Welcome to the 69th edition of the Encephalon blog carnival. This carnival is devoted to presenting blog posts that cover neuroscience and psychology related topics.
First up, Neuroanthropology does an in depth analysis about the twitter phenomenon in "Fear of Twitter: technophobia part 2". I personally have not been inclined to get on the twitter bandwagon. Do I have twitter phobia? Perhaps. Not sure if I'm interested in another time waster. A couple of topics in that article include a discussion about matters related to privacy and twitter's potential affect on cognitive processes.
Brain Blogger has a post about "Free Will and the Philosophy of Science". The author talks about the relationship between neuroscience and scientific determinism. There is further discussion about the topic in the comment section too. There is a little bit of confusion on the part of the blog post author and some of the commenters about whether the physics of our world is deterministic or not. The most widely accepted interpretation of quantum mechanics among physicists (many worlds) is deterministic. So does a deterministic world deny the existence of free will? Well I think that depends on how you define the term "free will". As mentioned by the blog post author in one of the comments, the term "free will" can be rather vague. So I think the discussion won't be particularly fruitful if you don't properly define what exactly "free will" is. It's a topic I myself might explore in a future post.
Sharp Brains writes on the subject of whether taking art classes can boost academic achievement in other fields in "Arts and Smarts: Test Scores and Cognitive Development". There is conflicting data as to whether participating in the arts is beneficial for test scores in more conventional domains (like math or reading ability). There is also the issue of whether correlation proves causation in some of the studies.
Neuroanthropology has another lengthy article that discusses about a "neuro" term in "Who you callin’ a ‘neuroconstructivist’?!". Another "neuro" word? What does neuroconstructivist mean? You'll have to read the post if you want to find out the whole story. It looks like part of being a neuroconstructivist entails taking environmental effects on the brain and its development more seriously. The expression of brain genes can be dependent on social environmental factors, for instance (i.e. social interactions). From my own reading of the Neuroanthropology blog, I tend to think they sometimes overstate the case for certain environmental social factors being able to shape an individual's brain to a desired output. Nonetheless, they usually have well reasoned posts. I also think it is important to stress that while the environment can have an impact on brain functioning, brain functioning itself can impact how we consciously perceive the environment. Changing brain chemistry (like by using a neuro drug as one extreme example) can alter our perception of reality (i.e. the environment) and this can affect all subsequent brain/environment interactions as a result of that altered perception.
Brain Blogger has another post discussing new objective testing methods for Alzhiemer's disease. Volumetric brain imaging analysis of the hippocampus can be used as a biomarker for Alzhiemer's disease. It's unfortunate that there aren't too many therapies that are truly effective in treating/preventing Alzhiemer's even with earlier detection. A lot of the new neurotechnologies discussed on my own blog will probably have only a limited effect on the disease process too. I also think it will be getting harder and harder to actually get FDA approval for many new neurological therapies in the future. The current regulatory environment is not conducive to this sort of thing and it will probably only get worse. Hopefully my pessimism will prove wrong.
Cognitive Daily has a post entitled "How wrong is it to use a kitten for personal ughhh... pleasure?". Very embarrassing post title to describe. It deals with one particular sort of kitty induced pleasure. Do we really need to be giving people these sorts of ideas? Aren't there enough weirdos out there who will try anything? The post talks about how people have a tendency of rating things as being more immoral when they are exposed to something else disgusting (fart smell, disgusting movie) that is unrelated to the poll. Conversely you can make people judge something as being more "moral" as well by having them do certain things beforehand (having them wash their hands, for instance).
Sharp Brains also mentions about a Cognitive Health Track at Games for Health Conference.
Well, that's it for now. The next Encephalon installment will be hosted at TBD, May 11th, 2009. More information about future editions of this blog carnival and details about making post submissions can be found at the Encephalon archive.
source:brain stimulant
