i won't be posting for the next week or so, as i'll be on vacation in cyprus and rome. i'm excited, though a little leery of being so close to israel/lebanon. if we don't die, it will be awesome.

and if the apocalypse comes, i can always say i was there first!

i may post a few things if i get near a computer again (now i'm in an airport), but not sure if that will happen... i wouldn't want to tease.

Labels: personal

new computer program tries to use conditioning to treat alcoholics.

would fall under "not surprising": people "gesture" with their voices.

first neurons in the cerebral cortex (responsible for most conscious thought) are discovered. they're there 31 days after fertilization, which may be used by the pro-life camp despite the fact that they're probably involved only in determining future growth of the brain and not in cognition itself.

Labels: links, neuroscience

researchers at newcastle illustrated (PDF) that simply a picture of eyes can significantly increase likelihood that individuals will contribute to an honor-system box for drink payment. this is similar to a study last year (PDF) by researchers at UCLA in which eyespots significantly increased generosity in anonymous one-shot dictator games.

something else i found cool about the study, although it's technically insignificant: the newcastle study hinted at an inverse linear relationship between femininity and contribution (see chart, page 2). the most feminine eyes induced the fewest contributions and the most masculine the most, with eyes straight out of a ann rice novel in the middle (??). it's a straight linear line, with no outliers - too perfect to be coincidence! who really believes in statistical significance anyway?

so, although men may be better at administering medical care, women may be better than their male counterparts at leading behavioral experiments by influencing their actions less. this study only ran for a few months, with only two sets of female eyes. i'd like to see a larger study with higher variation in both femininity, age, and expression.

of course, insignificant gender correlations aside this has interesting implications for social science experiments involving prosocial behavior. regardless of whether the eyes activate something that harks back to group selection or simply to a reminder that another person may enter the room, researchers must be very careful to minimize felt observation.

Labels: social

i'll tell you over at the neuroeconomics blog.

Labels: economics, neuroscience

check out my first post over at neuroeconomics.

Labels: economics, neuroscience

the FDA is biased, according to several new reports. the british medical journal, for one, notes that data presented to them obscured the suicide risk of SSRI antidepressants. john grohol writes an excellent review of the article.

grohol also notes a USA today article stating that studies by big pharma tend to fare more favorably, which should not come as a surprise. whoever funds a study will undoubtedly influence the results, possibly unintentionally - it is easy to do. simply the kind and phrasing of questions can bias research.

what surprises me is that either of these reports surprises anyone. it is not fair to expect unbiased science. scientific studies are not the word of God (or "nature") but rather acts of humans, humans with motives and biases. i just don't understand how we could forget that. we must take all studies in that light, although we can’t say it every time because, well, we are lazy and it is a pain to repeat oneself. a healthy skepticism about all things trying to exert power over us, whether by scientific authority or by political power, is necessary - and only partially because they may be wrong.

Labels: drugs

men withstand more pain when it is applied by a woman:

When the men were tested by a male researcher dressed in jeans and a T-shirt they were able to withstand nearly a third more pain than their female counterparts.
But when the volunteers were tested by a 21-year-old female dressed in a skirt and high heels "to emphasis her gender role", the men reported pain thresholds much higher than in the tests with the male researcher.

this study does not indicate whether subjective valuation of pain changed via some neural or hormonal mechanism, or whether the male subjects were simply lying to act "tough." i also wonder how this relates to the researcher's earlier work on low symptom report rates among males.

no result, in either direction, was shown in female subjects.

Labels: misc. psych, well being

just came across this while catching up on my blogreading:

What's a neuroword? One of the contest entries defines it: "neurologism: a word created by prefixing "neuro" to almost any normal word"

yes. my new word is neuroawesome, although unfortunately it's too late to submit it for the contest. the submissions have a few good neurologisms, such neuronerd (someone who is "neuropsyched"), and neurolicious. but in all seriousness, my favorite, although i may have defined it a bit differently:

Neurocompetitive advantage: Competitive advantage derived from leveraging neurotechnology.

Labels: neuroscience