# Question
Title: How does intelligence or general cognitive ability vary with level of CO₂?
The cognitive ability of humans is varies with the concentration of CO₂ in breathing air. But how does it vary?

A very high concentration causes sleepiness, and sleepiness is a state of reduced cognitive ability.

That means it does vary, but I think there is no sudden onset of the reduction.

I would be interested in, ideally, a function of some experimental correlate of cognitive ability by level of CO₂, but any theoretical or experimental information about the shape of the function is interesting.

I'm aware that the signal to noise ratio in an experimental measurement is high, but qualitative results are the most important.

# Answer
> 4 votes
According to Is CO2 an Indoor Pollutant? Direct Effects of Low-to-Moderate CO2 Concentrations on Human Decision-Making Performance *Environ Health Perspect*. 2012 Dec; 120(12): 1671–1677:

of 9 different cognitive tests performed at 600ppm (green), 1000ppm (blue) and 2500ppm (red) several show very marked decrease in scores at higher C02 concentration.

Authors summarized findings as:

> Relative to 600 ppm, at 1,000 ppm CO2, moderate and statistically significant decrements occurred in six of nine scales of decision-making performance. At 2,500 ppm, large and statistically significant reductions occurred in seven scales of decision-making performance

Four years after the above was published, the negative effects of carbon dioxide were confirmed in Associations of cognitive function scores with carbon dioxide, ventilation, and volatile organic compound exposures in office workers: a controlled exposure study of green and conventional office environments. *Environ Health Perspect* (June 2016) 124:805–812, which was mentioned on Earth SE by Ken Fabian, although there is one common author Usha Satish.

On the other hand, a very recent article Effects of acute exposures to carbon dioxide on decision making and cognition in astronaut-like subjects *NPJ Microgravity*. (June 2019) 5: 17, which also has Usha Satish as an author, tends to contradict the above:

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, cognitive-neuroscience, brain
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# Question
Title: Inability to associate a face with a name
I know there is a medical condition called "Prosopagnosia" that is described as:

> a cognitive disorder of face perception in which the ability to recognize familiar faces, including one's own face (self-recognition), is impaired.

Knowing this, I was wondering if there was also a word/medical condition that would describe:

> a cognitive disorder in which the ability to associate a name with a face is impaired.

In this scenario, when the person sees someone, they remember every fact about them (what do they for a living, if they have a significant other, if they have children, etc...) but are incapable of remembering the person name.

The person having this could be described as having "a bad memory for names".

So, does such a medical condition exist? Is there a word for it?

# Answer
> 2 votes
> recognize familiar faces

The distinction between familiar and unfamiliar faces with the prosopagnosia seems to be more a wiki thing than in clinical or common usage. The defintion does not seem fixed. NINDs defines it as "characterized by the inability to recognize faces" rather than only just familiar faces. So sufferers "use other ways to identify people, such as relying on voice, clothing, or unique physical attributes".

The Merck manual provides a different naunce *"inability to identify well-known faces, including those of close friends, or to otherwise distinguish individual objects among a class of objects, despite the ability to identify generic facial features and objects."*

This phenomenon is distinct from anomic aphasia (also known as amnestic aphasia and nominal aphasia) where there is an impairment of word recall especially nouns and verbs.

Just remember humans and brains are not compartmentalized like computers or objects. Phenomenons that occur due to how the neurons or the lobe is organized. Brain damage are not random too, so common patterns form strokes and injuries result in well known and well described phenomenons. The distinction between naming familiar faces and naming strangers/unknown people would not be a useful clinical distinction. If you think about it, name association exercises of strangers seems too difficult to be used clinically.

# Answer
> -2 votes
Face-name recognition is a form of paired associates, episodic memory. This type of memory is fairly difficult, even for cognitively normal people (and the ability often declines substantially with age), and thus a poor performance on a face-name task is not typically considered pathologic. Therefore, it doesn't have a specific neurologic term to describe it, which is why you can't find one. Words like aphasia, agnosia, alexia, apraxia (etc.) all denote conditions that should not exist in neurotypical people. HTH.

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Tags: perception, memory, neurology
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# Question
Title: Are scintillating scotomas really caused by cortical spreading depression? If so, how is this known to be true?
I have just read about a visual effect called a scintillating scotoma.

> Many variations occur, but scintillating scotoma usually begins as a spot of flickering light near or in the center of the visual field, which prevents vision within the scotoma area. The affected area flickers but is not dark. It then gradually expands outward from the initial spot. Vision remains normal beyond the borders of the expanding scotoma(s), with objects melting into the scotoma area background similarly to the physiological blind spot, which means that objects may be seen better by not looking directly at them in the early stages when the spot is in or near the center.
>
> \[...\]The visual anomaly results from abnormal functioning of portions of the occipital cortex at the back of the brain, not in the eyes nor any component thereof, such as the retinas. This is a different disease from retinal migraine, which is monocular (only one eye).

It is a phenomenon that is believed to occur in the brain.

> Scintillating scotomas are most commonly caused by cortical spreading depression, a pattern of changes in the behavior of nerves in the brain during a migraine.

That article is short and includes an impressive looking GIF of an optical image of the brain showing a wave-like pattern of blood volume which seems to come from the YouTube video Spreading Depolarization viewed using IOS. Santos et al. Neuroimage 2014 which links to Santos, E. et al. *Radial, spiral and reverberating waves of spreading depolarization occur in the gyrencephalic brain* NeuroImage, 99, 1 Oct. 2014, pp244-255.

The first Wikipedia article also says:

> Symptoms typically appear gradually over 5 to 20 minutes and generally last fewer than 60 minutes, leading to the headache in classic migraine with aura, or resolving without consequence in acephalgic migraine. Many migraine sufferers change from scintillating scotoma as a prodrome to migraine to scintillating scotoma without migraine. Typically the scotoma resolves spontaneously within the stated time frame, leaving no subsequent symptoms, though some report fatigue, nausea, and dizziness as sequelae.

I don't completely understand the language there; I am not sure if it means that scintillating scotoma is always associated with some kind of migraine, or if they also occur as isolated events.

**QUESTION:** Why is it believed, or how is it known (if it is) that scintillating scotomas are caused by cortical spreading depression? Are these always related to some kind of migraine?

Source

Source

Sources: ,

# Answer
> 2 votes
The primary visual cortex is topographic, which means that specific parts of that brain region correspond exactly to specific parts of your visual field. In order to prove that a scotoma (literally a blind spot in your vision) is due to dysfunctional neurons, all you need to do is show that the neurons responsible for that spot in your vision are not working but the rest of them are. We can do this with a variety of tools, the most common one these days being fMRI. In addition to showing that the area of neuronal dysfunction maps onto the area subserving vision in that area where the scotoma is located, a spreading depression does exactly that: it spreads, at a predictable rate, from the location of its onset to adjacent brain tissue. fMRI will show you not only the area of brain dysfunction, but will allow you to "follow" the neuronal dysfunction as it moves over time, and show that it corresponds to the location of the scotoma in your visual field, which will also move in correspondence. HTH. See: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC31895/ for first reference to this type of research (more in pubmed with keywords fMRI and migraine aura).

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Tags: vision, neuroimaging, brain, neurology
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# Question
Title: Which psychological word describes this situation best?
A few years ago, I’ve heard that people have to be in the center if they want to truly enjoy something. For example, when someone really want to enjoy a concert, he or she needs to go to the center of the crowd. It is also true when you work.

Is there any psychological terminology or effect which describes this situation well?

Thank you.

# Answer
> 1 votes
Maybe you mean an engagement? If though, a positive psychology have term **flow state** \- when you fully immersed. Here is wiki article about it. Or hyperfocus - article.

