Beyond bones & stones
A new paper in the open access journal PLoS Biology describes a new way to model the human brain using diffusion spectrum imaging. Since we're in the omics age of science, you shouldn't be surprised that this map is dubbed the connectome. The semantics of the connectome is similar to genome, proteome, metabalome, transcriptome --... Continue Reading →
Almost all primates live in groups with an observable and definable social hierarchy, and humans aren't an exception. We may overlook it in our day to day lives, but every so often it becomes evident that we interact best when we understand the pecking order. The social brain hpyothesis argues that the cognitive demands of... Continue Reading →
Charles Limb and Allen Braun at Johns Hopkins have recently published a study on the internal characteristics and functions of improvisation in music. The study, "Neural Substrates of Spontaneous Musical Performance: An fMRI Study of Jazz Improvisation," uses a functional MRI to look at the neural activity of Jazz musicians, specifically pianists, during improvisation. Several... Continue Reading →
