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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…
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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:…
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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…
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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…
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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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Pharmacogenetics in Psychiatry: Towards Genetically Informed Personalized Medicine
Twin and adoption studies have consistently demonstrated significant genetic contribution to psychiatric disorders ranging from roughly 30% for major depression to approximately 80% in bipolar disorder. While modern research is far from explaining the precise mechanisms through which genetic variations account for psychiatric disorders, it is clear that biological factors are critical in the development…
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Stress Affects Risk Taking Differently for Men and Women
by Andrew Sanders and Kate Humphreys Making decisions can be a difficult task. How do we choose to get from point A to point B? Does our decision change whether we are running late for an important engagement? Does stress facilitate our decision making, and if so, does it matter whether we are trying to…
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Muscles and the Mind — See for Yourself
One of the many reasons I like studying the brain is that its function is so directly tied to all the actions I do every day. As I go through the world it’s easy to forget that my brain is working hard coordinating my muscles and senses, so I like little demonstrative exercises using ones…
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Do your eyes always tell you the truth?
To Review: why do we have multiple interpretations of physical world? As pointed out in Genna’s blog, 3D objects in the real world are represented in 2D format on our retina. Our visual system, then, has to take this 2D signal and build back out of the 3D object that caused it. This is a…