$$ Over Mind Over Matter

For the new fMRI entrepreneurs (see article in the New York Times),

WOULD that thinking made it so... But Christopher deCharms, the chief executive of Omneuron, a start-up in Menlo Park, Calif., believes the adage.

The company he founded has created technologies that teach sufferers to think away their pain, and plans to similarly treat addiction, depression and other intractable neurological and psychological conditions.

Omneuron is one of a number of new companies that are commercializing a brain-scanning technology called real-time functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI. Using large scanners to measure blood flow to different parts of the brain, the technology makes the brain’s activity visible by revealing which of its parts are busiest when we perform different tasks.

Because it's obvious that knowing what parts of the brain "light up" during states of pain, addiction, depression, compulsive hand washing, paranoid delusions, epileptic seizures, etc. will cure those conditions. Right?

Superficially similar to an older technology, electroencephalogram biofeedback, which measures electrical feedback across multiple areas of the brain, fMRI feedback measures the blood flow in precise areas of the brain. [but is 100 times more expensive]

Ugh, and there's more:

Other entrepreneurs are working on ways to deploy fMRI as a lie detector, a tool for conducting marketing research or [Ed. note: a worthwhile application as] an instrument to make brain surgeries safer and more precise.

Yes, another popular fMRIology article about lie detection and neuromarketing. Read the article in The New Yorker instead.

"I'm The Decider,"

said the striatum:

In their experiments, the Duke team focused on a portion of the brain known as the striatum, an area that controls the planning and execution of movement, as well as other cognitive functions. It is in many ways "the decider." In normal brains, a protein known as SAPAP3 is crucial for nerve signals to travel from one nerve cell to another across the synapse, the gap between the cells.

"No, I'm the decider," said the Commander:


"I listen to all voices, but mine is the final decision," he said. "And Don Rumsfeld is doing a fine job. He's not only transforming the military, he's fighting a war on terror. He's helping us fight a war on terror. I have strong confidence in Don Rumsfeld.

"I hear the voices, and I read the front page, and I know the speculation. But I'm the decider, and I decide what is best. And what's best is for Don Rumsfeld to remain as the secretary of defense."

terrorists vs. transhumanists

Transhumanist illustration: Anthony Freda

BREAKPOINT: terrorists vs. transhumanists
by Richard A. Clarke

Former counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke’s BREAKPOINT novel, set in the year 2012, is based on emerging technologies. "Globegrid," a high-speed global network, links supercomputers worldwide. Combined with advanced AI software, it promises to reverse-engineer the brain, revolutionize genomics, enable medical breakthroughs, develop advanced human-machine interfaces, and allow for genetic alterations and even uploading consciousness. But it spurs a terrorist-fundamentalist Luddite backlash against transhumanists, as hackers take down the power grid, and destroy vital international data and telecom links, communications satellites, and biotech firms.

Originally published in Breakpoint, G.P. Putnam’s Sons, January 2007. Reprinted with permission on KurzweilAI.net May 21, 2007. Richard A. Clarke will be featured in Ray Kurzweil's movie, "The Singularity is Near, A True Story about the Future," due for release in Spring 2008.

The Latest Proof Of My Success...

...in attracting ignorant deranged antipsychiatry trolls is HERE. Or should I say troll (singular), and he has enough time on his hands to constantly bomb my blog with threats and profanity.

The Secret To My Success...

The 78th Annual Academy Awards (2006) - Larry McMurtry, Diana Ossana, Ang Lee

...in the movies!

Study Analyzes Secrets to Movie Success
Associated Press - August 17, 2007

. . .

Films that earn awards and praise from reviewers tend to be R-rated and based on a true story or a prize-winning play or novel, says professor Dean Simonton. The original author or the director usually have written the screenplay.

Big-budget blockbusters - whether they're comedies, musical, sequels or remakes - don't ordinarily draw acclaim, Simonton found. Neither do summer releases, PG-13 movies, movies that open on thousands of screens or ones that have enormous box office numbers in their first weekend.

. . .

"I had this hope that there was a difference between blockbusters and really great art films - films that can be considered great cinematic creations," said Simonton, who presented his findings Friday at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association in San Francisco. "It was gratifying to find out they're very, very different and you can find out what's different about them."

. . .

"Brokeback Mountain" is a prime example of what Simonton discovered. It was rated R, had an 87 percent approval rating on the Metacritic.com Web site and it came out at the height of prestige-picture time in December 2005. It featured a top-notch creative team, including director Ang Lee and screenwriters Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana, working from a short story by Pulitzer Prize winner Annie Proulx. The film cost $14 million to make and grossed nearly $175 million worldwide. It was nominated for eight Oscars and won three.

You mean Daddy Day Camp won't be nominated for an Oscar?



ADDENDUM [and note that NONE of these comments apply to The Neurocritic]:

"Critics are academic types who want to prove how smart they are. They're professional grouches who think a critic's job is to be critical," said [Tom] O'Neil, columnist for theenvelope.com Web site. "Unfortunately, great critics tend to be social misfits with extraordinary powers of observation. Being misfits, they tend to bash sentimental movies because they remind them of a loving, nurturing world to which they do not belong."

Laura Elena Harring in Mulholland Dr.

A great example of this, he said, came in 2002. The best-picture winner at the Oscars was Ron Howard's uplifting "A Beautiful Mind" (which was based on a prize-winning book about a true story) but several critics' groups gave their top honors to David Lynch's dreamlike "Mulholland Dr."

