Neuroscience

NeuroLaw: Are fMRI Scans Good Lie Detectors?

I recently wrote about research on people's beliefs using fMRI technology to see how different parts of the brain were activated. Near the end of their paper, the researchers commented that such results could be useful as a lie detection technique. Th ...

Blog Post - Richard Mankiewicz - Mar 3 2010 - 3:26am

'Neuromarketing' Could Help Advertisers Read Our Minds

Marketing experts may be able to test a product's appeal while it is still being designed thanks to advanced tools used to see the human brain at work, according to researchers from Duke and Emory Universities. So-called "neuromarketing" tak ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 4 2010 - 12:40pm

How To Put Art And Brain Together

A generation ago it was only a brave eclectic minority of psychologists and neuroscientists who dared to address the arts. Things have changed considerably since then. “Art and brain” is now a legitimate and respected target of study, and is approached fro ...

Article - Mark Changizi - Mar 4 2010 - 8:39pm

Building Smarter Artificial Intelligence By... Shrinking The Body?

There are currently two ambitious projects straddling artificial intelligence and neuroscience, each with the aim of building big brains that work. One is The Blue Brain Project, and it describes its aim in the following one-liner: ...

Article - Mark Changizi - Mar 9 2010 - 2:27pm

Faster Nicotine Accumulation Doesn't Explain Tobacco Addiction

Traditionally, scientists believed that nicotine inhaled in a puff of cigarette smoke took a mere seven seconds to be taken up by the brain, but new evidence indicates that nicotine takes much longer to reach peak levels in the brains of cigarette smokers, ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 9 2010 - 2:23pm

Inhibited SK Channels May Explain Relapse In Alcoholics

University of California, San Francisco researchers have uncovered a crucial mechanism that encourages alcohol consumption after extended abstinence. Previous work has suggested that people, places, and objects associated with alcohol use are potent trigge ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 10 2010 - 1:43pm

Can Neurons Communicate At A Distance With Electromagnetic Signals?

I've been pondering this for some time and have just now been fired into action by a comment I made in another article “ Building  Smarter Artificial Intelligence  By... Shrinking the Body? ” One approach to artificial intelligence is to model the act ...

Article - Richard Mankiewicz - Mar 12 2010 - 4:11am

Is This How Brain Waves And Neurons Create Consciousness?

I had previously speculated on how electric and magnetic fields generated by individual neurons may be able to transmit information to other neurons with which they are not in synaptic contact. From a purely physical point of view it strikes me as at least ...

Article - Richard Mankiewicz - Mar 15 2010 - 10:43am

Fastest Color Vision Belongs To Bumblebees

Bees see the world almost five times faster than humans, giving them the fastest color vision of all animals, according to new research appearing in the Journal of Neuroscience. The ability to see at high speed is common in fast-flying insects; allowing th ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 17 2010 - 1:05pm

Meditation on the Brain- a Podcast with Richard Davidson

This is an interview of Prof. Richard J. Davidson on Shrink Rap Radio, hosted by David Van Nuys, discussing his research on meditation and the brain. Davidson tells that his research shows that meditation has a beneficial effects on the mind and quantitat ...

Blog Post - Richard Mankiewicz - Mar 18 2010 - 8:40am