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It's All About Timing: Circadian Rhythms and Behavior
Anyone who has ever tried to drastically alter his or her sleep schedule (e.g. going from working days to working nights) knows that it is one of the more difficult biological tasks we can take on....
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Encephalon #49 Will Be Right Here--Send in Your Submissions
Neuroscientifically Challenged will host its first Encephalon Blog Carnival on July 7th and needs submissions! Please send your post on brain science or related topics to encephalon {dot} host {at}...
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The Commonalities of Buffalo Wings, Szechuan Peppers, and Ritalin Snorting
Spicy food—you either love it or hate it. Whichever group you fall into, though, there’s a good chance you’ve never thought about how intriguing a natural deception it really is. When we eat spicy...
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Send in Submissions for Encephalon #49!
Encephalon #49 will be at Neuroscientifically Challenged on Monday, July 7th. Please send your posts in by 6pm on Sunday the 6th to encephalon {dot} host {at} gmail {dot} com.
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Bisexuality in Drosophila
The fruit fly, like many organisms, has a stereotypical courtship ritual that precedes mating. After noticing a female, a male fly will follow her with a persistence that is strangely reminiscent to me...
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Encephalon #49 Celebrates Independence! (from Lamarckism)
The first week in July is a time of great significance—one that reminds us of change, revolution, and how an age-old view of the world can be drastically altered by the persistent belief in one's own...
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Foreign Accent Syndrome
Watching someone you know recover from a stroke or other serious brain insult can be extremely difficult. Cognitive deficits (including dementia), apraxia, and speech problems are among the...
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Computational Neuroscience and Systems Biology
In 1952, Alan Hodgkin and Andrew Huxley published a paper that was the result of several years of experimentation on the axon of the giant squid. They had been measuring action potentials, a task made...
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If I Beat Up a Robot, Will I Feel Remorse?
At times, when my computer's performance has transformed it from an essential tool into a source of frustration, I will find myself getting increasingly angry at it. Eventually I may begin cursing it,...
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Mirror Neurons May Be Responsible For Global Warming & U.S. Economic Woes
Since their discovery in the 1990s, mirror neurons have experienced a degree of fanfare uncommon to findings in the field of neuroscience. Mirror neurons are so named because they are activated both...
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The Singing Bass: Kitschy or Insightful?
If you were listening in on a discussion about the evolutionary origins of language, you might expect to hear theories bandied about concerning evidence for language-like processes in apes. You...
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Gene Therapy for Prion Diseases
Prion diseases are relatively rare in humans. The most common, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), afflicts only about one in every million people. Despite their low prevalence, however, these diseases...
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Dopamine and the Bruce Effect
If you take a recently impregnated female mouse and place her in a cage with an unfamiliar male, something curious often happens. The female, upon smelling the new male's urine, spontaneously aborts...
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Good News for Fruit Fly Truckers
Science has arrived at credible hypotheses to explain a number of complex waking behaviors. Yet an overtly simpler behavior—one that doesn’t vary much from situation to situation or person to person,...
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The Evolution of Schizophrenia
Schizophrenia is one of the more frightening and debilitating mental disorders. It can cause hallucinations, delusions, and social withdrawal, as well as a variety of other cognitive afflictions. While...
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Cocaine's Addictive Influence Begins Even Before Euphoria
It has long been known in the addiction field that exposure to drug-associated stimuli, commonly referred to as relapse triggers, is one of the primary causes of relapse in abstinent addicts....
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Why You Can't Remember Where Your Keys Are
Why do we remember? To some this might seem like a ridiculous question. Memory is so intricately intertwined with our conception of existence that it is difficult to objectively ask questions about why...
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Encephalon #52 at Ouroboros
Encephalon #52 is up at Ouroboros, a science blog that focuses on the biology of aging--which is also my current area of research! Check it out...
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Cocaine and Glutamate, Part Two
Ten years ago, if you had asked a neuroscientist what neurotransmitter is most important to the development of an addiction, nine out of ten times they would have said “dopamine”. Ask the same question...
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Have a Face Only a Mother Could Love? Without Serotonin She Thinks You're...
As the popularity of antidepressant medication has burgeoned over the past few decades, serotonin has become one of the more publicly recognized neurotransmitters. Along with that popularity has come a...
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