My first thread on twitter: It’s a stinking wet evening, I’m on the train on the way home after doing an extra-mural lecture, and I want to float some musical hypotheses as a distraction from my wet shoes. Hypothesis #1: I’ve been listening to do Radiohead’s OK Computer again – it is still, by turns,… Read More

Originally posted on NeuroBanter:
So today I’d been planning to write about a new paper from our lab, just out in Neuropsychologia, in which we show how people without synaesthesia can be trained, over a few weeks, to have synaesthesia-like experiences – and that this training induces noticeable changes in their brains. It’s interesting stuff,…

From Quartz “It was when he became a father that Michael Briggs resolved to somehow bring his ulcerative colitis under control. He was determined to avoid what many people with the disease end up needing—having part or all of their large intestine removed. A trained scientist, manager of a physics lab at the University of… Read More

Originally posted on gcbias:
You might not like to admit it, but you’re related to me. It’s very unlikely that you’re my sibling (I’m not even sure if my family read these posts). You’re one of over seven billion people alive today, and I have only one sister, so the chance that you as a…

Breathing above the brainstem: Volitional control and attentional modulation in humans.  Authors Jose Luis Herrero1, Simon Khuvis2, Erin Yeagle2, Moran Cerf3, and Ashesh D. Mehta4,* 1Feinstein Institute for Medical Research   2Laboratory of Human Brain Mapping,Feinstein Institute for Medical Research   3Northwestern University   4Hofstra North Shore LIJ School of Medicine and Feinstein Institute for… Read More

My new book, ‘A Brain for Business – A Brain for Life‘ is now out in hardback. It can be ordered from Palgrave Macmillan and comes with a time-limited 20% discount by applying the following discount code: PMPTWENTYA.

Originally posted on Flip Chart Fairy Tales:
Dave, Boz and Lee are three relatively well-off brothers. Every year they like to spend a few weeks living it up at the 7-star Resort Europa. They have been going for years and all the staff know them well. They are sometimes a little badly behaved and have,…

Place Cells: Knowing Where You Are Depends on Knowing Where You’re Heading Shane M. O’Mara https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2017.06.081 This piece is on this cracking paper by Harland ea. (abstract at bottom): Lesions of the Head Direction Cell System Increase Hippocampal Place Field Repetition Current Biology, Available online 31 August 2017 Summary Knowing where you are and knowing where… Read More

Antidepressant-like effects of 3-carboxamido seco-nalmefene (3CS-nalmefene), a novel opioid receptor modulator, in a rat IFN-α-induced depression model is published in Brain, Behaviour and Immunity Charlotte K. Callaghan, Jennifer Rouine, Reginald L. Dean, Brian I Knapp, Jean M. Bidlack, Daniel R. Deaver & Shane M. O’Mara  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbi.2017.08.016 Highlights IFN-α treatment induced depressive-like and cognitive deficits in the rat. IFN-α increased IL-6, IL-1β… Read More