The predisposition of human beings toward spiritual feeling, thinking, and behaviors is measured by a supposedly stable personality trait called self-transcendence. Although a few neuroimaging studies suggest that neural activation of a large fronto-parieto-temporal network may underpin a variety of spiritual experiences, information on the causative link between such a network and spirituality is lacking. Combining pre- and post-neurosurgery personality assessment with advanced brain-lesion mapping techniques, we found that selective damage to left and right inferior posterior parietal regions induced a specific increase of self-transcendence. Therefore, modifications of neural activity in temporoparietal areas may induce unusually fast modulations of a stable personality trait related to transcendental self-referential awareness. These results hint at the active, crucial role of left and right parietal systems in determining self-transcendence and cast new light on the neurobiological bases of altered spiritual and religious attitudes and behaviors in neurological and mental disorders.
Neuron
IF a rapid series of taps are applied first to your wrist and then to your elbow, you will experience a perceptual illusion, in which phantom sensations are felt along the skin connecting the two points that were actually touched. This feels as if a tiny rabbit is hopping along your skin from the wrist to the elbow, and is therefore referred to as the “cutaneous rabbit”. The illusion indicates that our perceptions of sensory inputs do not enter conscious awareness until after the integration of events occuring within a certain time window, and that the sensory events taking place at a certain point can be influenced by future events.
A group of Japanese researchers now shows that this illusion is not just confined to the body. In a new study published today in the Journal of Neuroscience, they report that the cutaneous rabbit can easily be induced to “hop out” of the body, so that the illusory sensations are perceived to originate not from the body itself, but from external objects that interact with it.
Here’s my recording of Daniel Pinchbeck’s recent lecture at the Alton Ballroom in Lawrence, KS. You can either download the mp3 from here or listen below…
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In early April, Adam Wilson posted a status update on the social networking Web site Twitter — just by thinking about it.
Just 23 characters long, his message, "using EEG to send tweet," demonstrates a natural, manageable way in which "locked-in" patients can couple brain-computer interface technologies with modern communication tools.
EurekAlert!
View and download a video of Wilson using the brain-computer interface to post to Twitter at http://nitrolab.engr.wisc.edu/media/P3Twitter.mov
Patients with schizophrenia are able to correctly see through an illusion known as the ‘hollow mask’ illusion, probably because their brain disconnects ‘what the eyes see’ from what ‘the brain thinks it is seeing’, according to a joint UK and German study published in the journal NeuroImage. The findings shed light on why cannabis users may also be less deceived by the illusion whilst on the drug.
Science Daily
By combining nanoparticles with a scorpion venom compound already being investigated for treating brain cancer, University of Washington researchers
found they could cut the spread of cancerous cells by 98 percent, compared to 45 percent for the scorpion venom alone.
"People talk about the treatment being more effective with nanoparticles but they don’t know how much, maybe 5 percent or 10 percent," said Miqin Zhang, professor of materials science and engineering. "This was quite a surprise to us." She is lead author of a study recently published in the journal Small.
EurekAlert!
IBM has announced it will lead a US government-funded collaboration to make electronic circuits that mimic brains.
Part of a field called "cognitive computing", the research will bring together neurobiologists, computer and materials scientists and psychologists.
As a first step in its research the project has been granted $4.9m (£3.27m) from US defence agency Darpa.
The resulting technology could be used for large-scale data analysis, decision making or even image recognition.
"The mind has an amazing ability to integrate ambiguous information across the senses, and it can effortlessly create the categories of time, space, object, and interrelationship from the sensory data," says Dharmendra Modha, the IBM scientist who is heading the collaboration.
"There are no computers that can even remotely approach the remarkable feats the mind performs," he said.
BBC
Although members of the same species share more than 99 percent of their genetic makeup, individuals often have small differences, such as in their appearance, susceptibility to disease, and life expectancy. Another difference, one that has gone overlooked from the evolutionary perspective, is personality variation. Even identical twins can have personality types at opposite ends of the spectrum.
This observation has led researchers to ask how evolution may have selected for personality variation within a species. A team from the UK has recently suggested a novel yet simple answer: that variation begets variation. They explain how there is no single ideal personality (as there is an ideal hand or eye, which we all share), but nature instead promotes different personalities.
In their recent study, John McNamara, Philip Stephens, and Alasdair Houston from the University of Bristol, and Sasha Dall of the University of Exeter, Cornwall Campus, explain how natural selection can prevent individuals in a species from evolving toward a single optimum personality, using a game theory scenario.
PhysOrg
In an adapted version of the Harry Potter video game, players lift boulders and throw lightning bolts using only their minds. Just as physical movement changed the interface of gaming with Nintendo’s Wii, the power of the mind may be the next big thing in video games.
And it may come soon. Emotiv, a company based in San Francisco, says its mind-control headsets will be on shelves later this year, along with a host of novel “biofeedback” games developed by its partners.
Several other companies – including EmSense in Monterey, California; NeuroSky in San Jose, California; and Hitachi in Tokyo – are also developing technology to detect players´ brainwaves and use them in next-gen video games.
The technology is based on medical technology that has been around for decades. Using a combination of EEGs (which reveal alpha waves that signify calmness), EMGs (which measure muscle movement), and ECGs and GSR (which measure heart rate and sweating), developers hope to create a picture of a player´s mental and physical state. Near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS), which monitors changes in blood oxygenation, could also be incorporated since it overcomes some of the interference problems with EEGs.
PhysOrg via KurzweilAI
If there is no such thing as free will, do you really have to put that money into the office coffee kitty when no one is looking?
A study suggests that when people are encouraged to believe their behavior is predetermined — by genes or by environment — they may be more likely to cheat. The report, in the January issue of Psychological Science, describes two studies by Kathleen D. Vohs of the University of Minnesota and Jonathan W. Schooler of the University of British Columbia.
NY Times via Technoccult
Dean Kamen’s “Luke arm”—a prosthesis named for the remarkably lifelike prosthetic worn by Luke Skywalker in Star Wars—came to the end of its two-year funding last month. Its fate now rests in the hands of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which funded the project. If DARPA gives the project the green light—and some greenbacks—the state-of-the-art bionic arm will go into clinical trials. If all goes well, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration gives its approval, returning veterans could be wearing the new artificial limb by next year.
The Luke arm grew out of DARPA’s Revolutionizing Prosthetics program, which was created in 2005 to fund the development of two arms. The first initiative, the four-year, US $30.4 million Revolutionizing Prosthetics contract, to be completed in 2009, led by Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md., seeks a fully functioning, neurally controlled prosthetic arm using technology that is still experimental. The latter, awarded to Deka Research and Development Corp., Kamen’s New Hampshire–based medical products company (perhaps best known for the Segway), is a two-year $18.1 million 2007 effort to give amputees an advanced prosthesis that could be available immediately “for people who want to literally strap it on and go.” Kamen’s team designed the Deka arm to be controlled with noninvasive measures, using an interface a bit like a joystick.
IEEE
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