What Color is Your Mental Parachute?
Discussion, they were a bit splashy in the title of their paper (Phantasia –The Psychological Significance Of Lifelong Visual Imagery Vivdness Extremes). And the condition of “Aphantasia” existedlong before it was named and popularized. But these researchers have caught the imagination of the general public, so to speak:The delineation of these forms of extreme imagery also clarifies a vital distinction between imagery and imagination: people with aphantasia –who include the geneticist Craig Venter, the neurologist Oliver Sacks and the creator of Firefox, Blake Ross–can be richly imaginative, as visualisation is ...
Source: The Neurocritic - July 29, 2020 Category: Neuroscience Authors: The Neurocritic Source Type: blogs
Traces of Fear in Aphantasia
When reading a vivid story that describes a shark attack, do you imagine yourself in the ocean, seeing the dorsal fin approach you?“...sun glints off the waves / suddenly a dark flash / in the distant waves / maybe it was a shadow / you turn to the beach / more people are pointing / they look anxious / looking back out to sea / a large fin / slices the surface / moving closer...”Or is your “mind ' s eye ” — your visual mental imagery of the evocative scene — essentially a blank?–early warning: picture of snake belowOne ' s subjective internal life of thinking, perceiving, imagining, and remembering belongs...
Source: The Neurocritic - June 29, 2020 Category: Neuroscience Authors: The Neurocritic Source Type: blogs
The COVID Stress Scales
Danger. Deprivation. Xenophobia. Contamination. These are some of the fears related to COVID-19. Scores ofCOVID questionnaires have popped up recently to assess fear, anxiety, stress, and depression related to the novel coronavirus and its massive disruption to daily life. Most are freely available for use as research tools, but few have been validated and peer reviewed.The COVID Stress Scales (CSS) developed byTaylor and colleagues (2020) were recently published in theJournal of Anxiety Disorders. The authors propose a new COVID Stress Syndrome, and present evidence that the CSS subscales are intercorrelated (which is sug...
Source: The Neurocritic - May 30, 2020 Category: Neuroscience Authors: The Neurocritic Source Type: blogs
The Noble Prize for a Life Well-Lived
In honor of a beautiful and affectionate cat.RIP, beloved MaxApril 19, 2003– April 24, 2020So much acrimony and confusion and death...In the true meaning of the word, Max lived a noble life.“But he was just a cat,” you say. Yes, that ' s true. But he was loving and kind and selfless until the very end. He was a wonderful companion, and a great source of comfort to me (especially after my partner died inOctober 2018).Max and SandraFeb. 2, 2017He was cherished by previous caretakers and human friends, who showered him with gifts.Christmas Eve, 2017Christmas Day, 2018But now he ' s gone and life continues, filled with a...
Source: The Neurocritic - April 26, 2020 Category: Neuroscience Authors: The Neurocritic Source Type: blogs
The " Six Feet Away " Rule is Woefully Inadequate
“...the rapid international spread of COVID-19 suggests that using arbitrary droplet size cutoffs may not accurately reflect what actually occurs with respiratory emissions,possibly contributing to the ineffectiveness of some procedures used to limit the spread of respiratory disease ” (Bourouiba, 2020).Dr. Lydia Bourouiba has published an important paper that updates 1930s-era models of respiratory infectious disease transmission based on the size of droplets emitted when a person breathes or talks or coughs or sneezes. Large droplets were thought to contaminate the area immediately surrounding an infected individual,...
Source: The Neurocritic - March 26, 2020 Category: Neuroscience Authors: The Neurocritic Source Type: blogs
Coping with COVID-19: Resources for Managing Mental Health
Despite coronavirus, Trump keeps shaking hands(AP Photo/Alex Brandon)Don ' t shake hands. Maintain a distance of 6 feet. Don ' t touch surfaces that could contain respiratory droplets. Don ' t touch your face. [It ' svery hard tonot touch your face.]When your leaders fail to follow the most basic guidelines forpreventing the spread of COVID-19, trust and confidence are eroded.Trump coronavirus press conference an exemplar of what not to do (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)The coronavirus pandemic has raised (nearly) everyone ' s level of anxiety and stress. Rampant panic buying, superstore shelves emptied of ...
Source: The Neurocritic - March 14, 2020 Category: Neuroscience Authors: The Neurocritic Source Type: blogs
The City of Lost Engrams
I was travelling back in time to an unreal place when The City appeared again after a long absence. It had been 16 months since we ’d been together, and The City was not pleased. A vivid image of the security lines at the airport ushered me out of town to continue my journey to The Place That Doesn’t Exist.A diabolical entanglement known as time has stolen memories from their homes in thedentate gyrus,lateral amygdala,precuneus, and elsewhere. These engrams hold the key to the past and the future. Without them – and their mysteriously stored representations – “we are condemned to aneternal present. ”Dwelling in...