Components of flow state:

```
Intense and focused concentration on the present moment

Merging of action and awareness

A loss of reflective self-consciousness

A sense of personal control or agency over the situation or activity

A distortion of temporal experience, one's subjective experience of time is altered

Experience of the activity as intrinsically rewarding, also referred to as autotelicexperience

```

# Answer
> 0 votes
The claim sounds false for any of the meanings I can imagine for 'truly enjoy'. Enjoyment whether contentment or joy will depend on context, expectations, personality, culture, and other factors. It may be more stimulating to be in louder or more crowded settings; in that sense, being in the middle of a crowd could feel more intense than being on the periphery.

# Answer
> 0 votes
From the question and comments, I believe the word the OP is asking for and means enjoying something more when being in the center of the happening is **engagement.**

According to Merriam-Webster, engagement means "a job or period of employment especially as a performer," or "emotional involvement or commitment."

A simpler word would be just **involvement,** which, according to Lexico, means "the fact or condition of being involved with or participating in something" or "emotional or personal association with someone."

This has nothing to do with being self-centered or egocentric. It means experiencing the event better when you are **actively participating** in it rather than just observing it.

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Tags: terminology
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# Question
Title: Where to find patient responses on Rorschach's Inkblot test?
I am looking to find data that has patient's responses to Rorschach's inblots as well and their associated diagnosis ( Mainly looking into patients that have been diagnosed with schizophrenia, depression or a related mental illness). I have been able to find researches that mention they have used a number of patients, and give out their Exner scoring system for their illness, but is there a place where I can find the actual responses? I do not need confidential data, mainly just patient's responses. Looking into doing some experimentative AI related tasks.

Where would I find such data? Any guidance is appreciated!

# Answer
> 1 votes
Unfortunately, Exner scoring seems to be the standard for Rorschach test studies. The scores are likely a way of protecting patients that may give very personal answers that can identify them. For example, if a research subject reports the Rorschach image as reminding them of their hometown in Brooklyn and their mother who is a famous person, a research study that report raw data and raw responses will not pass ethics due to confidentiality issues.

You are right, most studies use the Exner reporting system -

Japanese study looking at young people with schizophrenia

Adolescent females study

You will likely need to contact studies and join teams that do Rorschach studies to learn the specifics for yourself. Unfortunately, you would not be able to cite or use it as the basis for your research.

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Tags: data, artificial-intelligence, mental-illness
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# Question
Title: What is the psychological explanation for the phenomena that a person sees the solution to a problem as “simple” once it has been found?
Is there in psychology an explanation and/or term that describes the phenomena that exists where people perceive a solution to a problem as “simple” after the solution has been found? I have noticed in my many years of working with people that there are some who claim the solution to a problem was “simple” - and take great pride in this - but only after the solution has been found. Of course, many things seem “simple” or “obvious” after they are known.

Example: Fixing a car.

A mechanic needs to fix a car the problem area of which he does not know “specifically” but “generally” and he has to test each part he removes. The parts are A, B, C, D and E. He has to remove parts B, C, D and E just to get to part A, all of which are time-consuming to remove (except part A). Part A turns out to be the faulty part and it’s easy to replace - just two screws. The boss (who is a mechanic himself but with higher rank within the company) says that the repair was “simple” - just had to change part A.

(Think an electrical system issue - battery, alternator, starter, starter relay).

Is that “oversimplification bias”? I don’t know if such a bias exists.

# Answer
As @Arnon suggested in the comments, this looks to be a case of the hindsight bias, especially given the reference to "hindsight is 20/20" in a comment.

Via Wikipedia:

> Hindsight bias, also known as the knew-it-all-along phenomenon\[1\] or creeping determinism,\[2\] refers to the common tendency for people to perceive events that have already occurred as having been more predictable than they actually were before the events took place.\[3\]\[4\] As a result, people often believe, after an event has occurred, that they would have predicted, or perhaps even would have known with a high degree of certainty, what the outcome of the event would have been, before the event occurred.
> 2 votes

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, perception
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# Question
Title: Can we change a particular addiction into another addiction?
My current knowledge about dopamine and serotonin came from a series of articles and web pages, a few videos also.

As per my knowledge and readings I know that addiction is about reward, a person’s brain releases a chemical called **dopamine** when a person do addictive task and hence he feels momentarily good. But doing too much of it damages the receptors and hence the person cannot feel *happy* anymore by doing that addictive act but he keeps on doing it in hope of that reward.

Now, if we treat that person so that his receptors gets healed a little and then we start giving him some medicine which releases **dopamine** in right amount and hence converting that person’s addition from that previous addictive task to the medicines ( well I believe this is what psychiatrist actually do, because a person who goes to a psychiatrist always ends up taking medicines whole of his life) . If it’s all about *feeling good* and the release of **dopamine** then it seems completely logical to treat it by medicines and some self control. Then, my question, finally, is **Is it possible to cure addiction by converting it into another addiction?**

I talked to some professionals and they said that it’s not wise to substitute a behavioural addiction with a substance addiction, but I cannot see any difference because both of these have same effect on the brain i.e. release of a *chemical*.

I know that there lies many many minute and significant details which I have failed to look over but I expect that the researchers, well educated and even self-learner’s will get the gist of what I have said.

Thank you.

# Answer
## Intro and Bill

For this answer, I am going to refer to a fictional person named Bill. You can skip to the next header if you wish, but here is a brief rundown on Bill.

Bill has always been a gambler. He started when his older brother used to sneak him into the pub to play on the fruit machines. Now, 15 years on, he has progressed from machines to horses, and over the last few years, to online betting.

Bill had a good job in the city, but was made redundant 6 months ago due to cutbacks. He was not too worried about finding more work in a hurry, as he had some savings. Now, those are gone, and his online betting has increased so much that this month he was unable to make the mortgage payment. That is when his wife discovered that the joint credit card was up to its limit and that there was no money left at all.

Bill loves his wife and winces when he describes the day she found out, and how frightened for the future and how betrayed she was. He desperately needs to pay back the money he owes her and some money he now owes to friends. He just cannot see how, unless he can get that one big win. Bill describes how he can study form and then will just ‘know’ that he has a winner. As soon as that happens, the feeling of anticipation and excitement just grows, and the feeling is better than almost anything in the world. Yes of course he must stop gambling, but never having that feeling again is going to be hard.

## Important - Addiction as opposed to Habit

Addiction issues likely to arise are wide and varied. There are 2 types of addiction — Substance Addictions, and Process Addictions (Alavi, et al. 2012); and they can be anything from Risk Taking (“Adrenaline Junkie”) behaviours, Alcohol, Drugs or Food Addictions to Work, Shopping or Travel Addictions.

Although the demarcation can be blurry (Eddy, 1957) The difference between addictions and habits are that habits are generally unconscious actions and they do not take over your life. Addictions on the other hand are generally conscious actions which affects the person and their family with the fact that the person has become reliant on the actions to “live their life” (Byrd, 2016).

Addictions can impact the person’s *wheel of wellness* \[self-care\] (Crowell, 1998; Myers, et al. 2011; Myers & Sweeney, 2005) and there can be severe emotional and/or other psychological disturbances if the actions are not followed.

Addictions can start in many different ways. Addictions, or Self-Defeating Behaviours, operate within the following 3-step cycle.

1. Usually, but not every time, it starts with something which the person has found deeply uncomfortable in an emotional sense which leads to the feeling of need to relieve the discomfort.
2. This then leads to avoidance, distraction or escape from the emotional pain, in this case through the addictive behaviour, and
3. the addictive behaviour then leads to guilt for having done it, which is another uncomfortable (negative) feeling or emotion to add to the list from the start, and the process continues from the beginning (at number 1) again.

In the case of drug or alcohol abuse without an initial deeply uncomfortable emotional feeling, it could start with a heavy night of use which creates an elevated sense of feeling. This can lead to feelings of guilt and other negative feelings, and so the cycle continues from there.

Alternatively, the seeking to regain those feelings in “that next high” can lead to feelings of inadequacy and/or despair which then takes you onto the negative feelings part of the cycle.

