Brain Blogging, Forty-Sixth Edition

Welcome to the forty-sixth edition of Brain Blogging. In this round, we discuss the difference between thoughts and intuitions, the power of exercise on memory and neurogenesis, and a proposal for a new psychiatric diagnosis: Post-Traumatic Embitterment Disorder (PTED).

Remember, we review the latest blogs related to the brain and mind that go beyond the basic sciences into a more human and multidimensional perspective. You can check out our archive for past editions.

For future carnivals, please remember to submit your blog entries using the online submission form. We will do our best to review and include your entry! Enjoy your readings…

It’s All in the Mind…

axel g writes Subtle Intuitions:

So, how do you know the differences between thoughts and intuitions? These differences are subtle yet present. Thoughts are thoughts as we know them and intuitions are packages of knowing. Intuitions contain wisdom or knowledge that thoughts know nothing of.

Strenua’s World writes Do you want to improve your memory? Run a marathon!!:

The findings in the paper by Teal Eich and Janet Metcalfe, show that human memory functioning can be dynamically altered by strenuous activities such as marathon running, an activity in which hundreds of thousands of healthy normal individuals routinely participate in.

Scientific Living writes How to Tell Your Own Future:

After you take the time to let yourself become calm and relaxed, by breathing, or by spending time in nature, or whatever else, you go and write on a piece of paper. The kind of thoughts that crop up in your mind at that time are going to be the most predominant and forceful thoughts that you have been thinking in your life. These are the thoughts that are ever ready to come back to the surface of your mind, even though you just spent some time making it calm.

Brain Stimulant writes Brain Synapse Computational Capacity:

By merely simulating a higher level of brain functioning (overall neuron firing/activity) on a computer, researchers may totally miss a substantial amount of lower level functioning. So future computer brain simulations will likely have to model all of these protein interactions to function in a manner similar to a real brain. Even then, it is not clear if they will be successful in modeling the mind exactly (especially without the underlying physics of our world).

The Emotion Machine writes The Psychology of Haircuts:

One of the most intriguing characteristics of the haircut is that it constitutes a direct change of our body at an alarmingly quick speed. One minute we may have hair down to our knees, while the next we are completely bald. This kind of phenomenon causes immediate perceptual change of our body and self.

Living the Scientific Life writes Post-Traumatic Embitterment Disorder: The Newest Mental Illness?:

Dr. Linden first noticed an increase in angry, disillusioned and embittered patients after German reunification. But what is bitterness, and how are those who supposedly suffer from PTED different from people who are justifiably angry about the current state of their lives or their country?

Dr Shock MD PhD writes Neuroscience of Exercise:

The effects of diet and exercise could be additive and/or synergistic. Exercise as well as caloric restriction can stimulate neurogenesis.The effects of dietary measure on neurogenesis is relatively small compared to exercise. The effects of polyphenolen on angiogenesis or improved vascularization of the brain is superior to exercise.

Bioblog by Biotunes writes Why fear mongering is so successful:

People from both extreme ends of the political spectrum claim to have logically thought through their positions, but that process always carries bias along with it. The root of our social biases is in-group vs. out-group mentality – how we distinguish those ‘with’ us from those ‘against.’

A.E.Brain writes Brain Gender Identity:

Dr Ecker is not a psychiatrist, he’s a urologist, with very extensive clinical experience in observing the effects of hormonal treatment of a variety of patients, transsexual and otherwise. He has no particular axe to grind, but he has seen so much misinformation, he wants to set the record straight. To put some Science into the issue.

Experiment: Gerbus writes Fixing Depression:

I struggled with myself through college and university, at every turn of depression asking what was really happening, trying to be as honest with myself as I could. One obstacle for me was the method by which I defined cause and effect. I think most young people see the world as external to themselves, and look for causes to their own reactions in that external world.