We all have brains. Forgive the mundane. However, let’s re-familiarize with ala Brain Extraordinaire. There is no instance in our annual innovation reviews or daily social media existence, we miss highlighting the extraordinary prowess of the brain as an information processing system. Our logical mind. We exalt it. “I think, therefore I am”. And things that our rational mind finds fiddly, we ask Siri for … Continue reading Whose Insight is it Anyway.
Time perception distortions in schizophrenia is an increasingly known phenomenon, which dates back to the beginning of the last century. This article addresses time perception in schizophrenia from a neuroscientific perspective. Continue reading Time Perception in Schizophrenia: Do schizophrenic patients perceive time differently?
Sometimes, we feel hopeless. For some people this hopelessness is inescapable, or rather their brain tells them so. How can thought of ending one’s existence arise in our brain which is so trained on survival? In this post we want to look at the neurobiology that underlies this phenomenon. Continue reading The Dark Side of our Brain
As Madeline Lancaster lifts a clear plastic dish into the light, roughly a dozen clumps of tissue the size of small baroque pearls bob in a peachcolored liquid. These are cerebral organoids, which possess certain features of a human brain in the first trimester of development—including lobes of cortex (Russ Juskalian, MIT Technology Review). Continue reading Meet the Organoids: Growing Human Brains in a Petri Dish
Every winter the cycle repeats itself: we look outside our windows and despair to the sight of a cloudy winter sky, with no trace of the sunny days. But the familiar “winter blues” feelings might not be just a “phase”: for some people such periods of low light exposure represent a serious problem to face, and that’s where the term “seasonal affective disorder” (SAD) comes in place. Why does SAD start, and can a look at the neurobiology of the brain help us to understand it more? Continue reading SEASONAL AFFECTIVE DISORDER (SAD): A “WINTER BLUES” IN OUR BRAIN?
The next generation of BCI-controlled prosthetics may come with a sense of touch – how researchers attempt to restore hand somatosensation in patients with brain-controlled robotic arms, and why it matters. Continue reading More than moving: Somatosensation in brain-controlled prosthetics
There is so much bacteria in your gut that they can easily outweigh your brain. In recent years, researchers have found that the bacteria in our gut communicate with the brain and vice versa. Now we want to know how this communication takes place, whether the food we eat is altering our gut bacteria, and what types of signals they are sending to the brain. Continue reading It’s a Gut Feeling: What is our Gut Bacteria telling our Brain?
How can we use brain activity to control prosthetic limbs and provide autonomy to injured patients? Continue reading BCI-Based Neuroprosthetics: Merging Neuroscience with Technology
This week’s post is about the mystery of yawning. Do
we yawn to stay alert? when we are bored? Does thinking about
yawning makes you do it? Continue reading The yawning mystery
As you’re reading this, your heart is beating somewhere between 60 and 100 times per minute, it’s generating electrical signals in the heart to maintain that pace, and your blood is being pushed against your artery walls with each beat. The autonomic nervous system, which regulates not just the heart but also other internal organ functions like digestion, respiration, and sexual arousal, is extremely active. … Continue reading Think with your head, AND with your heart
Brainy Sundays 