How to Trick Your Brain for Happiness This month, we feature videos of a Greater Good presentation by Rick Hanson, the best-selling author and trailblazing psychologist. In this excerpt from his talk, Dr. Hanson explains how we can take advantage of the brain’s natural “plasticity”—it’s ability to change shape over time. gobyg There’s this great line by Ani Tenzin Palmo, an English woman who spent 12 years in a cave in Tibet: “We do not know what a thought is, yet we’re thinking them all the time.” It’s true. In recent years, though, we have started to better understand the neural bases of states like happiness, gratitude, resilience, love, compassion, and so forth. Ultimately, what this can mean is that with proper practice, we can increasingly trick our neural machinery to cultivate positive states of mind. But in order to understand how, you need to understand three important facts about the brain. Fact one: As the brain changes, the mind changes, for better or worse. Fact two: As the mind changes, the brain changes. 1. 2. 3.
Brain Fitness And Memory Programs, Brain Training - CogniFit - StumbleUpon International Network for Neuroaesthetics Neuroaesthetics is a new field of research emerging at the intersection of psychological aesthetics, neuroscience and human evolution. The main objective of neuroaesthetics is to characterize the neurobiological foundations and evolutionary history of the cognitive and affective processes involved in aesthetic experiences and artistic and other creative activities. Although there have been attempts to determine the neural mechanisms of aesthetic experiences since the eighteenth century, contemporary neuroaesthetics was set into motion at the end of the 20th century by Semir Zeki and Vilayanur S. Ramachandran’s influential theoretical perspectives on visual neuroaesthetics. Since then the field has grown, matured and diversified. It is a fact that all humans like, prefer, or find beauty in some form of visual representation, music, dance, literature, theater, landscape, and so on. Like this: Like Loading...
Thoughts on Neuroplasticity I recently read a fascinating book, The Brain That Changes Itself by Norman Doidge. He describes case histories and research indicating that the brain is far more malleable than we once thought. We used to think each function was localized to a small area of the brain and if you lost that area of brain tissue the function was gone forever. Learning a new skill actually changes the structure and function of the brain, even into old age. One of the more intriguing experiments he describes was in monkeys. Researchers hypothesized that the monkeys had “learned” that one arm didn’t work in the period right after the surgery when the spinal cord was still in spinal shock, and then never re-learned that they could use it when the shock passed. He describes the case history of a stroke patient who recovered very little function and was dismissed from conventional rehabilitation as having reached his maximum improvement. Much of chronic pain is learned behavior.
Neurological Control - Neurotransmitters - StumbleUpon Neurotransmitter Molecules Neurotransmitters can be broadly split into two groups – the ‘classical’, small molecule neurotransmitters and the relatively larger neuropeptide neurotransmitters. Within the category of small molecule neurotransmitters, the biogenic amines (dopamine, noradrenaline, serotonin and histamine) are often referred to as a discrete group because of their similarity in terms of their chemical properties. Click on the links in the table above to read more about some of the important neurotransmitters. Serotonin Although the CNS contains less than 2% of the total serotonin in the body, serotonin plays a very important role in a range of brain functions. Within the brain, serotonin is localised mainly in nerve pathways emerging from the raphe nuclei, a group of nuclei at the centre of the reticular formation in the Midbrain, pons and medulla. Noradrenaline Find out more about noradrenaline and serotonin Dopamine Acetylcholine Neurotransmitter Receptors Serotoning receptors
Neurolaw An example of an fMRI brain scan. fMRI outputs (yellow) are overlaid on the average brain anatomy (gray) averaged from several humans. Similar images are used in a variety of applications, now including law. Neurolaw is an emerging field of interdisciplinary study that explores the effects of discoveries in neuroscience on legal rules and standards. Drawing from neuroscience, philosophy, social psychology, cognitive neuroscience, and criminology, neurolaw practitioners seek to address not only the descriptive and predictive issues of how neuroscience is and will be used in the legal system, but also the normative issues of how neuroscience should and should not be used. The most prominent questions that have emerged from this exploration are as follows: To what extent can a tumor or brain injury alleviate criminal punishment? Can sentencing or rehabilitation regulations be influenced by neuroscience? History[edit] Neurocriminology[edit] Crime prediction[edit] Insanity defense[edit]
For neuroscientist the eye is a window to mind's workings (12/6/2007) Sabine Kastner likes to show people that the difference between Darth Vader and Yoda is largely a matter of perception. "Put these glasses on," she says, offering a pair of goggles with two different-colored lenses, "then look at the screen and tell me what you see." A glance at her laptop reveals the visage of Vader, the dark-helmeted nemesis of Jedi Knights from the "Star Wars" films, on the screen. But tell her so, and Kastner then asks, "Are you sure you don't see anything else?" As though succumbing to a Jedi mind trick, the viewer's brain suddenly morphs Vader's helmet into the wizened face of the elfin creature Yoda -- an image that was always there, but only visible to the left eye. "Visual perception is not a passive thing where you just open your eyes and take everything in. A new approach to old questions About two decades ago, Kastner was majoring in philosophy at Georg-August-University in Göttingen, Germany. An eye on the problem "He's my continual motivation," she said.
