http://spacecollective.org/projects/The-great-enhancement-debate Wed, 05 Sep 2012 15:58:42 +0000 http://spacecollective.org/projects/The-great-enhancement-debate en http://spacecollective.org/gamma/7876/Job-markets-open-new-neuroscience-positions http://spacecollective.org/gamma/7876/Job-markets-open-new-neuroscience-positions Wed, 05 Sep 2012 15:58:42 +0000 gamma 7876 Across the United States—and in developed nations around the world—twenty-somethings are taking longer to finish school, leave home, begin a career, get married and reach other milestones of adulthood. These trends are not just anecdotal; sociologists and psychologists have gathered supporting data...<br /> <br /> &nbsp;<a href="http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/brainwaves/2012/08/29/the-neuroscience-of-twenty-somethings" target="blank">http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/brainwaves/2012/08/29/the-neuroscience-of-twenty-somethings</a>&nbsp; http://spacecollective.org/gamma/7876/Job-markets-open-new-neuroscience-positions http://spacecollective.org/gamma/7869/Vividness-detected-in-the-brain http://spacecollective.org/gamma/7869/Vividness-detected-in-the-brain Tue, 04 Sep 2012 15:37:52 +0000 gamma 7869 TORONTO, ON – Have you ever wondered why you can remember things from long ago as if they happened yesterday, yet sometimes can’t recall what you ate for dinner last night? According to a new study led by psychologists at the University of Toronto, it’s because how much something means to you actually influences how you see it as well as how vividly you can recall it later.<br /> <br /> “We’ve discovered that we see things that are emotionally arousing with greater clarity than those that are more mundane,” says Rebecca Todd, a postdoctoral fellow in U of T’s Department of Psychology and lead author of the study published recently in the Journal of Neuroscience. “Whether they’re positive – for example, a first kiss, the birth of a child, winning an award – or negative, such as traumatic events, breakups, or a painful and humiliating childhood moment that we all carry with us, the effect is the same.”<br /> <br /> “What’s more, we found that how vividly we perceive something in the first place predicts how vividly we will remember it later on,” says Todd. “We call this ‘emotionally enhanced vividness’ and it is like the flash of a flashbub that illuminates an event as it’s captured for memory.”<br /> <br /> By studying brain activity, Todd, psychology professor Adam Anderson and other colleagues at U of T, along with researchers at the University of Manchester and the University of California, San Diego found that the part of the brain responsible for tagging the emotional or motivational importance of things according to one’s own past experience – the amygdala – is more active when looking at images that are rated as vivid. This increased activation in turn influences activity in both the visual cortex, enhancing activity linked to seeing objects, and in the posterior insula, a region that integrates sensations from the body.<br /> <br /> “The experience of more vivid perception of emotionally important images seems to come from a combination of enhanced seeing and gut feeling driven by amygdala calculations of how emotionally arousing an event is,” says Todd.<br /> <br /> The researchers began by measuring the subjective experience of the vividness of perception. Taking pictures of scenes that were emotionally arousing and negative (scenes of violence or mutilation, or sharks and snakes baring their teeth), emotionally arousing and positive (mostly mild erotica), and neutral scenes (such as people on an escalator), they overlaid the images with varying amounts of “visual noise,” which looked like the snow one would see on an old television screen. The pictures were then shown to study participants who were asked to say whether each image had the same, more, or less noise than a standard image with a fixed amount of noise.<br /> <br /> “We found that while people were good at rating how much noise was on the picture relative to a standard, they consistently rated pictures that were emotionally arousing as less noisy than neutral pictures regardless of the actual level of noise,” says Todd. “When a picture was rated as less noisy, then they actually saw the picture underneath more clearly, as if there is more signal relative to noise in the emotionally arousing picture. The subjective meaning of a picture actually influenced how clearly the participants saw it.”<br /> <br /> The researchers used additional tests to rule out other explanations of their findings, such as how ‘noisy’ a picture seems due to less vibrant colours or a more complex scene. They also used eye-tracking measures to eliminate the possibility that people look at emotionally arousing images differently, causing them to rate some as more vivid.<br /> <br /> “We next wanted to see if this finding of emotionally enhanced vividness influenced memory vividness,” says Todd. “So, in two different studies, we measured memory for the images, both right after seeing them in the first place and one week later.”