## Can we change a particular addiction into another addiction?

Prolonged use of certain alcoholic drinks or certain drugs can lead to a situation where it would take so much more of the substance to get the “high” that you may then seek alternative (stronger) substances (Skinner & Allen, 1982). With alcohol for example, you may move from beer to spirits. With process addictions, it could lead to substance habit(s) followed by addiction.

Counselling such as Cognitive Behaviour Therapy may be used to challenge certain stages of the cycle of Self-Defeating Behaviours and therefore break that cycle and put an end to it.

If we apply what I have said so far to Risk Taking as an addiction, it can be classed as a substance addiction as it involves the elevation of adrenaline in the body, or it can be classed as a process addiction as it involves taking risks. However, if you take Bill as an example, you can deduce that the addiction is a process addiction as it doesn’t involve intoxication from a substance related addiction *per se*, however, at certain times, there can be adrenaline involved and at some other times there can be other feel good hormones involved such as dopamine and serotonin.

## How does this apply to Bill?

If we apply what I have said so far to Risk Taking as an addiction, it can be classed as a substance addiction as it involves the elevation of adrenaline in the body, or it can be classed as a process addiction as it involves taking risks. However, if you take Bill as an example, you can deduce that the addiction is a process addiction as it doesn’t involve intoxication from a substance related addiction *per se*, however, at certain times, there can be adrenaline involved and at some other times there can be other feel good hormones involved such as dopamine and serotonin.

To summarise what Bill’s problem is, he has a gambling addiction which seems to have started 15 years ago. His wife discovered the problem once she saw that their joint credit card is maxed out.

At the height of the chase to gain winnings, adrenaline will be rushing through his body giving feelings of excitement, and when there are wins, dopamine will affect the reward centres of his brain whilst serotonin provides some relaxation counteracting the adrenaline.

Bill sees himself as always been a gambler and it started with his brother taking him to the pub to play on fruit machines. Now he is gambling through online betting. Looking at Bill’s history, the problem has escalated through the years and he is at the point where he needs help to stop.

How long that takes will be down to the hard work Bill is prepared to undertake, and it is generally believed that it takes around 21 days to stop a habit — just as it does to start one — although it is not necessarily that clear cut (Lally, et al., 2010).

The problem has been exacerbated by a combination of:

* the increase of access to gambling through online gambling sites,
* the fact that he was made redundant 6 months ago, and
* he wished to become a “professional gambler” to profit from his savings.

## How could we help Bill?

First, we need to get Bill to examine why he looked for help. He said that having that feeling of anticipation and excitement is better than almost anything in the world and never having it again is going to be hard.

Bill winces when he describes the day his wife found out. Has he only come due to the fact that he was caught with the problem and needs to pay his friends and credit card back? If that is the case, once he has paid them back, will he go back to his old habits?

### Bill’s Goal

Once he has done this, the last part of the combination of problems which exacerbate things (the wish to be a professional gambler) will make things a little more difficult to start with, and therefore this would need to be looked at first as it will affect his ability to look at what is known as self-exclusion schemes. (GambleAware, n.d.(a))

What does it mean to be a professional gambler? What about the problem of “House Edge” (GambleAware, n.d.(b))

## References

Alavi, S. S., Ferdosi, M., Jannatifard, F., Eslami, M., Alaghemandan, H., & Setare, M. (2012). Behavioral Addiction versus Substance Addiction: Correspondence of Psychiatric and Psychological Views. *International journal of preventive medicine, 3*(4), 290–294. pmcid: PMC3354400

Byrd, N. (2016). *Addiction vs. Habit: Recognizing the dangers*. Retrieved from: https://byrdnick.com/archives/9951/addiction-vs-habit-infographic

Crowell, D. M. (1998). Care for the case manager: balancing your wheel of life. *Journal of case management, 7*(3), 112-116. PMID: 10703376

Eddy, N. B. (1957). Addiction-producing versus habit-forming: Guest Editorial. *Journal of the American Medical Association, 163*(17), 1622-1623. doi: 10.1001/jama.1957.02970520056015

GambleAware, n.d.(a). *Self-Exclusion*. Retrieved from: https://www.begambleaware.org/stay-in-control/what-is-self-exclusion/

GambleAware, n.d.(b). *Gambling Words and Phrases Explained*. Retrieved from: https://www.begambleaware.org/understanding-gambling/gambling-words-and-phrases-explained/

Lally, P., van Jaarsveld, C. H. M., Potts, H. W. W. & Wardle, J. (2010). How are habits formed: Modelling habit formation in the real world. *European Journal of Social Psychology, 40*(6), p. 998—1009. doi: 10.1002/ejsp.674

Myers, J. E., & Sweeney, T. J. (2005). The indivisible self: An evidence-based model of wellness. *Journal of Individual Psychology, 61*(3), 234-244. Free PDF: https://libres.uncg.edu/ir/uncg/f/J\_Myers\_Indivisible\_2004.pdf

Myers, J. E., Sweeney, T. J., & Witmer, J. M. (2011). The wheel of wellness counseling for wellness: A holistic model for treatment planning. *Journal of Counseling & Development, 78*(3), 251-266. doi: j.1556-6676.2000.tb01906.x

Skinner, H. A., & Allen, B. A. (1982). Alcohol dependence syndrome: Measurement and validation. *Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 91*(3), 199–209. doi: 10.1037/0021-843X.91.3.199
> 1 votes

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Tags: psychiatry, addiction, dopamine
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# Question
Title: Strange synchronized brain pulses on EEG using OpenBCI Cyton board
I recently received an Open BCI headset, and have been experimenting with it. One interesting is my brain gives off very regular pulses. My wife tested the headset too, and she also had these pulses. I'm not sure if this is some artifact of the headset, or if there is something like a 'brain beat' similar to a heart beat.

Here is an example readout from the headset's 8 channels.

The pulse frequency seems to change based on activity. Here is another sample after I've been chatting with some people online. You can see the frequency seems to have doubled, possibly due to increased cognitive load from interaction.

Is there a name for this phenomena, and is there any idea what it is?

One odd thing about the pulses is that they are synchronized across my brain. Here is an image of the 8 electrodes placement on my head, which you can see are spread across the top of my head from the front to the back.

Any idea what can cause the pulses to synchronize like this?

UPDATE: At Bryan Krause suggestion, I looked into whether it is some sort of cardiac pulse. To get ECG data, I attached two skin patches to my biceps and a ground to my elbow. The exact same pattern shows up. I'm guessing it is the electric pulse that drives my heart, but the strange thing is the pulse is much slower than my heart, and does not correspond too closely to my heart rate. For example, at rest I measured 8 beats per pulse. Then I did some exercise to elevate my heart rate. The pulses remained the same frequency but I now had 12 heart beats per pulse.

Here is a shot of the channels. Channel #1 is the ECG data, and rest of the channels are the EEG.

# Answer
> 4 votes
Turns out these pulses are due to software latency in the OpenBCI GUI. One particular widget, the headshot widget, uses a lot of the CPU causing packet delay, and leads to the pulse pattern. Once the headshot widget is turned off, then the pulse artifact disappears.

https://github.com/OpenBCI/OpenBCI\_GUI/issues/349

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Tags: neuroscience, brain-computer-interface
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title: What is receptor tonic activation?

text:
# Question
Title: What is receptor tonic activation?
From Long-term administration of the dopamine D3/2 receptor agonist pramipexole increases dopamine and serotonin neurotransmission in the male rat forebrain:

> The sensitivity of postsynaptic D2 receptors in the prefrontal cortex (PFC) remained unaltered following pramipexole administration, as indicated by the unchanged responsiveness to the microiontophoretic application of DA. Their tonic activation was, however, significantly increased by 104% compared with the control level.

What does this mean? How does it enhance DA transmission?

Thanks.

