The Neuro Week 19th June

Here's The Neuro Week.

Image of the week is this adorable, if anatomically not quite accurate, model of the brain which you can buy. It even has little eyes! This is not new, but what did come out this week was Google's image recognition search, which is how I found out about it.

You've probably heard of Bipolar 1 and 2, but 4 and 6? They're the next big thing, says a guy who's published no fewer than 155 papers in a journal he edits, as The Neurocritic reports.

What if autism Isn't a Neurodevelopmental Disorder? but rather a disorder caused by ongoing neurobiological processes in later life?

According to the BBC, children tend to be similar to their parents, presumably due to shared genes and/or environments. OK, they said that parents influence teenage drinking habits, but this is all the study showed. And maybe not even that. Not a great piece of journalism.

Two books about ethics are reviewed: Patricia Churchland's Braintrust is reviewed here while Blind Spots is covered here. I'm currently working on a joint review of both books so I won't comment further at this stage.

European neuroscientists including David Nutt warned this week that mental health research faces funding cuts, as pharmaceutical companies pull out of the psych market. It's certainly true that Pharma currently funds much of this research, however whether this has helped or hindered the progress of neuroscience and psychiatry is debatable.

"For the first time researchers have monitored the brain as it slips into unconsciousness", apparantly. Actually, people have been doing that for over 60 years, but this time around they did use an interesting new neuroimaging method.

Psych Your Mind blog has a list of psychology-based songs. Kind of. But it doesn't include any songs from the classic "The Mind's I", the only melodic death metal album named after a book about the nature of conciousness. Well, so far the only one. Rumours that In Flames are working on "Consciousness lost and found: A neuropsychological exploration" remain unconfirmed.

I can't read everything. So any tipoffs will be gratefully received. Either leave them in a comment or drop me an email.