Six until Me is hosting this week’s Grand Rounds, the carnival of medical-related blogging. This edition features a clever card catalog theme, with each card representing a theme. Topics covered include philosophy and psychology, languages, technology, and even funny stuff.
So we have maggot herders as the next big idea, dying of hunger in America (nice non sequitor, no?), dementia and brain fitness, and reflections on marriage and chronic illness.
Well not that old, but I thought I might highlight some posts from our early days when our daily visits were pretty low. These posts deserve some attention alongside the top ten I posted on Sunday.
Today I will cover Greg’s posts. I’ve decided to split the posts into three themes: (1) work that comes out of Greg’s main research interests in perception, sport, and skilled activity; (2) his critical takes on ideas of “innateness” (whether in neuroscience or in evolutionary psychology); and (3) his anthropological examination and reflection of recent mind/brain research.
Perception and Skilled Action
Exercise is ‘mindset’ as well as activity
Tools, mirrors and the expandable body
Trust your hand, not your eyes
Children integrating their senses
Critique
Craving money, chocolate… and justice
More on persuasive, irrelevant ‘neuroscience’
Anthropology and Neuroscience
Thinking about how others think: two ways?
(insert clever French grammar title here)
There are a raft of products and courses available to the general public who want to improve their cognitive performance. While there are simple methods, like stimulating your brain with cross-word puzzles and brain teasers, there are also more sophisticated techniques often developed by companies or individuals who have made their products available to the public. The links below are some of the products I have found in my online browsing, if you find any in your e-travels, you might like to suggest a few links too. I am not endorsing any of the products but am interested, not necessarily by the products, but by how the products fit into the market they cater for. Many scientists are sceptical, I am curious. Often what works for one person, may not necessarily work for another. This is true not only of placebos, but sometimes of proven therapies and medication.
One line of products I certainly would invest in myself (if I had the time and money) would be what could be called “Cognitive Gym” products. Just like any other organ, your brain needs to be exercised regularly to work efficiently. Therapists and clinicians are continually producing new tools to enhance cognitive performance. These tools can be simple memory games, or programs to retrain patterns of thinking. Often “Cognitive Gym” products can be fun and educational. For the moment, with little time to research the resources available (and little money to spend on them), I will stick to playing the piano and listening to my “Learn Portuguese” CDs.
Neurofeedback is another type of ‘brain enhancement tool’. It is a non-invasive technique that can be used to enhance normal cognitive performance or to accompany the treatment of neuropsychological and psychiatric disorders such as epilepsy and ADHD.
Brain Stimulation can often attract an audience because of the “crazy scientist” appeal (At least to my mind). Techniques, such as Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation, are constantly being developed and have been used to enhance creativity, concentration and attention. Some scientists are iffy about these tools, other people swear by them.
LINKS:
COGNITIVE GYM
Brain Gym Exercises for Executives
NEURO-FEEDBACK
BRAIN STIMULATION
I’m sure there’s more out there that I have yet to find!
Ouroboros is hosting Encephalon this time around. This edition provides plenty of answers to those questions we’ve always had, such as the relationships between depression and neurogenesis, the molecular basis of bipolar disorder, and particularly important for me, the perceptual basis of tone deafness (I now have an explanation for my wife…). Plus lots of good stuff from the usual suspects.
It’s a comprehensive edition, so check it out. One I really liked was a review of “grandmother neurons,” or the idea that a single neuron encodes a single concept. Over at Neurotic Physiology, we have “context, personality, and brain imaging,” examining recent research on attachment styles, social cues, and differing underlying neural correlates. Finally, the Neurocritic gives us a gender perspective on Olympics coverage, boiling down to fewer clothes = more coverage. So there’s some neuroscience, some interactions, and some anthropology for you!
Last night we hit 100,000 on-site vists. Greg and I want to thank everyone who has come to our blog. It’s been a great ride over the past months, something we’ve both enjoyed. We never imagined that the site would grow so quickly.
Thank you as well to everyone out there who has stumbled or linked or commented or otherwise enriched what we do here. And thanks also to the people who read the blog through the feed. While you don’t go into the official stats, we know there are a lot of you!
Finally, if any of you are interested in what the top 10 have been since last December, here they are:
Cultural Aspects of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder: Thinking on Meaning and Risk
Girls Gone Guilty: Evolutionary Psych on Sex #2
Brain vs. Philosophy: Howard Gardner Get Us Across!
Synesthesia and Methaphor – I’m Not Feeling It
Steven Pinker and the Moral Instinct
Brain
Science Daily, Cocaine Addiction Linked To Voluntary Drug Use And Cellular Memory, Study Shows
Voluntary use, memory, and predisposition to use again—active choice matters, and from there, a short jump to meaning (why choose drugs…)
Alexis Madrigal, Memory Disruption Could Aid Addicts
Blocking associative memory in rats works. Are people next?
Hal Arkowitz and Scott Lilienfeld, Do-It-Yourself Addiction Cures?
Self-change happens, and it can work
Reuters, Feeling Poor Spurs Lottery Ticket Purchases
Research confirms what the lottery business already knows—feeling subjectively poor makes it more likely to buy that ticket to a quick-fix dream
Pure Pedantry, Ricardo Ricco & Epo Abuse and Heptaminol? Where Do They Even Find This Stuff
The scientific low-down on performance-enhancing drugs in the Tour de France
Jane Brody, Sorting Out Coffee’s Contradictions
Coffee and your health—sorting out the myths and the realities
Henry Fountain, It’s Always Happy Hour for Several Species in Malaysian Rain Forest
Alcohol-swigging small mammals like their fermented fruit
Mark Kern, The Seductiveness of Bad Habits
Health and unhealthy habits and addiction
Neuroanthropology 