# Answer
In physiology, "tonic" refers to something roughly continuous or static.

In terms of receptor activation, tonic typically means there is some small quantity of agonist present such that the receptor is always activated a little bit. The receptors mediating tonic effects are typically "extrasynaptic": outside the synapse, and typically have higher affinity for their agonist. The opposite of tonic would be *phasic* \- where a release of neurotransmitter causes an immediate and brief receptor activation.

In the passage you quote, they try puffing on some DA ("microiontophoretic application of DA") and they get the same response with and without pramipexole, so there is no effect on the phasic response.

However, the *tonic* activation, when they aren't puffing on DA, was increased. You normally measure this tonic activation by using a receptor antagonist (in this case they use haloperidol). The tonic activation is equal to (without antagonist) - (with haloperidol).

The drug they are using, pramipexole, is a D2 receptor agonist. How I would interpret their result is that, because pramipexole is around all the time during their experiments, there is constant low-level activity at the D2 receptor. They did not find evidence that this low-level activity decreased the response to phasic dopamine release, however; if it did, they would have seen a decreased response when they puffed on DA.

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Chernoloz, O., El Mansari, M., & Blier, P. (2012). Long-term administration of the dopamine D3/2 receptor agonist pramipexole increases dopamine and serotonin neurotransmission in the male rat forebrain. Journal of psychiatry & neuroscience : JPN, 37(2), 113–121. doi:10.1503/jpn.110038

Grace, A. A. (2000). The tonic/phasic model of dopamine system regulation and its implications for understanding alcohol and psychostimulant craving. Addiction, 95(8s2), 119-128.
> 1 votes

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Tags: neuroscience
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# Question
Title: Are behaviourist practices and/or principles still valid and useful?
I understand how behaviorism is outdated for not considering the brain processes and cognition as ultimately responsible for memory and learning.

Nevertheless, after reading Learning Theories: An Educational Perspective, 6th Edition, by Dale Schunk, and reading a few posts on "Cognitivism vs Behaviourism" around the web I was left in complete confusion on why some cognitivists (or people professing to be) spurn the whole idea and practices of behaviourism at the same level creationists and evolutionists despise each other.

I compiled a list of behaviourist principles and practices that seem to make total sense (even being avant-garde and cognitivist in nature) and which don't seem to contradict cognitivism in **practical** terms at all:

* Trial-and-error learning
* Law of effect
* Law of exercise
* Thorndike's Principles of Teaching (teachers should help students form good habits and not wait for them to do it all by themselves)
* Sequence of curricula (connect knowledge across subjects)
* Systematic desensitisation
* Contiguity of stimuli and responses (if you see it as a cognitive process)
* Behaviour changing techniques using threshold, fatigue and incompatible response along with cognitive techniques, no?
* Reinforcement (positive and negative), if you look at it as a cognitive process and complement their way of doing positive reinforcemnt with cognitive techniques?
* Punishment was considered the worst of all stimuli by behaviourists
* The idea of parental involvement, setting expectations, self-evaluation, student participation, etc...
* Successive approximations (shaping) if once again you look at it as a cognitive process
* Self-regulation
* The idea that school sucks and the only reason many young people go to it is because they don't want to be punished by their parents or the law, such as in the UK, would send parents to jail for truancy
* The idea of block scheduling instead of 50-minute slots per class per subject
* Out-of-school programmes, summer camps and after-school activities
* Mastery learning
* Linear vs branching programmes in CBT
* Contingency contracts

Am I right to assume that the whole divide (at least on the topics I picked above) has to do with the theory behind these practices or are they really outdated and something fundamentally different has been created by cognitivism to fill in their place?

# Answer
> 4 votes
Turf war mixed with artificial distinctions. Behaviorism can hardly be considered outdated when the most popular therapies are behavioral: CBT, DBT, ACT. Even modern implementations of mindfulness are behavioral. Behaviorism is also popular in performance management and organizational psychology, addiction, instructional design, etc.

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, learning, behaviorism
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# Question
Title: Do modern personality traits exist with native people
I am wondering if there is any evidence of personality traits like intro versus extroversion existing in native people without any contact with modern society, or if they are a result of modern life.

# Answer
> 1 votes
See the study below conducted on Tsimane (indigenous Bolivians). It uses Big-5 traits to assess whether if a general factor of personality can be identified with the natives (who mostly fit your criteria) similar to western population studies.

Which is 'evidence' that personality traits exists in indigenous tribes the same way they do in Western populations, since well, how else would they measure it?

*van der Linden, Dimitri et al. “How Universal Is the General Factor of Personality? An Analysis of the Big Five in Forager Farmers of the Bolivian Amazon.” Journal of cross-cultural psychology vol. 49,7 (2018): 1081-1097. doi:10.1177/0022022118774925*

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6047301/

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, personality, evolution
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# Question
Title: Longitudinal consistency of StrengthsFinder
The StrengthsFinder survey is a personality assessment which finds strengths which an individual can contribute to an organization. What is the consistency of this assessment:

1. When a person takes the assessment multiple times in short time
2. When a person retakes the assessment several months later

If there is variance, what is it most likely to be attributed to?

The Gallup website, claims:

> Gallup's test-retest statistical correlation studies of CliftonStrengths assessments yield a correlation hovering around 0.7.

However, it does not cite any source.

# Answer
Seems like StrengthFinder and CliftonStrengths are owned by Gallup organisation and there is commercial registration of the tests? The same way as psychometric testing can be commercialised and protected by intellectual property law, it seems that Gallup has done the same with those tests.

As the result, research and testing into those instruments are very limited and stifled by the risk of litigation by the Gallup organisation. Makes it hard to independently verify and test the assumptions and studies done by Gallup unfortunately.
> 1 votes

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Tags: personality, io-psychology
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# Question
Title: How would you differentiate "self hate" from "insecurities?"
Don't insecurities arise from self hate? For example if we are insecure about our face aren't we hating our face - hating ourselves?

# Answer
> 0 votes
Self-hating and insecurity are not the same.

Self-hatred or self-loathing is an attitude in which one thinks he/she is not good as a person from various reasons and does not accept and love him/herself. No matter what the cause, at some point one needs to realize that self-hatred is a conscious attitude, so a decision.

Insecurity means that one is not confident about a certain personal characteristic or capability, which can make him/her anxious, but not necessary self-loathing. One can be insecure but still love and accept himself.

In summary, insecurity is a feeling one may not be able to overcome at times, while self-hatred is an attitude that can be changed.

Experiencing and accepting love from others can help one to start love him/herself and to be more secure.

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Tags: cognitive-psychology
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# Question
Title: Mismatch negativity vs. mismatch response
MMN x MMR - mismatch negativity versus mismatch response:

How are the concepts related and what is the difference between them?

# Answer
MMN/MMR refer to responses during an oddball paradigm. The typical arrangement of this sort of paradigm is to have a sequence of stimuli, for example, a sequence of tones of one frequency, followed by either the same tone (standard) or a different tone (oddball).

For EEG, they are the same thing. Mismatch negativity is a particular response in the EEG observed as the difference in response to an "oddball" compared to the same stimulus when it is a standard.

"Mismatch response" is a more general term that would include, for example, an increase (or simply a change) in neuronal firing in response to the oddball vs. standard, or a change in functional connectivity, etc.
> 1 votes

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Tags: cognitive-neuroscience, experimental-neuroscience
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# Question
Title: Is the approximation of the Medial Frontal Gyrus in the region of the Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex?
I'm wondering if the MFG is located in the region considered the DLPFC?

# Answer
No; the medial frontal gyrus is medial; it faces the sagittal midline of the brain. Medial is the opposite of lateral; the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex is lateral, facing towards the outside of the brain.

