Encephalon #84 psychology articles, neurobiology and more

Encephalon Carnival #84 is hosted here this month and it is such an honour. Last spring after enjoying Encephalon for some time, I finally decided to submit a post – and – would you believe it, Encephalon had just disappeared. But it had introduced me to a number of great bloggers. Now Encephalon is re-born, thanks to Mike Lisieski and this is the fourth edition under his watchful eye.
This month we have:

We have a group of post on how things are not as simple and straight forward in brain and behaviour as they may appear.

Jena Pincott at Jena Pincott has Why do women get physically aroused and not even know it? and gives 4 answers rather than just one.

Scicurious at Scientopia has Dieting, Stress and the Changing Brain on why dieting does not work – its epigenetics. (more from Scicurious below)

Sandy Gautam at The Mouse Trap has The Quest for the Holy Glial, a review of Field’s book, The Other Brain. A plug: Sandy has just started a web newspaper, The sandygautam cognitive Daily.

Zen Faulkes at Neurodojo has Spikes without Sodium looking at C.elegan’s use of calcium in place of sodium. (more Neurodojo posts below)

Taylor Burns at Cognoculture has Testosterone and human aggression showing the what testosterone does depends on the situation.

Khalil Cassimally at Lab-coat Life has Brains Breathe: Dopamine’s Role in Preterm Infants putting forward yet another role for dopamine.

Dave Deriso at The Artful Brain has What is Truth? And What is ‘Walking-Dead’ Syndrome? Which looks at Cotard syndrome and what it does to concepts of truth, reality and self.

Edmund Blair Bolles at Babel’s Dawn has Co-Evolution is Real with a look at culture-biology co-evolution in the origin of language. This was one of the first blogs I started to read and has remained one of my favourites – therefore I want to plug the book, Babel’s Dawn: a natural history of the origins of speech.

And we have some posts that are critical in nature. Hooray for the bloggers who keep us from being taken in.

Leyla Adali at MedSci Discoveries has Do Vaccines Cause Autism? talking about how the vaccine doubt lives on, unfortunately for all children.

Zen Faulkes at Neurodojo has We haven’t seen this in a mammal! Rewrite the textbooks! setting straight what is new and what is not in axon-axon communication. And he also has Are Cows Magnetic Sensors? giving another look at north facing cows.

Daniel Lende at Neuroanthropology has The Brain is Essential – But Don’t Call It Essentialist! which is a review of 7 other posts to help us stay out of thought ruts.

Karen Franklin at In the News: Forensic psychology, criminology and psychology-law has Paint brushes and soap: The slippery slope of unfettered power exposing detention center abuses. Here is a link to forensic psychology

Janet Kwasniak (that’s me) at Thougths on thoughts (that’s here) has Analog thinking examining the difference between digital and analog metaphors for the brain.

Next is a group of blogs that has tender-heartedness, sight and sound mixed with their serious messages.

Scicurious at Scientopia has This is your Brain on Music adding a bit more to the dopamine picture.

Raymond Ho Eric Johnson is Eric Johnson’s Raymond Ho’s guest at The Prancing Papio and has Touching Death, a moving look at primate reaction to death.

Michael Lisieski has a guest post at Scientific American, Pleasure, reward…and Rabbits! Why do animals bhave as they do? It has enchanting examples for an explanation of behaviour. Don’t miss the kids eating lemons.

Last - a pair of unique posts that haven’t fitted into the other groups.

Jeremy Burman is Jacy Young’s guest at Advances in the History of Psychology and has Brief History of PsycINFO, a history, with links, of psychology source material search engine.

Romeo Vitelli at Providentia has The Mathematician in the Asylum about Andre Bloch’s life. It reminds me of the old joke’s punch-line, “I may be mad but I’m not stupid”.

The next edition (#85) will be hosted by Neurdojo – check Encephalon for details.

Apology - I mistakenly mixed up who was guest on whose blog. Eric Johnson was the guest of Raymond Ho and the author of the posting. Very sorry. JK

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