Over the last few decades, there has been considerable research into the function of the prefrontal cortex, especially as it relates to emotional processing (and affect regulation). Dr. Dan Siegel’s work has emphasized this brain region in both attachment patterns and in mindfulness practice, which led to his Mindsight approach to healing developmental traumas and … Read more
This is an interesting article on schizophrenia from The American Scholar. The author seems to throw all of the prevailing theories against the wall the see what sticks, to find some way to make sense of how her sister died. One of the pieces missing, however, is the fact that an extremely large percentage of … Read more
Dissociation, derealization, and depersonalization have always been a coping mechanisms the human brain can employ when reality is too intolerable. Occasionally, this can result in the experience of seeing one’s double, or doppleganger. But what happens when it’s not part of mental illness, and not organic (often the insular cortex)? Can the experience of an … Read more
Bruce Hood is the author of The Self Illusion: How the Social Brain Creates Identity (2012). His new book is The Domesticated Brain: A Pelican Introduction, and he was at The RSA in England recently to talk about the new book. Bruce Hood on the Domesticated Brain 7th May 2014 Listen to the audio (full … Read more
From Frontiers in Psychiatry: Schizophrenia, this new article looks at the foundations of severe mental illness in gene-environment interactions, which is at least a first step toward grasping the significant impact of environment on all psychological challenges. Full Citation: Uher, R. (2014, May 15). Gene–environment interactions in severe mental illness. Frontiers in Psychiatry: Schizophrenia; 5:48. doi: … Read more
Buddhism, Mind, and Cognitive Science Conference, April 25-26, 2014, UC Berkeley This conference is dedicated to the exploration of the methodological underpinnings of the current encounter between Buddhism and cognitive science. Among the presenters and panelists are: Dan Arnold (Philosophy of Religion, University of Chicago) Lawrence Barsalou (Psychology, Emory University) Christian Coseru (Philosophy, College of … Read more
This is an interesting article on the occurrence of auditory hallucinations in psychosis/schizophrenia. It comes from the open access journal, Frontiers in Psychiatry: Schizophrenia. Later today or tomorrow I will post a commentary on this article, which is also quite interesting (if you care at all about this kind of stuff). A LOT of people … Read more
New research has identified a brain circuit that is key to shifting attention from one object to another. The researchers found that there is object-based attention and spatial attention, each of which is centered in different parts of the brain. The prefrontal cortex (“inferior frontal junction (IFJ), which controls visual processing areas that are tuned … Read more
This is very cool – Michael Gazzaniga is a living treasure for contributions to neuroscience and our understanding of the human brain. Among his many books are Split: The Roads Both Taken (2014 – no specific date), Who’s in Charge? Free Will and the Science of the Brain (2011), Human; The Science of What Makes … Read more
A little over a week ago, I posted the first section of an article I am writing on the topic of Big Neuro and how it has taken over nearly all of the Federal research dollars in psychology. Based on that, you all know how I feel about the topic. This brief overview of the … Read more