Owner: MindMods CogSciTech Blog URL:http://www.mindmodulations.com/mindmods Join Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2007 02:25:09 -0500 Rating:0 Site Description: The latest research, products and news on biofeedback, Light & Sound Mind Machines, consciousness, neuroscience & neurotechnology. Site statistics:Click here
Conversations on Consciousness from the Guardian 2007-08-13 06:26:11 The last three links are interviews of Francis Crick by Sue
Blackmore.
Imagine sitting by a California swimming pool surrounded by flowers
and hummingbirds and trying to interview the great biologist
Francis Crick (http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1962/crick-bio.html), writes Sue Blackmore. If it sounds
peaceful, it wasn't. At the age of 78 and in failing health,
Francis was more than a match for me.
"Now let me say why I think all that's nonsense," he said at
one point, and "You ask that only because you're interested in
Buddhism". But what a treat it was to be able to delve into his
theories of consciousness and discover the reasons why he thinks
we'll one day find the neural basis for consciousness.
My partner, Adam
Hart-Davis (http://www.adam-hart-davis.org/), enjoyed the visit too. When we arrived at the door
Francis greeted us warmly and then dismissed Adam instantly "You
can go to the kitchen with
Odile (http://news.independent.co.uk/people/obituar Read more:Consciousness
, Guardian
Neurofeedback for Peak Performance 2007-08-12 20:31:49 Here is a great video from YouTube featuring the work of Rae Tattenbaum and Susan Othmer using neurofeedback for peak performance. This shows the neurofeedback applied using the CARE model. Here is a great video from YouTube featuring the work of Rae Tattenbaum and Susan Othmer using neurofeedback for peak performance. Read more:Performance
Excellent BBC Brain Story series available online 2007-08-09 12:20:08 A great BBC series
on psychology
neuroscience is now available
on bittorrent. The series is
presented by neuroscientist Professor Susan Greenfield.
There are six episodes total in the series.
The links and instructions are available here on MindHacks (http://www.mindhacks.com/blog/2007/08/excellent_bbc_brain_.html). Read more:Brain
, online
Free Neurophychopharmacology Textbook 2007-08-09 12:05:41 The American College of
Neuropsychopharmacology is giving away a huge
psychopharmacology textbook on their web site.
Here's the link:
http://www.acnp.org/default.aspx?Page=5thGenerationChapters (http://www.acnp.org/default.aspx?Page=5thGenerationChapters) Read more:Textbook
Consciousness Restored to Man After Six Years with Deep Brain Stimulation 2007-08-09 11:07:31 This is an incredible story of hope reported in
Nature (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v448/n7153/edsumm/e070802-07.html) this week which describes how neuroscientists implanted
electrodes in the brain of a 38-year-old man who had been
in a minimally conscious state for more than six years
following a serious assault. By electrically stimulating a brain
region called the central thalamus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thalamus),
they were able to help him name objects on request, make
precise hand gestures, and chew food without the aid of a feeding
tube. The thalamus is involved in motor control, arousal
and in relaying sensory signals — from the visual systems,
for example — to the cerebral cortex, the part of the brain
involved in consciousness. Read more:Consciousness
, Brain
, Years
Free your mind: a scientific approach to unleashing creativity 2007-08-09 11:01:42 A neuroscientist claims he can unleash creativity by boosting
low-frequency brainwaves - and he's tested the theory on 100
students at the Royal College of Music. Genevieve Roberts reports
Ghost in the room? It could all be in your brainwaves 2007-08-09 10:58:45 NEUROSCIENTISTS investigating a young woman with epilepsy believe
they have stumbled on an explanation why some people feel a ghostly
presence nearby or develop paranoia. The 22-year-old woman was
being assessed for brain surgery for epilepsy but was otherwise
psychologically healthy. Part of the evaluation pinpointed the area
for surgery, using thin electrodes implanted into a region of the
brain. Reporting the case in today's Nature, the weekly British
science journal, the doctors say that when they sent a small
current to the woman's left temporo-parietal junction, she said
she had the impression there was somebody behind her. The person
was a "shadow," young and of indeterminate sex and did not speak,
she said. The doctors slightly increased the current and changed
the woman's position from lying down to seated, and got her to hug
her knees. She then said she felt the creepy presence of man who
was also sitting and who was clasping her unpleasantly in his arms.
The temporo-parie Read more:Ghost
MindBall Biofeedback Game 2007-08-09 10:23:27 Living in a more connected and tech-focused world can result in
added stress, and MindBall's biofeedback system may soon become a
regular way to monitor and manage stress levels.
If you're going to win MindBall, a game designed by the
Interactive Institute, you've got to be relaxed. Two players sit
across from each other at a table wearing headbands that monitor
their brain activity. Their brainwaves control a ball on the table,
and the most relaxed player wins.
