Author: dlende

Wednesday Round Up #84

This week we get Ardi at the top, then go onto drugs (obvious transition, isn’t it?), and then anthro and mind. And hey, there’s good stuff down at the end!

Top of the List

John Hawks, Ardipithecus FAQ
John Hawks answers all your big questions about Ardi, now our earliest hominid ancestor. She’s one interesting biped! For more, Anthropology.net outlines all 11 papers published on Ardipithecus ramidus in Science last week. The NY Times provides a general overview, and Anthropology.net keeps track of reporting across the internet.

Juan Domínguez Duque et al., Neuroanthropology: A Humanistic Science For The Study Of The Culture–Brain Nexus
One of Greg’s student gets a paper into Social, Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience. Here’s the abstract.

Ilina Singh and Nikolas Rose, Biomarkers In Psychiatry
The application of biomarkers to human behavior and psychiatric disorders brings up social and ethical issues, which must be understood using joint efforts (pdf).

Kerim, Wounds of War and the Dilemmas of Stereotype
The forces of war and military institutions come into everyday life through concepts of attachment, susceptibility and exchange.

Michael Specter, A Life Of Its Own
Where will synthetic biology lead us?

Judith Warner, The Shame Game
NY Times op-ed, which I really enjoyed as it highlights the shift from the idea that critique is enough to something more involved with life

Drugs

R. Douglas Fields, Inhale Or Don’t?: Marijuana Hurts Some, Helps Others
Novel exploration implies that THC, the chemical that gives marijuana its mind-bending assets, kills budding neurons, yet strangely, the same chemical hoards neurons in adults with Alzheimer’s disease.

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The Encultured Brain – Final Schedule

THE ENCULTURED BRAIN

Building Interdisciplinary Collaborations For The Future Of Neuroanthropology

Please join us for a conference on the interdisciplinary field of brain-culture research at McKenna Hall, University of Notre Dame, on October 8, 2009. “The Encultured Brain” is the first neuroanthropology conference which will feature integrative research happening now, plans for future research, emerging methods, and new collaborations on how the human brain intersects with our cultural and social lives.

 

Program

9-9:40 am Opening Address: “Neuroscience and the Real World,” Daniel Lende, Notre Dame

 

9:40 – 10:40 am Speed Presentations

“Building Interdisciplinary Bridge for Empathy,” Cameron Hay, Miami Universtiy

“Failing Our Children: The (Missing) Environment of Evolutionary Adaptedness,” Darcia Narvaez, Notre Dame

“Embodiment as a Paradigm for Neuroanthropology,” Ben Campbell, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee

“Behavioral Activation/Fun Seeking Personality and BMI in Disparate Cultural Contexts,” Seamus Decker, University of Massachusetts, Amherst

“Behavioral Neurogenetics of Creativity,” Leslie Heywood, Binghamton University

“Kinship: Verticality and Horizontality,” Giovanni Bennardo, Northern Illinois University

“The Degenerate Monkey,” Eugene Halton, Notre Dame

 

11 am-12:15 pm Keynote Address: “Mirror Neurons and the Ontogeny and Phylogeny of Cultural Processes,” Patricia Greenfield, UCLA

“The mirror neuron system enables both monkey and human to produce intentional motor acts and to respond when observing the same acts performed by another. This presentation will demonstrate the importance of these neurally grounded behavioral competencies for the evolution and ontogenetic development of two key aspects of human culture, tool use and language.”

 

1:45-3 pm Methods Round Table: Joan Chiao, Northwestern University; Karl Rosengren, Northwestern University; Claudia Strauss, Pitzer College

 

3-4:15 pm Keynote Address: “Explaining Religion,” Harvey Whitehouse, Oxford

“… there is also growing evidence that many religious concepts require considerable cognitive, social, and technological resources to create, remember, and pass on. Cross-culturally variable aspects of religion arise in part from the evolution of cognitive systems devoted to connecting concepts (e.g. through the formation of novel analogies) and storing them (e.g. in semantic memory) and in part from the historically changing sociopolitical conditions in which such systems can be exploited.”

 

4:35-5:25 pm Speed Presentations

“The Biological and Psychological Basis of Social Engagement Behaviors in Second Language Acquisition,” Bahiyyih Cerqueira, UCLA

“Prayer as Cultural Artifact: Challenges for Neuroscientific (and Other) Experimentation,” Kevin Ladd, Indiana University, South Bend

“Holistic Humor: Coping with Breast Cancer,” Kathryn Bouskill, Emory University

“Structure, Culture, Individual: Three Major Influences on Stratification,” Michael Jindra, Notre Dame

“Neuroscience and the Art of the Actor,” Jane Brody, DePaul University

“Feeling Your Way to Learning: Body-Mind Training Through Taijutsu,” Katja Pettinen, Purdue University

 

5:25-6 pm Closing Address “A Brain-Shaped Culture: Ambitions, Acknowledgements and Opportunities,” Greg Downey, Macquarie University

 

Registration and Complete information:

https://neuroanthropology.net/conference/

 

Questions:

encultured.brain@gmail.com

 

 

Wednesday Round Up #83

Mind, anthro, and video games, after the ones that most caught my attention this week.

Top of the List

Pierre Jacob, What Do Mirror Neurons Contribute To Human Social Cognition?
Pdf of a 2008 article that proposes an alternative theory of mirror neurons. Rather than mind-reading and cognitive representations, it’s about engaging with the other person’s intentions and activities.

Coturnix, What Is Investigative Science Journalism?
Cortunix tweets “What is Investigative Science Journalism?” to the world and people respond with their thoughts.

Vaughan Bell, Side Effects from Placebos Can Be Drug Specific
No more arguments about this – beliefs matter. Now the side effects from inert pills are related to what the person thinks they are getting, for example, anti-convulsants producing fatigue, sleepiness, and tingling sensations.

Cracked.com, Six Bullshit Facts About Psychology That Everyone Believes
How everyone likes to believe they know something about psychology when they really don’t. For example, “If you let your anger out, you’ll feel better” and “Just believe in yourself, and you’ll succeed.” Bullshit!

Skeptic Wonder, Scientists: Glorified Bureaucrats?
A good take on the sobering PloS Biology article, “Real Lives and White Lies in the Funding of Scientific Research.”

Cognition and Culture Institute, How To Think, Say, Or Do Precisely The Worst Thing For Any Occasion
Good coverage on the new Daniel Wegner article, complete with link to the pdf from Science. Under stress we often do just the opposite of what we want or intend to do, and why this happens.

Carl Dyke, Bells And Whistles
Want to improve your teaching? Here’s a consideration of all those bells and whistles we now have available, with plenty of good discussion that follows

Mind

The Veterans Health Research Institute, The Brain At War
Large report on research that deals with traumatic brain injury, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and other neurocognitive consequences of war.

Continue reading “Wednesday Round Up #83”