Neuroscience

The Science (Fiction) Of Embodied Cognition

Science fiction has long played with the idea of projecting unified personalities/minds/”souls” into different bodies. The premise is baked into the plots of stories like Avatar and Caprica. But how would it work in the real world? That’s what the science of “embodied cognition” is all about. The basic idea in this new(ish) research area…

io9 John Pavlus Feb 3

How Neuroscience Became A Major Scientific Discipline In Just One Decade

Using new mathematical tools, a group of researchers created a fascinating chart that shows how neuroscience went from a hodgepodge of unconnected scientific disciplines, to a unified science that’s one of the most important today. In just under 10 years. Neuroscience is the study of how neurons – nerve cells – form networks in the…

io9 Annalee Newitz Jan 28

Brain Scan Can Determine How Psychologically Traumatized You Are

Anyone who has experienced trauma, such as war veterans, may suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, which includes flashbacks, nightmares, and stress. PTSD has always been considered a psychological problem. But now researchers can analyze your trauma objectively using brain scans. A new study published today in the Journal of Neural Engineering suggests that there may…

io9 Annalee Newitz Jan 20

Fish Can Gurgle “Ouch!” Claims Norwegian Researcher

Your goldfish may not have a ton of personality, but he has feelings too (well, in a rudimentary physiological sense). A new Norwegian study proposes that fish can perceive pain. In her recent doctoral dissertation, Janicke Nordgreen of the Norwegian School of Veterinary Science posited that fish can feel pain. Unfortunately for some of Nordgreen’s…

io9 Cyriaque Lamar Jan 16

How Your Brain Will Betray You in a Court of Law

I know it’s science, which is ostensibly more objective than human intuition, but there’s something unnerving about an MRI brain scan being admitted as evidence in a murder trial in Chicago, the first in the US. True, here the fMRI is being used by the defense as a means to elude the death penalty, and…

Tech News Matt Buchanan Nov 24

Brain Scan Finds Man Was Not in a Coma—23 Years Later

Rom Houben has been trapped in a series of worst nightmares, including trying for 23 years to alert those around him that he was not in a coma. A new report suggests he’s not alone in his experience. In 1983, Belgian engineering student and martial arts enthusiast Houben, then 20, was in a car accident…

Tech News Don Nguyen Nov 24

Get Ready for the Next Generation of Painkillers

Why do injuries continue to hurt, even when they are healing? New research reveals why we feel certain kinds of post-injury pain – and possibly how to stop it. A group of researchers in San Francisco published a paper in this week’s Nature that explores one of the many mysteries about pain: Why do light…

io9 Annalee Newitz Nov 19

An Input/Output Device for the Brain – Made of Light, Algae, and Bacteria

Michael Chorost, author of science autobiography Rebuilt, has a great article in Wired this month about a biotechnological breakthrough that could result in functional cyborgs. Using this biotech, people could access the internet with our brains. Chorost’s article is about the dawning of the age of “optogenetics,” a field where scientists stimulate neurons (such as…

io9 Annalee Newitz Oct 21

Barack Obama Lowered Republicans’ Testosterone

If you voted for John McCain in last year’s election, you may have felt a twinge of disappointment when Barack Obama took the stage. If you’re male, that twinge was more than political disagreement; Obama may have lowered your testosterone. A Duke University study, conducted on November 4th, 2008, measured voters’ testosterone levels before and…

io9 Lauren Davis Oct 21

Scientists Rewrite Flies’ Memories, Bring the Dollhouse Closer

We’ve already got memory-wiping drugs, and now researchers have taken the next baby step to a whole new you. They have used lasers to etch bad memories into the brains of flies, and changed their reactions to certain stimuli. http://io9.com/5035865/a-memory+erasing-chemical-that-can-change-your-behavior https://gizmodo.com/a-pill-to-selectively-erase-your-traumatic-memories-5066924 A team led by Gero Miesenbock of the University of Oxford has been working…

io9 Lauren Davis Oct 17

Real Mouse Navigates Quake 2 Using a Trackball

Neuroscientists at Princeton created a new way to study the neurons of the classic mouse-in-a-maze: Strap it to a suspended ball and have it run through a virtual maze. That first virtual maze? Derived from a Quake 2 level. Apparently it’s difficult to control and study the neurons of a mouse when it’s physically moving,…

Tech News Dan Nosowitz Oct 14

A Shot of Liquor Could Save Your Brain

A new retrospective study found that patients admitted to hospitals with traumatic head injuries had a higher rate of survival if they’d been drinking. Further study is warranted, though, before handing out Jell-O shots at the ER. [via Ars Technica]

io9 Lauren Davis Sep 29

Brain-Reading Machines Know What You’ve Seen

fMRI technology has been used for lie detection and identify memories of an event, but some researchers are looking to push its mind-reading capabilities even further, using brain scans of subjects to reconstruct images they’ve recently viewed. In the most recent issue of Neuron, Jack Gallant and Thomas Naselaris of the University of California, Berkeley…

io9 Lauren Davis Sep 25

Are We Heading Towards Mental Apocalypse?

