We've discussed daydreaming and it's advantages before on this blog. In this short video Jonah Lehrer discusses whether access to the Internet negatively affects one's ability to let their mind wander and miss on the advantages of daydreaming.Related posts: Daydreaming….. 8 Benefits from Working from Home Chocolate and Cardiovascular Health Benefits ..read more »

Genes don't explain the complicated human beings we are, brain imaging doesn't explain the complicated human beings we are, does the connectome explain us. Is the connectome the real soul of our selves, the id or what evr you want to call the unique human being each of us really is. Sebastian Seung is mapping a massively ambitious new model of the brain that focuses on the connections between each neuron. He calls it our "connectome," and it's as individual as our genome -- and understanding it could open a new way to understand our brains and our minds. Related posts: Brain .....read more »

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: Cognitive Dissonance or why they stay in Iraq and we in Afghanistan The Sense and Non-Sense of Vitamine D suppletion When to Buy or Sell Stocks ..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? Emotibots, a robot with feelings, to keep people happy The Essence of Happiness ..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 »