LinKs to interesting web sites

Association Areas

Test your reaction time before and after imbibing.

Educational psychologist Peter Doolittle details the importance — and limitations — of your "working memory."

What is so special about the human brain? Ted Talk

The brain uses a quarter of the body's entire energy supply, yet only accounts for about two percent of the body's mass. So how does this unique organ receive and, perhaps more importantly, rid itself of toxins? New research suggests it has to do with sleep.

The world's most detailed scan of the brain's internal wiring produced by scientists at Cardiff University.

An Interactive Brain Map

How can we begin to understand the way the brain works? The same way we begin to understand a city: by making a map. In this visually stunning talk, Allan Jones shows how his team is mapping which genes are turned on in each tiny region, and how it all connects up.

The Invisible Gorilla by Chris Chobris & Daniel Simons

Examples of change blindness from Ronald Rensink

Talking on your cell phone can cause in attentional blindness.

The part of the brain needed to make safe left-hand turns largely shuts off during a cellphone conversation — even if the phone is a hands-free device, a group of Toronto researchers have found.

The Last of the Split-Brain Patients

In this RSAnimate, renowned psychiatrist and writer Iain McGilchrist explains how our 'divided brain' has profoundly altered human behaviour, culture and society.

The man whose brain ignores one half of his world.

These self-portraits, by the German artist Anton Raederscheidt, were painted after a stroke that damaged the cortex of his right parietal lobe. As his brain recovered, his attention to the left side of his world returned (Wurtz, Goldberg, & Robinson, 1982).

Also read Wurtz RH, Goldberg ME, Robinson, Brain mechanisms of visual attention. Sci Am 1982 Jun;246(6):124-35  

The Amazing Case of Phineas Gage. Gage's story was the historical beginnings of the study of the biological basis of behaviour (Antonio Damasio.)

Ben Goldacre: What doctors don't know about the drugs they prescribe. Why you should be sceptical about some findings in medical science.

A Brief History of Lobotomy. Read about this brutal procedure which became a relatively common clinical tool just 50 years ago. Are there current treatment that will be considered just as unacceptable in the next 50 years?

A very compelling account for why electroshock therapy was personally very beneficial.

Download and listen to a pod cast from CBC's Best of Quirks & Quarks of August 5, 2006 about surgery in the brain to treat depression.

Researchers at the University of Gothenburg in Göteborg, Sweden, have created a computer program that can score 150 on standard non-verbal IQ test questions.

A good update on fMRI imaging.