House of Mind

"Biology gives you a brain. Life turns it into a mind" - Jeffrey Eugenides

  • 13th October
    2012
  • 13
Society for Neuroscience launches new Neuroscience resource: BrainFacts.org

BrainFacts.org is dedicated to sharing knowledge about the wonders of the brain and mind, engaging the public in dialogue about brain research, and dispelling common “neuromyths. It is a great resource for educators and students, with a focus on providing teaching resources. 

Featured resources include: 

*Key concepts about brain function; summaries of promising research discoveries; informations about hundreds of diseases and disorders

*Interviews/discussions with leading resources

*Multimedia tools and social media community


  • 31st August
    2012
  • 31
The neural processes underlying that which we call creativity have nothing to do with rationality. That is to say, if we look at how the brain generates creativity, we will see that it is not a rational process at all; creativity is not born out of reasoning.

Rodolfo R. Llinás, I of the Vortex: From Neurons to Self  

(Also a professor at NYU Med!)

  • 26th July
    2012
  • 26
medicalschool: Craniotomy is a cut that opens the cranium. During this surgical procedure, a section of the skull, called a bone flap, is removed to access the brain underneath. The bone flap is usually replaced after the procedure with tiny plates and screws. A craniotomy may be small or large depending on the problem. It may be performed during surgery for various neurological diseases, injuries, or conditions such as brain tumors, hematomas (blood clots), aneurysms or AVMs, and skull fractures. Other reasons for a craniotomy may include foreign objects (bullets), swelling of the brain, or infection.

medicalschool:

Craniotomy is a cut that opens the cranium. During this surgical procedure, a section of the skull, called a bone flap, is removed to access the brain underneath. The bone flap is usually replaced after the procedure with tiny plates and screws.

A craniotomy may be small or large depending on the problem. It may be performed during surgery for various neurological diseases, injuries, or conditions such as brain tumors, hematomas (blood clots), aneurysms or AVMs, and skull fractures. Other reasons for a craniotomy may include foreign objects (bullets), swelling of the brain, or infection.

(Source: desmond.imageshack.us)

  • 20th March
    2012
  • 20
NY Times: The Benefits of Bilingualism

Click on the link to read about the bilingual brain and associated cognitive and protective benefits. Boost your brain power, learn a new language! 

Benefits of bilingualism according to the article:

  • Agility and speed at solving certain kinds of mental puzzles
  • Improved executive function
  • Differences in environmental monitoring (bilinguals have a heightened ability to monitor the environment)
  • Later onset for dementia and Alzheimer’s 

  • 12th March
    2012
  • 12
jtotheizzoe: Explore The Wellcome Collection’s 360-Degree Brain This interactive tool (go check it out, it spins and zooms and enfoldulates on their website) is like having a brain in a jar on your shelf to study for anatomy class, but much less creepy and less likely to lead to a misunderstood monster roaming the streets of the local village and terrorizing the dreams of young people everywhere. (ᔥWellcome Collection) Also: Explore the brain’s beautiful connectome at Cocktail Party Physics! This is pretty cool. 

jtotheizzoe:

Explore The Wellcome Collection’s 360-Degree Brain

This interactive tool (go check it out, it spins and zooms and enfoldulates on their website) is like having a brain in a jar on your shelf to study for anatomy class, but much less creepy and less likely to lead to a misunderstood monster roaming the streets of the local village and terrorizing the dreams of young people everywhere.

(ᔥWellcome Collection)

Also: Explore the brain’s beautiful connectome at Cocktail Party Physics!

This is pretty cool. 

(via psychologygeek)

  • 29th January
    2012
  • 29
In these ways I am of the opinion that the brain exercises the greatest power in the man. This is the interpreter to us of those things which emanate from the air, when the brain happens to be in a sound state. But the air supplies sense to it. And the eyes, the ears, the tongue and the feet, administer such things as the brain cogitates. For in as much as it is supplied with air, does it impart sense to the body. It is the brain which is the messenger to the understanding. For when the man draws the breath into himself, it passes first to the brain, and thus the air is distributed to the rest of the body, leaving in the brain its acme, and whatever has sense and understanding. For if it passed first to the body and last to the brain, then having left in the flesh and veins the judgment, when it reached the brain it would be hot, and not at all pure, but mixed with the humidity from flesh and blood, so as to be no longer pure.

Hippocrates, On the Sacred Disease (Translation by Francis Adams in 1886)

Click on the link for a full read :) Obviously, most of this “knowledge” is rustic, primitive and inaccurate. But, give the man a break! To me it seems like reasonable logic, considering this was written 400 B.C.