Happy Anniversary Encephalon!

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 psychological stress can precipitate cardiac arrhythmia and sudden death through arrhythmogenic effects of efferent sympathetic drive. Patients with preexisting heart disease are particularly at risk. Moreover, generation of proarrhythmic activity patterns within cerebral autonomic centers may be amplified by afferent feedback from a dysfunctional myocardium. An electrocortical potential reflecting afferent cardiac information has been described, reflecting individual differences in interoceptive sensitivity (awareness of one’s own heartbeats). To inform our understanding of mechanisms underlying arrhythmogenesis, we extended this approach, identifying electrocortical potentials corresponding to the cortical expression of afferent information about the integrity of myocardial function during stress. We measured changes in cardiac response simultaneously with electroencephalography in patients with established ventricular dysfunction.

- 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:

montreal neurological institute podcasts

they’re short and sweet, around 5 minutes a piece, and posted about once a month. the focus is more on the operational ins and outs of the institute, but those of us in the field should find them quite interesting and timely. the pair of podcasts on CIHR funding is particularly important.

link to the mni podcasts from the montreal neurological institute.

synapse13

is a neuroscience carnival devoted to all areas of neuroscience, including neurobiology, psychology, psychiatry, and neural systems — healthy brains to perverse minds — neurotransmitters to theories of mind.

To kick off the final installment of The Synapse before the new year, Corpus Callosum gets a little Popperian on the falsification of hypotheses and the connection between antidepressants and suicide. In the same vein, the Neurocritic bites into an antidepressant study and outlines why some of the claims being made are hard to swallow.

Bearing in mind Corpus Callosum’s reiteration that ‘correlation does not imply causation’, we turn to Vaughan’s submission of an fMRI study related to psychopathy at Mind Hacks.  Non Causa Pro Causa has interesting implications for the old nature/nurture debate and makes neuroimaging studies all the more nuanced. For more on psychopathy, I’d recommend Inside the Mind of a Psychopath on CBC’s Quirks & Quarks.

On Autism, Dr. Deborah Serani, host of the previous Synapse, highlights a paper on genetic mutation and its link to the risk of Autism.

Musings on Neurology and Lenitives In Simplistic Art outlines his top 5 strategic areas for research in neuroscience. Is the NIH accepting grant proposals in blog format? While quite broad in scope, there are some sympathies on this end to neuroinformatics and making conversion between file formats easier or potentially adopting a more standard format (imaging people, I know you sympathize. Oh, to be back in the DICOM days). Hat tip on Neuroethics, look north.

On touching brains in a bad way, the Neurophilosopher elaborates on every neuroscientist’s perennial favourite:  Phineas Gage.  A lot seems to fall out of rod-shaped objects piercing one’s head, although tamping irons may not be that common these days.  What, you ask, might be?  Chopsticks of course!

Could a young man like this (and his chopsticks) be a key contributor to stem cell research? Shelley at Retrospectacle says yes! 

On touching brains in a good way, Jake at Pure Pedantry looks at brain stimulation and the therapeutic value of brain stimulation for Parkinsonism.  For coverage of Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS), including a talk by a Parkinson’s patient, check out the Dana Centre’s webcast on DBS during the 2006 Brain Awareness Week at the Science Museum in London.

Transcranial direct current stimuliation (tDCS) is another good touch, albeit less invasive.  The Fibromyalgia Research Blog reviews a paper on tDCS as a treatment for fibromyalgia pain.

For a more magnetic touch, consider the Neurocritic’s post on repetative transcranial magnetic stimulation, or rTMS.

Alvaro at SharpBrains interviews Dr. Elkhonon Goldberg on brain fitness and cognitive training and looks at what successful traders and students have in common. I concur on the point of bloated textbooks here in North America. That said, if you’d really like to know what Penfield or Newton thought, read them! Don’t just read a synopsis in a textbook! It’s unfortunate that there are not more programs like St. John’s Great Books program out there.

Outside of print, I Am A Scientist! caught up with Dr. Mary Harrington from Smith College at the Society for Neuroscience (SfN) conference in Atlanta this past October.  Listen to a discussion on the Faculty for Undergraduate Neuroscience live online, Sunday, December 10th at Noon (GMT -0600) on CKUW 95.9 FM.  Unable to listen?  The show will be archived on the show website.  In the meantime, lend your ears to another discussion at SfN, this time with Dr. Gladys Maestre from the University of Zulia in Maracaibo, Venezuela on neuroscience and developing countries.  Part 1 / Part 2 (MP3).

And heck, I’ll be hosting The Motel 6 later this morning (sigh, it’s late) live on CKUW 95.9 FM and ckuw.ca starting at 10AM (GMT -0600) on Sunday. Tune in!

Should you listen to the interview with Dr. Harrington, circadian rhythms will likely be on your mind. A Blog Around The Clock points to the refinement of questions in circadian rhythm research.

And, speaking of the molecular level, PZ Myers gives a near textbook explanation of the notch receptor.

While Sandy at The Mouse Trap makes his conjectures on the evolutionary trajectory of colour vision, Pete at Brain Hammer brings us back to philosophy and reminds us that a scientific theory, necessarily being falsifiable, is only as good as the predictive power it holds.

And it looks like that’s a wrap folks. Thanks for stopping by, see you in the new year, and in the words of the infamous Ivan Hrvatska, See you at party!

Weeee!

UPDATE
Synapse and Encephalon are consolidating! Regular and potential contributors to The Synapse are encouraged to submit posts here or by emailing encephalon.host at gmail.com. The next Encephalon will be held at Neurotopia on December 18th.

clive wearing

parts:
1a 1b full
2a 2b 2c 2d

The Observer The Telegraph Sixty Minutes Spiegel

Hot Live Brains

The longer I stay up, the more weird and interesting things I find. Like this: OR Live, a website devoted to live webcasts of surgical procedures. Seeing as it’s been a long day at work, I’ve decided to crack open a beer and watch someone’s Chiari malformations be whisked away by a neurosurgeon. But don’t just take my word for it, take a peek at the host of neurosurgery videos available on their website.

Also, although I’m unsure if this is a hoax, “clunedesign” claims to have produced some water ripples related to a visual agnosia case for the theatrical production of Oliver Sack’s “The man who mistook his wife for a hat”.