AGRADEÇO A SUA VINDA..
AGRADEÇO O SEU CARINHO...
A maioria pensa com a sensibilidade, eu sinto com o pensamento. Para o homem vulgar, sentir é viver e pensar é saber viver. Para mim, pensar é viver e sentir não é mais que o alimento de pensar.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Is Your Brain A Communist?
Capitalists beware. No less a journal than Nature has just published a paper proving conclusively that the human brain is a Communist, and that it's plotting the overthrow of the bourgeois order and its replacement by the revolutionary Dictatorship of the Proletariat even as we speak.
Kind of. The article, Neural evidence for inequality-averse social preferences, doesn't mention the C word, but it does claim to have found evidence that people's brains display more egalitarianism than people themselves admit to.
Tricomi et al took 20 pairs of men. At the start of the study, both men got a $30 payment, but one member of each pair was then randomly chosen to get a $50 bonus. Thus, one guy was "rich", while the other was "poor". Both men then had fMRI scans, during which they were offered various sums of money and saw their partner being offered money too. They rated how "appealing" these money transfers were on a 10 point scale.
What happened? Unsurprisingly both "rich" and "poor" said that they were pleased at the prospect of getting more cash for themselves, the poor somewhat more so, but people also had opinions about payments to the other guy:
What about the brain? When people received money for themselves, activity in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) and the ventral striatum correlated with the size of their gain.
However, when presented with a payment to the other person, these areas seemed to be rather egalitarian. Activity rose in rich people when their poor colleagues got money. In fact, it was greater in that case than when they got money themselves, which means the "rich" people's neural activity was more egalitarian than their subjective ratings were. Whereas in "poor" people, the vmPFC and the ventral striatum only responded to getting money, not to seeing the rich getting even richer.
The authors conclude that this
Notice that this is essentially a claim about psychology, not neuroscience, even though the authors used neuroimaging in this study. They started out by assuming some neuroscience - in this case, that activity in the vmPFC and the ventral striatum indicates reward i.e. pleasure or liking - and then used this to investigate psychology, in this case, the idea that people value equality per se, as opposed to the alternative idea, that "dislike for unequal outcomes could also be explained by concerns for social image or reciprocity, which do not require a direct aversion towards inequality."
This is known as reverse inference, i.e. inference from data about the brain to theories about the mind. It's very common in neuroimaging papers - we've all done it - but it is problematic. In this case, the problem is that the argument relies on the idea that activity in the vmPFC and ventral striatum is evidence for liking.
But while there's certainly plenty of evidence that these areas are activated by reward, and the authors confirmed that activity here correlated with monetary gain, that doesn't mean that they only respond to reward. They could also respond to other things. For example, there's evidence that the vmPFC is also activated by looking at angry and sad faces.
Or to put it another way: seeing someone you find attractive makes your pupils dilate. If you were to be confronted by a lion, your pupils would dilate. Fortunately, that doesn't mean you find lions attractive - because fear also causes pupil dilation.
So while Tricomi et al argue that people, or brains, like equality, on the basis of these results, I remain to be fully convinced. As Russell Poldrack noted in 2006
Tricomi E, Rangel A, Camerer CF, & O'Doherty JP (2010). Neural evidence for inequality-averse social preferences. Nature, 463 (7284), 1089-91 PMID: 20182511
Kind of. The article, Neural evidence for inequality-averse social preferences, doesn't mention the C word, but it does claim to have found evidence that people's brains display more egalitarianism than people themselves admit to.Tricomi et al took 20 pairs of men. At the start of the study, both men got a $30 payment, but one member of each pair was then randomly chosen to get a $50 bonus. Thus, one guy was "rich", while the other was "poor". Both men then had fMRI scans, during which they were offered various sums of money and saw their partner being offered money too. They rated how "appealing" these money transfers were on a 10 point scale.
What happened? Unsurprisingly both "rich" and "poor" said that they were pleased at the prospect of getting more cash for themselves, the poor somewhat more so, but people also had opinions about payments to the other guy:
the low-pay group disliked falling farther behind the high-pay group (‘disadvantageous inequality aversion’), because they rated positive transfers to the high-pay participants negatively, even though these transfers had no effect on their own earnings. Conversely, the high-pay group seemed to value transfers [to the poor person] that closed the gap between their earnings and those of the low-pay group (‘advantageous inequality aversion’)
However, when presented with a payment to the other person, these areas seemed to be rather egalitarian. Activity rose in rich people when their poor colleagues got money. In fact, it was greater in that case than when they got money themselves, which means the "rich" people's neural activity was more egalitarian than their subjective ratings were. Whereas in "poor" people, the vmPFC and the ventral striatum only responded to getting money, not to seeing the rich getting even richer.
