Monthly Archive for April, 2009
Emotions and the Brain
I’ve recently started to think about emotions. I’m not a very emotional person. I guess I’m just like many other men. I admit that I’m stereotyping here so I hope you don’t mind. However, I often wonder why men and women tend to differ so much when it comes to our emotions. There are so many stereotypes and many of them seem to be true most of the time.Do emotions come from our brains, our hearts, or from some other organ? Does it come from hormones and other chemicals circulating in our bloodstream?
Who Gets to be a Doctor?
I was intrigued by a recent article in the New York Times describing how a Swedish medical school admitted a student whom they later learned had done jail time for murder. Apparently Swedish universities aren’t allowed to do criminal background checks, and even if they were, the student in question had legally changed his name prior to his application to medical school. So now the murderous Swede is a medical student, and the school is wondering what to do with him.
Cognitive Theories and Brain Damage
Cognitive theorists postulate how information is processed. For example, is it like a computer where all the information is broken down into bits, processed, and then reassembled for output? Or is processing handled in a completely different manner? One prevalent way to test theories of cognitive psychology is by studying patients (whether human or animal) with brain damage. There are both advantages and disadvantages to using brain-damaged patients to test and construct cognitive theories.
Father’s Milk
There’s a great scene in Meet the Parents in which Ben Stiller’s character Greg is trying to convince his future father-in-law, played by Robert DeNiro, of his history of milking cats in Detroit. He claims it’s possible because cats have nipples. DeNiro’s character replies, “I have nipples, Greg. Can you milk me?”In spite of the disturbing mental image this conjures, it actually is possible for men to produce breast milk. As DeNiro’s character so comedically noted, men do indeed have nipples.
Popular Posts
- The Love Drug
- Women After Sex
- Fatty Acids and Suicide Risk
- Mind Games - Science's Attempts at Thought Control
- Risks of Personalized Medicine
- Is Giftedness Nothing More than Good Genes?
- Intelligence - Are You Holding Back Your Brain?
- Behind the Masks - The Mysteries of Dissociative Identity Disorder
- The NeuroSocial Network
- Inside Your Brain on Holiday
Future Posts
- Drug-Induced Mystical Experience
- Facebook – Coming to a 12-Step Program near You?
Latest Posts
- Therapeutic Analysis of Dreams – A Cognitive-Behavioral Approach
- Small Groups Make Women Stupid
- Psychotherapy and Clinical Boundaries
- The Brain’s Buying Power
- Aging Intelligently
- A Nicotine Patch a Day Keeps the Cognitive Impairment Away
- The Many Emerging Roles of Astrocytes
- Diabetes Impairs Cognition
- Media Violence Leads to Real Violence
- Intelligence – Are You Holding Back Your Brain?
Comments
- Psicologos Barcelona: Richard, tu español es muy bue
- Lage: Alexis,What evidence do yo
- Adi: Hi, with my best intentions an
- Tamara G. Suttle, M.Ed., LPC: Thanks so much, Richard, for d
- PhD: The title of this article is o
- Niobe Chacks: Well;the article is good but i
- Alexis Remm: LageI think that you don´t
- Lage: Alexis,You still never ans
- JamMiester1711: Be careful not to be miss info
- Ron: If there is such a thing as a
- Cory: How about how TV commercials t
- Caoimhin: This was extremely satisfying
