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Category Archives: Brain science

Feast, but visions of famine, at NIH

While the recent deluge of stimulus money to fund science research is very welcome, the chief of the National Institutes of Health said on Monday, the devil is in the details—will the support continue? “Science is not a 100-yard dash—it’s a marathon,” said Francis Collins during an address at Neuroscience 2009, the Society for Neuroscience’s [...]

Posted 21 October 2009 † nickyp § ‡ Comments (0) °

Travel a while in Eric Kandel’s shoes

For a peek into the life and past of famed neuroscientist Eric Kandel, check out the new documentary “In Search of Memory” (which also happens to be the name of his well-regarded memoir). Here in Chicago, it’s playing through the week of Neuroscience 2009, the Society for Neuroscience’s annual meeting, at the Facets Cinémathèque in [...]

Posted 18 October 2009 † nickyp § History ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: , , , ,

Chicago!

It’s time for Neuroscience 2009, the Society for Neuroscience’s annual meeting, Oct. 15-22 in Chicago. I arrived last night, and swung up to the Hancock Building’s 95th floor for a reception for members and friends of the Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives tonight. The hostess commiserated with me that it wasn’t sunny enough to see [...]

Posted 17 October 2009 † nickyp § ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: , , ,

Machines and learning

Someday, socially engaging robots that provide an individualized curriculum for every student could transform the future of education, Terrence J. Sejnowski tells the Dana Foundation in an interview this week. Sejnowski founded Neural Computation, the top journal in neural networks and computational neuroscience, and has developed pioneering algorithms for decades. In this Q&A, he talks [...]

Posted 03 September 2009 † nickyp § Learning ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: , ,

Conferencing toward virtue

If you are in New York City on Friday, Sept. 11, consider spending the day being mindful of morality. The United Nations will play host to a free all-day conference, open to those who pre-register and sponsored by the Nour Foundation, Georgetown University, and Blackfriars Hall at Oxford University, called “Toward a Common Morality.” It’s [...]

Posted 28 August 2009 † nickyp § Thinking ‡ Comments (0) °

Music of the brain

Thanks to researchers at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn., and elsewhere, we now can hear the music of our minds at work. A chewy feature story in the Hartford Courant today describes the work of Dan Lloyd, who has developed software that assigns pitches to various regions of the brain, as seen in action via [...]

Posted 10 August 2009 † nickyp § ‡ Comments (0) °

Be an Early Reviewer: Treating the Brain

Here’s another chance to read and review a Dana Press book before it’s released to the general public. July’s title is TREATING THE BRAIN: WHAT THE BEST DOCTORS KNOW, by top neuroscientist Walter Bradley. Even in this information age, people dealing with often-serious neurological problems face the daunting task of finding accurate, credible and understandable [...]

Posted 09 July 2009 † nickyp § Marketing § Reading ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: , , ,

Wednesday on PBS: “The Music Instinct”

Musician and neuroscientist Daniel Levitin, who followed his popular-science book THIS IS YOUR BRAIN ON MUSIC (2006) with THE WORLD IN SIX SONGS: HOW THE MUSICAL BRAIN CREATED HUMAN NATURE last year, is co-host of an interesting-looking two-hour documentary that explores the science behind music. The program will air on many PBS stations starting at [...]

Posted 22 June 2009 † nickyp § Playing ‡ Comments (1) °

Arts training changes your brain

Over at the Dana Foundation site, there’s a package of news and commentaries (with more coming) on “neuro-education,” the effects of arts training on the brain and the use of what we know about the brain to improve how we teach. Stories include: NEWS: Attention May Link Arts and Intelligence Arts education causes “profound changes” [...]

Posted 13 May 2009 † nickyp § Learning ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: , , , , ,

Potential for Error

These are about one-third of the books for sale at the Learning & the Brain conference this weekend in DC. It’s a great conference (which the Dana Foundation helps sponsor), but I was appalled at the number of how-to teaching and learning books that have “Brain” in the title (and what isn’t a “brain-compatible activity”?). [...]

Posted 09 May 2009 † nickyp § Marketing ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: