Imagine this. You are at the reception after a science forum at school and over some finger food, you begin excitedly talking to someone who looks to be a professor (at least by his scholarly attire and air) about the incredible lectures and readings you have been doing for one of your classes. A smile appears on the professor’s face and you are mortified when he introduces himself as the head lecturer of the class you have been lauding. While you have had your head buried in the books, somehow you weren’t able to remember your professor’s face. However, don’t feel too badly: according to a new brain-scan study, your reading skills may to be blame for your blunder!
Emotional States in Music
November 23rd, 2010 by Mandy NagyThe ability to detect emotional states through speech is one of the most crucial aspects of human social relationships. A phrase as simple as “it’s okay” can indicate a number of things about the speaker’s mood—and people, for the most part, are extremely adept at picking up on those cues. The same is true in music. Even the most untrained ear can differentiate between a ‘sad’ piece of music and a ‘happy’ one, regardless of the presence of lyrics. Although factors such as tempo and dynamics also play into this determination, the key (either major or minor) contributes heavily to the perceived emotion of a piece of music. For what may appear to be arbitrary reasons, composers have traditionally chosen to write songs that are connected with positive emotions in major keys and songs that suggest a higher degree of pathos in minor.
From Smelling Light to Tasting the Rainbow?
November 23rd, 2010 by Chelsea LinkNeuroscience research can get pretty mind-bending. People have been trying for ages to wrap their mind around the idea of qualia, or differences in conscious sensory experiences. For example, we can use the word “blue” to describe everyone’s experience of a particular wavelength of light, but how can we know that my subjective experience of blueness is identical to yours?
The answer: we can’t.
Just to make things more complicated, neuroscientists here at Harvard and at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory have recently created transgenic mice who can smell light. Now, in addition to wondering what blue light looks like to other people (or other animals), we can try to guess what blueness smells like.
The Music in Language
November 16th, 2010 by Umaima AhmadMusic is capable of doing many things, and is used for almost every event that is significant in people’s lives. Think of funerals, and birthdays, and even Sundays at the church. At each of these events, there is a certain type of music that is found. But would happen if a funeral march was played on your twentieth birthday? Or if “Happy Birthday” were sung at the funeral of a relative? It is clear from these examples that music has a direct relationship to emotion.
Better Math Through Electrical Stimulation
November 16th, 2010 by Jen GongWe all remember learning and dreading math: from addition and subtraction to our times tables, fractions, and more, math seems to follow us everywhere. We learned algebra and calculus, and silently rebelled against the number crunching and plugging in to equations. Every one of us has struggled at some point in our mathematical education but for those with dyscalculia (a particular learning disability in math) find even the idea of numbers and basic mathematical operations hard to grasp.
Cat brains offer insight to supercomputer design
April 18th, 2010 by Bay McCullochResearchers at the University of Michigan are studying feline brain cells as a model for a new generation of supercomputers that can process and recognize information in a similar way as humans. Such brainy computers will hopefully be able to accomplish more simultaneous processing and complex decision making. Microchips in conventional computers usually rely on transistors that switch on and off to represent data in binary code. The new technology that is being developed at the Univeristy of Michigan instead use "memristors," which are circuit elements that can actually remember information. For example, when you turn the voltage off to the device, memristors retain information about how much voltage had been applied and for how long. A parallel can be drawn between memristors and the synapses beween brain cells (neurons) because they too 'remember' information about the strength and timing of electrical signals from the neurons.
Why do we like whom we like?
April 4th, 2010 by Giaynel Cordero-TaverasAlong with blooming flowers, comes the promise of new relationships. When spring arrives, new couples can be seen holding hands while strolling under the beautiful emerging sun. But, what is love and how does it happen? In Annie Reed’s words from Sleepless in Seattle “love is like magic.” But what makes us fall in love with that one person, or moreover, why are we attracted to one person giving us that unique feeling of magic.
Many theories have been proposed on the science of falling in love, but most share a common theme that love is comprised of intimacy, compassion, attraction, and attachment. How these feelings develop is often described in three stages. The first is lust or physical attraction driven by sexual hormones in men and women. The second stage is attraction, but not the sexual kind, rather the “crush” kind. Adrenaline is responsible for those sweats and rapid heart beats you experience when someone you are attracted to approaches and dopamine is responsible for that feeling of pleasure and energy you get when thinking about or being with your crush. The third and final stage is attachment. This stage is usually due to oxytocin and vasopressin both hormones which lead to a feeling of attachment and intimacy with your partner.
Dumbledore’s Pensieve: Fiction or Reality?
March 29th, 2010 by Nisha DeolalikarNeuroscientists and lay people alike have always been intrigued by the human brain’s extraordinary capacity for long-term memory. Very often we find ourselves going about our day-to-day lives when we suddenly encounter a stimulus that jolts us back to an earlier time and place – such an application of long-term memory can easily send us back months or even decades. Yet, this instantaneous form of recall is very often unexpected as well as involuntary. A number of comparisons have informally been drawn between the human brain and an indefinitely large filing cabinet, but a pressing question remains: how do we locate the files (memories) that we need exactly when we need them?
Cultural Neuroscience: An Intersection between Anthropology and Neurobiology
March 2nd, 2010 by Nisha DeolalikarAs we go about our day to day lives, it’s often easy to notice that people from different backgrounds think differently (an example would be the stereotypical Asian kid who has seemingly no difficulty in tackling math problems). However, it’s a bit harder to figure out exactly why these differences exist – and whether they are biologically or culturally based. Is there a “math gene” present in some people and not in others? Or is one’s intrinsic ability at a discipline the result of family values and upbringing?