The authors conclude that this
indicates that basic reward structures in the brain may reflect even stronger equity considerations than is necessarily expressed or acted on at the behavioural level... Our results provide direct neurobiological evidence in support of the existence of inequality-averse social preferences in the human brain.
This is known as reverse inference, i.e. inference from data about the brain to theories about the mind. It's very common in neuroimaging papers - we've all done it - but it is problematic. In this case, the problem is that the argument relies on the idea that activity in the vmPFC and ventral striatum is evidence for liking.
But while there's certainly plenty of evidence that these areas are activated by reward, and the authors confirmed that activity here correlated with monetary gain, that doesn't mean that they only respond to reward. They could also respond to other things. For example, there's evidence that the vmPFC is also activated by looking at angry and sad faces.
Or to put it another way: seeing someone you find attractive makes your pupils dilate. If you were to be confronted by a lion, your pupils would dilate. Fortunately, that doesn't mean you find lions attractive - because fear also causes pupil dilation.
So while Tricomi et al argue that people, or brains, like equality, on the basis of these results, I remain to be fully convinced. As Russell Poldrack noted in 2006
caution should be exercised in the use of reverse inference... In my opinion, reverse inference should be viewed as another tool (albeit an imperfect one) with which to advance our understanding of the mind and brain. In particular, reverse inferences can suggest novel hypotheses that can then be tested in subsequent experiments.
Tricomi E, Rangel A, Camerer CF, & O'Doherty JP (2010). Neural evidence for inequality-averse social preferences. Nature, 463 (7284), 1089-91 PMID: 20182511
Is Your Brain A Communist?
Capitalists beware. No less a journal than Nature has just published a paper proving conclusively that the human brain is a Communist, and that it's plotting the overthrow of the bourgeois order and its replacement by the revolutionary Dictatorship of the Proletariat even as we speak.
Kind of. The article, Neural evidence for inequality-averse social preferences, doesn't mention the C word, but it does claim to have found evidence that people's brains display more egalitarianism than people themselves admit to.
Tricomi et al took 20 pairs of men. At the start of the study, both men got a $30 payment, but one member of each pair was then randomly chosen to get a $50 bonus. Thus, one guy was "rich", while the other was "poor". Both men then had fMRI scans, during which they were offered various sums of money and saw their partner being offered money too. They rated how "appealing" these money transfers were on a 10 point scale.
What happened? Unsurprisingly both "rich" and "poor" said that they were pleased at the prospect of getting more cash for themselves, the poor somewhat more so, but people also had opinions about payments to the other guy:
What about the brain? When people received money for themselves, activity in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) and the ventral striatum correlated with the size of their gain.
However, when presented with a payment to the other person, these areas seemed to be rather egalitarian. Activity rose in rich people when their poor colleagues got money. In fact, it was greater in that case than when they got money themselves, which means the "rich" people's neural activity was more egalitarian than their subjective ratings were. Whereas in "poor" people, the vmPFC and the ventral striatum only responded to getting money, not to seeing the rich getting even richer.
The authors conclude that this
Notice that this is essentially a claim about psychology, not neuroscience, even though the authors used neuroimaging in this study. They started out by assuming some neuroscience - in this case, that activity in the vmPFC and the ventral striatum indicates reward i.e. pleasure or liking - and then used this to investigate psychology, in this case, the idea that people value equality per se, as opposed to the alternative idea, that "dislike for unequal outcomes could also be explained by concerns for social image or reciprocity, which do not require a direct aversion towards inequality."
This is known as reverse inference, i.e. inference from data about the brain to theories about the mind. It's very common in neuroimaging papers - we've all done it - but it is problematic. In this case, the problem is that the argument relies on the idea that activity in the vmPFC and ventral striatum is evidence for liking.
But while there's certainly plenty of evidence that these areas are activated by reward, and the authors confirmed that activity here correlated with monetary gain, that doesn't mean that they only respond to reward. They could also respond to other things. For example, there's evidence that the vmPFC is also activated by looking at angry and sad faces.