<br /> <br /> In the first study, 45 minutes after they did the noise task, participants were asked to write down all the details they could about pictures they remembered seeing. How much detail they remembered was a measure of vividness. In the second study, participants were shown the pictures again one week later and asked if they remembered them and, if so, how vividly they remembered them from very vague to very detailed.<br /> <br /> “Both studies found that pictures that were rated higher in emotionally enhanced vividness were remembered more vividly,” says Todd.<br /> <br /> Finally, the researchers used brain imaging measures to look at when the brain responded to emotionally enhanced vividness and what regions of the brain responded. Using electrophysiology (EEG) to measure the timing of activity in the cortex to see when the brain is sensitive to vividness, gave them a sense of whether this subjective vividness was more about seeing vividly, or thinking that it was more vivid when you’re considering it after the fact.<br /> <br /> “We found that the brain indexes vividness pretty quickly – about a 5th of a second after seeing a picture, which suggests it’s about seeing and not just thinking,” says Todd. “Emotion alters activity in the visual cortex, which in turn influences how we see.”<br /> <br /> The investigators also used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to look at what brain regions were more active when people look at things that they perceive as more vivid because they’re emotionally important. Again, they found amygdala, visual cortex, and interoceptive cortex activity went up with increased vividness.<br /> <br /> “We know now why people perceive emotional events so vividly – and thus how vividly they will remember them – and what regions of the brain are involved,” says Todd. “Knowing that there are going to be differences among people as to how strongly they show this emotionally enhanced vividness and the strength of the brain activation patterns underlying them, could be useful in predicting an individual’s vulnerability to trauma, including intrusive memories experienced by people with post-traumatic stress disorder.”<br /> <br /> The findings are reported in the paper “Psychophysical and Neural Evidence for Emotion-Enhanced Perceptual Vividness”. Funding for the research was provided by the U.S. National Institute for Mental Health and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.<br /> <br /> &nbsp;<a href="http://media.utoronto.ca/media-releases/psychologists-link-emotion-to-vividness-of-perception-and-creation-of-vivid-memories/" target="blank">http://media.utoronto.ca/media-releases/psychologists-link-emotion-to-vividness-of-perception-and-creation-of-vivid-memories/</a>&nbsp; http://spacecollective.org/gamma/7869/Vividness-detected-in-the-brain http://spacecollective.org/gamma/7830/Clear-about-the-other-day http://spacecollective.org/gamma/7830/Clear-about-the-other-day Wed, 22 Aug 2012 14:45:11 +0000 gamma 7830 <img src="http://spacecollective.org/userdata/GH93ehia/1345671548/28781501[1].jpg" border="0" width="" height="" class="padTopBot"><br /> <br /> &quot;Since I was a kid, I've tried to fill each day with a certain richness,&quot; she says. &quot;Especially since I'm going to remember it no matter what.&quot;<br /> <br /> &nbsp;<a href="http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21528781.500-they-never-forget-the-strange-gift-of-perfect-memory.html?full=true" target="blank">http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21528781.500-they-never-forget-the-strange-gift-of-perfect-memory.html?full=true</a>&nbsp; http://spacecollective.org/gamma/7830/Clear-about-the-other-day http://spacecollective.org/gamma/7799/Hallucination-of-faces http://spacecollective.org/gamma/7799/Hallucination-of-faces Mon, 06 Aug 2012 04:44:27 +0000 gamma 7799 <img src="http://spacecollective.org/userdata/GH93ehia/1344253424/Concrete_smiley_face[1].JPG" border="0" width="" height="" class="padTopBot"><br /> <br /> The neural mechanisms responsible for triggering visual hallucinations are poorly understood. Here, we report a unique patient whose hallucinations consist exclusively of faces, and which could be reliably precipitated by looking at trees. Using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI), we found that, while face hallucinations was associated with increased neural activity in a number of cortical regions, including low-level visual areas, there was significant decreased activity in the right fusiform face area, a region that is empirically defined by increase activity during veridical perception of faces. These findings indicate key differences in how hallucinatory and veridical perceptions lead to the same phenomenological experience of seeing faces, and are consistent with the hypothesis that hallucinations may be generated by decreased inhibitory inputs to key cortical regions, in contrast to the excitatory synaptic inputs underlying veridical perception.