Happy Wednesday! Today's Brain Awareness Week interview is with Olaf Sporns, Head of the Computational Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory at Indiana University Bloomington and author of Networks of the Brain.

The Emotiv Epoc neuroheadset is used as the interface of a musical instrument that can be played and controlled by thought alone. The performance is part of Dimitri Paile's MA-thesis project from Media Lab Helsinki, Aalto University, School of Art and Design.

Certainly Flegr’s thinking is jarringly unconventional. Starting in the early 1990s, he began to suspect that a single-celled parasite in the protozoan family was subtly manipulating his personality, causing him to behave in strange, often self-destructive ways. And if it was messing with his mind, he reasoned, it was probably doing the same to others.

Musical Minds
Oliver Sacks explores how the power of music can make the brain come alive. Aired June 30, 2009 on PBS

TALKS | BEST OF THE WEB
Psychiatrist Iain McGilchrist describes the real differences between the left and right halves of the human brain. It's not simply "emotion on the right, reason on the left," but something far more complex and interesting. A Best of the Web talk from RSA Animate.

Carboncopies is a nonprofit organisation with a goal of creating a networking and outreach community around the central idea of Advancing Substrate Independent Minds (ASIM).

ASIM is a field of research which seeks to understand the brain and nervous system of a wide range of organisms, including humans, in order to facilitate emulation of these organisms in an artificial substrate, for example a computer processor.

Fascinating New Yorker profile of neuroscientist David Eagleman and his work about the nature of time. Wide-ranging article that discusses his interactions with Francis Crick and Brian Eno, his study about drummers and the creation of possibilianism.

Could the brain be using electromagnetic fields to communicate between hemispheres — the electromagnetic field theory of consciousness proposed by Johnjoe McFadden (School of Biomedical and Life Sciences, University of
Surrey)?

People who are very optimistic about the outcome of events tend to learn only from information that reinforces their rose-tinted view of the world, related to a “faulty” function of their frontal lobes, researchers at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging at UCL (University College London) have shown.

In a discovery that challenges conventional wisdom on the brain mechanisms of learning, UCLA neuro-physicists have found there is an optimal brain “rhythm,” or frequency, for changing synaptic strength, and each synapse is tuned to a different optimal frequency for learning.

John Boswell is an economist who likes science, philosophy and music in equal measure. In 2009, he produced his first Symphony of Science video as a part of a project designed to spread the science word via music.

Howard Hughes Medical Institute and NIH scientists have discovered that our four basic tastes — sweet, bitter, salty, and “umami,” or savory —- are processed by neurons arranged discretely in a “gustotopic map” in the brain.

Research shows mobile technology is really changing children's brains. An expert explains how we use that for good

Audio-visual brain entrainment using an Arduino

Our mission is to create innovative neuroscience-based tools that empower people to lead better lives through better brain health and performance.

The Flynn effect has always been tinged with mystery. First popularized by the political scientist James Flynn, the effect refers to the widespread increase in IQ scores over time.

VIDEO: That’s the premise of putting all the researchers at the Centre of Brain and Mind under one roof in a newly created state-of-the-art space at the University of Western Ontario.

Karinthy’s book is, to my mind, a masterpiece. We are inundated now with medical memoirs, both biographical and autobiographical—the entire genre has exploded in the last twenty years. Yet even though the technology may have changed, the human experience has not, and Journey Around My Skull, the first autobiographical description of a journey inside the brain, remains one of the very best.
— Oliver Sacks (from the Introduction)

The term “uncanny valley” refers to an artificial agent’s (such as a robot) drop in likeability when it becomes too humanlike

David Linden's New Book That Explores How Our Brains Make Fatty Foods, Orgasm, Exercise, Marijuana, Generosity, Vodka, Learning, and Gambling Feel So Good

BRISTOL, UNITED KINGDOM - MARCH 10: A real human brain being displayed as part of new exhibition at the Bristol attraction is seen on March 8, 2011 in Bristol, England

A new study confirms it: Google (GOOG) is altering your brain. More precisely, our growing dependence on the Internet has changed how -- and what -- our brains choose to remember.
When we know where to find information, we're less likely to remember it -- an amnesia dubbed The Google Effect by a team led by psychologist Betsy Sparrow of Columbia University.
Goodbye, soul-searching; hello, facts-at-fingertips.

Novocure just completed early trials of a device that shuts down the division of cancerous cells. The device consists of two electrodes placed directly into the brain, around a cancerous tumor. The electrodes then generate an electric field that paralyzes the cells during the moment of division, thus preventing the spread of the cancer

summer reading about the science of the mind

Lumosity works with leading scientists to bring the latest innovations in cognitive improvement out of the lab and into your home.

