Amazing voyage. If you've ever wondered how a single neuron fits into the incredibly complex structure of a living brain, I highly recommend this three minute video. Be prepared to be awestruck. A rendering of the possibilities of the Whole Brain Catalog (http://wholebraincatalog.org ), an open source, multi-scale virtual catalog of the mouse brain. Part of the Whole Brain Project (http://wholebrainproject.org ). Animated by Drew Berry (http://features.cgsociety.org/story_cus­tom.php?story_id=3195 ) and generously funded by the Waitt Family Foundation (http://www.waittfoundation.org/ ) Thanks Dean's CornerRelated posts: Neuron Up Close and Personal Simulate the Human Brain using an IBM Computer Brain Power: Brain Only Computer Interface ..read more »

Everything you wanted to know about the placebos. Thanks Life in the Fast LaneRelated posts: The Placebo Effect Explained in a video The placebo effect, dopamine and reward The Magic of the Placebo ..read more »

I've written before about flow as part of creativity while improvising with Jazz. Flow can be defined as: the holistic sensation that people feel when they act with total concentration and intrinsic enjoyment. But who experiences flow more easily, what character traits are related to the likelihood of experiencing flow? The researchers used the temperament en character scale developed by Cloninger. This cross sectional study was done with 378 online gamers. They used a web form for collecting data. This study posted invitations on more than 20 web sites which online gamers frequently visited for searching gaming information and group .....read more »

Oxytocin is not the social panacea, it's not a universal prosocial enhancer that can render all people social-cognitive experts. In my previous post Oxytocin was only of benefit to less socially proficient individuals not in more socially proficient individuals. So can it be useful for patients with schizophrenia or autism. Patients with schizophrenia with negative symptoms often have inappropriate social skills or lack of interest or ability to socialize with other people. It's often hard for them to make friends or keep friends, or they're not caring to have friends. Patients with autism spectrum disorders often fail to pick up .....read more »

Technology is evolving us, says Amber Case, as we become a screen-staring, button-clicking new version of homo sapiens. We now rely on "external brains" (cell phones and computers) to communicate, remember, even live out secondary lives. But will these machines ultimately connect or conquer us? Case offers surprising insight into our cyborg selves. Related posts: Top Memory Hacks ..read more »

Your medical chart: it's hard to access, impossible to read -- and full of information that could make you healthier if you just knew how to use it. At TEDMED, Thomas Goetz looks at medical data, making a bold call to redesign it and get more insight from it. It starts off with an interesting experiment in dentistry. Fear doesn't work in communicating messages about health. Related posts: Visualizing the medical data explosion Instructive Video about PubMed Redesign PubMed Redesign, A Physician’s Opinion ..read more »

Oxytocin is the new hormone possibly responsible for increase of trust, "the hormone of love", and improvement of social cognition. This optimism is sometimes turned around in the way that some researchers believe that oxytocine could also ameliorate social deficits such as present in social phobia and autism. I don't share this optimism, in biology and human neuroscience you can't simply turn the proof around. We've seen a lot of trouble from this simple method. In depression not only the neurotransmitters are dysregulated, nor the lack of dopamine doesn't explain Schizophrenia and so on and so on. Then why write about .....read more »

The Axis of Awesome: How to Write a Love Song - watch more funny videos Just before Valentine's day, how to write a cliche love song....Related posts: Who do you write like? The Brain in Love A Nerdy Rap Song ..read more »

The Fresh Air Fund is still looking for runners to join our Fresh Air Fund-Racers team for the NYC Half-Marathon this coming March 20th. Wish I could participate, recovering from plantar fasciitis, it's a bitch. Nevertheless 21 km is still a long distance. Don't know if I'd manage at my age again.... We are calling all runners and Fresh Air Fund supporters to come out and either challenge themselves to run the race or join our cheering squad. The Fresh Air Fund provides runners with guaranteed entry in exchange for fundraising before race day. Entries are limited - please get in .....read more »

In the latest issue of the JAMA the results of a survey is published. The authors did a search on physicians using twitter. They extracted the public profile pages of the physicians using twitter with 500 or more followers between May 1 and May 31, 2010. They analyzed the tweets of these professionals. Of the 5156 tweets analyzed, 49% (2543) were health or medical related, 21% (1082) were personal communications, 14% (703) were retweets, and 58% (2965) contained links. Seventy-three tweets (1%) recommended a medical product or proprietary service, 634 (12%) were self-promotional, and 31 (1%) were related to medical education. But .....read more »