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Nigels Neuroscience nerdery nook

Started by Mesozoic Mister Nigel, November 08, 2014, 02:45:00 PM

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Mesozoic Mister Nigel

I hate alliteration. But I did it anyway, because I like being a dick, even if it's just to myself.

This is real old but I fucking love it anyway: http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/412229

QuoteResearchers may have found the location of sense of humor in the brain, according to their presentation at the 86th Scientific Assembly and Annual Meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) in Chicago, Illinois.

Humor appreciation appears to be based in the lower frontal lobes of the brain, a location associated with social and emotional judgment and planning, according to imaging research. That might explain why people who have suffered strokes involving the lower frontal lobes of the brain may have alterations of personality which include loss of their sense of humor.

"A small part of the frontal lobes appears critical to our ability to recognize a joke," said Dean K. Shibata, MD, assistant professor of radiology at the University of Rochester School of Medicine in New York, and principal investigator of a study using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to map activity in the brain while it is registering humor. "Although the purpose of humor and laughter is still largely unknown despite 2,000 years of speculation, having a sense of humor is a key part of our personalities and it can play a powerful role in balancing negative emotions, such as fear.
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


Dildo Argentino

This was recently brought to my attention, and I found it pretty fascinating:
http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fnbeh.2014.00152/full

Quote
From a clinical case study by Mariska Mantione, Martijn Figee, and Damiaan Denys published in May in Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience.

Mr. B., a fifty-nine-year-old married man, was referred to the department of anxiety disorders at the University of Amsterdam, having suffered from obsessive-compulsive disorder for forty-six years. In spite of extensive treatment with pharmacotherapy and cognitive-behavioral therapy, symptoms were still overpowering and Mr. B. remained extremely hindered in daily living. Mr. B. was included for treatment with deep-brain stimulation (DBS) targeted at the nucleus accumbens. After DBS surgery Mr. B. entered an optimization phase in which optimal stimulation parameters were adjusted. Within six weeks after surgery, Mr. B. experienced a decline in anxiety and obsessions. Mr. B. reported that he felt very confident, calm, and assertive, and he started to call himself Mr. B. II, the new and improved version of himself.

Mr. B. had never been a huge music lover. His musical taste was broad, covering Dutch-language songs, the Beatles, and the Rolling Stones. While music did not occupy an important position in his life, his taste in music had always been very fixed. Half a year after DBS surgery, Mr. B. stated that he was turning into a Johnny Cash fan. He had been listening to the radio when he heard "Ring of Fire" and was deeply affected by the song. Mr. B. started to listen to more of Cash's songs and noticed that he was deeply moved by the raw and low-pitched voice of the singer. Moreover, he found that he preferred the performance of the songs in the Seventies and Eighties, because of the fullness of the voice of the older Johnny Cash.

Mr. B. reported that he felt good following treatment with DBS and that the songs of Johnny Cash made him feel even better. From this moment on, Mr. B. listened solely to Johnny Cash and bought all his CDs and DVDs. He reported that there was a Johnny Cash song for every emotion and every situation, feeling happy or feeling sad, and although Mr. B. almost exclusively played Johnny Cash songs for the following years, the music never started to annoy him. From the first time Mr. B. heard a Johnny Cash song, the Dutch-language songs, the Beatles, and the Rolling Stones have been banned. Except when the stimulators run down or accidentally go out.
Not too keen on rigor, myself - reminds me of mortis

The Johnny

Quote from: Dodo Argentino on November 08, 2014, 08:00:32 PM
This was recently brought to my attention, and I found it pretty fascinating:
http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fnbeh.2014.00152/full

Quote
From a clinical case study by Mariska Mantione, Martijn Figee, and Damiaan Denys published in May in Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience.

Mr. B., a fifty-nine-year-old married man, was referred to the department of anxiety disorders at the University of Amsterdam, having suffered from obsessive-compulsive disorder for forty-six years. In spite of extensive treatment with pharmacotherapy and cognitive-behavioral therapy, symptoms were still overpowering and Mr. B. remained extremely hindered in daily living. Mr. B. was included for treatment with deep-brain stimulation (DBS) targeted at the nucleus accumbens. After DBS surgery Mr. B. entered an optimization phase in which optimal stimulation parameters were adjusted. Within six weeks after surgery, Mr. B. experienced a decline in anxiety and obsessions. Mr. B. reported that he felt very confident, calm, and assertive, and he started to call himself Mr. B. II, the new and improved version of himself.

Mr. B. had never been a huge music lover. His musical taste was broad, covering Dutch-language songs, the Beatles, and the Rolling Stones. While music did not occupy an important position in his life, his taste in music had always been very fixed. Half a year after DBS surgery, Mr. B. stated that he was turning into a Johnny Cash fan. He had been listening to the radio when he heard "Ring of Fire" and was deeply affected by the song. Mr. B. started to listen to more of Cash's songs and noticed that he was deeply moved by the raw and low-pitched voice of the singer. Moreover, he found that he preferred the performance of the songs in the Seventies and Eighties, because of the fullness of the voice of the older Johnny Cash.

Mr. B. reported that he felt good following treatment with DBS and that the songs of Johnny Cash made him feel even better. From this moment on, Mr. B. listened solely to Johnny Cash and bought all his CDs and DVDs. He reported that there was a Johnny Cash song for every emotion and every situation, feeling happy or feeling sad, and although Mr. B. almost exclusively played Johnny Cash songs for the following years, the music never started to annoy him. From the first time Mr. B. heard a Johnny Cash song, the Dutch-language songs, the Beatles, and the Rolling Stones have been banned. Except when the stimulators run down or accidentally go out.

nice that his anxiety got better, but being a Cash superfan seems a bit obsessive still
<<My image in some places, is of a monster of some kind who wants to pull a string and manipulate people. Nothing could be further from the truth. People are manipulated; I just want them to be manipulated more effectively.>>

-B.F. Skinner

Dildo Argentino

I guess keeping the symptom but not being bothered about it any longer is way better than nothing. :)
Not too keen on rigor, myself - reminds me of mortis

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/11/141106131849.htm

We're our own ghosts:

QuoteGenerating a "Ghost"

The researchers first analyzed the brains of 12 patients with neurological disorders -- mostly epilepsy -- who have experienced this kind of "apparition." MRI analysis of the patients's brains revealed interference with three cortical regions: the insular cortex, parietal-frontal cortex, and the temporo-parietal cortex. These three areas are involved in self-awareness, movement, and the sense of position in space (proprioception). Together, they contribute to multisensory signal processing, which is important for the perception of one's own body.
The scientists then carried out a "dissonance" experiment in which blindfolded participants performed movements with their hand in front of their body. Behind them, a robotic device reproduced their movements, touching them on the back in real time. The result was a kind of spatial discrepancy, but because of the synchronized movement of the robot, the participant's brain was able to adapt and correct for it.
Next, the neuroscientists introduced a temporal delay between the participant's movement and the robot's touch. Under these asynchronous conditions, distorting temporal and spatial perception, the researchers were able to recreate the ghost illusion.

An "Unbearable" Experience

The participants were unaware of the experiment's purpose. After about three minutes of the delayed touching, the researchers asked them what they felt. Instinctively, several subjects reported a strong "feeling of a presence," even counting up to four "ghosts" where none existed. "For some, the feeling was even so strong that they asked to stop the experiment," said Giulio Rognini, who led the study.
"Our experiment induced the sensation of a foreign presence in the laboratory for the first time. It shows that it can arise under normal conditions, simply through conflicting sensory-motor signals," explained Blanke. "The robotic system mimics the sensations of some patients with mental disorders or of healthy individuals under extreme circumstances. This confirms that it is caused by an altered perception of their own bodies in the brain."
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


Trivial

So regarding sense of humor, my sister's husband is paralyzed from the mid back down.  When we first met him he was fairly normal despite that (I've never known him before the accident).  Now he has no sense of humor.  It's quite noticeable to me. Just wondering if there's complications with his condition that can affect that area of the brain.
Sexy Octopus of the Next Noosphere Horde

There are more nipples in the world than people.