BECS: Expertise in Biomedical Engineering (BE) and Excellence in Computational Science (CS) We focus on living and other complex systems, their measurement, analysis, modelling, understanding and control.

Systems of interest range from small to large: from quantum dots, molecular interactions and nanosystems to neurons, the brain and the heart to cognition, social and economical networks to information technology systems.

We combine experimental and computational methods and develop algorithms and new technologies to attack major problems in human well-being, medical diagnostics, society, energy, and environment.

Scientists in Israel are testing a noninvasive method to electrically stimulate neurons deep in the brain.

Ultrasound might provide a new, noninvasive way to control brain activity.

Many people who have suffered brain damage turn to creating art. Researchers are studying them to help unravel how the brain works.

life and beyond through the mind's eye

Natasha Mitchell is an Australian science/health journalist, radio host and producer. She presents a weekly program called All in the Mind.

All in the Mind, presented by Natasha Mitchell, is Radio National's weekly foray into all things mental – a program about the mind, brain and behaviour. From dreaming to depression, addiction to artificial intelligence, consciousness to coma, psychoanalysis to psychopathy, free will to forgetting – All in the Mind explores the human condition through the mind's eye.

connectomics aims to map the brain's connections, known as synapses.

By untangling and being able to map these connections -- and deciphering how information flows through the brain's circuits -- scientists hope to understand how thoughts and perceptions are generated in the brain and how these functions go wrong in diseases such as Alzheimer's, schizophrenia and stroke.

In the new Bradley Cooper–Robert de Niro film Limitless, opening March 18, a wonder drug called NZT gives anyone access to 100 percent of their brain, allowing them to reach their full potential. But the drug is not without its side effects. Popular Mechanics talks to scriptwriter Leslie Dixon and director Neil Burger about how to film the effects of a psychoactive drug, and we break down the movie's good and bad science.

Using a combination of microscopy methods, Harvard researchers have untangled part of the circuitry of the cerebral cortex, illuminating brain connections in 3-D. A new neural circuit model will allow researchers to crawl through the individual connections in a neural network.

Researchers from the National Institutes of Health have found that less than an hour of cellphone use can speed up brain activity in the area closest to the phone antenna, raising new questions about the health effects of low levels of radiation emitted from cellphones.

Summary: Over the last decade, the study of complex networks has expanded across diverse scientific fields. Increasingly, science is concerned with the structure, behavior, and evolution of complex systems ranging from cells to ecosystems. Modern network approaches are beginning to reveal fundamental principles of brain architecture and function, and in this book, Olaf Sporns describes how the integrative nature of brain function can be illuminated from a complex network perspective. Highlighting the many emerging points of contact between neuroscience and network science, the book serves to introduce network theory to neuroscientists and neuroscience to those working on theoretical network models.

Brains decide what we see. Kokichi Sugihara knows this better than anyone. He makes videos that trick your brain into seeing things that you know, you absolutely know, can't happen.

A brain–computer interface (BCI), sometimes called a direct neural interface or a brain–machine interface, is a direct communication pathway between a brain and an external device. BCIs are often aimed at assisting, augmenting or repairing human cognitive or sensory-motor functions

Musician and researcher Charles Limb wondered how the brain works during musical improvisation -- so he put jazz musicians and rappers in an fMRI to find out. What he and his team found has deep implications for our understanding of creativity of all kinds.

We are students and related folk (i.e interns) on the MSc in Music, Mind and Brain at Goldsmiths, University of London, a programme which focuses on the cognitive and biological foundations of musical behaviour.

As part of the programme there is an Invited Speaker Series, where experts from the field visit Goldsmiths to share with us their latest research findings. As part of our assessment, we have to write a collaborative blog on one of these talks, some of which have been posted here!

Watching a Musician in the Throes of an Improvisational Solo Can Be Like Witnessing an Act of Divine Intervention. but Embedded Memories and Conspiring Brain Regions, Scientists Now Believe, Are the True Source of Ad-Hoc Creativity.

An Odyssey Through the Brain, Illuminated by a Rainbow

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Article: An Odyssey Through the Brain, Illuminated by a Rainbow

Ten distinguished cognitive neuroscientists, cognitive psychologists and linguists from top institutions across the country will gather at Shriver and Mason halls this week to discuss what promise to be the most exciting new developments in the study of the mind and brain over the coming decade. Sponsored by the departments of Cognitive Science and Psychological and Brain Sciences and the Zanvyl Krieger Mind/Brain Institute, this seminar will do more than stimulate discussion: It will create a blueprint for the future of cognitive and brain sciences at The Johns Hopkins University

Stimulating the brain with a very low electric current can enhance a person's maths ability for up to six months, British neuroscientists said on Thursday.

