For all you neuroimagers, a quick blurb and referral to a paper about paramagnetic effects of supplemental oxygen on FLAIR images from the ‘Cool MRI stuff blog’.
And so has Pure Pendantry. Jake and Kara tag-team a game theory experiment which looks at the effects of testosterone on altruistic punishment. Jake goes solo on generalized reciprocity in rats.
A skin patch for Alzheimer’s Disease? Shelley at Retrospectacle takes a gander.
Finally, The Neurocritic looks at neuropeptide Y and the future of cosmetic surgery. And something else, I can’t quite remember. Ummm… yeah, two posts on memory and forgetting.
The next encephalon is being held at Bohemian Scientist on July 30th. As usual, you can always send your posts to encephalon dot host at gmail dot com.
Double congrats go to Mo the Neurophilosopher. Not only has the Encephalon neuroscience blogging carnival seen it’s first year anniversary, Encephalon masterbrain Mo has been welcomed aboard the scienceblogs.com network! His scienceblog can be found here.
It’s been nearly 3 months since I last wrote anything here and I should probably give a few updates. I was recently in Chicago for every brain imager’s annual favorite, the Organization for Human Brain Mapping conference. All in all, I really enjoyed the conference and the city. A few highlights:
- Marcus Gray from University College London had an interesting poster entitled ‘A cortical potential for cardiac function’ (now in PNAS). From the abstract:
Emotional trauma and psychologicalstress can precipitate cardiac arrhythmia and sudden death througharrhythmogenic effects of efferent sympathetic drive. Patientswith preexisting heart disease are particularly at risk. Moreover,generation of proarrhythmic activity patterns within cerebralautonomic centers may be amplified by afferent feedback froma dysfunctional myocardium. An electrocortical potential reflectingafferent cardiac information has been described, reflectingindividual differences in interoceptive sensitivity (awarenessof one’s own heartbeats). To inform our understanding of mechanismsunderlying arrhythmogenesis, we extended this approach, identifyingelectrocortical potentials corresponding to the cortical expressionof afferent information about the integrity of myocardial functionduring stress. We measured changes in cardiac response simultaneouslywith electroencephalography in patients with established ventriculardysfunction.
- Gray’s work is somewhat representative of a general emphasis on biomarkers and predictive imaging at this year’s conference.
- This year, diffusion tensor imaging, (DTI), dynamic causal modelling (DCM), multi-modal imaging, as well as lie-detection were in vogue. I remember resting-state fMRI being the cat’s meow at the 2005 conference in Toronto. Oh the times, they are a changin’…
- I think everyone’s favorite memory from the conference program was that of a video involving monkeys and robots. Enough said.
- On other studies, Dr. Nicholas Schiff had a very interesting talk on limited states of consciousness in the clinic. You may remember Dr. Schiff’s name splashed in the headlines last summer on a very interesting case of a man who ‘woke up’ after being in a minimally conscious state. Yes, DTI pops up here too. Dr. Schiff recently talked at a workshop on neuroethics and limited states of consciousness as part of ongoing work at Stanford’s Neuroethics unit.
There are many more highlights but I should leave off now. What I will leave off with is a note that the 27th edition of Encephalon will be hosted right here in two weeks time. That’s Monday, July 16th. If you’d like to contribute, don’t be shy, send in any post you may have that’s neuro-related!
Send an email to: encephalon[dot]host[at]gmail[dot]com.
Things that I would be particularly interested in reading relate to blogging and funding. If you have an opinion as to how science blogging could be a tool (or not) for raising awareness about the need for funding, or have some interesting statistics, please send it in! The debate over stem cell research is certainly important, but I’d be interested in something that looks at the issue more broadly (many of you out there can sympathize with the penny pinching scientists are forced to endure, or end up finding financial pressures destructive). Another issue that caught my attention at the OHBM town hall meeting involved a debate about whether or not the conference should consider holding a future meeting in Cuba. Posts related to conferences and political pressures would also be well received. i.e. Should scientists be concerned about conferences being held in countries with conflicting political ideals? Could scientific conferences be held in more developing countries to bring attention to overlooked research programs?
And now for some brainial stimulation of the broab:
