I found a nice but very basic anatomy site (i.e., good for kids). It also has more anatomy than just the brain, with skeletal, heart, and digestive tract anatomy in English and Spanish.
Click on the image to visit the site.
Can we improve our brains?
I thought this was an interesting article. It has a lot of quotes from leading neuroscientists about the possibility of “training” our brains to improve them.
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Cajal claimed in the XX century, “Every man can, if he so desires, become the sculptor his own brain“, may well become reality in the XXI. And influence Education, Health, Training, and Gaming in the process.
Optical Illusions That Make You Fatter and Your Wallet Lighter
“Eat from small plates, drink from taller glasses.” Optical illusions lead us to eat and drink more, as illustrated by the examples in this article. There’s an old saying in cuisine…”the first bite is with the eye.”
Interesting article. I’m not sure if there is empirical data to support it but it does show that our perception of our food can affect how much we eat. Our actions are affected by so many different things, many of which we might not be aware.
Great Skull Anatomy Site
I stumbled across this wonderful anatomy site that focuses on the skull. You can move your mouse over different parts of the skull to highlight their names. You can also mouse over a structure and have the area of the skull highlighted. This is a wonderful study guide if you have to know the parts of the skull.
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New Baby
My wife recently had a baby so I’ll resume posts in a few more days as we adjust to two children.
MRI Quenching
I learned something new this week. Modern MRI scanners produce high-strength magnetic fields (typically 1.5T up to about 20T – scanners for use with humans max out at about 7T right now {those are very rare though, 1.5T and 3T are more common). To produce these fields the scanners need to have strong electric currents. In order to handle large currents, scanners use superconductors cooled with liquid helium. In cases of serious malfunction or emergency the MRI scanner can be quenched, which releases all of the liquid helium. The helium turns into a gaseous state rapidly and expands to fill the room. The quench will make a loud sound like a jet engine or a pop. If the room is small enough, all of the air can be pushed out as the helium expands and increases the pressure. Most MRI rooms have fail-safe systems that release the helium outside, which prevents the occupants from suffocating.
Image from here.
The Threat of Obesity
The APA online linked to an article from the UK about the threat of obesity. With all of the recent news about climate change, some people are pointing out a threat that is as bad or worse than climate change: obesity. As a clinician I haven’t dealt with obesity issues (i.e., helping people with weight problems learn how to control their eating better) yet but it causes a lot of problems for people.
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Birth Order and IQ
I “clipped” this off of CNN for a couple reasons. One is to comment on the fact that I first saw this research months ago – CNN is pretty slow sometimes – okay, slow most of the time – at reporting new research. Second, even though there was a statistically significant difference between IQ scores of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd born children, there is only a difference of 3 points between 1st and 3rd. That doesn’t really mean anything in real life. Also, this is significant in part as a result of the huge same size – 200,000+. Additionally, the subjects all were male. There are other limitations pointed out in the CNN article.
We shouldn’t be so set on statistical significance (I worry about it in my research, of course). There is internal and experimental validity and then there is ecological validity. Intelligence research means very little without good ecological validity.
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Cool Image of Ventricles in the Brain
For my research, I’ve been spending time processing brain MRIs and measuring the volume of the brain and lateral ventricles. Here is an image of one of the brains (visualization by FSLView 3.0, with ventricles measured by ITK-Snap). The image is slightly messy because the brain did not extract perfectly (separating brain from non-brain). Also, portions of the ventricles are missing (especially the occipital and temporal horns) due to imperfect MRI resolution and processing. The ventricles are viewed through a cut-away of the 3D-rendered brain.
Note: You MAY NOT use this image without express written consent from me.
Psycholinguistics and Language
Although I am not a psycholinguist I thought I would introduce basic principles of language.
There are four main components of language: phonology, semantics, syntax, and pragmatics.
- Phonology is the sounds of language.
- Semantics is the meaning of language.
- Syntax is the structure of language.
- Pragmatics is the use of language.
1. Phonology: language is made up of phonemes and morphemes. Phonemes are the smallest units of sound in a language (e.g., in English /p/ is a phoneme) and morphemes are the smallest units of meaninful sounds. Morphemes may be smaller than words (e.g., -ing) or may even be words (e.g., call); the word calling is thus composed of two morphemes.
2. Semantics refers to the meanings of words. In general, semantics helps us understand the difference between hymn and him. In psychology, semantics can be important as a way for understanding people’s language functioning. A person with Alzheimer’s Disease may have difficulty coming up with words that start with a particular letter (G, for example) but would do relatively better on a task where they need to name tools. Tools or animals or sports can all be considered semantic categories and are relatively structured in our memories. People who have better memories tend to have better memory strategies than people with poorer memories have. These strategies often include semantic categorization, where things that need to be remembered are grouped into categories.
3. Syntax is the structure of language – the grammar. In English adjectives are typically placed before the objects (nouns) they are modifying – the red ball; in Spanish the adjectives go after the modified nouns – la bola roja. Syntax can have a significant impact on the meanings of sentences: “The boy hit the ball” versus “The ball hit the boy.” Both sentences have identical phonemes, morphemes, and semantics but differ in overall meaning as a result of different syntax.
4. Pragmatics refers to the use or application of language. It is typically viewed as a social aspect of language. Pragmatics is about applying language so that others understand what you are trying to convey. For example, someone who is good at pragmatics may be able to say one thing and convey a completely different message, if needed.
Each aspect of language can develop well or poorly in humans. Brain damage or degeneration can also selectively impair one of the aspects of language. For example, a person might have intact semantics, language production (phonemes and morphemes), and syntax but impaired pragmatics (this is referred to as a word salad or Wernicke’s aphasia – where a person strings words together that may even be grammatically correct but aren’t meaningful overall).
Image by wlau1.