Researchers at the Cyclotron Research Centre (University of Liege), Geneva Center for Neuroscience and Swiss Center for Affective Sciences (University of Geneva), and Surrey Sleep Research Centre (University of Surrey) investigated the immediate effect of light, and of its color composition, on emotion brain processing using functional magnetic resonance imaging. The results of their study show that the colour of light influences the way the brain processes emotional stimuli.

There was a time when touch screen interfaces existed only in the realm of science fiction. Now that the iPhone is common fare, what comes next? Mind-reading interfaces, of course—and according to PLX Devices, the age of brain-wave controlled technology may be closer than we think.

Musicians Finn Peters and Matthew Yee-King have spent the two years trying to perfect technology that turns brainwaves into music.

Our mission is to increase understanding of the impact of neuroscience on society through research and teaching, and to encourage the responsible use of neuroscience for the benefit of humanity.

Neuroethics & Law Blog
An interdisciplinary forum for legal and ethical issues related to the mind and brain.

We are an interdisciplinary group of scholars, scientists, clinicians and other professionals who share an interest in the social, legal, ethical and policy implications of advances in neuroscience.

Our mission is to promote the development and responsible application of neuroscience through interdisciplinary and international research, education, outreach and public engagement for the benefit of people of all nations, ethnicities, and cultures.

The Dana Foundation supports brain research through grants and educates the public about the successes and potential of brain research.

An Interview with Zack Lynch, author of The Neuro Revolution

emergent is a comprehensive, full-featured neural network simulator that allows for the creation and analysis of complex, sophisticated models of the brain in the world.

antidepressant brain imaging EEG

John Rogers led a team of materials science engineers at the the University of Illinois to develop silk brain implants that can be used to control and monitor seizures and help transmit signals to a prosthetic.

The Johns Hopkins School of Medicine’s Brain Science Institute (BSi) brings together both basic and clinical neuroscientists from across the Johns Hopkins campuses. The BSi represents one of the largest and most diverse groups in the University.

The brain responds not only to sound but also to silence, according to a new study.
Different pathways in the brain respond to the onset and the offset of sounds.
Better knowing how the brain organizes and groups sounds could lead to more effective hearing therapies and devices.

Duke Institute for Brain Sciences (DIBS) advances interdisciplinary research and education that transforms our understanding of brain function and translates into innovative solutions for health and society.

Henry Markram is attempting to reverse engineer an entire human brain, one neuron at a time. This piece is an introduction to director Noah Hutton's 10-year film-in-the-making that will chronicle the development of The Blue Brain Project, a landmark endeavor in modern neuroscience

An ultrasound device designed to produce highly focused sound waves might one day be used to break up stroke-causing blood clots in the brain without surgery or drugs. So far, the system has only been tested on clots in test tubes and animals, but researchers aim to start human tests by the end of 2011.

Brain scan evidence that the defense claimed shows the defendant’s brain was psychopathic was allowed into the sentencing portion of a murder trial in Chicago, Science reported Monday. Brian Dugan, who had been convicted of the rape and murder of a 10-year-old, was sentenced to death, despite the fMRI scans.

Scientists Break Brain/Twitter Barrier
University of Wisconsin-Madison biomedical engineering doctoral student Adam Wilson has successfully tested a "brain wave monitor" to Twitter publishing interface, allowing him to compose a message merely by thinking and publish it to the arguably too-popular microblogging service.

Intel researchers in Pittsburgh told journalists today that brain implants are harnessing human brain waves to surf the Internet, manipulate documents, and much more.

Graduate student Aaron Berkowitz worked on an experiment designed to study brain activity during musical improvisation.

Cognitive Daily reports nearly every day on fascinating peer-reviewed developments in cognition from the most respected scientists in the field.

Laurel Trainor, director of the Institute for Music and the Mind at McMaster University in West Hamilton, Ontario, and colleagues compared preschool children who had taken music lessons with those who did not. Those with some training showed larger brain responses on a number of sound recognition tests given to the children. Her research indicated that musical training appears to modify the brain's auditory cortex.

Adults with little Internet experience show changes in their brain activity after just one week online, a new study finds.

Using our heads ... to move our limbs