Does Brain Scanning Show Just the Tip of the Iceberg? ⇢
Brain scans + fMRI: What are we seeing and what are we missing?
Two new studies suggest that fMRI studies, the brain activity scans that give us those “thermal blob” images we are so used to, might be the equivalent of cracking an egg with a sledgehammer. You’ll see an effect, but it’s kind of a brute force blunt object, considering the detail of the job. At the same time, when observations are made outside of “normal” experimental time frames, unexpected and interesting results can show up.
From Neuroskeptic:
As an analogy, suppose that all you knew about your neighbours was from the noises that you heard through the wall. The shouts and screams would be loud enough to reach your eyes; the normal conversations and whispers wouldn’t. If you concluded that all your neighbours did was shout, not talk, you’d get a misleading picture of their relationship.
That’s the bad news. On the other hand, fMRI is clearly more powerful than most neuroscientists have realized, and this holds out hope for cracking some of the trickiest questions facing the field in the future, with larger studies and more sensitive techniques
Does brain scanning show just the tip of the iceberg? We all know this answer is undoubtedly, a yes. Pretty nice article.
Remember neuroscience, you must first learn to walk, before you can run.
Thin slices of the human brain mounted on glass
You can hang these near your DNA portraits.
Japanese Researchers develop “slimming specs” which makes food look 50% bigger to help you eat less
A new set of Japanese inventions could revolutionise dieting - but Western dieters may find the drawbacks a little difficult to ‘swallow’.
Dieters have to wear a pair of goggles which ‘trick’ eaters into thinking food is 50% bigger - but reassure them their hands are the same size.
Another gadget under test in the same lab, called ‘MetaCookie+’, sends images of foods via a TV screen into dieters’ eyes, while wafting smells up their noses.
Some of their findings:
- People eat 10% less if they think the cookies are larger.
- The color blue in the glasses ‘calms’ the brain persuading dieters to eat less.
- The “Metacookie’ techno glasses use built-in TV screen to show dieters other foods as they eat.
While this is scientifically amazing and I am fascinated by “tricking” our brain, isn’t it a little sad that we can’t control the amount of food we eat?
Picture Captions:
- The gadget ‘tricks’ dieters into feeling fuller by making food look bigger
- MetaCookie Plus ‘transforms’ food by feeding dieters different scents as they eat - so that, for instance, a diet biscuit can taste like a chocolate Digestive.
- The glasses make food look 50% bigger, encouraging dieters to eat less.
- The Goggles enlarge the appearance of food by 50%, persuading people to eat less.
- The glasses ‘amplify’ the size of the food so that it looks bigger, encouraging dieters to have smaller portions.
Spectacular Brain Images Reveal Surprisingly Simple Structure
Stunning new visuals of the brain reveal a deceptively simple pattern of organization in the wiring of this complex organ.
Instead of nerve fibers travelling willy-nilly through the brain like spaghetti, as some imaging has suggested, the new portraits reveal two-dimensional sheets of parallel fibers crisscrossing other sheets at right angles in a gridlike structure that folds and contorts with the convolutions of the brain.
This same pattern appeared in the brains of humans, rhesus monkeys, owl monkeys, marmosets and galagos, researchers report today (March 29) in the journal Science.
» via Live Science
What have you got in your head? Series 2 by Sara Asnaghi
Copy of human brains made with different foods
17 cm x 12 cm each one
1) Sugar, 2) Brain Sandwich, 3) The Set, 4) Candies, 5) Chili.
Click the link to see the rest!
Brain Connectome | Mapping neural connectivity through white matter connections in the human brain using diffusion MRI.
From The Age of Connectome: Q&A with Sebastian Seung
The ancient Egyptian mummy Djeher as imaged with a CT scanner. Djeher was found to have heart artery and other vascular disease. Djeher lived between 304 and 30 BC. Another mummy with coronary artery disease, Princess Ahmose-Meryet-Amon, lived between 1580 and 1550 BC and is the oldest known case of human heart disease.
Click to see more from the set.
Credit: Dr. Michael Miyamoto
Life’s Messy. Train Your Brain to Adapt.
Framing chaos and disorganization as having a cognitive basis.
Organization is not just about a cluttered desk. It’s about self-regulation, a skill that is developed by the pre-frontal cortex—the seat of executive function in the brain. The left pre-frontal cortex regulates your attention: it evaluates, judges, makes decisions. Modern life, with its barrage of incoming emails and phone calls and texts, taxes the pre-frontal cortex, inhibiting the brain’s ability to focus. Those who have naturally strong self-regulation can handle the overload—and those who don’t are left feeling guilty and out of control.
But the plasticity of the brain means we can all learn to be better focused and more organized.
‘When you can focus all of your brain on one thing, that’s when you’re at your best. You’re integrating all your brain. But it also consumes a huge amount of resources. You get tired. That’s really how the brain learns—when the brain is learning, it’s laying down new networks. The brain is changing when we focus. It takes a lot of energy, and when it’s depleted it isn’t able to manage the emotional brain. When your pre frontal cortex is depleted, your emotions rule all day.’
If you learn how your brain works and work with it, you can start to exercise more cognitive control over your own functioning. The first step is to figure out what is it that you really want that being organized will give you.
‘That’s the fuel that will keep you going when you’re struggling to change your brain. Every time you make a change that lasts, you’re changing your brain.’
Variability of brain size and external topography.
Photographs and weights of the brains of different species. Primates: human (Homo sapiens, 1.176 kg), chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes, 273 g), baboon (Papio cynocephalus, 151 g), mandrill (Mandrillus sphinx, 123 g), macaque (Macaca tonkeana, 110 g). Carnivores: bear (Ursus arctos, 289 g), lion (Panthera leo, 165 g), cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus, 119 g), dog (Canis familiaris, 95 g), cat (Felis catus, 32 g). Artiodactyls: giraffe (Giraffa camelopardalis, 700 g), kudu (Tragelaphus strepsiceros, 166 g), mouflon (Ovis musimon, 118 g), ibex (Capra pyrenaica, 115 g); peccary (Tayassu pecari, 41 g). Marsupials: wallaby (Protemnodon rufogrisea, 28 g). Lagomorphs: rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus, 5.2 g). Rodents: rat (Rattus rattus, 2.6 g), mouse (Mus musculus, 0.5 g).
Scale bar: 5 cm (via Frontiers)
“The brain is one awesomely complicated piece of meat.”
The Allen Human Brain Atlas 4 by Perrin Ireland
Researchers make living model of brain tumor
Researchers have created a living 3-D model of a brain tumor and its surrounding blood vessels. In experiments, the scientists report that iron-oxide nanoparticles carrying the agent tumstatin were taken by blood vessels, meaning they should block blood vessel growth. The living-tissue model could be used to test the effectiveness of nanoparticles in fighting other diseases. Results appear in Theranostics.
(clicking the image will bring you to the source article)