Or to put it another way: seeing someone you find attractive makes your pupils dilate. If you were to be confronted by a lion, your pupils would dilate. Fortunately, that doesn't mean you find lions attractive - because fear also causes pupil dilation.
So while Tricomi et al argue that people, or brains, like equality, on the basis of these results, I remain to be fully convinced. As Russell Poldrack noted in 2006
Tricomi E, Rangel A, Camerer CF, & O'Doherty JP (2010). Neural evidence for inequality-averse social preferences. Nature, 463 (7284), 1089-91 PMID: 20182511
Kind of. The article, Neural evidence for inequality-averse social preferences, doesn't mention the C word, but it does claim to have found evidence that people's brains display more egalitarianism than people themselves admit to.Tricomi et al took 20 pairs of men. At the start of the study, both men got a $30 payment, but one member of each pair was then randomly chosen to get a $50 bonus. Thus, one guy was "rich", while the other was "poor". Both men then had fMRI scans, during which they were offered various sums of money and saw their partner being offered money too. They rated how "appealing" these money transfers were on a 10 point scale.
What happened? Unsurprisingly both "rich" and "poor" said that they were pleased at the prospect of getting more cash for themselves, the poor somewhat more so, but people also had opinions about payments to the other guy:
the low-pay group disliked falling farther behind the high-pay group (‘disadvantageous inequality aversion’), because they rated positive transfers to the high-pay participants negatively, even though these transfers had no effect on their own earnings. Conversely, the high-pay group seemed to value transfers [to the poor person] that closed the gap between their earnings and those of the low-pay group (‘advantageous inequality aversion’)
However, when presented with a payment to the other person, these areas seemed to be rather egalitarian. Activity rose in rich people when their poor colleagues got money. In fact, it was greater in that case than when they got money themselves, which means the "rich" people's neural activity was more egalitarian than their subjective ratings were. Whereas in "poor" people, the vmPFC and the ventral striatum only responded to getting money, not to seeing the rich getting even richer.
The authors conclude that this
indicates that basic reward structures in the brain may reflect even stronger equity considerations than is necessarily expressed or acted on at the behavioural level... Our results provide direct neurobiological evidence in support of the existence of inequality-averse social preferences in the human brain.
This is known as reverse inference, i.e. inference from data about the brain to theories about the mind. It's very common in neuroimaging papers - we've all done it - but it is problematic. In this case, the problem is that the argument relies on the idea that activity in the vmPFC and ventral striatum is evidence for liking.
But while there's certainly plenty of evidence that these areas are activated by reward, and the authors confirmed that activity here correlated with monetary gain, that doesn't mean that they only respond to reward. They could also respond to other things. For example, there's evidence that the vmPFC is also activated by looking at angry and sad faces.
Or to put it another way: seeing someone you find attractive makes your pupils dilate. If you were to be confronted by a lion, your pupils would dilate. Fortunately, that doesn't mean you find lions attractive - because fear also causes pupil dilation.
So while Tricomi et al argue that people, or brains, like equality, on the basis of these results, I remain to be fully convinced. As Russell Poldrack noted in 2006
caution should be exercised in the use of reverse inference... In my opinion, reverse inference should be viewed as another tool (albeit an imperfect one) with which to advance our understanding of the mind and brain. In particular, reverse inferences can suggest novel hypotheses that can then be tested in subsequent experiments.
Tricomi E, Rangel A, Camerer CF, & O'Doherty JP (2010). Neural evidence for inequality-averse social preferences. Nature, 463 (7284), 1089-91 PMID: 20182511
MELHOR QUE...VALE A PENA
ENCONTREI NO BLOG UIVO DA LOBA DA AMIGA VALERIA RUSSO
Diante desta profusão de descobertas, acho mais seguro não mudar de hábitos.
Sei direitinho o que faz bem e o que faz mal pra minha saúde. Prazer faz muito bem.
Brigar me provoca arritmia cardíaca.
Testemunhar gente jogando lata de cerveja pela janela do carro me faz perder toda a fé no ser humano.
E telejornais... os médicos deveriam proibir - como doem!
Cinema é melhor pra saúde do que pipoca! Conversa é melhor do que piada. Exercício é melhor do que cirurgia.