Perhaps you are thinking of the *middle* frontal gyrus?
> 2 votes

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Tags: neuroscience, cognitive-neuroscience, neuroanatomy
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# Question
Title: When does a fear of something constitute a phobia?
Obviously, not all phobias are made equal. There are some 'phobias' that involve things that are normally do inspire fear in others (such as, famously, spiders). Honestly, I never understood why being scared of things like spiders constituted a 'phobia', since phobias are supposed to be irrational fears, but being afraid of spiders (at least, certain species) is obviously normal and not exactly irrational.

Personally, I often say I have a phobia of ghosts. But do I? I don't believe in ghosts, so I consider it irrational, but 'ghosts' in general don't scare me. The ghosts of Skyrim never scared me, though the ones in certain quest mods do. And I've certainly never found Casper scary, but I could never force myself to enter a location I've heard is haunted, purely because of that label. Old abandoned buildings (particularly houses) also scare me for no reason. Simply being in one makes me want to get out of there as fast as possible. And considering that ghosts in general don't scare me, I'm not sure my weird and obviously nonsensical fear would actually count as a phobia. Its, of course, normal to find ghosts scary. But is it normal to not be able to enter a supposedly 'haunted' location, or an old rotting building, even though I honestly don't see any reason for ghosts to exist. And thinking about that fact doesn't help one bit for some reason.

So, what's the line between being just scared of something and having a phobia towards it?

# Answer
The DSM-5 criteria for Specific Phobia are:

> A. Marked fear or anxiety about a specific object or situation (e.g., flying, heights, animals, receiving an injection, seeing blood).
>
> Note: In children, the fear or anxiety may be expressed by crying, tantrums, freezing, or clinging.
>
> B. The phobic object or situation almost always provokes immediate fear or anxiety.
>
> C. The phobic object or situation is actively avoided or endured with intense fear or anxiety.
>
> D. The fear or anxiety is out of proportion to the actual danger posed by the specific object or situation and to the sociocultural context.
>
> E. The fear, anxiety, or avoidance is persistent, typically lasting for 6 months or more.
>
> F. The fear, anxiety, or avoidance causes clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.
>
> G. The disturbance is not better explained by the symptoms of another mental disorder, including fear, anxiety, and avoidance of situations associated with panic-like symptoms or other incapacitating symptoms (as in agoraphobia); objects or situations related to obsessions (as in obsessive-compulsive disorder); reminders of traumatic events (as in posttraumatic stress disorder); separation from home or attachment figures (as in separation anxiety disorder); or social situations (as in social anxiety disorder).

The parts I would highlight are that the fear has to be intense and out of proportion to the actual risk, it has to cause some sort of impairment, and it can't be classified as part of a broader mental disorder.

So, if someone sees a spider at work and is startled by it, you wouldn't call that a phobia by itself from a clinical perspective. You might joke about it among friends and say you have a phobia of spiders, but that's just using embellishing language, it's not a diagnosis.

If someone lives in an area where dangerous spiders are present, and takes reasonable precautions to defend themselves (for example, not walking barefoot outdoors), that would not be a phobia: it's not out of proportion.

However, if someone sees a spider at work and then experiences intense symptoms while at work that interfere with their performance, make them constantly preoccupied that there is going to be another spider, and it's a sustained rather than passing experience, then that's closer to the DSM-5 definition of phobia.

In either case, it's really up to a professional to assess the situation and determine if a diagnosis is warranted.
> 2 votes

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Tags: fear, phobia
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title: Triptans and SSRIs

text:
# Question
Title: Triptans and SSRIs
When talking about triptans used for migraines such as Zolimitriptan, such drugs are selective serotonin receptor agonists.

SSRIs, as their function states, are Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors.

The British National Formulary doesn't say so, but I am wondering if triptans can affect the efficacy of SSRIs. If so, how?

From the way I understand it, triptans could help boost the efficacy of SSRIs due to the fact that

1. the SSRIs are blocking ("inhibiting") reuptake of serotonin, meaning more serotonin is available to pass further messages between nearby nerve cells.

and

2. the triptans activate serotonin receptors being that they are an agonist (a chemical that binds to a receptor and activates the receptor to produce a biological response).

Am I correct?

# Answer
> 1 votes
> triptans could help boost the efficacy of SSRIs

There is minimal evidence for this Chris. One of the reasons for that is that there is a limit to how much serotonin is released for the nerve cell. So more of the same isn't going to make much difference. edit: So in terms of reuptake inhibitors, triptans are agonists. So increased agonism seems unlikely to make a significant difference.

Theoretically there is a risk of serotonin syndrome. There has been many case reports and a black label FDA warning has been issued in the 1990s.However the data for that severe reaction seems to be patchy and the rates of co-prescription of SSRIs and triptans have not reduced or changed in any meaningful way.

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaneurology/fullarticle/2673391

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Tags: neuroscience, depression, psychopharmacology, neuropsychology, neuro-transmitters
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# Question
Title: Why do I always screw up when people are watching?
I’m wondering why people are more likely to fail when they know people are watching and or counting on them. For example in a football game where there is 2 seconds left in the game, and team A has the ball and they’re 2 points behind team B. They go for a field goal and the kicker misses by a mile after going say 20 for 20 field goals all season before that kick. What explains the cause for underperformance when the stakes are high, or someone is watching, etc?

# Answer
> 4 votes
There are quite a few studies on this, but a nice recent one is this: Lee, Taraz G., et al. "Limiting motor skill knowledge via incidental training protects against choking under pressure." Psychonomic bulletin & review 26.1 (2019): 279-290.

(https://link.springer.com/article/10.3758/s13423-018-1486-x)

They consider a few possible mechanisms, but end up leaning towards a 'high incentives are distracting' story. (Another candidate that can't be ruled out is 'high incentives encourage top-down control processes, and those are just not very good at driving motor sequences'). The main evidence hinges on differences between implicit and explicit learning of a key-sequence task: only the people who got explicit instruction show choking under pressure, even though both groups are doing the same task. If you just want the final take-home, it's "our results lead us to conclude that a training regime that seeks to restrict awareness of movement strategies and structure could lead to more stable performance under pressure, potentially via reduced performance deficits in the face of distraction." but underneath that claim there's a bunch of cool structure in the patterns of performance across the two groups that they dig into in some detail.

# Answer
> 1 votes
I think the answer is pretty easy: stress. As Wikipedia states it,

> When people think the demands being placed on them exceed their ability to cope, they then perceive stress.

The player might feel that the expectations of them are too high and also if they fail, that the negative consequences will be big in terms of being blamed etc.

This stress then occupies certain part of player's mental capacity, which means they are not fully concentrated on the task. I'm sure there's plenty of literature on the effects of stress on performance.

Now, certain amount of stress can actually be beneficial for the performance because it increases arousal, but the Yerkes–Dodson law tells us that if there's too much arousal, performance will decrease.

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Tags: performance
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# Question
Title: Is what psychologists define as subconsciousness proven in neuroscience and can the psychological subconsciousness be visualized by neuroscientists?
We read phrases like

1. The subconsciousness makes up 90% of our brain.
2. The subconsciousness makes up 95% of our brain.
3. The subconsciousness can be influenced by hypnosis.

I have yet to see a study in neuroscience that picks the topic up. There seems to be no proof of its existence other than a psychological crutch to explain behaviour.

People like Bruce Lipton try to connect neuroscience to psychology and do not convince in doing so.

Is what psychologists define as subconsciousness proven in neuroscience and can the psychological subconsciousness be visualized by neuroscientists? I am alluding to pictures or video of the images perceived...........

# Answer
> 3 votes
The vast majority of neural processes (and their associated mental processes) in the brain are subconscious (or unconscious), i.e. we are not consciously aware of them and cannot consciously control them. Yet, without these subconscious processes, we will not be able to live as we do now – we will have to spend an incredible amount of time and effort to consciously control all the processes that are naturally subconsciously controlled now. As a matter of fact, we will not be able to consciously do such tedious yet demanding tasks well, and we will die.