Coming Soon: The PreSage Personal Biofeedback System 2007-08-09 08:51:49 The MindPlace PreSage biofeedback system is coming soon!
The release date has been pushed forward a bit, but we're
expecting it to be available sometime in October or before.
The PreSage is a very accurate (16 bits minimum) and fast (up to 20
samples/second) system which is capable of acquiring up to four
channels of biofeedback information simultaneously. It will include
free PreSage Monitor software for PCs, which allows information to
be saved and displayed as bar graphs and line chart formats.
PreSage also includes a unique, RGB front panel display. The
PreSage will also connect to our Procyon system for Light
Sound Biofeedback sessions. More info soon! Read more:Personal
, System
, Coming Soon
Flashlight Weapon Makes Targets Throw Up 2007-08-09 08:50:51 It looks like a big flashlight — but it's really a nonlethal
weapon designed to make you sick.
Its inventors call it the LED Incapacitator (L-E-D, as in
light-emitting diode). Weapon
s buffs call it a nonlethal weapon.
But test subjects who have buckled and reeled from its nauseating
strobe call it other names—none printable.
A flashlight designed to make you nauseatingly ill? What fiendish
minds would invent such a tool? The minds of Bob Lieberman and
Vladimir Rubtsov, president and senior scientist of Intelligent
Optical Systems, Inc., a small R D company in Torrance, CA.
Under a multiphase contract from the S T Directorate’s
Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Office, with technical
direction from S T program manager Gerald Kirwin, the two
physicists are refining an ultra-bright, multicolored, pulsing
“lightsaber” that’s more disorienting, dazzling,
and dizzying—though a tad less dangerous—than disco.
It’s enough Read more:Flashlight
, Throw
Neuromatrix from Morphonix - A Neuroscience Game for Kids 2007-08-17 17:26:11 This looks like a great new game for teaching children how their own brains work. The game is called NeuroMatrix from Morphonix. In the game you play a secret agent infiltrating a top-secret neuroscience research facility. Morphonix released another game that teaches kids about their brains called Journey into the Brain. Here's a video trailer from Morphonix:
Using beams of light to activate sets of cells in the brain 2007-08-16 01:52:15 New experiments in light
stimulation are
helping scientists learn more about neural systems. Optical
excitation using fiber optics can be used to stimulate specific
areas of the brain and is an alternative to electrode stimulation.
Electrode stimulation is unable to target single types of neurons
and instead activates the firing of all neurons in one neural area.
This new technology may allow us to uncover what roles specific
neurons play.
Light stimulation every 200 milliseconds generates electrical
activity in an area of the brain associated with depression. Read more:cells
Seeing the Brain in a New Light 2007-08-16 01:51:21 Here is another article on using focused
beams of light to stimulate neurons from Howard Hughes Medical
Institute.
The illustration, which comes from a painting by
Duke University student Yifan Xu, conceptually illustrates a beam
of light shining into the olfactory bulb activating a mitral cell.
HHMI investigator Michael Ehlers and colleagues report they have
developed mice that express channelrhodopsin-2, a light-gated
cation channel from the green algae Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, in
neurons of the central nervous system. This enables researchers to
trigger neural activity with high spatial and temporal
precision—a powerful tool for those striving to map
functional circuits in the brain.
Researchers have devised a clever way to
activate neurons in a living mouse by shining light on the surface
of the animal's brain. The “light switch” that turns
neurons on is actually a light-sensitive protein that is produced
by algae. When this protein is genetically Read more:Brain
, Seeing
, New Light
ADHD May Be Linked To Low Dopamine Brain Activity 2007-08-14 09:55:28 A new study (Aug 2007) published in the Archives of
General Psychiatry (http://archpsyc.ama-assn.org/) shows a direct correlation between ADHD and
low dopamine activity in the brain. This could shed light on what
seems to be large numbers of ADHD suffers among ex-methamphetamine
users. Article follows: Read more:Brain
, Activity
Scientists Mimic Out-Of-Body Experience using Technology 2007-08-24 11:06:46 Prof. Olaf Blanke and his colleagues from the Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience at EPFL in Switzerland have been doing research on the neural-correlates of out-of-body-experiences since at least 2002. This new study is very unusual, as they claim to be able to produce an out-of-body-experience when the user of special goggles is shown a projected image of themselves while being poked with a stick. Out-of-body experiences are most common in people who endure intense meditation practices, experience sleep paralysis, and following certain types of head injuries. Research such as this strives to discover exactly how the brain creates the out-of-body-experience sensation. It is arguable whether these experiencies re-produce bona-fide NBE's, but it is an interesting effect nonetheless. NewScientist just posted a video to YouTube featuring Olaf's group inducing out-of-body-experiences: Read more:Technology
How Mushrooms can Help Save the World - An Interview with Paul Stamets 2007-08-22 13:14:27 Paul Stamets is a well-known mycologist
from the Pacific Northwest. He has some interesting theories about
consciousness that are discussed in this interview. Specifically -
that mushrooms are conscious and that their mycelial network is
something like a neural net.