Humor é melhor do que rancor. Amigos são melhores do que gente influente. Economia é melhor do que dívida. Pergunta é melhor do que dúvida.
Sonhar é melhor do que nada! Luís Fernando Veríssimo
OBRIGADA AMIGA.http://uivodaloba.blogspot.com/
AGRADEÇO A ESTE LINDO SELO E QUE OFEREÇO A TODOS.
MAS UMA VEZ OBRIGADA VALERIA http://uivodaloba.blogspot.com/
.....(ELE FAZ PARTE INCONDICIONALMENTE DE NOSSA VIDA)
E LEVE O SELINHO...
INDICO: EM ESPECIAL A ANA, MARCIA, MYLLA, ISA E MARI
A TODOS OS MEUS AMIGOS DO CORAÇÃO..QUE PASSAM POR AQUI TODOS OS DIAS.
ESTE PRESENTE EU JÁ HAVIA GANHO.
AGORA QUERO OFERECER, A TODOS. AS VEZES SENTIMOS A NECESSIDADE DE FAZER ISSO..
AMIGOS INCONDICIONAL..AMIGOS DO CORAÇÃO.
Poetas-Um Voo Livre
(Tem selo para você.)
Dormir me deixa 0 km.
Ler um bom livro faz-me sentir novo em folha. Viajar me deixa tenso antes de embarcar, mas depois rejuvenesço uns cinco anos. Viagens aéreas não me incham as pernas; incham-me o cérebro, volto cheio de ideias.
Ver pessoas tendo acessos de estupidez me
embrulha o estômago.
Caminhar faz bem, dançar faz bem, ficar em silêncio quando uma discussão está pegando fogo,
faz muito bem! Você exercita o auto controle e ainda acorda no outro dia sem se sentir arrependido de nada.
Acordar de manhã arrependido do que disse ou do que fez ontem à noite é prejudicial à saúde! E passar o resto do dia sem coragem para pedir desculpas, pior ainda! Não pedir perdão pelas nossas mancadas dá câncer, não há tomate ou mussarela que previna. Ir ao cinema, conseguir um lugar central nas fileiras do fundo, não ter ninguém atrapalhando sua visão, nenhum celular tocando e o filme ser espetacular, uau! OBRIGADA AMIGA.http://uivodaloba.blogspot.com/
AGRADEÇO A ESTE LINDO SELO E QUE OFEREÇO A TODOS.
MAS UMA VEZ OBRIGADA VALERIA http://uivodaloba.blogspot.com/
ESCOLHER 4 AMIGOS.
RESPONDER A FRASE...UM AMIGO É MAIS CHEGADO QUE UM IRMÃO QUANDO:.....(ELE FAZ PARTE INCONDICIONALMENTE DE NOSSA VIDA)
E LEVE O SELINHO...
INDICO: EM ESPECIAL A ANA, MARCIA, MYLLA, ISA E MARI
A TODOS OS MEUS AMIGOS DO CORAÇÃO..QUE PASSAM POR AQUI TODOS OS DIAS.
ESTE PRESENTE EU JÁ HAVIA GANHO.
AGORA QUERO OFERECER, A TODOS. AS VEZES SENTIMOS A NECESSIDADE DE FAZER ISSO..
AMIGOS INCONDICIONAL..AMIGOS DO CORAÇÃO.
Poetas-Um Voo Livre
(Tem selo para você.)
Sinal de Liberdade-uma expressão de sentimento
Blog Coletivo-Uma Interação de Amigos-
SILENCIO
VENHA BUSCAR SEU LINDO SELO...
Meus Mimos-VOU TE ESPERAR LÁ.
CURIOSA AGRADECE...
SILENCIO
VENHA BUSCAR SEU LINDO SELO...
Meus Mimos-VOU TE ESPERAR LÁ.
CURIOSA AGRADECE...
Monday, March 1, 2010
MAIS UMA VEZ..ESTOU FELIZ!!
NESTE MÊS EU SOU DESTAQUE NESTE LINDO CANTINHO
::Destaque mês de Março::MUITO OBRIGADA RITINHA.
::Destaque mês de Março::MUITO OBRIGADA RITINHA.
VENHA COMIGO...
Poetas-Um Voo Livre
(Tem selo para você.)
