At last, another round up is posted on neuroanthropology. Apparently, the author is now safely esconsed in Tampa, and getting started at the University of South Florida. And now below – some favs, mind, misc, anthro, video games, and addiction. Doing some of my consistent interests this time round. Plus a new surprise at the end. Enjoy! I especially enjoyed Daphne Merkin, My Life in Therapy. In this NY Times Magazine essay, Merkin describes her encounters with therapy over 40 years of treatment, and reflects on what makes therapy tick and why she continues to go. This is a follow-up piece to .....read more »

This is a very comforting book especially if your middle aged as I am. Consoling remarks such as : "Younger people also forget were they left their keys only they don't worry about it", that's what I mean. The book is full with all kinds of examples that trouble the middle aged brain. Nevertheless the emphasis of this book is on the positive sides of the middle aged brain. We might be slower in some aspects but in others we're comparable to younger brains or even better. Being better at tasks mainly due to experience, having oversight, able to tolerate .....read more »

What is it with humans. They're brilliant compared to their evolutionary counterparts but nevertheless can make very dumb mistakes, watch this video and you'll know. Laurie Santos looks for the roots of human irrationality by watching the way our primate relatives make decisions. A clever series of experiments in "monkeynomics" shows that some of the silly choices we make, monkeys make too. Related posts:And Now for Something Completely Different: Encephalon 74 Neuroanthropology Wednesday Round Up ..read more »

This image above shows two types of humor. One based on incongruity-resolution, the cartoon on the left. The other also based on incongruity-resolution but provoked by a nonsense cartoon on the right. Humor of nonsense jokes and cartoons is a different sense of humor according to recent research. Not in the sense of the neural processing of humor in the brain or to their structural properties but they differ in content. The common element of these humorous stimuli is that in their processing the recipient first discovers an incongruity. This incongruity can be easily resolved upon reinterpretation of the information available .....read more »

Women process threats and aggressive stimuli different than men, differences in the activation of brain regions participating in the fear circuitry. This might be an important factor contributing to the increased likelihood of women to develop panic disorder compared to men. If in women activation differs in parts of the fear circuitry, this could explain the gender difference in prevalence of the panic disorder. Fear Circuitry in the Brain dysfunctional fear network centered in the amygdala and projecting to the thalamus, hypothalamus, brainstem, and prefrontal cortical areas in Panic Disorder patients In a recent study 20 patients with panic disorder (12 women and .....read more »

Frontal lobes is the shorthand for the prefrontal cortex. It's an important part of the human brain, the conductor of the large orchestra called the brain. It's the seat of our executive functioning. Executive function relates to abilities to differentiate among conflicting thoughts, determine good and bad, better and best, same and different, future consequences of current activities, working toward a defined goal, prediction of outcomes, expectation based on actions, and social "control" (the ability to suppress urges that, if not suppressed, could lead to socially-unacceptable outcomes). Before, I wrote about gender difference in empathy and other neurobiological subjects. Mark the .....read more »

Dan Gilbert, author of Stumbling on Happiness, challenges the idea that we’ll be miserable if we don’t get what we want. Our "psychological immune system" lets us feel truly happy even when things don’t go as planned. Related posts:The Pursuit of Happiness or What Makes us Happy? 2008 Conference on Happiness and Its Causes Emotibots, a robot with feelings, to keep people happy ..read more »

This post is about the neurobiological gender differences in empathy. For a description and definition of empathy which isn't always strait forward please read about it in this previous post: Patient Doctor Relationship Series: Empathy. This post is one of many on the subject. A number of studies suggest that women may be more empathic than man, on average this is obviously true. From experience alone this statement seems reasonable. Nevertheless, some men can be more empathic than women but overall women are more empathic. A number of brain regions have been suggested to be involved in empathy. Two recent studies .....read more »

One of the most striking features of those suffering from anorexia nervosa is their perception of their bodies. You can put them in front of a mirror and they will still tell you they're to fat when in fact they're skinny. A recent publication in Nature Proceedings has an explanation. This explanation is based on the fact that our spatial experience is based on the integration of two different kinds of input, two different sensory inputs within two reference frames. These two reference frames are the egocentric frame and the allocentric frame. With the allocentric frame you can "see yourself engaged .....read more »

During a wedding the oxytocine of those involved in the wedding party rises, the testosterone level of only the groom rises, naughty, naughty. Watch this video and find out why people like to have a wedding. Related posts:The Neurobiology of Love The Neurobiology of Falling in Love Testosterone Boost On the Trade Floor ..read more »