Encephalon, Thirty-Third Edition

Welcome to the thirty-third edition of Encephalon. We at Brain Blogger are honored to host this neuroscience blogging carnival. We received many quality posts that we have included below. Enjoy your readings; you will certainly learn a great deal!

Brain and Behavior

The Neurocritic explores the possibility predicting the likelihood of treatment-emergent suicidal ideation in depressed patients on SSRIs — so called “suicide genes.” Recent research on the emergence of two potential biomarkers may be able to lead us in that direction. He also reports on a recent line of studies that suggest that blocking melanocortin receptors affects fat storage and metabolism.

Alvaro Fernandez of SharpBrains explores what you can do to become happier by examining four key aspects — “you”, “can”, “do”, and “happier” — from a neuropsychological perspective. He also presents 10 highlights from the 2007 Aspen Health Forum.

GrrlScientist writes a thorough review on book that considers body maps in the interpretation of mind-body interactions.

Jeremy Burman of Advances in the History of Psychology analyzes the enormous impact of the Kinsey Reports and excerpts the changes in “normal” sexual behavior throughout the past half-century.

Neurophysiology and Pathology

Sandeep Gautam of the Mouse Trap delves into the neuro-orientation of language involving both rule-crunching and memory-retrieval systems. However, music has only recently been attributed to both trains of processing employed in language.

Ed Young of Not Exactly Rocket Science touches on some interesting research in medical professionals empathy or sensitivity to pain. It attempts to explain how experienced doctors may be able to modulate their empathy, yet control their emotions to pain.

Paul of Memoirs of a Postgrad posts a three part series taking an exhaustive look into the pre-frontal cortex — from anatomy, temporal organization, to areal specificity. It is ideal for those who do not want to read a fine 24 page review in Neuron or just need to recap the most important facts.

Zachary Tong of Distributed Neuron offers two great posts. First, he covers a possible gene therapy treatment option for Huntington’s disease based on idea of promoting neurogenesis. Second, he takes us through the sensory system of birds, particularly the ability to sense ambient magnetic fields — magnetoreception.

Neurobiology

Mo of NeuroPhilosophy explores the unique laterality of the brain and its functions in a world of symmetry. In another post, he dissects a recent paper about laterality in the nematode worm into manageable figures and simple annotations.

Caio Maximino of The Principles of Neurobiotaxis tries to summarize a review on the impact of microarray studies on theories of brain evolution.

Chris Patil of Ouroboros summarizes a model of microglial cellular senescence in Alzheimer’s disease.

Misc. Psychology

Sandra Kiume of Channel N offers an audio broadcast of an interview with Vaughan Bell of Mind Hacks focused on internet therapy.

Jeremy Dean of PsyBlog presents a unique account of a distinguished scientist narrating his own stroke — from presenting symptoms to recovery. On a similar note, Dean writes a book review of psychiatrist’s battle with bipolar disorder.

Robert Yourell of the Brain Blogger uncovers the disassociation of “innovation” in “psychotherapy” and discusses the possible root causes — largely methodological. He also offers another interesting post on the individuality of attention deficit disorder to combat stereotyped social normals and “mistreatment.”

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The next edition of this carnival will be held at Distributed Neuron on October 22nd. If you would like to contribute, send an email with links to up to 3 blog posts to encephalon{dot}host{at}gmail{dot}com or visit this page.