Brains on my mind

I may need to have this asap



And this.



How beautiful is the gray with the yellow on a mahogany background? And who doesn't need a brain trinket box or wall clock?

When Music Comes out of your vegetables

What's synesthesia?
Most artistic renditions I've seen involve color- graphemic synesthesia, in which letters or numbers have a specific color ascribed to them. Terri Timely takes it one step further. Sadly, I don't think synesthesia is this beautiful. Wouldn't we all love to make music out of vegetables.

Check it out.

I knew there was a reason I love sushi

I just read an interesting article in the New York Times reporting that older adults in Asia and Latin America are less likely to develop dementia if they regularly consumed fish. What is perhaps even more surprising is that the opposite effect was found for meat- the more you eat it, the more likely you are to develop dementia. Now, before you throw out all your meat and worry about the irreparable damage you've done to your brain, keep in mind that the results should be taken with a grain of salt. All the data was gathered from observational studies, inviting many confounding variables which could just as well account for the results. The New York Times is once again very vague on how the studies were conducted (sadly, it is not an academic journal and not many people want to hear about sample size, research protocol, and statistical tests used). Nonetheless, it's interesting stuff, and I invite anything that encourages my scary obsession with sushi.

Music and the Mind

I've recently been thinking a lot about the effects of music on the brain. Last week noted neurologist Oliver Sacks gave a fascinating interview on the daily show in which he discussed his new book, Musicophilia, as well as what his own brain looks like on music. Oliver Sacks, as some of you may know, is the author of numerous other books, including his most famous, The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat, a novel that explores a variety of neurological disorders. I've just started his new book, so I'll let you know how that goes. There's been more brain-music news this week; in All in the Mind, a highly recommended podcast that I listen to religiously, host Natasha Mitchell discusses the mind of nineteenth century composer Robert Schummann. Natasha explores his life, his relationship to music, and his abrupt death at 46 in a mental asylum. Is there a connection, she asks, between mental illness and musical genius? This is a question that is not unknown to me, as I have been involved in formal debates and have written papers, in fact about Schumann himself, on this very topic. I as of yet have no answers, and neither, as I expected, does Natasha. It certainly is fascinating to think about and I highly recommend giving it a listen. Have a good day folks, and don't forget to listen to some music :)

Update: the folks at scientific american mind also seem to have their brains on music

Who doesn't love some good brain pictures on a Thursday afternoon?

I found these stunning neurological images that are just amazing. It's regularly updated, so keep checking it out.