"Even though," O'Neil points out, "David Lynch said publicly he had no idea what the movie was about."

Silencio!

I love myself better than you

I know it's wrong so what should I do?

On A Plain
------Nirvana

You don't have to hate other groups to love your own, researcher says

[NOTE: You don't say?]

. . .

"Simply put, we prefer people of our kind, people we know we can rely on. That doesn't mean you have to hate anyone else. But you will be more likely to trust people from your own group," Brewer said.

OK, taken out of context as support for the fatuous title. Here's more:

While it may appear that conflict is an inevitable part of interaction between groups, research actually suggests that fighting, hating and contempt between groups is not a necessary part of human nature, according to an Ohio State University professor of psychology.

"There's still this belief that a group's cohesion depends on conflict with other groups, but the evidence doesn't support that," said Marilynn Brewer of Ohio State.

"Despite evidence to the contrary, you still see this theory in the research literature and in many textbooks."

Brewer has spent much of her career studying "ingroups" – the groups we belong to – and their relations with "outgroups" – those groups to which others belong.

She discussed the nature of these intergroup relations in her invited address Saturday Aug. 18 in San Francisco at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association. The address was in honor of Brewer winning the 2007 Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award from the APA.

In her address, Brewer said recent evidence suggests that people's attachment to their ingroups has nothing to do with conflict – or indeed any other kind of relation – to other groups.

Instead, people join groups to find a place of trust and security.

I'm on a plain
I can't complain
I'm on a plain
I can't complain
I'm on a plain
I can't complain
I'm on a plain
I can't complain
I'm on a plain...

On A Plain
------Nirvana

Mind The Gap Junctions

Gap junctions in the locus coeruleus??

Rash JE, Olson CO, Davidson KG, Yasumura T, Kamasawa N, Nagy JI. (2007). Identification of connexin36 in gap junctions between neurons in rodent locus coeruleus. Neuroscience 147:938-56.

Locus coeruleus neurons are strongly coupled during early postnatal development, and it has been proposed that these neurons are linked by extraordinarily abundant gap junctions consisting of connexin32 (Cx32) and connexin26 (Cx26), and that those same connexins abundantly link neurons to astrocytes. Based on the controversial nature of those claims, immunofluorescence imaging and freeze-fracture replica immunogold labeling were used to re-investigate the abundance and connexin composition of neuronal and glial gap junctions in developing and adult rat and mouse locus coeruleus. In early postnatal development, connexin36 (Cx36) and connexin43 (Cx43) immunofluorescent puncta were densely distributed in the locus coeruleus, whereas Cx32 and Cx26 were not detected. By freeze-fracture replica immunogold labeling, Cx36 was found in ultrastructurally-defined neuronal gap junctions, whereas Cx32 and Cx26 were not detected in neurons and only rarely detected in glia. In 28-day postnatal (adult) rat locus coeruleus, immunofluorescence labeling for Cx26 was always co-localized with the glial gap junction marker Cx43; Cx32 was associated with the oligodendrocyte marker 2′,3′-cyclic nucleotide 3′-phosphodiesterase (CNPase); and Cx36 was never co-localized with Cx26, Cx32 or Cx43. Ultrastructurally, Cx36 was localized to gap junctions between neurons, whereas Cx32 was detected only in oligodendrocyte gap junctions; and Cx26 was found only rarely in astrocyte junctions but abundantly in pia mater. Thus, in developing and adult locus coeruleus, neuronal gap junctions contain Cx36 but do not contain detectable Cx32 or Cx26, suggesting that the locus coeruleus has the same cell-type specificity of connexin expression as observed ultrastructurally in other regions of the CNS. Moreover, in both developing and adult locus coeruleus, no evidence was found for gap junctions or connexins linking neurons with astrocytes or oligodendrocytes, indicating that neurons in this nucleus are not linked to the pan-glial syncytium by Cx32- or Cx26-containing gap junctions or by abundant free connexons composed of those connexins.

Fig. 3 (adapted from Rash et al., 2007). Immunofluorescence localization of connexins in rat LC. (A) Double immunofluorescence of the same field from 7 day postnatal rat showing absence of labeling for Cx26 in the LC (A1), and moderate labeling for Cx43 in the LC and surrounding regions, including ependyma (A2, arrow). Arrows indicate location of the fourth ventricle, asterisks mark the center of the LC, and arrowheads (A1) show positive labeling for Cx26 within leptomeninges (arrowheads, shown at higher magnification in inset). (B) Micrograph showing absence of labeling for Cx32 within the LC (asterisk).

Fig. 8 (adapted from Rash et al., 2007). Cx36-immunogold-labeled gap junctions in P28 (adult) rat LC. (A) At low magnification, a few myelinated axons (Ax) are seen to pass through the nucleus of the LC. This sample was triple-labeled for Cx36 (two 18-nm gold beads) and for Cx32 and Cx47 (6-nm and 12-nm gold beads; none present on neuronal gap junctions). However, Cx32 and Cx47 were abundant in oligodendrocyte gap junctions. Inscribed area in A is enlarged as B. Extremely low background (A) allowed detection of gap junctions consisting of ca. 46 and 48 connexons labeled by two (B) and three (C) 18-nm gold beads (labeling efficiency (LE)≈1:20).