More than moving: Somatosensation in brain-controlled prosthetics
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
It’s a Gut Feeling: What is our Gut Bacteria telling our Brain?
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?
The Neuroscience of “Boys will be boys”: Exploring the link between testosterone and male aggression
Testosterone- the single word biological explanation accompanying the classic “Boys will be boys” slogan, oft-repeated as a rationalization for everything from mischief to bullying to violence to world wars. But how accurate is our perception of testosterone and its role in male behaviour? Continue reading The Neuroscience of “Boys will be boys”: Exploring the link between testosterone and male aggression
BCI-Based Neuroprosthetics: Merging Neuroscience with Technology
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
Markers of Consciousness
What is consciousness? Is it unique to humankind? What about animal consciousness? There is little that is more tantalising than the question of how and why consciousness came to exist in science. Continue reading Markers of Consciousness
Symbolism of Sounds
All languages are not as different as we think! Continue reading Symbolism of Sounds
The yawning mystery
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
Sociality – is it really that important?
“Man is by nature a social animal; an individual who is unsocial naturally and not accidentally is either beneath our notice or more than human…” ― Aristotle, Politics It is not news that Aristotle saw sociality as a defining point of human nature. Interestingly, his idea is backed by modern evolutionary neuroscientists who claim that exactly complex social behavior is the precursor of the primate brain enlargement … Continue reading Sociality – is it really that important?
Think with your head, AND with your heart
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
Sleep Paralysis – Awake in a Nightmare
”. . . in the night time, when she was composing her self […] to sleep, sometimes she believed the devil lay upon her and held her down, sometimes that she was choaked […] by a great dog or thief lying upon her breast, so that she could hardly speak or breath, and when she endeavoured to throw off the burthen, she was not able … Continue reading Sleep Paralysis – Awake in a Nightmare
Brainy Sundays 