"Orgasm is a compelling, brief event that is an integration of cognitive, emotional, somatic, visceral, and neural processes," begin Barry R. Komisaruk, Carlos Beyer and Beverly Whipple in their sweet talking new article in The Psychologist.
They note that most previous studies of the orgasm have focused on how physical actions affect the body, but new research into the effects of drugs like anti-depressants on sex has shifted the focus to where it really belongs. The mind.
Inside our brain we have "orgasm accelerators" and "orgasm brakes." Hit the jump for the all-important differentiation.
Ah, the never-ending dance revolving around the questionable link between mobile phones and cancer. It's like Ross and Rachel, Sam and Diane, Cigarettes and Cancer--mostly like the last one. However, a new study from Tokyo Women's Medical University has reported that after looking at phone use by 322 brain cancer patients and 683 healthy people, regular phone use (at least once a week for 6 months) does not increase your likelihood of getting cancer.
Another CES video dispatch: Emotiv Technologies showed off their latest collaboration with IBM, a brainwave-reading gaming interface. It sits on your head (looking sort of like the SQUID rig from Strange Days... did anyone else ever see that besides me?) and lets you control virtual stuff with your mind.
For example, an onscreen avatar will smile when you smile, or adopt a Matthew-McConaghey-like body posture when it senses you're feeling relaxed. (Emotiv says the rig could be also be used for autism research, among other non-gaming applications.)
Or you can concentrate and move game objects telekinetically a la The Force. Check out this video - near the end, Marco The Emotiv Rep does a damn good Skywalker impression.
Neuroscientist, neurotic or nerd — everyone's got a brain fanatic/fetishist in the family, and Giftology has got you covered with Brain-Mart.
What's Brain-Mart, you say? You shouldn't have to ask. It's like Wal-Mart...but for brains. Need a brain-shaped pencil top eraser? Brain-Mart. Gelatin brain molds of myriad sizes and flavors? Brain-Mart. Giant brain gummies? Brain-to-the-Mart. A hideous brain-print trucker hat? No, wait, I got this one — Brain-Mart.
Yale scientists have discovered that physical exercise enhances the activity of a gene called VGF, which has an antidepressant effect in mice.
Depression afflicts 16 percent of the U.S. population and carries an annual price tag of $83 billion. Pharmaceutical products currently used to treat depression help about 65 percent of patients but require anywhere from weeks to months to kick in.
Unlike common antidepressant drugs, VGF is already present in the brain, making it an attractive target for therapy, says senior author Ronald Duman, professor of psychiatry and pharmacology at Yale School of Medicine.
University of Arizona scientists Bruce McNaughton and David Euston have discovered that the sleeping brain processes memories of real-time events up to 6 or 7 times faster than the waking brain. McNaughton terms the process "thought speed." And now I'm going to go to bed every night while shouting in my best British accent, "Engage!"
Surviving after having half of your brain removed is certainly nothing new -- I'm living proof of the heights of success one can achieve while running on half-empty. But a woman in China tops all those people who had to pay to surgically halve their brains by sporting an all-natural, double-d, half-brain.
The Chinese woman only discovered she had half a brain when she went to the doctor with complaints of "feeling weak." That must've been an epic day at the clinic for Dr. Zhang -- can you imagine the amount of people he had to forward that first "dude, get this!" email to?
Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is the Hollywood cinema of neurology -- flashy, exciting, overhyped in newspapers -- and by the same token, the brain scanners themselves are like Panavision cameras: super-high-quality, but also bulky and massively expensive.
Well, no longer. Just like consumer videocameras deluded inspired hordes of Tinseltown hopefuls, now a new, cheaper kind of scanner -- called low-intensity MRI -- is set to empower a whole new generation of neuroimaging auteurs.
"The cost of MRI can be reduced dramatically," [lead researcher Vadim] Zotev told New Scientist... "The most expensive part of our system is the liquid helium cryostat, which costs about $20,000."
The new device makes fuzzy pictures, but it has a less cumbersome design which "is more suitable for a surgical environment." Also, the magnetic fields are weak enough that surgical tools might be used inside the scanning field without... well, without this happening.
