Neuroscience In The News On Mar 7

These are articles that I found of interest relating to news about Neuroscience.  In this issue, I have highlighted articles about the brain and teleportation, the myth of left brain and right brain, and how loneliness goes deeper than we can see.

Please check out the article links below and feel free to comment with other information related to these subjects.  I enjoy learning as much as I can about the brain and passing this information on to everyone else that shares these passions.

This is for the week beginning March 7, 2016.

Please come back each week and hopefully I will have some more highlights.  Feel free to share with me ones that you have found and I may highlight those as well.

Feel free to check out the highlighted articles from February 29, 2016

The Brain And Teleportation

Arne Ekstrom, associate professor at the UCD Center for Neuroscience, wants to know how we memorize places and routes, and learn to find our way around. It’s long been known that as a rat navigates a maze, its brain gives off a rhythmic oscillation, Ekstrom said. This also happens when humans travel around a virtual landscape on a computer screen.

Article Link:

• Neuroscientists Explore How The Brain Handles Teleportation
• Arne Ekstrom, Associate Professor at UCD Center For Neuroscience

Left Brain - Right Brain Is A Myth

Jeffrey Anderson, a leading scientist from the University of Utah, has conducted research on more than a thousand peoples' brains to compare how different sides operate. He told BBC Trending that his research has confirmed to him that the left-right, creative-logic dichotomy is simply a myth.

Article Link:

• The Left Half - Right Half Divide In Human Brains Is A Myth
• Jeffrey Anderson, University Of Utah

Loneliness Goes Deeper Than We See

What is happening in the brains of lonely people, at the endocrinological level, at the genetic level and what is that doing to immunity and resistance to disease, what genes are being turned on and turned off, when the brain goes into this self-preservation mode? For one thing, we found that loneliness decreases the effectiveness of sleep. You have sleep fragmentation and you always wake up tired. The cumulative wear and tear is greater if you are lonely than if you are not. You cannot make a direct line to heart disease or cancer, but you can certainly see the effects on the immune system.

Article Link:

• Loneliness Is Like An Iceberg - It Goes Deeper Than We Can See
• University Of Chicago Center For Cognitive And Social Neuroscience
• Professor John Cacioppo

Right Brain Is Our Future According To Oprah Super Soul Sunday

A Whole New Mind
By Daniel Pink

I just happened to go and turn the TV on to the OWN channel and it was about the time Super Soul Sunday was coming on. In the first segment, Oprah was interviewing, Daniel Pink, the author of the A Whole New Mind. Essentially, Daniel is a left brain person that sees a future where it will belong to right brain people.  He feels that things have already tilted in our society towards right brain people.

His premise is that many of the left brain tasks that are currently being done today, can either be done by a computer or farmed out to people all over the world. It is really not a necessity any more or special to be left brain dominant because it is over saturated in our population.

There is nothing wrong with left brain people. In fact, they are just as needed as right brain people. However, left brain people will need to adapt to some of the right brain functions if they are to survive and thrive in this world in the future.

Ear Temperature And Left Brain, Right Brain

According to an article on www.physorg.com , researchers at Australian National University have developed a device that could potentially unravel the mysteries of the left and right brain by measuring temperature.

The device allows researchers a cost effective method of testing which side of the brain is active when performing various tasks and functions. Researchers understand that one side of the brain is usually more active depending upon what tasks or functions it is undergoing. In a general manner of speaking, language is handled by the left side of the brain and more logic prone functions are handled by the right side of the brain. Brain scans can be very expensive so this device gives new possibilities.

The new device was developed by psychologists Mr. Nicolas Cherbuin and Dr. Cobie Brinkman. It measures the temperature inside the ear which of course indicates the busier side of the brain. If an area of the brain is more active, it requires more blood. Because the blood flows through the carotid artery on either side of the neck and the blood is shared between the brain and the ear, ear temperature gives an indication of which side is busier.

Because blood flowing to the brain is cooler than blood already in the brain, a decrease in ear temperature indicates increased blood flow. This signals increased activity to the corresponding side of the brain.

Source: http://www.physorg.com/news3468.html

Image Source: www.physorg.com