The future of humanity looks worryingly forgetful. The number of people suffering Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia is set to double over the next 20 years, according to a new report published yesterday. The report, published by Alzheimer’s Disease International, is based on research carried out by a team led by Professor Martin…

io9 Graeme McMillan Sep 22

Reading Surreal Fiction Could Make You Smarter

Could reading Kafka make you smarter? A recent study suggests that reading surrealist stories that don’t make immediate logical sense can sharpen your cognitive functions and make you better at recognizing patterns. Psychologists at the University of California in Santa Barbara and the University of British Columbia have been studying the effects of reading on…

io9 Lauren Davis Sep 17

Scientists Prove Your Brain Still Contains Forgotten Memories

Even if you can’t consciously remember a face you’ve seen once before, your brain remembers it. Scientists interested in this phenomenon have proven that there’s strong evidence that our brains hold far more memories than we’re aware of. New Scientist has the story: [University of California, Davis, neuroscientists] Deborah Hannula and Charan Ranganath first trained…

io9 Annalee Newitz Sep 9

“Ethical” Beef Cows Could Be Engineered to Feel No Pain

Meat eaters looking for ways to enjoy a guilt-free hamburger have looked to ethical ranches and more humane slaughtering methods. But some suggest that instead of getting rid of factory farming, we should eliminate cow’s pain. In a paper published in this month’s Neuroscience, philosopher Adam Shriver suggested that genetically engineering cows to feel no…

io9 Lauren Davis Sep 3

The Strange Case of Seizures That Turned a Woman Into a Man

Researchers report an odd case in the latest issue of Epilepsy & Behavior. Whenever their patient had an epileptic seizure, she thought she’d become male – and that other women near her had turned into men too. What caused it? Apparently when this woman had seizures, she felt that her voice had become deeper and…

io9 Annalee Newitz Sep 2

The Secret Connection Between Dopamine And Fear

Dopamine is infamous as a pleasure-inducing brain chemical: It’s the neurotransmitter released when you smoke a cigarette or snort cocaine. But a new study published today shows that dopamine is also key to keeping people terrified for long periods. Specifically, dopamine is responsible for making you remember frightening experiences in the long term, rather than…

io9 Annalee Newitz Aug 20

First Steps Toward A Machine-Controlled Human Cell

A semipermeable membrane encloses each of your cells, selectively allowing molecules in and out. And now, scientists have figured out how to use nanowires to control the mechanism that makes your cells permeable, thus creating a computer-regulated cell. A team led by Lawrence Livermore Lab scientists Nipun Misraa and Julio A. Martinez worked on the…

io9 Annalee Newitz Aug 12

The Science (Fiction) Of Embodied Cognition

How Neuroscience Became A Major Scientific Discipline In Just One Decade

Brain Scan Can Determine How Psychologically Traumatized You Are

Fish Can Gurgle “Ouch!” Claims Norwegian Researcher

How Your Brain Will Betray You in a Court of Law

Brain Scan Finds Man Was Not in a Coma—23 Years Later

Get Ready for the Next Generation of Painkillers

An Input/Output Device for the Brain – Made of Light, Algae, and Bacteria

Barack Obama Lowered Republicans’ Testosterone

Scientists Rewrite Flies’ Memories, Bring the Dollhouse Closer

Real Mouse Navigates Quake 2 Using a Trackball

A Shot of Liquor Could Save Your Brain

Brain-Reading Machines Know What You’ve Seen

Are We Heading Towards Mental Apocalypse?

Reading Surreal Fiction Could Make You Smarter

Scientists Prove Your Brain Still Contains Forgotten Memories

“Ethical” Beef Cows Could Be Engineered to Feel No Pain

The Strange Case of Seizures That Turned a Woman Into a Man

The Secret Connection Between Dopamine And Fear

First Steps Toward A Machine-Controlled Human Cell

Twitter Just Can’t Stop Leaking Movies

The ‘Mass Effect’ Show is Getting Rewritten to Get Greenlit

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