Language Log » Localization of emotion perception in the brain of fish
This is beautiful work, showing that certain areas in the brain of mature Atlantic Salmon “light up” when the animal is asked to categorize the emotions expressed by a set of (human) faces. More amazing still is the fact that the fish performed this task while dead.
Lesson: Correct for false positives in fMRI studies.
Split Brain-
some people with extreme epilepsy have their corpus collosum (the tissue connecting the two sides of the brain) severed. this leaves the patient with two independent cerebral hemispheres. for the most part, the brain still works just fine: patients can talk and think and remember. no problem.
Even though everything is still functioning, there are some very cool experiments that can be done to show how the left and right hemispheres are specialized for certain tasks (L=language, R=visual interpretation and drawing). Watch this, it will blow both sides of you unsplit mind.
(Thanks RAR!)
Videos like this almost make me want to become a neuroscientist. Our brains are so cool… right Lolo? :)
split-brain surgery auto reblog
For Michelle- good luck in grad school!
I’m in a neuroscience class, and the professor suggested we get this book, The Human Brain Coloring Book. It’s exactly what it sounds like: essentially color-by-number views of the brain. It just came in the mail, and I’m excited to break out some colored pencils…
Dr Tamami Nakano, of Tokyo University, said: “We seem to be unconsciously searching for a good timing for a blink to minimize the chance of losing critical information during the blink.”
Dr Nakano, whose findings are published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, said: “Spontaneous eyeblinks were synchronized both within and across subjects when they viewed the same video stories.“This blink synchronization was not observed when they viewed background videos that did not contain any story or when they listened to a narrated story.
“Thus, the synchronization required a story, but the need to follow a storyline per se was not the cause of synchronization.
“The blink synchrony occurred only when subjects had to follow a storyline by extracting information from a stream of visual events.”
Number five: Drs. Warren and Barry Marshall Drink Stomach-Eating Germs
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My name is Tristan. I'm a linguist turned speech pathology graduate student. I live in Madison, WI.
