The Limits of Intelligence Santiago Ramón y Cajal, the Spanish Nobel-winning biologist who mapped the neural anatomy of insects in the decades before World War I, likened the minute circuitry of their vision-processing neurons to an exquisite pocket watch. He likened that of mammals, by comparison, to a hollow-chested grandfather clock. Indeed, it is humbling to think that a honeybee, with its milligram-size brain, can perform tasks such as navigating mazes and landscapes on a par with mammals. A honeybee may be limited by having comparatively few neurons, but it surely seems to squeeze everything it can out of them. At the other extreme, an elephant, with its five-million-fold larger brain, suffers the inefficiencies of a sprawling Mesopotamian empire. Signals take more than 100 times longer to travel between opposite sides of its brain—and also from its brain to its foot, forcing the beast to rely less on reflexes, to move more slowly, and to squander precious brain resources on planning each step.
Brain-based learning, ideas, and materials Visual Processing: Cortical Pathways (Section 2, Chapter 15 The visual system is unique as much of visual processing occurs outside the brain within the retina of the eye. The previous chapter described how the light-sensitive receptors of the eye convert the image projected onto the retina into spatially distributed neural activity in the first neurons of the visual pathway (i.e., the photoreceptors). Within the retina, the receptors synapse with bipolar and horizontal cells, which establish the basis for brightness and color contrasts. 15.1 The Visual Pathway from Retina to Cortex As noted previously in the somatosensory sections, all sensory information must reach the cerebral cortex to be perceived and, with one exception, reach the cortex by way of the thalamus. The Optic Nerve The axons of the 3° visual afferents (the retinal ganglion cells) form the optic nerve fiber layer of the retina on their course to the optic disc. The axons in the optic tract terminate in four nuclei within the brain (Figure 15.2): The Lateral Geniculate Nucleus
Project Based Learning Introducing an irresistible project at the beginning of a unit of study can give students a clear and meaningful reason for learning. Plus, they end up with a product or result that could possibility make a difference in the world! In project based learning students are driven to learn content and skills for an authentic purpose. PBL involves students in explaining their answers to real-life questions, problems, or challenges. Technology can be helpful throughout a project, whether students use iPads, Chromebooks, Android tablets, laptops, or desktops.
The Ten Most Revealing Psych Experiments Psychology is the study of the human mind and mental processes in relation to human behaviors - human nature. Due to its subject matter, psychology is not considered a 'hard' science, even though psychologists do experiment and publish their findings in respected journals. Some of the experiments psychologists have conducted over the years reveal things about the way we humans think and behave that we might not want to embrace, but which can at least help keep us humble. That's something. 1. The Robbers Cave Experiment is a classic social psychology experiment conducted with two groups of 11-year old boys at a state park in Oklahoma, and demonstrates just how easily an exclusive group identity is adopted and how quickly the group can degenerate into prejudice and antagonism toward outsiders. Researcher Muzafer Sherif actually conducted a series of 3 experiments. 2. The prisoners rebelled on the second day, and the reaction of the guards was swift and brutal. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.
How to increase serotonin in the human brain without drugs Current Biology - Separate Processing of Different Global-Motion Structures in Visual Cortex Is Revealed by fMRI Figure 1 A Schematic Description of the Motion Stimuli (A) The subjects viewed a radial-motion, translation-motion, or random-motion stimulus in 16 s epochs. The global-motion types were changed in a random order every 16 s. (B) The translation-motion display consisted of two sets of global motion. In one set, the motion directions of the dots were limited to a 45° range, whereas in the other set, the motion directions of the dots were limited to the opposite 45° range. Figure 2 Mean MR Signal Amplitudes for Each Visual Area for Each Eccentricity Each column represents the average of 24 data, i.e., 6 subjects × 4 time points. Figure 3 Activation Maps from the First Experiment (A) Activation map for radial motion in a representative subject (left hemisphere). (B) For translation motion, activation was seen in the peripheral V3 (>2°), V3A (>2°), and MT/MST. (C) Eccentricity map of the representative subject obtained from a separate experiment. Figure 4
How to Use Google Search More Effectively [INFOGRAPHIC] Among certain circles (my family, some of my coworkers, etc.) I'm known for my Googling skills. I can find anything, anywhere, in no time flat. Sadly, though web searches have become and integral part of the academic research landscape, the art of the Google search is an increasingly lost one. That search process also included determining when to rely on Google and when to utilize scholarly databases, but on a fundamental level, it appears that many people just don't understand how to best find the information they seek using Google. Thanks to the folks at HackCollege, a number of my "secrets" are out. Infographic via HackCollege Image courtesy of iStockphoto, LICreate
10 Brilliant Social Psychology Studies | PsyBlog Ten of the most influential social psychology experiments. “I have been primarily interested in how and why ordinary people do unusual things, things that seem alien to their natures.Why do good people sometimes act evil?Why do smart people sometimes do dumb or irrational things?” Like eminent social psychologist Professor Philip Zimbardo (author of The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil), I’m also obsessed with why we do dumb or irrational things. The answer quite often is because of other people – something social psychologists have comprehensively shown. Over the past few months I’ve been describing 10 of the most influential social psychology experiments. Each one tells a unique, insightful story relevant to all our lives, every day. 1. The ‘halo effect’ is a classic social psychology experiment. » Read on about the halo effect -» 2. » Read on about cognitive dissonance -» 3. » Read on about Sherif’s Robbers Cave experiment -» 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.
RGS14 Regulator of G-protein signaling 14 (RGS14) is a protein that in humans is encoded by the RGS14 gene.[1] Function[edit] RGS14 is a member of the regulator of G protein signalling family. This protein contains one RGS domain, two Raf-like Ras-binding domains (RBDs), and one GoLoco motif. The protein attenuates the signaling activity of G-proteins by binding, through its GoLoco domain, to specific types of activated, GTP-bound G alpha subunits. Increasing the expression of the RGS14 protein in the V2 secondary visual cortex of mice promotes the conversion of short-term to long-term object-recognition memory.[2] Conversely RGS14 is enriched in CA2 pyramidal neurons and suppresses synaptic plasticity of these synapses and hippocampal-based learning and memory.[3] Interactions[edit] RGS14 has been shown to interact with: References[edit] ^ Jump up to: a b "Entrez Gene: RGS14 regulator of G-protein signalling 14". Further reading[edit] Snow BE, Antonio L, Suggs S, et al. (1997).
10 Surprising Facts About How Our Brain Works One of the things that surprises me time and time again is how we think our brains work and how they actually do. On many occasions I find myself convinced that there is a certain way to do things, only to find out that actually that’s the complete wrong way to think about it. For example, I always found it fairly understandable that we can multitask. Well, according to the latest research studies, it’s literally impossible for our brains to handle 2 tasks at the same time. Recently I came across more of these fascinating experiments and ideas that helped a ton to adjust my workflow towards how our brains actually work (instead of what I thought!). So here are 10 of the most surprising things our brain does and what we can learn from it: Share stories like this to your social media followers when they’re most likely to click, favorite, and reply! 1. Here’s how it breaks down: For night owls, this is obviously a much later period in the day. Insight problems involve thinking outside the box.