For questions about the biology of the nervous system.
9
votes
1answer
220 views
How does body temperature and oxygenation affect thinking ability?
I'm interested if the brain works better when the temperature is higher than usual and the amount of oxygen in the air is a bit lower than in fresh mountain air. This has been my personal experience.
...
10
votes
1answer
154 views
What is a reliable physiological measure (e.g., serotonin levels) of positive affect?
Is there a reliable physiological measure or correlate to positive affect?
What does research say on this?
I thought that serotonin levels are correlated with self-reported happiness levels, but, ...
8
votes
3answers
306 views
What are the key examples of the use of computational methods in the study of biological neural networks?
In an upcoming postdoc, I'm going to be looking through biological neural network data in the hopes of finding some interesting "patterns". I'm coming at this field from a mathematics/computer ...
10
votes
1answer
156 views
Does cognitive training enhance dopamine release?
Joe Hardy reports on a study by Backman et al (2011) in Science, where from the authors report:
Updating of working memory has been associated with striato-frontal
brain regions and phasic ...
7
votes
2answers
221 views
Is an autistic person's brain different from a non-autistic one?
Are there any differences between the autistic person's brain and the non-autistic one?
To be more specific, are there any differences in brain structure or brain activity, that can be used to ...
6
votes
2answers
133 views
Are different types of long term memories stored in different parts of the brain?
I recently had some questions concerning the capacity of the brain's memory:
Are different types of long term-memories like know-how, your-life, etc. remembered in different parts of the brain?
If ...
7
votes
3answers
186 views
Neurotransmitter based imaging techniques
All the brain imaging techniques I know fall into two categories:
Tracking blood
Either by looking at the magnetic (fMRI), or near-infared absorption (diffuse optical imaging, NIRS) properties of ...
5
votes
1answer
160 views
Measuring changes in hemispheric dominance over time
I've recently started using my trackball left-handed after being right-handed my whole life. The motivation is partly to balance out wrist strain, and partly to see how much my brain rejects the idea.
...
3
votes
2answers
238 views
Where is the visual “image” that we “see” finally assembled?
David Hubel's online book, Eye, Brain and Vision describes in great detail our early visual system. The image that we are conscious of when we open our eyes goes through a complex path:
The final ...
8
votes
1answer
258 views
Is there a region of cortex which over a period of development becomes the seat of self?
Background
Mountcastle's hypothesis, which is based on the observation of uniform cortical anatomy, suggests that the there might be a uniform cortical "algorithm". The only reason that some cortical ...
7
votes
1answer
307 views
What form might Jungian archetypes take in the brain?
Modern psychology and psychiatry are very well grounded in scientific principles. Both, however, have a history in various analytical philosophies. Jung had the notion of an archetype, a universally ...
4
votes
3answers
145 views
Theoretical limit to the use of mental faculty of the brain
A lot of articles stress the importance of having to train the brain (By training the brain, I mean the cognitive faculty of the brain for learning things and not brain's normal functions) since the ...
10
votes
2answers
397 views
What are current neuronal explanations and models of 'consciousness'?
I would like to understand more about consciousness from a neuroscientific perspective. I have a limited understanding of it in the philosophical/psychological sense through lectures.
Although it is ...
