Psychology in Action is proud to announce the second annual Psychology Interdisciplinary Events symposium, Thursday, May 23rd, 2012, from 5 to 7pm in UCLA’s CNSI Auditorium. The discussion will focus on the intersection of music, psychology, and neuroscience. The event is completely FREE and open to the general public! We hope to see you there! Featuring – Dr. …
Category Archive: Neuroscience
Got Issues: Blame Your Grandma
The idea of the tabula rasa is all but forgotten. Advances in modern genetics have taught us that not only are we not a blank slate at birth, but we are not even simply the product of our genes. The environment interacts with our genes to shape our development, however, it is not only OUR …
Former Israeli Prime Minister’s Significant Brain Activity – How Do We Know?
Israeli scientists and UCLA’s Dr. Martin Monti recently found that former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon demonstrates significant brain activity. Seven years ago Sharon suffered two strokes. The second stroke caused him to lose most of his consciousness. Sharon is in a minimally conscious state, a little more aware than a coma or a persistent vegetative …
New paper by UCLA alums highlights emerging trend in cognitive neuroscience
Psychologists aim to better understand the link between internal and external states, that is, between cognitions and behaviors. Behaviors are often clear enough to measure, but accurately capturing the essence of a cognition can be a much fuzzier task.
Are genetics destiny for psychiatric disorders?
Are genetics destiny? Simplistic thinkers may say so, but what scientists are learning is that, though many traits are heritable (e.g., height, extraversion, IQ), it is difficult to find a “gene” for the vast majority of traits. At the completion of the human genome project, there were high hopes that single genes could be located …
Your Brain on Ads: Ground breaking research by UCLA researchers
Dr. Matt Lieberman and former Psych in Action blogger Dr. Emily Falk are getting a lot of attention for their paper in Psychological Science that found that the specific brain regions that were activated while viewing health related advertisements predicted the ad’s success in the population at large — even though the viewers were not aware …
Revisit: fMRI and the “lit up” brain
I wrote a post a few months ago about some common misconceptions about functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), and one of my main points was that the term ’lights up”, which is often used when describing the areas of the brain that respond to a task, is misleading. Here is what I said on the subject: …
Space Invader: Patient with Amygdala Damage Disregards Personal Space
Recent research by Ralph Adolphs, a neuroscientist at Cal Tech, suggests that the amygdala, an almond-shaped brain structure buried deep within the temporal lobes, is important for maintaining a sense of personal space. When walking up to a stranger, most people prefer to keep their distance– while the precise distance depends on the individual, we …
Read My Mind! Can new science technology really translate my brain activity into words?
Have you ever wanted to be able to read minds? As children, we are especially smitten with the idea of having special ‘powers’ like these, although we quickly learn that such magical abilities are far from reality. Yet given the new imaging and electrophysiological methods that have allowed researchers to discover even more about the …
Swing state neurons?
In a tight election, attention immediately turns to swing voters. Poll analysts swarm them with a barrage of questions to predict which candidate may garner more of their crucial votes. In anticipation of the 2008 election, analysts went one step further and looked not only at swing voters’ survey responses but also their neural responses.
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