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This Week in Neuroblunders: Optogenetics Edition
Recent technological developments in neuroscience have enabled rapid advances in our knowledge of how neural circuits function in awake behaving animals. Highly targeted and reversible manipulations...
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This Week in Neuroblunders: fMRI Edition
My entire body of work has been called into question!And what a fine week for technical neurogaffes it is. First was the threat that many trendy and important studies of neural circuits may need to be...
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Social Pain Revisited: Opioids for Severe Suicidal Ideation
Does the pain of mental anguish rely on the same neural machinery as physical pain? Can we treat these dreaded ailments with the same medications? These issues have come to the fore in the field of...
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Opioid Drugs for Mental Anguish: Basic Research and Clinical Trials
The prescription opioid crisis of overdosing and overprescribing has reached epic proportions, according to the North American media. Just last week, we learned that 91% of patients who survive opioid...
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This Neuroimaging Method Has 100% Diagnostic Accuracy (or your money back)
doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0129659.g003Did you know that SPECT imaging can diagnose PTSD with 100% accuracy (Amen et al., 2015)? Not only that, out of a sample of 397 patients from the Amen Clinic in...
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How do you celebrate 10 years of an anonymous blog?
Today, The Neurocritic celebrates ten years as a blog. Given the ongoing use of a pseudonym, how should I commemorate the occasion?1. Should I finally update my blog template? (“Hey, 2004 wants their...
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Was I Wrong?
In honor of The Neurocritic's 10th anniversary, I'd like to announce a new occasional feature:Was I Wrong?In science, as in life, we learn from our mistakes. We can't move forward if we don't admit we...
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The Brain at Rest
As you might have gathered, my brain is taking a rest from blogging after the excitement of The Neurocritic's tenth anniversary. Regular blogging will resume shortly.Thank you for your patience.Fig. 1...
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Writing-Induced Fugue State
Who is this, wandering around the crowded street, afraid of everything, trusting no one? “There must be something wrong, somewhere.”But maybe I’m safer since I look disheveled. Who are these people?...
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A Detached Sense of Self Associated with Altered Neural Responses to Mirror...
Our bodily sense of self contributes to our personal feelings of awareness as a conscious being. How we see our bodies and move through space and feel touched by loved ones are integral parts of our...
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Everybody Loves Dopamine
Dopamine is love. Dopamine is reward. Dopamine is addiction.Neuroscientists have a love/hate relationship with how this monoamine neurotransmitter is portrayed in the popular...
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Sleep Doctoring: Fatigue Amnesia in Physicians
New in the journal journal Cortex: four shocking cases of practicing medicine while exhausted (Dharia & Zeman, 2016). The authors called this newly discovered syndrome “fatigue amnesia.” Why this...
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Don't Lose Your Head Over tDCS
Recent studies of transcranial electrical stimulation in human cadaver heads showed a 90% loss of current when delivered through the skin (Buzsáki, 2016 CNS meeting).Siren SongBy Margaret AtwoodThis is...
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What We Think We Know and Don't Know About tDCS
image:Mihály Vöröslakos / University of Szeged “Don't Lose Your Head Over tDCS,” I warned last time. Now the infamous cadaver study has reared its ugly hot-wired head in Science News (Underwood,...
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The Truth About Cognitive Impairment in Retired NFL Players
NINETY-TWO percent of retired National Football League players have decreased cognitive function, according to a new study:“In the NFL group, baseline neuropsychological assessments showed 92% of...
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Imagine These Experiments in Aphantasia
When you hear the word “apple”, do you picture a Red Delicious apple or a green Granny Smith? Or neither, because you can't conjure up a visual image of an apple (or of anything else, for that matter)?...
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Acetaminophen Probably Isn't an "Empathy Killer"
Left: Belgian physician Dr. Wim Distelmans, a cancer specialist, professor in palliative care and the president of the Belgian federal euthanasia commission.Right: Generic acetaminophen.What (or who)...
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Compulsive Foreign Language Syndrome: Man Becomes Obsessed With Speaking Fake...
You may have seen headlines such as: Florida Man Woke Up In A Motel Room Speaking Only Swedish. Or: Englishman wakes up speaking Welsh after stroke (“Rare brain disorder left English-speaking Alun...
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Advil Increases Social Pain (if you're male)
Headache, Guillaume DELEBARRE (Guigui-Lille)A recent neuroessay in the New York Times asked, Can Tylenol Help Heal a Broken Heart?What’s crazy about the pain of a broken heart is that your body...
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In Oxytocin We Trust
Oh oxytocin, you cuddly hug drug, you fine upstanding moral molecule, why are you so maligned by critics? That's because you're overrated, and misunderstood by those who look to you as a beacon of...
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