Since I'm a cyborg programmed for future battle, I've never fully understood your petty human emotions -- especially empathy. In my experience, the minute you start trying to understand the enemy's feelings, he rails you with a chain gun. But I'm getting closer to understanding where empathy comes from, thanks to the recent observations of mirror neurons in people.
After the recent discovery painting the amygdala as the source of optimism, it's turning out to be a busy month for brain-emotion discoveries.
Although the debate over the causes of autism is still vexed, arguments over the nature of the disorder itself rage, too. In the November 1 issue of Frontiers In Neuroscience [hat tip to Frontal Cortex for blogging it on 10/25], Henry Markram, Tania Rinaldi and Kamila Markram propose a new unifying theory. They call it “The Intense World Syndrome” and the basic idea is that the core problem in autism is not difficulty recognizing other people’s thoughts and motivations (the “theory of mind” theory), but a hyper-responsive brain that encodes most sensory input as overwhelming.
Just when fMRI told me about why I was optimistic about my chances on Everest, it had to come back and kick me in the nuts. A new article published by a group of Spanish doctors in the American Journal of Medicine uses magnetic resonance imaging to show consistent brain damage in nearly all of the professional and amateur high-altitude mountaineers surveyed.
Only 1 in 13 of the Everest climbers had a normal MRI; the amateur showed frontal subcortical lesions, and the remainder had cortical atrophy and enlargement of Virchow-Robin spaces but no lesions. Among the remaining amateurs, 13 showed symptoms of high-altitude illness, 5 had subcortical irreversible lesions, and 10 had innumerable widened Virchow-Robin spaces. Conversely, we did not see any lesion in the control group.
Research just keeps knocking drug war myths down. This week, two different studies took on some of the warriors' sacred cows-- the idea that parents whose kids are using drugs are “in denial” about it and the notion that marijuana use always has negative effects on mental health.
The first study, published in the Journal of Child and Adolescent Substance Abuse, followed 75 families in which the substance use rates of teens were known, but the teens mostly weren’t in treatment for it. 86% accurately reported their teens’ alcohol and marijuana use. 72% were aware of their children’s use of other illegal drugs.
And now we come full circle. fMRI -- the ubiquitious (and some would say, shark-jumping) brain-imaging technique that lets scientists map mental function by watching different parts of the brain "light up" -- may help explain how we, yes, lighten up.
NYU's study found that optimism emanates from an unlikely source. It turns out that the amygdala, mainly associated with negative emotions like fear and depression, may also be the seat of our inner Stuart Smalley.
(A 60-second primer on Daredevil, for the geekily inclined.)
OK, it's not quite as cool as Marvel Comics' blind superhero, who could literally "see" with sound -- but it's close. People blinded early in life really do develop extra-sensitive aural abilities compared to the rest of us, by shunting their brains' unused visual circuitry over to enhance the sound-detecting parts. No radioactive accidents needed!
Pedophilia has been linked to IQ, education, and even handedness—and a new study adds height to the mix. Pedophiles, are, on average, two centimeters shorter than non-pedophiles, according to research published by the University of Toronto's Center for Addiction and Mental Health. But does this tell us anything about the psychology of a child molester? Actually, it may.
Neuroscientist, neurotic or nerd — everyone's got a brain fanatic/fetishist in the family, and 
University of Arizona scientists Bruce McNaughton and David Euston have discovered that the sleeping brain processes memories of real-time events up to 6 or 7 times faster than the waking brain. McNaughton terms the process "thought speed." And now I'm going to go to bed every night while shouting in my best British accent, "Engage!" 
Surviving after having half of your brain removed is 
Since I'm a cyborg programmed for future battle, I've never fully understood your petty human emotions -- especially empathy. In my experience, the minute you start trying to understand the enemy's feelings, he rails you with a chain gun. But I'm getting closer to understanding where empathy comes from, thanks to the recent observations of mirror neurons in people. 
Just when 
And now we come full circle. fMRI -- the ubiquitious (and some would say, 