PersonalLifeMedia.com (PersonalLifeMedia.com)
What is fungal intelligence? Paul Staments, the “Mycelium
Messenger” reveals the great ecological purpose of mycelium
– earth’s new internet. Beginning with his magic
mushroom, psychedelic work covered with a DEA License and evolving
into a much more robust work that his “mother is happy
about” – this interview will prepare you to see a whole
new world the next time you walk into the forest.
Hear stories from Paul’s new book, “Mycelium
running: How Mushrooms
Can Help Save the World
” and listen to
a deep discussion on mushroom consciousness with the man behind
this 21st century manual for healing the earth. You&rsq
MindMods CogSciTech Consciousness Paper Posting #1 2007-08-22 09:59:08 We're going to try and post an
interesting paper on consciousness at least once a week. There are
debates among those philosophers and scientists who study
consciousness about pretty much every aspect of consciousness -
especially about what consciousness actually is. Many of these are
surprisingly easy to read, given the nature of their arguments.
This first paper called 'Being Conscious of Ourselves' was
written by David M. Rosenthal and published in The Monist issue 82,
2 (April 2004) in a special issue on self-consciousness.
BEING CONSCIOUS OF OURSELVES
Abstract: I argue that we can explain how we are
conscious of ourselves by appeal to essentially indexical
thoughts we have about ourselves, in particular
about our own current mental states. I show that being
conscious of ourselves in that way doesn't require that
we are aware of ourselves in some privileged way that's
antecedent to the higher-order thoughts we have about
our own mental states. The account succes Read more:Consciousness
, Posting
Neuroscientists find another way to erase long term memories 2007-08-22 04:41:46 A study in June that was revealed in the
Journal of Psychiatric Research used an 'amnesia' drug to
'dampen' the memories
of trauma victims. The drug they used was
called propranolol - a drug normally used to treat hypertension,
but causes memory problems.
A new study published in Science by neuroscientists from the
Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehobot, Israel, uses a protein to
wipe out long-term memories in rats.
Yadin Dudai and Reut Shema are trying to show that memories can
last for years or even a lifetime, but they are constantly
maintained by an active process that can be disrupted.
First they trained rats to avoid the sweet smell of sacharin by
giving them a chemical that made them sick whenever they were
exposed to it. They quickly learned to avoid it. They then injected
the rat cortex with a protein called ZIP. ZIP silences an enzyme
called PKM-zeta, which is believed to be the key to perpetuating
long-term memory. After the injection, the rats lost their mem
New Biofeedback Game called BioBox - Tetris with Biofeedback 2007-08-21 12:05:47 A game studio called Frozen North
Productions (http://www.frozennorth.net/index.htm) in Canada has created an off-shoot of Tetris
that
they call Biobox. Their Biofeedback version of Tetris uses pulse
rate to determine the speed of the following blocks. Like many
biofeedback games, the object is to relax while playing - and the
incentive is ease-of-play.
Frozen North
Productions (http://www.frozennorth.net/index.htm) will be selling the game online soon.
MindMods CogSciTech Consciousness Paper Posting #2 2007-08-28 06:42:12 This paper is called
"Consciousness
Redux" and is something of a history of theoretical
positions on the function of consciousness. It was written by
George Mandler of the University of California University
College London.
Consciousness Redux
George Mandler
University of California, San
Diego and University College London
Copyright (C) 1993 George Mandler
I start with a review of 20 years of proposals on the functions of
consciousness. I then present a minimal number of functions that
consciouness subserves, as well as as some remaining puzzles about
its psychology. In the process I stress a psychologist's
functional approach, asking what consciousness is for. The result
is an attempt to place conscious processes within the usual flow of
human information processing. Read more:Posting
Is Consciousness Definable? Video from PBS 2007-08-27 17:49:55 PBS's Closer to Truth featuring Christof
Koch, Leslie Brothers, Joseph E. Bogen Stuart Hameroff try to
answer this question. These four scientists have the same question
but give four different answers.
(http://www.mindmodulations.com/mindmods//images/blogimages//Morning_Consciousness
.jpg)
Is Consciousness Definable?
One problem is that there are too many definitions! And getting
these four guests to agree on what consciousness is and what causes
it, is a fun but hopeless task that is revelatory at the same time.
These four leading brain scientists couldn't even agree on at what
level a simple "memory" was stored, whether as a gross "brain
circuit," at the synapse between nerve cells, or in the
microstructure of the nerve cells as some sort of quantum effect.
