Religious Experiences Shrink Part of the Brain The article, “Religious factors and hippocampal atrophy in late life,” by Amy Owen and colleagues at Duke University represents an important advance in our growing understanding of the relationship between the brain and religion. The study, published March 30 in PLoS One, showed greater atrophy in the hippocampus in individuals who identify with specific religious groups as well as those with no religious affiliation. It is a surprising result, given that many prior studies have shown religion to have potentially beneficial effects on brain function, anxiety, and depression. A number of studies have evaluated the acute effects of religious practices, such as meditation and prayer, on the human brain. In this study, Owen et al. used MRI to measure the volume of the hippocampus, a central structure of the limbic system that is involved in emotion as well as in memory formation. This is an interesting hypothesis. Thus, Owen and her colleagues certainly pose a plausible hypothesis.
7 Helpful Tips To Immediately Increase Your Confidence Your rating: None Average: 3.7 (6 votes) 1.) Ask yourself, “What’s the worst that could happen?” 2.) 3.) 4.) 5.) 6.) 7.) Author's Bio: This article is based on the book, “Unstoppable Confidence” by Kent Sayre. Bitenova A mind of one's own Soul Dust: the Magic of Consciousness Nicholas HumphreyQuercus, 288pp, £25 Self Comes to Mind: Constructing the Conscious Brain Antonio DamasioWilliam Heinemann, 384pp, £25 The republic of letters is in thrall to an unprecedented scientism. The word is out that human consciousness - from the most elementary tingle of sensation to the most sophisticated sense of self - is identical with neural activity in the human brain and that this extraordinary metaphysical discovery is underpinned by the latest findings in neuroscience. Given that the brain is an evolved organ, and, as the evolutionary biologist Theodosius Dobzhansky said, nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution, the neural explanation of human consciousness demands a Darwinian interpretation of our behaviour. The differences between human life in the library or the operating theatre and animal life in the jungle or the savannah are more apparent than real: at the most, matters of degree rather than kind.
Sleepy brain waves predict dream recall : Neurophilosophy The James Webb Space Telescope, launched in 2021 and on active duty since 2022, has gotten its legs viewing already known exoplanets but can now take credit for its first direct image of a previously unknown one. Exoplanets have been detected since 1992 when two, named named Poltergeist and Phobetor, were found orbiting the pulsar PSR B1257+12. Since then they have become key targets in astronomy, in hopes that capturing snapshots in time can help us understand how planetary systems form. Thousands have been detected indirectly but because they are less bright due to being '… Robert F. Nasa’s Curiosity Mars rover has detected the largest organic (carbon-containing) molecules ever found on the red planet.
How the Brain Stops Time One of the strangest side-effects of intense fear is time dilation, the apparent slowing-down of time. It's a common trope in movies and TV shows, like the memorable scene from The Matrix in which time slows down so dramatically that bullets fired at the hero seem to move at a walking pace. In real life, our perceptions aren't keyed up quite that dramatically, but survivors of life-and-death situations often report that things seem to take longer to happen, objects fall more slowly, and they're capable of complex thoughts in what would normally be the blink of an eye. Now a research team from Israel reports that not only does time slow down, but that it slows down more for some than for others. Anxious people, they found, experience greater time dilation in response to the same threat stimuli. An intriguing result, and one that raises a more fundamental question: how, exactly, does the brain carry out this remarkable feat? Was it scary enough to generate a sense of time dilation?
Meditation May Protect Your Brain | Miller-McCune Online For thousands of years, Buddhist meditators have claimed that the simple act of sitting down and following their breath while letting go of intrusive thoughts can free one from the entanglements of neurotic suffering. Now, scientists are using cutting-edge scanning technology to watch the meditating mind at work. They are finding that regular meditation has a measurable effect on a variety of brain structures related to attention — an example of what is known as neuroplasticity, where the brain physically changes in response to an intentional exercise. A team of Emory University scientists reported in early September that experienced Zen meditators were much better than control subjects at dropping extraneous thoughts and returning to the breath. The same researchers reported last year that longtime meditators don’t lose gray matter in their brains with age the way most people do, suggesting that meditation may have a neuro-protective effect. Where does all this lead?
wiki : The Noosphere and The Gaian Mind The only truly natural and real human unity is the spirit of the Earth.—Pierre Teilhard de Chardin The noosphere can be seen as the "sphere of human thought" being derived from the Greek ("nous") meaning "mind" in the style of "atmosphere" and "biosphere". In the original theory of Vernadsky, the noosphere is the third in a succession of phases of development of the Earth, after the geosphere (inanimate matter) and the biosphere (biological life). The word is also sometimes used to refer to a transhuman consciousness emerging from the interactions of human minds. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin became enthralled with the possibilities for humankind, which he saw as heading for an exciting convergence of systems, an "Omega point" where the coalescence of consciousness will lead us to a new state of peace and planetary unity. To this end, he suggested that the Earth in its evolutionary unfolding, was growing a new organ of consciousness, called the noosphere. See Also
Human echolocation activates visual parts of the brain : Neurophilosophy WE all know that bats and dolphins use echolocation to navigate, by producing high frequency bursts of clicks and interpreting the sound waves that bounce off objects in their surroundings. Less well known is that humans can also learn to echolocate. With enough training, people can use this ability to do extraordinary things. Teenager Ben Underwood, who died of cancer in 2009, was one of a small number of blind people to master it. Very little research has been done on human echolocation, and nothing is known about the underlying brain mechanisms. Psychologist Lore Thaler of the University of Western Ontario and her colleagues recruited two expert echolocators for the new study. The researchers seated their participants in a sealed room, placed various objects in front of them, and asked them to produce echolocation clicks. EB and LB could accurately determine the size, shape, position and movements of objects in both situations. Related: Thaler, L., et al. (2011).