Source: The Neurocritic - February 21, 2020 Category: Neuroscience Authors: The Neurocritic Source Type: blogs
02202020
New and exciting content will be available for you this weekend. Until then, please enjoy Lena Lovich and my four part series on money, religion, and numerology from 2008.080808 (god is a number part 1)01 1 01 1 01 (god is a number part 2)3.14159265 (god is a number part 3)7 (god is a number part 4)You certainly do have a strange effect on meI never thought that I could feel the way I feelThere ' s something in your eyes gives me a wild ideaI never want to be apart from you my dearI guess it must be trueMy lucky number ' s two--Lena Lovich,Lucky Number (Source: The Neurocritic)
Source: The Neurocritic - February 19, 2020 Category: Neuroscience Authors: The Neurocritic Source Type: blogs
Netflix Neurology: Inside the Brain of Aaron Hernandez (for a few seconds)
from Dr. Ann McKee / Boston UniversityA recent addition to the Netflix “making a murderer” franchise isKiller Inside: The Mind of Aaron Hernandez. At the end of any such story, there is no single answer as to what “made” the murderer.The story ofAaron Fernandez is still in the public eye because of his fame as a professional football player for the New England Patriots (2010-2012). He was so successful that he signed a 5 year, $40 million contract with the team in August 2012. His alleged involvement in a July 2012 double homicide came to light in 2014, after he had been charged with the June 2013 murder of his fri...
Source: The Neurocritic - February 1, 2020 Category: Neuroscience Authors: The Neurocritic Source Type: blogs
People Neurology: Bennet versus Ann feud captured live!
In aPeople Neurology exclusive, contentious footage of Dr. Ann McKee and Dr. Bennet Omalu was captured at the 5th AnnualChronic Traumatic Encephalopathy Conference. Dr. Omalu was not invited due to their long-standing animosity, but he crashed the party anyway during Dr. McKee ' s highly anticipated Keynote. While she was presentingquantitative proteomic analysis of the postmortem brain tissue of Aaron Hernandez, Dr. Omalu stood up and admonished the entire audience: “Remember, I discovered CTE! [NOTE: this is false.1] You will all answer for this on judgment day. ”The crowd gasped... “Don ' t believe the blonde...
Source: The Neurocritic - January 26, 2020 Category: Neuroscience Authors: The Neurocritic Source Type: blogs
Computational Psychiatry, Self-Care, and The Mind-Body Problem
Schematic example of how the “mind” (cerebral cortex) is connected to the “body” (adrenal gland) - modified from Fig. 1 (Dum et al., 2016):“Modern medicine has generally viewed the concept of‘psychosomatic’disease with suspicion. This view arose partly because no neural networks were known for the mind, conceptually associated with the cerebral cortex, to influence autonomic and endocrine systems that control internal organs. ”Psychosomatic illnesses are typically seen in pejorative terms — it ' s all in your head so it must not be real! Would a known biological mechanism lessen the stigma? For over 40 ye...
Source: The Neurocritic - December 30, 2019 Category: Neuroscience Authors: The Neurocritic Source Type: blogs
Pheromone Friday
Pheromones, emitted chemicals that elicit a social response in members of the same species, have been most widely studied in insects as a mode of communication. In theinsect world, pheromones can signal alarm, mark trails, control worker bee behavior, and elicit sexual behavior.Sex pheromones are the chemicals that come to mind in popular lore. Do human beings secrete substances that are likely to attract potential mates? Unscrupulous players in the fragrance industry would like you to believe that ' s the case. Unable to attract women (or men)? There ' s a difference between marketing an intoxicating and sensual fragrance...
Source: The Neurocritic - November 28, 2019 Category: Neuroscience Authors: The Neurocritic Source Type: blogs
Olfactory Attraction and Smell Dating
Smell Dating, an interactive exhibit byTega Brain andSam LavigneatThe Glass Room.A conceptual art installation, an extended olfactory performance piece, anelaborate participatory project, or an actual smell-based dating service?Smell Dating is all of these and more!How it worksWe send you a t-shirtYou wear the shirt for three days and three nights without deodorant.You return the shirt to us in a prepaid envelope.We send you swatches of t-shirts worn by a selection of other individuals.You smell the samples and tell us who you like.If someone whose smell you like likes the smell of you too, we ' ll facilitate an exchange o...
Source: The Neurocritic - November 10, 2019 Category: Neuroscience Authors: The Neurocritic Source Type: blogs
The Neural Correlates of Channeling the Dead
November 2nd is theDay of the Dead, a Mexican holiday to honor the memory of lost loved ones. If you subscribe to certain paranormal belief systems, the ability to communicate with the dearly departed is possible via s éance, which is conducted by a Medium who channels the spirit of the dead.Since I do not subscribe to a paranormal belief system, I do not think it ' s possible to communicate with my dead wife. Nor am I especially knowledgeable about the differences betweenmediumship vs. channeling:Mediumship is mostly about receiving and interpreting messages from other worlds.Mediums often d...
Source: The Neurocritic - November 1, 2019 Category: Neuroscience Authors: The Neurocritic Source Type: blogs
Is Mourning Rewarding? (revisited)
Can we reduce the persistent, unbearable pain of losing a loved one to 15-20 voxels of brain activity in the nucleus accumbens (O ' Connor et al., 2008)? No? Then what if I told you that unrelenting grief — and associated feelings of sheer panic, fear, terminal aloneness, and existential crisis — isn ' t “suffering”. It ' s actually rewarding!Well I ' m here to tell you that it isn ' t.Looking back on apost from 2011, you never realize it ' s going to be you.1The top figure shows that activity in thenucleus accumbens was greater in response to grief-related words vs. neutral words in a group of 11 women with “Com...
Source: The Neurocritic - October 5, 2019 Category: Neuroscience Authors: The Neurocritic Source Type: blogs