But why should it be any different now? Philosophers have debated
the "mind-body problem" and the existence of "free will" for
thousands of years. However, never before have we been in a
position to examine the brain
Using fMRI for NeuroFeedback 2007-08-26 06:28:30 A company called Omneuron aims to use MR
Imaging for neurofeedback purposes, although they aren't calling
it neurofeedback.
The company is using fMRI (real-time functional magnetic resonance
imaging) to measure blood flow to different parts of the brain and
use it to teach sufferers of chronic pain, depression, addiction
and other psychological conditions to see which parts of the brain
are activated while performing different tasks.
It is essentially neurofeedback using fMRI instead of EEG.
Another company called No Lie MRI is trying to sell similar
technology to companies and agencies in the government as a
replacement to the polygraph.
Scientists use Pac-Man, Electric Shocks and Neuroimaging to study Fear in the Brain 2007-08-26 05:57:22 Scientists from 'Wellcome Trust' claim
to have identified for the first time what happens in our brain in
the face of an approaching fear. They measured activity in the
brain using fMRI while a subject played a game similar to Pac-Man
and received an electric-shocks when they were caught by the video
game predator.
They found that activity in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex
(behind the eyebrows) increased when the enemy was in the distance
- this part of the brain is active when one is planning how to
respond to a threat. As the video game enemy approached,
predominant activity shifted to the periaqueductal grey - the part
of the brain responsible for flight or fight and preparing for
reaction to pain.
The title of their study is 'Free Will Takes Flight', as it shows
that we act more on impulse when a threat increases.
Abstract can be found here (http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/doc_WTX039785.html)
Article in Science Magazine can be found
here (http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/ Read more:Electric
, Brain
The Dana Guide to Brain Health Free Online 2007-09-01 04:53:37 The DANA Foundation has decided to make
their book "The Dana Guide
to BrainHealth
: A Practical Family
Reference from Medical Experts" section on brain disorders freely
available online.
Amazon.com: (http://www.amazon.com/Dana-Guide-Brain-Health-Practical/dp/1932594108/sr=8-2/qid=1163520801/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2/104-0198729-2864725?ie=UTF8 s=books)
With contributions from over one hundred of the most prominent
scientists and clinicians in the United States, The Dana Guide to
Brain Health is an extensive and wholly accessible manual on the
workings of the human brain. This richly illustrated volume
contains a wealth of facts and advice, on simple yet effective ways
to take care of our brains; the intimate connection between brain
health and body health; brain development from the prenatal period
through adulthood; and how we learn, remember, and imagine.
The brain is far too important to be
excluded any longer from our daily health concerns. The Dana Guide
to Brain Health remedies this
New Study Uses Biofeedback to Predict a Gamer's Gameplay 2007-08-31 07:14:00 Budapest University of Technology and Economics (http://www.bme.hu/en/) are using GSR Biofeedback (Galvonic Skin Response, or skin conductance) in a study where they've shown that a gamer's actions can be predicted up to two seconds before they occur. Laufer says There are quite a few situations in life where there would be a need to provide a support for making a good decision at a good time. I have military applications (pilots) in mind, but surely we can find others as well. He also sees it being used in video games Another application I have in mind could be called a frustration game This type of game could detect when a player was going to act and change gameplay to throw off the player. This type of technology could be integrated into game controlers easily. This type of technology (GSR Biofeedback) should be used in more video games, but I'm not too sure that it would be very successful if used in a manner that would frustrate game players! It coul Read more:Study
, Gamer
, New Study
MorrisonDance - A dance performance using BrainMaster Neurofeedback 2007-08-29 15:16:44 MorrisonDance, a dance troupe founded by choreographer Sarah Morrison, teamed up with a team of engineers from NASA's Glenn Research Center to create a performance featuring live brainwaves of dancers using the BrainMaster. This is actually from September 2005 - but just in case you missed it: (like I did!)
Video: Ken Wilbur enters into various meditative states during a EEG Neurofeedback session 2007-08-29 14:53:28 You may have already seen this, but it is new to me. Ken Wilbur narrates a video of his own experience using neurofeedback while navigating various meditative states. From YouTube: 'We asked Ken to do a short 10-minute commentary on these various meditative states and the corresponding brain-wave patterns that are shown on the EEG machine in the video. Ken enters four meditative states (nirvikalpa closed eyes, nirvikalpa open eyes, sahaj, and mantra-savikalpa), each of which has a very distinctive brain-wave pattern. In his commentary, Ken emphasizes that the patterns shown on this machine may or may not be typical, but they do emphasize that profound consciousness states can be evoked at will, and these show immediate correlation in brain-wave patterns.' Read more:session
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