Unconditional love in the brain?

From time to time we bring you the quirky side of neuroscience here at BrainEthics. Now, we discover a funny little study in Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging that bears the attractive title “The neural basis of unconditional love” by Mario Beauregard et al. Indeed, the study of the neural bases of preference formation, aesthetics and even [...]

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Serotonin and value-based decision making

Can antidepressive medicine alter your decision behaviour? A recent paper in Science now demonstrates that alterations in subjects’ serotonin levels leads to significant changes in their decision making behaviour. In the study, subjects were set to play the Ultimatum Game repeatedly. Subjects had to do the task two times at two different days, and at [...]

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Brain plasticity and sexual aberrations

I’m having the pleasure of reading The brain that changes itself by Norman Doidge, as a reviewer for a potential translation here in Denmark. Brain plasticity, or neuroplasticity, has always been a hot topic, from it’s (re)birth in modern neuroscience, and all the way up until today, where researchers are still fiercely debating how plastic [...]

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Oxytocin: the direct route to altruism?

In relation to our previous and well-visited post about oxytocin, we should mention a new study that uses this very substance in a neuroeconomic set-up. In the study, recently published by Neuron, and headed by Baumgartner et al., it was found that the administration of oxytocin affected subjects’ in a trust game. In particular, it [...]

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Cause and effect in brain development of paedophilia

Physorg reports about an interesting forthcoming MRI study linking paedophilia to regional changes in white matter. Analysing structural MRI using voxel-based morphometry, paedophiles were found to have significantly smaller white matter volumes in specific regions, as the abstract demonstrates:
The present investigation sought to identify which brain regions distinguish pedophilic from nonpedophilic men, using unbiased, automated [...]

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A cure for hooliganism?

Can we rid ourselves of the meaningless violence and aggression seen in society today? A news story in Nature News this week shows that aggressiveness may be treated with a serotonin-acting ligand. At least in rats, but nevertheless the study holds the promise for human treatment as well. Serotonin levels are known to be associated [...]

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The death of critical science journalism in NY Times?

Martha Farah just alerted me about her recent comment in the Neuroethics & Law blog. Yesterday, NY Times ran a story about neuro-politics. More precisely, they presented a study of how subjects’ brains responded to, e.g., different political words and pictures of US politicians involved in the 2008 presidental election. The article’s first author [...]

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New book by Chris Frith

The eminent neuropsychologist Chris Frith has recently retired from his job at FIL, the world famous factory for neuroimaging research in London. He is best known for his work on schizophrenia and, during the last ten years, mentalizing and social cognitive neuroscience. His many brillant reviews on these topics will probably be familiar to [...]

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From brain to culture

It was twenty years ago today. Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play.
Actually, last year it was 30 years ago that Nicholas Humphrey published his seminal paper “The social function of intellect” (pdf). Many people see this paper as the impetus to later work on the social brain hypothesis (pdf) and Theory of Mind. Humphrey [...]

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Oxytocin is the window to the soul

Research on the role of oxytocin, a neuropeptide, in social cognition has generated much interest during the last few years. We have earlier written about oxytocin’s role in social attachment; together with vasopressin, another neuropeptide, oxytocin is thought to be critical for linking social signals to structures in the mesolimbic part of the brain responsible [...]

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