Nobel Conference Blog

Author: mferrag

  • Phantom Vibration Syndrome

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    mferrag

    Read today’s NYTimes op-ed piece You Love Your iPhone. Literally on how our brain circuitry reveals that our addiction to our iPhones may really be true love.  Please join us next week in learning more about what the brain sciences might be able to tell us about love, addiction and the potential  benefits and consequences…

  • Neural iPhones, Telepathic Helmets and Thought Chips

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    mferrag

    Read a recent article in the NYTimes “The Cyborg in Us All” and come to Nobel 47 The Brain and Being Human to learn more about how human communication may be revolutionized when mind is melded to machine.

  • The Game of Love

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    mferrag

    Read what neuroscientist David Linden, author of The Compass of Pleasure, has to say about the neurobiology of love in his answers to the “Five Questions” series in the Washington Post. Come learn more about this topic from Dr Larry Young on Tuesday October 4 at the upcoming Nobel Conference 47, The Brain and Being…

  • When the Melody Takes a Detour, the Science Begins

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    mferrag

    A NYTimes article reports on a recent World Science Conference on Music and Spontaneity when a panel of neuroscientists and musicians discussed the  “neurological processes underlying improvisation and what they tell us about human creativity and the structure of the brain”. One may wonder whether the scientific study of music a worthwhile endeavor?  Or perhaps…

  • Neuromarketing: Music Sales

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    mferrag

    ScienceNow reports that when neuroeconomist Gregory Berns used functional magnetic resonance to image the brains of teenagers while they listened to songs, he found that  the average activity elicited by a song in the reward centers of the brain was a better predictor of a song’s commercial success than the likability ratings for the song…

  • Brain Implants: Restoring Memories

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    mferrag

    The NYTimes reported that scientists at Wake Forest and USC implanted an electrode into the hippocampus of a rat that played memories “like a melody on a piano”, thus restoring a forgotten learning rule. On October 4 and 5, speakers invited to Nobel 47 The Brain and Being Human will discuss some of the exciting…

  • Friedman Wins Lasker Award

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    mferrag

    Yesterday the  New York Times reported that the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation honored Jeffrey Friedman, Rockefeller University,  and Douglas Coleman, Jackson Laboratory, with the prestigious Lasker Award for their discovery of leptin, a hormone produced by fat cells that regulates metabolic rate and food intake.   Please do listen to Dr Friedman discuss “Leptin and…

  • Leptin As Treatment For Diabetes?

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    mferrag

    Earlier this year Science Daily  reported that “researchers have found that even a very little bit of the fat hormone leptin goes a long way when it comes to correcting diabetes. The hormone controls the activity of a gene known as IGFBP2 in the liver, which has antidiabetic effects in animals and could have similar…

  • Dr. Linda Bartoshuk profiled in Science

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    mferrag

    The June 18 issue of Science contains a biographical profile featuring Dr Linda Bartoshuk who will speak at Nobel 2010, Making Food Good.  The article highlights her pathway to becoming a psychophysicist, the discovery of “supertasters”, and recent efforts to reconfigure the subjective scale employed to assess such attributes as pain and taste. Science article…