<br /> &nbsp;<a href="http://precedings.nature.com/documents/1827/version/1/files/npre20081827-1.pdf" target="blank">http://precedings.nature.com/documents/1827/version/1/files/npre20081827-1.pdf</a>&nbsp; http://spacecollective.org/gamma/7799/Hallucination-of-faces http://spacecollective.org/gamma/7605/Free-education-possible http://spacecollective.org/gamma/7605/Free-education-possible Tue, 19 Jun 2012 06:35:12 +0000 gamma 7605 We offer courses from the top universities, for free.<br /> Learn from world-class professors, watch high quality lectures, achieve mastery via interactive exercises, and collaborate with a global community of students. <br /> <br /> &nbsp;<a href="http://www.coursera.org" target="blank">http://www.coursera.org</a>&nbsp; <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> Note to the administrator. The Youtube has updated its interface and no longer supports the old type of embed code (without the iframe), which was the only one embeddable at the Spacecollective. http://spacecollective.org/gamma/7605/Free-education-possible http://spacecollective.org/gamma/7600/Neurogenesis-and-classical-conditioning-under-the-influence-of-psilocybin http://spacecollective.org/gamma/7600/Neurogenesis-and-classical-conditioning-under-the-influence-of-psilocybin Tue, 12 Jun 2012 07:47:20 +0000 gamma 7600 <p /><a href="http://vimeo.com/15961451">Effects of Psilocybin and Other Selective Serotonin Agonists on Hippocampal-Dependent Learning and Neurogenesis- Juan Sanchez MD</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/mapsmdma">MAPS: Psychedelic Science</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.<br /> <br /> Effects of Psilocybin and Other Selective Serotonin Agonists on Hippocampal-Dependent Learning and Neurogenesis<br /> <br /> Aberrations in brain 5-HT neurotransmission have been implicated in psychiatric disorders including anxiety, depression and deficits in learning and memory. Many of these disorders are treated with drugs which promote the availability of 5-HT in the synapse. However, it is not clear which of the 5-HT receptors are involved in behavioral improvements and neurogenesis. The delay in the appearance of anti-depressant effects of SSRIs corresponds to the time required to generate new neurons. The current study evaluated the effects of the acute and chronic administration of 5HT2A agonists psilocybin and 251-NBMeO and the 5HT2A/C antagonist ketanserin on hippocampal neurogenesis. Chronic administration of psilocybin increased the number of new neurons in the dentate gyrus while the antagonist suppressed hippocampal neurogenesis, suggesting that the 5HT2A receptor appears to be involved in the regulation of hippocampal neurogenesis. Another goal of the study was to investigate the effects of psilocybin, a 5HT2A receptor agonist on hippocampal-dependent learning. All mice developed contextual and cued fear conditioning; however, mice treated with psilocybin extinguished the cued fear conditioning more rapidly than saline treated mice. Interestingly, mice given the 5HT2A/C receptor antagonist ketanserin showed less of cued fear response than saline and psilocybin treated mice. Future studies should examine the temporal effects of acute and chronic psilocybin administration on hippocampal-dependent learning tasks.<br /> <br /> This video is from Psychedelic Science in the 21st Century, a conference taking in place in San Jose, California on April 15-18, 2010. The conference was organized by the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) in collaboration with the Heffter Research Institute, the Council on Spiritual Practices, and the Beckley Foundation.<br /> <br /> This video was produced by Teal Sievers of Living Dream Films (livingdreamfilms.com).<br /> <br /> This video was produced by Green Fuse Media, contact Nathan at greenfusefilms@gmail.com<br /> <br /> To learn more about MAPS or to support our work, visit maps.org.<br /> http://spacecollective.org/gamma/7600/Neurogenesis-and-classical-conditioning-under-the-influence-of-psilocybin http://spacecollective.org/gamma/7499/Attention-vs-Consciousness http://spacecollective.org/gamma/7499/Attention-vs-Consciousness Thu, 12 Apr 2012 05:45:47 +0000 gamma 7499 Paying attention to the target consistently and strongly increased the fMRI activity, regardless of whether the subject saw the target or not. This result was expected because many previous studies had shown that attending to a signal reinforces its representation in the cortex. Much more intriguing, though, was that whether or not the stimulus was consciously perceived made no difference to signal strength. Visibility didn’t matter to V1; what did was whether or not selective visual attention focused on the grating. Indeed, the experimentalists could not decode from the signal whether or not the subject saw the stimulus.