a Prestige Leader.
From Kakkara and Sivanathan: Significance We examine why dominant/authoritarian leaders attract support despite the presence of other admired/respected... Read more
Posted on 12 July 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Damaging in Utero Effects of Low Socioeconomic Status.
Gilman et al. make another addition to the list of how low socioeconomic status can damage our biological development, showing maternal immune activity in... Read more
Posted on 11 July 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Our Nutrition Modulates Our Cognition.
A fascinating study from Strang et al.: Food intake is essential for maintaining homeostasis, which is necessary for survival in all species. Read more
Posted on 10 July 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Working Memory Isn’t Just in the Frontal Lobes.
An inportant open access paper from Johnson et al.: The ability to represent and select information in working memory provides the neurobiological infrastructur... Read more
Posted on 07 July 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Cognitive Control as a Double-edged Sword.
Amer et al. offer an implicit critique of the attention and resources dedicated to brain-training programs that aim to modify the cognitive performance of... Read more
Posted on 06 July 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Describing Aging - Metastability in Senescence
Naik et al. suggest a whole brain computational modeling approach to understand how our brains maintain a high level of cognitive ability even as their... Read more
Posted on 05 July 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
The Human Fetus Engages Face Like Stimuli.
Reid et al. are able to show that we prefer face-like stimuli even in utero: Highlights •The third trimester human fetus looks toward three dots configure... Read more
Posted on 04 July 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE -
Neural Measures Reveal Lower Social Conformity Among Non-religious Individuals.
An interesting bit from Thiruchselvam et al.: Even in predominantly religious societies, there are substantial individual differences in religious commitment.... Read more
Posted on 03 July 2017 PSYCHOLOGY, SCIENCE