All neural processes except the final-stage sensory perception neural processes and the highest cognitive neural processes are subconscious. The subconscious neural processes are in all parts of the brain:

1. Brainstem and autonomic system. For example, neural processes that control breathing, heart contraction, pressure in the arterial and venous systems, body temperature, sleep-wake cycle, secretion of various body fluids (sweat, tear, saliva, gastric juice, etc.), secretion of various hormones, various reflexes (pupillary light and accommodation reflexes, optokinetic reflex, vestibulo-ocular reflex, etc .), homeostasis of various blood constituents, etc.
2. Cerebellum. For example, neural processes that control contraction & movement of hundreds of millions of muscle fibers of various agonist and antagonist muscles for balance and accuracy in walking, writing, speaking, playing various sports, playing various musical instruments, etc.
3. Deep cerebral nuclei. For example, neural processes that control the tone of your trunk muscles (when sitting, standing, walking, etc.), emotion (\*1), formation, storing, and retrieval of memory (\*2), etc.
4. Cerebral cortex. For example, neural processes that perform early-stage sensory perception (\*3), early-stage language functions (\*4), some stages of decision, some forms of thinking (\*5), etc.

And, if you include spinal cord, the majority of their neural processes are subconscious too.

N.B.

\*1. That's why we can't completely control our emotions at will: we can't get out of anger, sadness, depression, etc. or get into any emotion we want instantly at will, because they are partly controlled by subconscious neural processes. Also, we will not be able to have any emotion even if we try to if the subconscious neural processes (in the amygdala and other nuclei in the limbic system) for emotion are impaired (such as in various apathy disorders: Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, fronto-temporal dementia, etc.)

\*2. That's why you can't memorize new events or recall past events, even if you try, if the subconscious neural processes (the hippocampus and other nuclei in the limbic system) that form, store, and retrieve memory are impaired.

\*3. That's why we can't consciously see in colors (achromatopsia), can’t recognize familiar faces (prosopagnosia) (including one’s own face), or can't recognize what the object is (visual agnosia) if the subconscious processes that process color, object identification, or face identification are impaired.

\*4.That's why we can't understand what people say even if we hear them clearly (sensory dysphasia) or can't understand what the text in the book means even if we see it clearly (alexia) if the subconscious neural processes that processes the meaning of the sound or of the image is impaired.

\*5. See more details in the references below.

**References.** General, basic information about unconscious processes in the brainstem, autonomic nervous system, cerebellum, and deep cerebral neuclei (basal ganglion, thalamus, amygdala, etc.) can be found easily by searching the internet.

Some of the more in-depth, interesting articles about this matter are as follows (and more references can be found inside these articles):

1. Bargh JA, Morsella E. The Unconscious Mind. Perspect Psychol Sci. 2008 Jan;3(1):73–79. DOI: 10.1111/j.1745-6916.2008.00064.x.
2. Dehanene S. Fathoming unconscious depths. In: Consciousness and the brain. Penguin Books. 2014. New York, New York, USA. ISBN 978-0-670-02543-5, 978-0-14-312626-3. p 47-88.
3. Dijksterhuis A. First neural evidence for the unconscious thought process. Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci. 2013 Dec; 8(8): 845–846. doi: 10.1093/scan/nst036.
4. Dijksterhuis A, Strick M. A Case for Thinking Without Consciousness. Perspect Psychol Sci. 2016 Jan;11(1):117-32. doi: 10.1177/1745691615615317.
5. Hallett M. Volitional control of movement: The physiology of free will. Clin Neurophysiol. 2007 Jun;118(6):1179–1192. DOI: 10.1016/j.clinph.2007.03.019 PMCID: PMC1950571 NIHMSID: NIHMS24077.
6. Horga G, Maia TV. Conscious and unconscious processes in cognitive control: A theoretical perspective and a novel empirical approach. Front Hum Neurosci. 2012; 6:199. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2012.00199.

# Answer
> -1 votes
The neuroscientist Joseph LeDoux has advised us to consider ALL behaviours as non conscious unless proven otherwise.

I’m guessing the percentages you have given in your question originally derive from computations of data coming into the brain per second, versus the brain’s neuronal capacity to process it. This is covered in Tor Nørretrander’s book The User Illusion, and Timothy Wilson’s Strangers to Ourselves. Contrary to Bryan Krause’s comments above, this is quite widely accepted in the academic community and has nothing to do with Freud. Quiroga has also demonstrated that we only ‘see’ the equivalent of a penny piece on our finger held out at arms length, the rest being constructed by our experience, predictions and imagination.

Nørretranders 1998 - The User Illusion: Cutting Consciousness Down to Size

Wilson 2002 - Strangers to Ourselves: Discovering the Adaptive Unconscious

LeDoux 2016 - Anxious: Using the Brain to Understand and Treat Fear and Anxiety

Quiroga 2017 - The Forgetting Machine: Memory, Perception, and the "Jennifer Aniston Neuron"

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Tags: neuroscience, neuroimaging
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# Question
Title: Research correlating stress/boredom with eating/comfort-seeking?
Imagine a few common stressful situations that we all go through:

* Being struck in traffic
* Having to wait for a bus, train...
* Going through security/immigration control at an airport

Purely an anecdotal observation: People tend to seek comfort in some form to handle such encounters - typically immediately afterwards. Quite often it takes the form of snacking, drinking, dining, binging...

My question is this: Anecdotal observations aside, are there any studies that have attempted to correlate the magnitude of the stress with the likelihood of the comfort-seeking behavior?

# Answer
Droid here are a couple of relevant studies:

Experiments with rodents done by Kent Berridge found that:

* Stressed rats will expend more energy on obtaining pleasurable relief (in the form of food) than non-stressed rats. But only to familiar foods

Peciña, S., Schulkin, J., & Berridge, K.C. (2006). Nucleus accumbens corticotropin-releasing factor increases cue-triggered motivation for sucrose reward: Paradoxical positive incentive effects in stress

* Experiments with stressed exam students done by Wendy Wood et al found that stress amplified the hedonic habitual approaches already used by students (so basically it made them seek out more of the HABIT though not the reward, to relieve stress and regain comfort.

Neal, D.T., Wood, W., & Drolet, A. (2013). How do people adhere to goals when willpower is low? The profits (and pitfalls) of strong habits. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

In short it seems that our default response to stress (and subsequent comfort seeking) is to seek out a FAMILIAR rewarding habit (E.g. having a coffee at Starbucks, if that’s a habit) than a non-habitual reward. (So comfort seeking is Pavlovian not strictly hedonic)
> 1 votes

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Tags: behavior, stress, correlation, feeding
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# Question
Title: Any research backing alpha waves and impact on subconscious mind
I've been researching the subject of affirmations and the relation with alpha waves over the course of the last few days.

I've found a significant amount of general information on the importance of performing learning/creative tasks during the alpha state, many of these sources indicating such a state as being ideal for self-suggestion.

On one of the articles I stumbled upon, the following statement was made:

> The subconscious mind is most open to helpful and beneficial suggestions while we are in the “alpha” brainwave state—our most relaxed state of mind. The alpha wave frequency is often achieved in a meditative state or just before falling sleep, creating an optimal time to receive positive affirmations.

Source: https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/embodied-wellness/201704/affirm-or-not-affirm

Such statements seem to run abound when running online searches, however, I have been unable to find any study to support statements like these; that could indicate the "openness" of the subconscious to "beneficial"/"helpful" effects to suggestive events when the brain is operating in the alpha band.

I am looking to find published research that could support to some extent statements like those.

Thank you.

# Answer
> 0 votes
For anyone interested, I believe to have found one such published article: `Hypnotic Susceptibility increased by EEG Alpha Training` by DAVID R. ENGSTROM, PERRY LONDON & JOSEPH T. HART.