Sinal de Liberdade-uma expressão de sentimento
Blog Coletivo-Uma Interação de Amigos-
O QUE FAZER PARA TRANSFORMAR E FAZER UM MUNDO MELHOR?
VENHA BUSCAR SEU LINDO SELO...
O QUE FAZER PARA TRANSFORMAR E FAZER UM MUNDO MELHOR?
VENHA BUSCAR SEU LINDO SELO...
The Crazies
I just watched The Crazies, a remake of Romero's 1973 original of the same name, about a small town struck by an outbreak of insanity following a biological weapon accident. It's not for the faint of heart: I was unsettled by a number of the scenes and I watch a lot of horror movies.Which is to say, it's excellent. It maintains a high pitch of tension through the whole 100 minutes, something that a lot of horror doesn't manage. All too often, I find, a movie will start out scary enough, but then by some point about half way through it's effectively turned into an action movie.
This happens when the nature of the monster/killer/zombies have been revealed and all the protagonists have to do is fight it out - with the uncertainty gone, the horror goes, too. Without giving too much away, The Crazies avoids this trap. (The last great horror movie I saw, Paranormal Activity, does too, although in a very different way).
Of course the real reason I liked this movie is that it's got some neuroscience. The Crazies is (spoilers) about an engineered virus that infects the brain. Early symptoms include fever, blank stares, flattened emotions and stereotypies. This then progresses, over the course of about 48 hours, to psychopathic aggression, at least in some cases, although other victims just become confused. The "crazies" are somewhat like zombies - they have a Zombie Spectrum Disorder, one might say - but they retain enough of their personality and intelligence to be capable of much more elaborate and calculating violence than the average braaaaaaains-muncher, which is what makes them so disturbing.
Could a virus do that? Rabies, notoriously, causes aggression in animals and humans, although the incubation period is weeks rather than days, and aggression is only one of many neurological symptoms of the disease. But maybe an engineered virus could achieve a more specific effect if it was able to selectively infect the area of the brain reported on in this rather scary paper:
The authors report a patient with advanced PD, successfully treated by bilateral stimulation of the subthalamic nucleus, who developed acute transient aggressive behavior during intraoperative electrical test stimulation. The electrode responsible for this abnormal behavior was located within the lateral part of the posteromedial hypothalamic region (triangle of Sano). The authors suggest that affect can be dramatically modulated by the selective manipulation of deep brain structures.
The Crazies
I just watched The Crazies, a remake of Romero's 1973 original of the same name, about a small town struck by an outbreak of insanity following a biological weapon accident. It's not for the faint of heart: I was unsettled by a number of the scenes and I watch a lot of horror movies.Which is to say, it's excellent. It maintains a high pitch of tension through the whole 100 minutes, something that a lot of horror doesn't manage. All too often, I find, a movie will start out scary enough, but then by some point about half way through it's effectively turned into an action movie.
This happens when the nature of the monster/killer/zombies have been revealed and all the protagonists have to do is fight it out - with the uncertainty gone, the horror goes, too. Without giving too much away, The Crazies avoids this trap. (The last great horror movie I saw, Paranormal Activity, does too, although in a very different way).
Of course the real reason I liked this movie is that it's got some neuroscience. The Crazies is (spoilers) about an engineered virus that infects the brain. Early symptoms include fever, blank stares, flattened emotions and stereotypies. This then progresses, over the course of about 48 hours, to psychopathic aggression, at least in some cases, although other victims just become confused. The "crazies" are somewhat like zombies - they have a Zombie Spectrum Disorder, one might say - but they retain enough of their personality and intelligence to be capable of much more elaborate and calculating violence than the average braaaaaaains-muncher, which is what makes them so disturbing.
Could a virus do that? Rabies, notoriously, causes aggression in animals and humans, although the incubation period is weeks rather than days, and aggression is only one of many neurological symptoms of the disease. But maybe an engineered virus could achieve a more specific effect if it was able to selectively infect the area of the brain reported on in this rather scary paper:
The authors report a patient with advanced PD, successfully treated by bilateral stimulation of the subthalamic nucleus, who developed acute transient aggressive behavior during intraoperative electrical test stimulation. The electrode responsible for this abnormal behavior was located within the lateral part of the posteromedial hypothalamic region (triangle of Sano). The authors suggest that affect can be dramatically modulated by the selective manipulation of deep brain structures.
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