Cranial Nerves Can't remember the names of the cranial nerves? Here is a handy-dandy mnemonic for you: On Old Olympus Towering Top AFamous Vocal German Viewed Some Hops. The bold letters stand for: olfactory, optic, oculomotor, trochlear, trigeminal, abducens, facial, vestibulocochlear, glossopharyngeal, vagus, spinal accessory, hypoglossal. Still can't remember the cranial nerves? Neuronal Circuits Able To Rewire On the Fly To Sharpen Senses (12/19/2007) Researchers from the Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition (CNBC), a joint project of Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh, have for the first time described a mechanism called "dynamic connectivity," in which neuronal circuits are rewired "on the fly" allowing stimuli to be more keenly sensed. The process is described in a paper in the January 2008 issue of Nature Neuroscience, and available online at This new, biologically inspired algorithm for analyzing the brain at work allows scientists to explain why when we notice a scent, the brain can quickly sort through input and determine exactly what that smell is. "If you think of the brain like a computer, then the connections between neurons are like the software that the brain is running. When a stimulus such as an odor is encountered, many neurons start to fire. "This mechanism helps to explain why you can walk into a room and recognize a smell that seems to be floral.
The brain&s silent majority - 2009 FALL When you have no clue, call it glue. “Glia,” the Greek word for glue, was the name the pathologist Rudolph Virchow gave, back in 1856, to the gelatinous substance that forms the bulk of the brain. And it stuck. These days, scientists use it to denote the matter that accounts for 90 percent of the brain’s cells and more than half its volume — but, like the late comic Rodney Dangerfield, “can’t get no respect.” Neurons, the “talented tenth” of the human brain that hog the lion’s share of brain scientists’ attention, are indeed a work of evolutionary art. “When the brain is injured, the neighborhood astrocytes go into a completely altered state.” We now know they’re doing much more. Certainly, it’s no stretch to imagine that knowing what glial cells do, and how they do it, could help explain brain disorders and how to cure them. From time to time, Ben Barres brings a brain in to his office. The guardian angels of the synapses Arne Hurty But Barres had a hunch they did more.
10 Psychology Tricks You Can Use To Influence People Before we get started, it’s important to note that none of these methods fall under what we would term the dark arts of influencing people. Anything that might be harmful to someone in any way, especially to their self esteem, is not included here. These are ways to win friends and influence people using psychology without being a jerk or making someone feel bad. Trick: Get someone to do a favor for you—also known as the Benjamin Franklin effect. Legend has it that Benjamin Franklin once wanted to win over a man who didn’t like him. Scientists decided to test this theory and found that those who were asked by the researcher for a personal favor rated the researcher much more favorably than the other groups did. Trick: Ask for way more than you want at first then scale it back later. This trick is sometimes known as the door in the face approach. Trick: Use a person’s name, or their title depending on the situation. Trick: Flattery will actually get you everywhere. Offer They Can’t Refuse
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