In the article, they describe the correlation between hypnotic susceptibility and alpha waves. Here is one of the relevant lines:

> Results were analysed by correlation techniques and by analysis of variance and covariance. They indicate that hypnotic susceptibility and operant alpha rhythm are positively related both before and after the subjects received alpha training.

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Tags: brain-waves
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# Question
Title: Who was the first to use Softmax to model decision making?
Softmax is a mathematical function frequently used to model probabilistic choice between multiple alternatives associated with different values, e.g. two arms in a bandit task; See for example \[1\] and \[2\].

Where was this method first applied?

*\[1\] Shteingart, Hanan, Tal Neiman, and Yonatan Loewenstein. "The role of first impression in operant learning." Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 142.2 (2013): 476.*

*\[2\] Egelman, David M., Christophe Person, and P. Read Montague. "A computational role for dopamine delivery in human decision-making." Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 10.5 (1998): 623-630.*

# Answer
According to Sutton and Barto:

> The term soft-max for the action selection rule ... is due to Bridle (1990). This rule appears to have been first proposed by Luce (1959)
> 2 votes

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Tags: computational-modeling, decision-making
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# Question
Title: Why do our brains act in such a evil way sometimes that hurts other people?
I have seen some real evil acts. And I almost lost confidence in humanity.

Why do we become so evil sometimes that hurts other people?

I guess everybody knows the Renaissance novel Les Miserables by Victor Hugo. There in the story, it is depicted how a person from the lowest echelon of the society stole a loaf of bread because his sister's child was hungry and how he was punished for years in hard labor during the industrial revolution.

So evil or injustice reveals itself such sometimes that we are compelled to question why? Why do we have to be so evil when we have this beautiful world just in front of us? Is it because of how our brain chemicals perceive things sometimes?

If a person is envious or jealous or has unjust anger and an MRI could be done right at that instance, would it show why we are evil?

# Answer
> 2 votes
MVR there are many hormones within us that motivate behaviours that served a purpose in previous (phylogenetic) environments that in our modern society may appear to be evil.

Oxytocin for example (the so called love hormone) spikes before conflict, and one of the biggest dopamine hits we can ever experience is by punishing someone.

Sapolsky 2017 - Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst

# Answer
> 0 votes
There's also the work done by psychiatrist Daniel Amen. In his Ted talk \[on YouTube\] he describes having done about 80000 brain scans. He seriously puts forward the idea that criminality in many cases could be fixed by a brain scan, finding an abnormal growth, and removing or reducing it. He says that all his scans have let him to the opinion that the prison system should do such an assessment of the brain.

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Tags: cognitive-psychology, behavior, brain, cognitive-development
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title: Why can't we remember being babies?

text:
# Question
Title: Why can't we remember being babies?
I once watched a YouTube video explaining that it was because it was an evolutionary disadvantage to remember it better because you might do something like electrocute yourself with an electrical socket and then get scared before you know what it is. I'm guessing the research thought it was because people might become too scared to try things if they remember the incident too well. I believe that video was a TED-Ed video that no longer appears in the first page of YouTube search results. That video doesn't give me the information I'k looking for. Also, YouTube isn't 100% reliable. Also, from reading this answer, I think it's sometimes fine to ask a question when I Google information and can't get the information I'm looking for from a reliable seeming source. I know it's actually a YouTube video that didn't give me the reliable information I needed. I also Google searched "why can't we remember being a baby" and found the article Why can’t we remember our early childhood? as the first search result and it didn't answer my question so probably none of the search results do. I'm not asking the evolutionary reason we can't remember being babies. I'm asking the reason based on how the brain works.

My question is

> What is it about the way the brain works that causes people not to remember being a baby?

I'm guessing the brain starts in a simpler state. Then the brain takes time to develop abilities such as memory reconstruction. I think just like absolute pitch is an ability that the brain can develop with time, memory reconstruction is also an ability that babies' brains have not yet had time to develop very well. I also realize that even after that ability develops, it's probably not 100% reliable for everyone. Once, I went to the roundhouse in Toronto on a day that there was something going on. On that day, I payed for lemonade using tickets and then they thought I hadn't payed then somebody else said I payed and they believed him. I'm guessing the person whom I payed had developed a method of memory reconstruction that was normally reliable but wasn't reliable in that situation. I'm guessing she was so busy doing so many things with so many customers coming that the memory of my payment faded faster than it normally does and then she used the method of memory reconstruction that assumed that the memory of me paying wouldn't fade so fast because her memories of doing things normally fade slower because she's not so busy doing so many things so fast.

# Answer
> 1 votes
From the BBC article, there's a prediction about that:

> Perhaps, when we’re very young, the hippocampus simply isn’t developed enough to build a rich memory of an event. Baby rats, monkeys and humans all continue to add new neurons to the hippocampus for the first few years of life and we all are all unable to form lasting memories as infants – and it seems that the moment we stop creating new neurons, we‘re suddenly able to form long-term memories. “For young babies and infants the hippocampus is very undeveloped,” says Fagen.
>
> But is the under-formed hippocampus losing our long-term memories, or are they never formed in the first place? Since childhood events can continue to affect our behaviour long after we’ve forgotten them, some psychologists think they must be lingering somewhere. “The memories are probably stored someplace that’s inaccessible now, but it’s very difficult to demonstrate that empirically,” says Fagen.
>
> We should be very wary about what we do recall from that time, though – our childhood is probably full of false memories for events that never occurred.
>
> Elizabeth Loftus, a psychologist at the University of California, Irvine, has devoted her career to the phenomenon. “People can pick up suggestions and begin to visualise them – they become like memories,” she says.

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Tags: memory
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# Question
Title: Why are we generating wrong ideas in the first place?
In CBT they tell you to challenge automatic thoughts. So say someone doesn't say hello to you, then you think he doesn't like me. CBT says to challenge this and maybe you realize that he didn't see you actually.

I have a more philosophical question in such sense. CBT assumes that at some point we are generating wrong ideas (automatic thoughts) and later we are able to correct them ourselves. My question is, if we are able to correct them, why are we generating the wrong ideas in the first place? What is the mechanism that allows this to happen? Which mind processes are in play here? Concious/unconcious?

# Answer
> 2 votes
I suspect we adopt irrational positions when we have an implicit choice available and our frame of mind, owing to biological factors such as stress hormone levels, favors rapid choices over thoughtful reflection on the circumstances we face. Dual process theory provides a decent framework for thinking about this.

There is a remarkable body of literature examining paranoid ideation and social anxiety produced by D. Freeman which examines something along these lines experimentally. Attributional styles seem to be learned, then reinforced by exposure to stressful situations. Sort of a "feedback loop" of distorted cognition.

# Answer
> 1 votes
Here are some reasons I collected that can explain why we have wrong ideas:

# Answer
> 0 votes
They are learned thinking patterns, schemas.

We can't give our cognitive attention to more than one thing at a time so most of our thinking is automatic, relying on pattern matching to previous experience. We have algorithms or heuristics for most events and objects and people and inputs. They are the things we "know". Much of the time they're right.

Conscious and unconscious don't really have any meaning here.

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Tags: psychology, anxiety, thought, therapy, cbt
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title: The clock stop when switching focus

text:
# Question
Title: The clock stop when switching focus
I have notice that when I switch my focus from existing task to a clock (both digital, which shows numbers, and mechanical, which shows arms), the time on the clock seem to stop ticking for a brief moment.

So, my question is that does this phenomena has a term? Is there any explanation why this will happen? Is this common or is this a problem only few person would ever experience?

Since I am new to this field, I would also like to know how to tag this kind of question. Thank you very much.

# Answer
Yes, there is a term for this phenomenon. It is called stopped-clock illusion. It’s a type of chronostasis or a kind of temporal illusion, that the time interval is perceived to be longer than it really is.

