Neuroimaging article in Wired

Wednesday, May 21st, 2008

Brain Scans as Mind Readers? Dont Believe the Hype
This is just a link to a terrific article in Wired magazine by Dr. Daniel Carlat. Dr. Carlat goes through various types of brain scanning and meets with different neuroimaging experts. He concludes that his own neuroimaging, in its present state, is useless for [...]

A Psychopath Unplugged

Wednesday, March 19th, 2008

This post is about the neural correlates of those who seek power for power’s sake — without any emotional component — but first, a Dateline NBC example:
A 12 year old girl accused her stepfather of sexually abusing her. Because the stepfather felt he was wrongly accused, he built a bunker in the backwoods, and [...]

Dude, chill - we’re not at war any more. Pass the chips.

Friday, March 7th, 2008

Quick post: Why are people who are stoned on pot pretty mellow? (To pull a phrase out of the ’70’s). Answer: The active ingredient in cannabis ( 9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC)) reduces amygdala activity in response to social threats. Pot reduces anxiety — and maybe the negative attributional bias that goes along with it.
Can [...]

Neuromarketing: Neural Correlates of Conspicuous Consumption in Groups Vulnerable to Social Injustice

Sunday, January 27th, 2008

There are lots of studies as to why people purchase luxury goods, but these are mostly directed at individuals in isolation. What about group behavior?

Manhattan, Harlem, Lenox Ave.
Ray Fisman, an economist, has an interesting article in Slate about why African-Americans (and other ethnic minorities) in the US spend disproportionately on status-seeking items. As quoted in [...]

ESP remains unproven, but you knew that already

Monday, January 7th, 2008

Using Neuroimaging to Resolve the Psi Debate — Moulton and Kosslyn 20 1: 182 — The Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience
Here’s the block quote:
. . .To increase sensitivity, this experiment was designed to produce positive results if telepathy, clairvoyance (i.e., direct sensing of remote events), or precognition (i.e., knowing future events) exist. Moreover, the study [...]

Pride requires an audience, but Joy you can do alone

Wednesday, September 26th, 2007

Our results support the idea that pride is a self-conscious emotion, requiring the ability to detect the intention of others. At the same time, judgment of pride might require less self-reflection compared with those of negative self-conscious emotions such as guilt or embarrassment.