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

Quote from: Trivial on November 08, 2014, 11:21:27 PM
So regarding sense of humor, my sister's husband is paralyzed from the mid back down.  When we first met him he was fairly normal despite that (I've never known him before the accident).  Now he has no sense of humor.  It's quite noticeable to me. Just wondering if there's complications with his condition that can affect that area of the brain.

Not that I'm aware of, but I have literally taken only two (actually, only one and a half, because I'm not done with the second one) classes in neuroscience. It's a good question though, because personality change is quite common with brain injury but I'm not aware of a link between personality change and spinal injury. However, depression is quite common with debilitating injury. I could ask my professor about it!
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


Mesozoic Mister Nigel

Face recognition is coooool

http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/41326/title/A-Face-to-Remember/

QuoteRon Blackwell reclined in a hospital bed at Stanford University, bandages from his recent brain surgery wrapped snugly around his head. Doctors had just removed a piece of his cranium, implanted electrodes on the surface of his brain, and closed him back up. He waited for a seizure.

Blackwell, 49, had his first seizure when he was 11 and had experienced similar incidents periodically thereafter. But after he turned 40, the seizures became more frequent. He wanted to feel secure when caring for his two young children instead of worrying that he might have a seizure while bringing them to the park. So in 2012 he gave doctors the OK to implant the electrodes, which were designed to pinpoint the epicenter of his seizures as they came and help determine whether he'd be good candidate for surgery to remove the culprit tissue.

Once such electrodes are in place, the wait for a seizure can take days, so to pass the time Blackwell participated in some cognitive and perceptual tests. On occasion, researchers visited him and presented him with tasks to perform on a computer, such as clicking a button when a particular object appeared on a screen. After days with no sign of a seizure, Josef Parvizi, Blackwell's neurologist, asked for permission to stimulate the electrodes on Blackwell's brain as part of an experiment. Blackwell agreed.

Parvizi instructed Blackwell to look at objects in the room: a Mylar balloon, a TV screen. The doctor clicked a button, but nothing happened. "Then he said, 'Look at my face,' and he hit the button, and it was the most bizarre thing," Blackwell recalls. In that brief moment when Parvizi zapped the electrodes, Blackwell saw the doctor's face "metamorphose."

"His face just sagged. His eyes drooped; his nose drooped and just shifted. It was very cartoonish," he says. The face looked somewhat familiar, but it was no longer Parvizi's—until the doctor stopped stimulating the electrodes on Blackwell's brain. As soon as the stimulus was over, the familiar face of the neurologist returned.

Wanting to learn more, Parvizi asked Blackwell some questions: Could he still tell that Parvizi was a male? "Oh, yeah," Blackwell replied. "How did you know?" asked Parvizi. "Because you're still wearing a suit and tie. Only your face changed. Everything else was the same." And with that, Blackwell gave to science the best experimental evidence yet that humans have what researchers call a face-selective area, or "face patch" for short—a region of the brain specialized for the perception of faces.1

Previous human studies had relied on imaging techniques to link face perception to face patches by association; none of them showed that disrupting the face patch could alter face percep­tion. But more recent research provides evidence that face patches, generally recognized as three chunks of the temporal lobe, are critical to the everyday observation of faces. Blackwell is now just one of about a dozen patients in whom Parvizi and Stanford colleague Kalanit Grill-Spector have demonstrated the electrical disruption of face perception.

"It's just so striking how specific the perceptual distortion is to the face," says Grill-Spector. "This is why it's a very important discovery, because it shows the specificity of the cortical region to processing faces."

