The Neurocritic reports on a paper in Australasian Psychiatry which finally reveals why Sydneysiders live in overpriced real estate, are woefully inept at sport, and are unable to land an NHMRC grant. (Link, Follow up)
Not, that’s not some sort of euphamism - there is evidence to suggest that you can induce rats to laugh through tickling, and that they find this to be a pleasant experience.
I wonder if this could be used as a reward in behavioural studies? The usual approach is to get them all sugared-up on cocoa pops…
I find avocado slicers creepy. They remind me of the leucatome, a surgical implement used to perform lobtomies; a retractable loop of wire is inserted into the brain, typically through the eye socket, and twisted — rendering all your psychiatric problems a thing of the past!
(RH picture from Nobel Foundation).
Elsewhere: Tenuously related but awesome - The Neurophilosopher: An illustrated history of trepanation
Nature 2003 Feb 13;421(6924):711
A preference in humans for turning the head to the right, rather than to the left, during the final weeks of gestation and for the first six months after birth constitutes one of the earliest examples of behavioural asymmetry and is thought to influence the subsequent development of perceptual and motor preferences by increasing visual orientation to the right side. Here I show that twice as many adults turn their heads to the right as to the left when kissing, indicating that this head-motor bias persists into adulthood.
[...]
I observed kissing couples in public places (international airports, large railway stations, beaches and parks) in the United States, Germany and Turkey. The headturning behaviour of each couple was recorded for a single kiss, with only the first being counted in instances of multiple kissing.
I like this study. It’s creepy, yet decidedly elegant.
Research into persistent vegetative states released this month:-
Detecting Awareness in the Vegetative State
Science. (2006). 313(5792):1402.We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to demonstrate preserved conscious awareness in a patient fulfilling the criteria for a diagnosis of vegetative state. When asked to imagine playing tennis or moving around her home, the patient activated predicted cortical areas in a manner indistinguishable from that of healthy volunteers.
(PubMed Entry, via The Age)
Ambien awakens persistent vegetative state victims
Across three continents, brain-damaged patients are reporting remarkable improvements after taking a pill that should make them fall asleep but that, instead, appears to be waking up cells in their brains that were thought to have been dead. In the next two months, trials on patients are expected to begin in South Africa aimed at finding out exactly what is going on inside their heads. Because, at the moment, the results are baffling doctors.(from Guardian, via Boing Boing)
Unfortunately, misuse of these sorts of findings is likely to make pro-life Schiavo-esque farces all the more frequent in the future.