2020:

It’s possible to detect the brain activity associated with movement before someone is conscious of deciding to move. Furthermore, it’s possible to reverse that decision before a person even realizes they’ve decided. MSN.

sirbromanguyboy:

amaeza:

untruc:

amaeza:

you know, i’m a raging lesbian and i was never distracted by what other girls in my classes were wearing in high school. this is a male problem, not an “attracted to women” problem.

This is an “inability to respect women” problem.

Which is a male problem.

I am male. I can personally testify that it is not a male problem. If you’re unable to focus because of what someone’s wearing, you got some serious attention issues. It’s not that hard. A huge chunk of your brain is dedicated to self control. I go to a school where girls basically wear whatever they want and it’s never made it difficult for me or any of my male friends to focus. Respecting women is not a male problem, and I feel insulted that anyone would say that it is. Sweeping generalizations are a shitty thing to make.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. There is a time and place for opinion and that is in matters of preference. (It is an opinion that one song is cooler than another) When there is an answer to a question and you don’t look it up, instead erroneously forming an opinion to cover ignorance, you remain ignorant and are more likely to defend the ignorance you’ve now confused with a personally-relevant opinion. Suddenly, anyone’s attempts to correct your misconception is an attack on your personal beliefs.

That said, exposure to the “shocking” or “distracting” stimuli should render it inconsequential. The more you make a big deal about, and try to hide something, the more mental resources will be preoccupied with it.

As a male that has gone to a school where females outnumber men nearly 3 to 1, I have been the distraction. However, I understand the mechanism behind it, and that it isn’t a matter of sex, but primarily of attention.

stealingsailboats:

feminaspie:

empathy is not the opposite of autism

empathy is not the opposite of autism

empathy is not the opposite of autism

• empathy is not the opposite of autism

empathy is not the opposite of autism

what is this even supposed to mean?

this is like me saying breathing is not the opposite of asthma?

???

Ta-Nehisi Coates, on the idea of race. (via theatlantic)

The important thing to realize is that the concept of race has no biological backing. It is entirely eclipsed by ethnicity, a descriptor of cultural heritage. Even then, ethnicity predicts very little, and the lines drawn between ethnicity are man-made, not biological.

houseofmind:

Cannabis is easily the most widely used illegal substance in the world. Although it still illegal at federal level, Washington and Colorado have legalized recreational cannabis use. Studies examining the relationship between marijuana use and neuropsychological function should be taken into consideration when making/reforming laws and  health policies.  I have received multiple questions regarding the effects of marijuana on memory and health and recently found a longitudinal study on this matter.

Prior evidence suggests that long-term, heavy cannabis use may cause enduring neuropsychological impairment beyond the period of acute intoxication (i.e. being high). Moreover, the magnitude and persistence of impairment depends on several factors including: quantity, frequency, duration and age of onset. Greater quantities, more frequent and earlier onset of use are associated with a poorer neuropsychological outcome. However, studies that compare pre-initiation neuropsychological functioning with longitudinal data on post-initiation functioning are scarce. 

Meier et. al investigated the association between persistent cannabis use  and neuropsychological functioning (assessed over a 20 year period) in over 1,000 individuals. Subjects received neuropsychological testing prior to onset of use (childhood; 1985-1986) and after some had developed a persistent pattern of use (~38 years old; 2010-2012). 

Important findings included: 

1. Subjects with more persistence cannabis dependence showed greater IQ decline. Those who never experienced cannabis experienced a slight increase in IQ. 
2. Subjects with more persistent cannabis dependence generally showed greater neuropsychological impairment across different areas of mental function: executive function, memory, processing speed, perceptual reasoning and verbal comprehension. The greatest impairments were in the domains of executive function and processing speed. 
3. Neuropsychological deficits induced by cannabis use were still significant  even when the researchers controlled for: past 24 hour cannabis use, past-week cannabis use, persistent tobacco, alcohol and/or hard drug dependence, and schizophrenia (all of which alternative explanations for poorer neuropsychological function). 
4. The effect of cannabis dependence on cognitive decline remained significant even after controlling for years of education. Persistent cannabis users with a high school education or less experienced greater IQ decline. 
5. Subjects who had an adolescent onset of use and were diagnosed with dependence prior to 18 years of age tended to become more persistent users. Importantly, adult-onset cannabis users did not appear to experience IQ decline as a function of cannabis use. 
6. Within-person IQ decline was apparent regardless of whether cannabis was used frequently or infrequently a year before testing. Thus, cessation of cannabis use did not restore neuropsychological functioning among adolescent-onset former persistent cannabis users. 