<br /> <br /> <a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=consciousness-does-not-reside-here" target="blank">http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=consciousness-does-not-reside-here</a><br> http://spacecollective.org/gamma/7499/Attention-vs-Consciousness http://spacecollective.org/gamma/7490/Electric-stimulation-for-better-brain http://spacecollective.org/gamma/7490/Electric-stimulation-for-better-brain Mon, 09 Apr 2012 04:16:51 +0000 gamma 7490 I guess they could add, don't do this at home!<br /> <a href="http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/339608/title/Jolt_to_brain_aids_language_recovery" target="blank">http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/339608/title/Jolt_to_brain_aids_language_recovery</a><br> <br /> &quot;CHICAGO — A brain zapping technique helps people recover language after a stroke, new research shows. The results may point to a better way for people to relearn how to talk after a brain injury.&quot;<br /> <br /> Notice the abstracts here,&nbsp;<a href="http://www.cnsmeeting.org/documents/CNS2012_Program.pdf." target="blank">http://www.cnsmeeting.org/documents/CNS2012_Program.pdf.</a>&nbsp; Nearly every abstract is about some kind of brain stimulation. http://spacecollective.org/gamma/7490/Electric-stimulation-for-better-brain http://spacecollective.org/gamma/7412/Sleep-enhancement-expected http://spacecollective.org/gamma/7412/Sleep-enhancement-expected Tue, 20 Mar 2012 13:59:53 +0000 gamma 7412 <a href="http://medicalbillingandcodingcertification.net/you-need-sleep/"><img src="http://images.medicalbillingandcodingcertification.net.s3.amazonaws.com/you-need-sleep.jpg" alt="You Need More Sleep" width="500" /></a><br />Created by: <a href="http://www.medicalbillingandcodingcertification.net/">MedicalBillingandCodingCertification.net</a> http://spacecollective.org/gamma/7412/Sleep-enhancement-expected http://spacecollective.org/gamma/7407/Brain-awareness-week-all-this-week- http://spacecollective.org/gamma/7407/Brain-awareness-week-all-this-week- Wed, 14 Mar 2012 02:56:19 +0000 gamma 7407 Look! I found some cool links about neuroscience - articles, interactive tutorials, movies, lectures...<br /> <br /> Brain awareness week <br /> <a href="http://www.sfn.org/index.aspx?pagename=baw_home" target="blank">http://www.sfn.org/index.aspx?pagename=baw_home</a><br> <br /> International brain research organization<br /> <a href="http://www.ibro2011.org/site/home.asp" target="blank">http://www.ibro2011.org/site/home.asp</a><br> <br /> Federation of European Neuroscience Societies <br /> <a href="http://www.fens.org/" target="blank">http://www.fens.org/</a><br> <br /> Alcheimer association <br /> <a href="http://www.alz.org/brain/01.asp" target="blank">http://www.alz.org/brain/01.asp</a><br> <br /> <br /> <br /> Amazing cells <br /> <a href="http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/begin/cells/" target="blank">http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/begin/cells/</a><br> <br /> Animated tutorials<br /> <a href="http://www.sumanasinc.com/webcontent/animations/neurobiology.html" target="blank">http://www.sumanasinc.com/webcontent/animations/neurobiology.html</a><br> <br /> BrainyActs <br /> <a href="http://brainiac.magnify.net/" target="blank">http://brainiac.magnify.net/</a><br> <br /> Brain basics <br /> <a href="http://www.bristol.ac.uk/synaptic/basics/" target="blank">http://www.bristol.ac.uk/synaptic/basics/</a><br> <br /> Love and the brain<br /> <a href="http://www.sfn.org/skins/main/pdf/BrainBriefings/BrainBriefings_Dec2005.pdf" target="blank">http://www.sfn.org/skins/main/pdf/BrainBriefings/BrainBriefings_Dec2005.pdf</a><br> <br /> Making neuroscience fun <br /> <a href="http://www.jhu.edu/mnf/teachers.html" target="blank">http://www.jhu.edu/mnf/teachers.html</a><br> <br /> Neuroscience core concepts<br /> <a href="http://www.sfn.org/siteobjects/published/0000BDF20016F63800FD712C30FA42DD/F8B42DDD1FEC25AA4766675596AE53B2/file/SfN%20Neuroscience%20Core%20Concepts2.pdf" target="blank">http://www.sfn.org/siteobjects/published/0000BDF20016F63800FD712C30FA42DD/F8B42DDD1FEC25AA4766675596AE53B2/file/SfN%20Neuroscience%20Core%20Concepts2.pdf</a><br> <br /> The action potential<br /> <a href="http://brainu.org/files/movies/action_potential_cartoon.swf" target="blank">http://brainu.org/files/movies/action_potential_cartoon.swf</a><br> <br /> <br /> The secret life of the brain <br /> <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wnet/brain/" target="blank">http://www.pbs.org/wnet/brain/</a><br> <br /> The split brain experiment<br /> <a href="http://www.nobelprize.org/educational/medicine/split-brain/" target="blank">http://www.nobelprize.org/educational/medicine/split-brain/</a><br> <br /> <br /> The virtual neurophysiology<br /> lab<br /> <a href="http://www.hhmi.org/biointeractive/vlabs/neurophysiology/index2.html" target="blank">http://www.hhmi.org/biointeractive/vlabs/neurophysiology/index2.html</a><br> <br /> <br /> Who am I <br /> <a href="http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/WhoAmI/FindOutMore/Yourbrain.aspx" target="blank">http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/WhoAmI/FindOutMore/Yourbrain.aspx</a><br> http://spacecollective.org/gamma/7407/Brain-awareness-week-all-this-week-