Social, Cognitive & Affective Neuroscience Laboratory, Columbia University

08/21/2015

Thought-provoking and well-researched article written by Vox news.

"I’ve spent many months asking dozens of scientists this question, and the answer I’ve found is a resounding no. Science isn’t broken, nor is it untrustworthy. It’s just more difficult than most of us realize."


http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/science-isnt-broken/

If you follow the headlines, your confidence in science may have taken a hit lately. Peer review? More like self-review. An investigation in November uncovered a scam in which researchers were rubber-stamping their own work, circumventing peer review at five high-profile publishers.

07/30/2015

I had lived thirty good years before enduring my first food poisoning — odds quite fortunate in the grand scheme of things, but miserably unfortunate in the immediate experience of it. I found myself completely incapacitated to erect the pillars of my daily life — too cognitively foggy to read and w…

06/15/2015

Cool! New Disney Pixar film to highlight emotions via personifying each emotion of an 11-year old girl:

http://www.npr.org/2015/06/10/413273007/its-all-in-your-head-director-pete-docter-gets-emotional-in-inside-out

The new film illustrates the inner workings of an 11-year-old's mind. Her emotions — Sadness, Fear, Anger, Disgust and Joy — are the stars, voiced by the likes of Amy Poehler and Louis Black.

06/10/2015

Can the chemical composition of sweat reveal positive emotions?

Recent research indicates that the chemicals in our sweat may communicate our positive emotions, such as happiness, to others.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/04/150416084348.htm

Humans may be able to communicate positive emotions like happiness through the smell of our sweat, according to new research published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. The research indicates that we produce chemical compounds, or chemosignals, when we…

05/11/2015

Interesting article by researcher Gregory Hickok discussing the illusion of continuous experience.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/10/opinion/sunday/its-not-a-stream-of-consciousness.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=Moth-Visible&module=inside-nyt-region®ion=inside-nyt-region&WT.nav=inside-nyt-region&_r=0

It’s more like a rhythm.

05/08/2015

How do your genes affect the way you perceive emotional information?

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/05/150507135919.htm

Your genes may influence how sensitive you are to emotional information, according to new research by a neuroscientist. The study found that carriers of a certain genetic variation perceived positive and negative images more vividly, and had heightened activity in certain brain regions.

05/05/2015

How do we perceive our own physical and psychological pain, and can we experience the pain of others? What are the brain regions associated with these perceptions?

http://brainblogger.com/2015/03/19/the-physiology-and-psychology-of-pain/

Neuroscience & Neurology 0 The Physiology and Psychology of Pain by Viatcheslav Wlassoff, PhD | March 19, 2015 Pick up any newspaper and pore over it. Not only are nations at war but communities in the same country are fighting amongst themselves. People are killing each other for a piece of land, m…

04/29/2015

What are the effects of traditional adult-child experiences on the developing brain?

Pediatrician Dr. John Hutton and colleagues are exploring the neural benefits of such traditional "offline" behaviors as reading to one's child.

Read here for a synopsis!

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-athletes-way/201504/one-more-reason-unplug-bedtime

Reading a bedtime story improves a child's brain function and mental imagery.

04/20/2015

MIT and Northwestern University researchers have developed a peer-to-peer networking tool that allows those suffering from depression and anxiety to seek help and help others in the process. Read about this tool, called Panoply, here!
http://medicalxpress.com/news/2015-03-peer-to-peer-application-outperforms-conventional-self-help.html

Researchers at MIT and Northwestern University have developed a new peer-to-peer networking tool that enables sufferers of anxiety and depression to build online support communities and practice therapeutic techniques.

03/04/2015

Are you an extrovert? If so, are you an "affiliative" or "agentic" type? Your brain may reveal the answer...

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/290042.php

Everyday experience and psychological studies alike tell us that there are two different types of extroverts: The gregarious 'people-persons' who find reward in sharing affection and affiliation wi

03/02/2015

Does hunger influence judgments and decisions unrelated to food?

New research from USC and the Chinese University of Hong Kong suggests that hunger "triggers a broadly acquisitive mindset," activating our general desire to acquire both food and non-food items though not affecting our general liking of those items.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/wray-herbert/hungry-maybe-dont-go-shop_b_6713952.html

A team of psychological scientists wondered if hunger might spill over into other behavioral domains, sometimes in irrational ways. Is it possible, that is, that hunger triggers an acquisitive mindset generally, one that piques our desire even for no...

02/09/2015

How do we form emotional memories, and how accurate are our recollections of those memories?

This article in The New Yorker describes the work of NYU neuroscientists Lila Davachi and Elizabeth Phelps regarding emotion-memory interaction and false memories.

http://www.newyorker.com/science/maria-konnikova/idea-happened-memory-recollection?mbid=social_twitter&utm_source=digg&utm_medium=emailvachi

If we remember dramatic and emotional moments so well, why do most people forget what they were doing when the Challenger exploded?