So it looks like persistent use of cannabis is particularly detrimental with adolescent onset. Some have speculated that this may be due to puberty, a critical period of brain development in which circuits related to decision-making, executive-function, and reward are undergoing reorganization/rewiring. Neurotransmitter systems like dopamine are also vulnerable during this period as they have not fully matured yet. Thus, the authors suggest that cannabis use exerts neurotoxic effects during this developmental period. 

However, one must remember that although the authors show compelling data, their data correlational and is not sufficient to establish causation. Furthermore, there is no mechanism underlying the negative impact of cannabis use on neuropsychological function- merely speculations (see above). It is also possible that there is another variable related to cannabis use and neuropsychological decline that the authors did not rule out. Another limitation of the study was the heavy reliance on self-reporting measures like self-reported frequency of use. Finally, it is hard to estimate dosages due to the variety of strains and potency of cannabis. 

I would personally suggest taking this information for what it’s worth. Neuroimaging studies in adolescents (humans) reveal structural and functional brain differences associated with cannabis use so we know that cannabis use changes the brain. I personally believe that cannabis use has negative effects on memory and general health, but I do not think that it’s as simple as the “Weed will make you stupid.” notion that some adults try to instill in adolescents.  After all, we already KNOW about the dangers and costs of alcohol/tobacco use and people still use them. For me, the key is to delay onset of use (if you must use) and to prevent adolescent use of cannabis. If you are a teenager with cannabis dependence, it is never to late to quit and try to remedy the effects.

Source:  (Click on the link for abstract)

Meier et. al. (2012). Persistent cannabis users show neuropsychological decline from childhood to midlife. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS). 109 (40): 2657-64. 

neurosciencestuff:

Human intelligence cannot be explained by the size of the brain’s frontal lobes, say researchers.

Research into the comparative size of the frontal lobes in humans and other species has determined that they are not - as previously thought - disproportionately enlarged relative to other areas of the brain, according to the most accurate and conclusive study of this area of the brain.

It concludes that the size of our frontal lobes cannot solely account for humans’ superior cognitive abilities.

The study by Durham and Reading universities suggests that supposedly more ‘primitive’ areas, such as the cerebellum, were equally important in the expansion of the human brain. These areas may therefore play unexpectedly important roles in human cognition and its disorders, such as autism and dyslexia, say the researchers.

The study is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) today.

The frontal lobes are an area in the brain of mammals located at the front of each cerebral hemisphere, and are thought to be critical for advanced intelligence.

Lead author Professor Robert Barton from the Department of Anthropology at Durham University, said: “Probably the most widespread assumption about how the human brain evolved is that size increase was concentrated in the frontal lobes.

“It has been thought that frontal lobe expansion was particularly crucial to the development of modern human behaviour, thought and language, and that it is our bulging frontal lobes that truly make us human. We show that this is untrue: human frontal lobes are exactly the size expected for a non-human brain scaled up to human size.

“This means that areas traditionally considered to be more primitive were just as important during our evolution. These other areas should now get more attention. In fact there is already some evidence that damage to the cerebellum, for example, is a factor in disorders such as autism and dyslexia.”

The scientists argue that many of our high-level abilities are carried out by more extensive brain networks linking many different areas of the brain. They suggest it may be the structure of these extended networks more than the size of any isolated brain region that is critical for cognitive functioning.

Previously, various studies have been conducted to try and establish whether humans’ frontal lobes are disproportionately enlarged compared to their size in other primates such as apes and monkeys. They have resulted in a confused picture with use of different methods and measurements leading to inconsistent findings.

The Durham and Reading researchers, funded by The Leverhulme Trust, analysed data sets from previous animal and human studies using phylogenetic, or ‘evolutionary family tree’, methods, and found consistent results across all their data. They used a new method to look at the speed with which evolutionary change occurred, concluding that the frontal lobes did not evolve especially fast along the human lineage after it split from the chimpanzee lineage.

Minocycline, a microglial inhibitor, reduces ‘honey trap’ risk in human economic exchange (via outofcontextscience)

The science of femme fatales!

foxnewsofficial:

tumblr would be a playground for psychologists

Because while most people on this site are like

And seeing all the maladaptions can freeze your face like

While there are no shortage of incoherent posts to read like

Every now and then it does get amusing and maybe, just maybe, like

But mostly I’m just like