Science News

Dr. Guilio Tononi of the University of Wisconsin-Madison is working on a gadget that uses transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to help people move into deeper levels of sleep. Read the rest

According to a new study conducted by Roland Griffiths of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, people that take psilocybin (pronounced SILL-oh-SY-bin), an illegal drug made from mushrooms, can have a profound spiritual experience. Read the rest

Here's an interesting study linking the act of participating in a ritual with how effective treatment is.

Medical researcher Ted Kaptchuk wanted to see if it was possible to manipulate the placebo effect, so in a study sponsored by teh National Institutes of Health, he recruited 266 volunteers suffering from chronic arm pain which they rated at least a 3 on a 10-point scale. Read the rest

In 1871, Darwin published his controversial Descent of Man which described how man and apes had evolved from a common ancestor and opened the floodgates on the debate for human evolution.

One of the biggest questions raised against the theory was how the human mind could have evolved from a more primitive animal brain. Humans make complex decisions, are driven by emotions, impose social and moral constructs, and participate in religious activities. Surely, there was a distinction between the human mind and the animal mind. In addition, since at least the Greeks, philosophers had been arguing for a mind/body dualism, meaning the two were fundamentally other and separate. Read the rest

As neurologists learn more about the brain, there's been renewed interest in merging psychiatry with neurology - and that means renewed interest in many of Sigmund Freud's ideas. A recent Scientific American Mind (subscription required) article discusses how modern neuroscience supports many of the ideas Freud proposed and is creating a 'new intellectual framework for psychiatry.' Some of the ideas include: Read the rest

A quick blurb in the Februay 2006 edition of Discover Magazine explains why many women don’t find Adam Sandler funny.

To understand how the brain reacts to humor, Reiss and his team had test subjects rate the hilarity of cartoons while undergoing fMRI brain scans. Although men and women described the cartoons as equally funny, the areas of their brains that lit up as a result differed. Women activated the left prefrontal cortex more than men, indicating that their processing of humor is rooted more heavily in language. This explains why women are more likely to appreciate wordplay over, say, the slapstick antics of a dim-witted water boy. Reiss also found that women showed a stronger response in the nucleus accumbens, the brain’s reward center, suggesting that they ultimately derived bigger pleasure hits from punch lines.

I wonder where I fit in. I happen to -like- most Adam Sandler films.