Welcome to Encephalon #71 – a Big Night here at Neuroanthropology, as we are hosting Encephalon for the second time (last year it was The Usual Suspects). Enjoy your multi-course mind feast!

Editor’s Selections
What is this: ‘Too much’? HEY! It is never ‘too much’; it is only ‘not enough’! Bite your teeth into the ass of life and drag it to you!

Carl Feagans, A Hot Cup of Joe
Artificial Cranial Modification: Trephination and Head Shaping

Alvaro Fernandez, Sharp Brains
The SharpBrains Guide to Brain Fitness: 18 Interviews with Scientists, Practical Advice, and Product Reviews, To Keep Your Brain Sharp

Students @ Neuroanthropology – their own Big Night!
Gambling and Compulsion: Neurobiology Meets Casinos

Ginger Campbell, Brain Science Podcasts
Brain Science Podcast #57: Chris Frith, PhD (author of “Making Up The Mind: How the Brain Creates Our Mental World”)

Learning
“People should come just for the food!” “I know that, I know. But they don’t.”

Dave Munger, Cognitive Daily
Musicians Have Better Memory – Not Just for Music, but Words and Pictures Too

Greg Downey, Neuroanthropology
Talent: A Difference That Makes a Difference

Walter van den Broek, i.e., Dr. Shock
Neuroscience of Learning Arithmetic

Nicky Penttila, Sharp Brains
Brain Scientists Identify Links between Arts, Learning

Brain Health
I’m a businessman. I’m anything I need to be at anytime.

My Mind on Books
“What Makes Us Happy?”: George Vaillant and the Harvard Study of Adult Development @ The Atlantic

Adam Benforado, The Situationist
Something to Smile About

The Neurocritic
Suicide Rates in Greenland Are Highest During the Summer

Ward Plunet, Brain Health Hacks
How to Increase Your D2 Receptor Levels, and therefore the Dopamine System – for Better Brain Health

Dr. Shock
Neuroscience of Exercise

On the Basics
Sometimes spaghetti likes to be alone.

Vaughan Bell, Mind Hacks
The Psychology of Being Scammed

Sandeep Gautam, The Mouse Trap
Synaptic Plasticity: Angelman’s/Autism and Psychosis

Jacy Young, Advances in the History of Psychology
Interview with Alexandra Rutherford, author of “Beyond the Box: B.F. Skinner’s Technology of Behavior from Laboratory to Life”

Mo Costandi, Neurophilosophy
Decoding the Brain’s Response to Vocal Emotions

Critique and Comment
“She’s a criminal. I want to talk to her.” “You want to talk to her? Okay! You want to talk to her? That’s great.”

Eugene Raikhel, Somatosphere
A Critical Neurosciences Manifesto

The Neurocritic
The Constant State of Desire: Broccoli & Self-Control

Jared Tanner, Brain Blogger
What is Free Will?

Cristopher Green, Advances in the History of Psychology
“Homosexuality Conversion” Classics Fraudulent?

Philip Dawdy, Furious Seasons
Psychiatrist Calls Profession’s Leaders Out Of Touch

Sandra K., Channel N
Neuroethics Diavlog – Neuroscience and the Law with Carl Zimmer and Michael Gazzanniga

Greg Downey, Neuroanthropology
Escaping Orientalism in Cultural Psychology

Anthropology
Give to people what they want, then later you can give them what you want.

Edmund Blair Bolles, Babel’s Dawn
From Protolanguage to True Language

Dan Sperber, Cognition and Culture
Is the Left Hemisphere more Whorfian than the Right One?

Jacy Young, Advances in the History of Psychology
Interviews with Milgram’s Participants

David DiSalvo, Neuronarrative
Are We Born Believers or Cultural Receivers? A Discussion with Author and Psychologist Bruce Hood

Addiction
This place is eating us alive.

Dirk Hanson, Brain Blogger,
Clearing the Haze – Is Marijuana Addictive?

Scicurious, Neurotopia
Things I like to Blog About: Addiction and the Opponent Process Theory
Opponent-Process Theory: Welcome to the Dark Side

Vaughan Bell, Mind Hacks
Numbers Up for Dopamine Myth

Notes on Big Night

For more on the 1996 film Big Night, you can see the IMDb site and Wikipedia. The quotes (with occasional slight modifications) were taken from two sources: IMDb and MovieQuotes.

The movie inspired a cookbook Cucina & Famiglia, where you can actually find the recipe for the wonderful Timpano (see these images) featured in the movie.

Or you can do directly to the web and find the Timpano recipe straight from the cookbook or a slightly modified one. You can also get a 2007 account and a 2008 account of the process of making Timpano.