A lot of work has been done since most of the research this article is based on; we have very complex facial-recognition mechanisms, and we have areas -- tiny areas, a single column of neurons in the cortex with increasingly complex recognition tasks culminating in a single cell with fully-integrated recognition -- that recognize specific individuals. http://www.nature.com/news/2005/050620/full/news050620-7.html

QuoteThe recordings taken as they viewed the photographs revealed just how selective cells within the medial temporal lobe - located deep inside the brain- can be. For example, a neuron of one patient responded almost solely to different pictures of Bill Clinton.

The researchers say that these types of cell are involved in sophisticated aspects of visual processing to identify a person, for example, rather than just a simple shape.

Various pictures of Jennifer Aniston elicited a response in a single neuron inside the medial temporal lobe of another patient. Interestingly, images of her with her former husband Brad Pitt did not sway this cell, the authors of the paper report. Their findings appear this week in the journal Nature.

Quian Quiroga also found that a lone neuron in one subject responded selectively to various pictures of the actress Halle Berry - as well as drawings of her and her name written down. Other cells were found to respond to images of characters in The Simpsons or members of The Beatles.

I kind of wish I could have the column that recognizes my ex-boyfriend excised.
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


LMNO

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind will be upon us in 20 years, it seems.

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


Mesozoic Mister Nigel

I'm not sure whether to be annoyed or pleased with the typo in the thread title.
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


Mesozoic Mister Nigel

This is not that new, but it is quite delightful and I hadn't heard it yet: http://www.businessinsider.com/the-first-real-reason-we-need-to-sleep-2013-10?

QuoteAll of our cells accumulate waste while they are working, and these waste products can be toxic. If they aren't removed they can build up and kill our cells. Throughout the rest of the body the lymphatic system washes these waste products away, but the brain is cut off from these actions because of the blood-brain barrier.

The team just discovered the brain's unique trash disposal system last year — the find was published in the journal Science Translational Medicine on Aug. 15, 2012. It works like a plumbing system.

The brain itself is bathed in a special clear liquid called cerebrospinal fluid, which doesn't mix with the blood and lymph system of the rest of the body. In the study from last year, they found that this fluid travels through special channels and washes the brain out.

There are two types of cells in the brain — the neurons that send signals and the glial that keep them healthy. They found that these glial cells seem to create these cleaning channels around the neurons.

It washes away toxic proteins and removes them from the brain's circulatory system. They are transferred to the general circulatory system, where the liver can remove them.

Quote
In the new study, they found that while the brain is sleeping, the neurons shrink by about 60% and the channels between these cells grow and fill with fluid. The glial cells then activate their pumping system to push the brain's cerebrospinal fluid through these extra spaces and flush out the area around the neurons.

When we wake, these channels squeeze shut again as the cells plump up, and the cerebrospinal fluid is once again found mostly around the surface of the brain, not deep inside it. While awake, this washing process acts at only about 5% of its performance during sleep.

All of this fluid movement is energy intensive, which is why the researchers think it can only happen effectively during sleep. Normally, all of our brain's energy is busy doing normal brain activities that support every thing we do — all of our movements, our thoughts, creating memories, and analyzing the signals that come in through our senses. By shutting these processes down, our brains are able to switch into cleaning mode.
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


Mesozoic Mister Nigel

MARIJUANAS AND THA BRAIN

I'm sure that some people would have a lot of arguments against what this particular neuroscience PhD researcher has to say.

Warning; this is not a very concise or hi-fi lecture.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P68SlhPlLvw#t=2573
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


minuspace

#13
I find the definition of recognition can sometimes be more unsettling than its absence.

Junkenstein

Posting mainly so I don't miss further updates here.

Good thread Nigel, Looking forward to more and there's already plenty to read up on now. Thanks!
Nine naked Men just walking down the road will cause a heap of trouble for all concerned.