Though I’m not totally convinced myself, the current explanation is like this:

This phenomenon happens because the brain fills in the perception gap that occurs (while changing visual targets) with the end visual target. This is because, when we change visual targets by moving our eyes, the overall visual scene will become blurred during that time and the brain avoids this confusing visual input by suppressing it, which results in a perception gap during that period of time. When the gaze changing ends, the brain fills this gap with the static image of the end visual target instead. As a result, the end visual target will be perceived to exist longer than it is actually seen. This suppressing of the blurred image also explains why we never experience blurry images while we move our eyes to see things around us.

References:

1. Wikipedia. Chronostasis
2. BBC Future. The mystery of the stopped clock illusion

More in-depth, academic references:

3. Eagleman DM. Human time perception and its illusions. Curr Opin Neurobiol. 2008 April;18(2):131–136.
4. van Wassenhove V, Wittmann M, Craig AD, Paulus MP. Psychological and neural mechanisms of subjective time dilation. Front Neurosci.2011;5:56.
> 3 votes

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Tags: perception, attention
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# Question
Title: How does psychiatry judge suicide by military and political leaders?
Peru's ex-president Garcia's suicide to avoid arrest reminded me of general officers and politicians who, although wicked, were foxy but rational. They ought've been punished, but they cunningly escaped punishment through suicide.

I'm assuming that some of the jumpers in the Sep 11 2001 attacks on the WTC weren't judged irrational for dying by suicide.

1. Society in 2019 disapproves and sigmatizes suicide, but what of such leaders' suicide? How does psychiatry regard their suicides?

See List of suicides, List of suicides in Nazi Germany, Mass suicides in 1945 Nazi Germany. Generalfeldmarschalls Robert Ritter von Greim and Walter Model. 2003-2008 South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun - Wikipedia, 1970-183 Chilean President Salvador Allende.
2. Any similar lists for Japan? This one one refers just to a handful of Japanese WW2 top brass.

I can think of only: Field Marshals Hajime Sugiyama, Hideki Tojo (who missed his heart when he shot himself, but was executed), General Shizuichi Tanaka, Admiral Chūichi Nagumo.

# Answer
Suicide is not a psychiatric disorder. Suicidal ideation or attempts are considered a symptom of certain psychiatric disorders (e.g. depression), and these disorders are treated by psychiatrists, but in and of itself suicide can be a rational choice and is in some legislations even legally facilitated by physicians (e.g. for the terminally ill).

Within their professional capacity, psychiatrists have nothing to say about people killing themselves to avoid shame or punishment or as a sacrifice for their country.
> -1 votes

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Tags: depression
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title: Are brain waves electromagnetic waves?

text:
# Question
Title: Are brain waves electromagnetic waves?
Depending upon its activity, the brain emits waves, which represent the summation of individual neurons firing. Are these waves electromagnetic waves?

# Answer
**Short answer**
Brain waves are not electromagnetic waves.

**Long answer**
Measured brain activity, as you already mentioned, is the result of individual neurons firing. The activity exists, in fact, of two parts. First of all, there are the action potentials (APs). APs are current flow within a neuron from one end to the other. The magnitude of these APs (and the summation of many) is so low however, that it is barely measurable.

The actual brain activity we can measure is the result of the second way of signal conduction: post-synaptic potentials as a result of neurotransmitters. (Pyramidal) Neurons communicate with each other through neurotransmitters, which are released from multiple synapses and flow to the axon of the next neuron. The release of the neurotransmitters causes a much larger potential difference that is conducted through different tissues (e.g. bones and skin). The activity that we measure with EEG is thus only the result of potential difference of the pyramidal neurons. Due to how electrical fields work, we are only able to measure the neurons oriented in right angles to the surface of the scalp (see the right picture).

A magnetic field cán also be measured though, but this is in fact the result of the flow in current. If electricity flows through a loop, a magnetic field is generated. Moreover, if there is a magnetic field, electrical current will be generated. This is how MEG works. If there is an electrical current, and you place these loops around the head, the magnetic field will be "caught". Then, in turn, this magnetic field will generated electricity in the MEG recording equipment, thereby recording electrical activity in the brain (See left part of the picture, there are two loops where the magnetic field goes through). The magnetic fields are orthogonal to the electrical fields (look for the Right-hand rule) and neurons that lie parallel to the scalp are more easily measurable. EEG and MEG complement each other thus, and combining them greatly improves localization of activity.

This is a quick and dirty explanation. For a better one, you may want to read the book of Luck: An Introduction to the Event-Related Potential Technique (2014), which explains it really nicely.
> 17 votes

# Answer
**Short answer**
Brainwaves are typically associated with the electroencephalogram, which is a signal mainly composed of potential differences generated in the superficial layers of the brain. Potential differences represent electric fields and do not represent electromagnetic (EM) radiation. EM radiation is build up of packets of energy (photons). EM radiation types are characterized and classified by their specific wavelengths, but this has nothing to do with brain waves.

**Background**
In addition to Robin Kramer's excellent answer I wish to approach this question from a more terminological approach, namely *what are brainwaves?*

*Brainwave* is a bit of a colloquial term. It is typically associated with the electroencephalogram (EEG). The EEG measures **electrical potential differences**, typically across the scalp (Fig. 1). This electrical activity emanating from the brain is displayed in the form of brainwaves. There are four categories of these brainwaves. These categories are based on frequency bands. The term frequency bands is a more formal term and refers to the way EEGs are typically analyzed, namely via Fourier transformation. Fourier transformation dissects any time-based signal into a number of well-defined sine waves, each with a characteristic frequency, expressed in cycles per second (*i.e.*, Hz).

When the brain is aroused and actively engaged in mental activities, it generates *beta waves*. These beta waves are of relatively low amplitude, and are the fastest of the four different brainwaves (15 to 40 Hz frequency band). *Alpha waves* (9 - 14 Hz) represent non-arousal, are slower, and higher in amplitude. A person who has completed a task and sits down to rest is often in an alpha state. The next state, *theta brainwaves* (5 - 8 Hz), are typically of even greater amplitude and slower frequency. This frequency range is normally between 5 and 8 cycles a second. A person who has taken time off from a task and begins to daydream is often in a theta brainwave state. A person who is driving on a freeway, and discovers that they can't recall the last five miles, is often in a theta state induced by the process of freeway driving. The final brainwave state is *delta* (1.5 - 4 Hz). Here the brainwaves are of the greatest amplitude and slowest frequency. A deep, dreamless sleep is characterized by this frequency band. When we go for a night's sleep, brainwaves typically descend from beta, to alpha, to theta and finally, when we fall asleep, to delta (source: *Sci Am*, 1997).

Fig. 1. EEG traces. source: *Sci Am*, (1997)

EEG activity is measured via electrodes and these pick up a potential difference, or electric field. An electric field is not electromagnetic (EM), because it is not (necessarily) accompanied by a magnetic component. An electric field is generated everywhere where charge is separated. If no current flows, there is still an electric field, namely a static electric field. Only when current starts to flow a magnetic component is introduced (source: WHO). In the brain, static electric fields may exist, but EEG activity is typically evoked by repetitive, synchronized neural firings. Within the tissue, hence, current flows during action potential generation and hence there is definitely a magnetic component involved, this is measured with a magnetoencephalogram (MEG).

MEG measures magnetic fields and is typically not analyzed in the form of brainwaves but in the form of brain images (Fig. 2).

Fig. 2. MEG analysis. source: NYU Cognitive Neurophysiology Lab

MEG signals are also *not* EM radiation, but magnetic signals.

Finally, then what is **EM radiation**? EM radiation is a **form of energy that is produced by oscillating electric and magnetic disturbance**, or by the **movement of electrically charged particles** traveling through a vacuum or matter. The electric and magnetic fields come at right angles to each other and combined wave moves perpendicular to both magnetic and electric oscillating fields thus the disturbance. Electron radiation is released as photons, which are bundles of light energy that travel at the speed of light as quantized harmonic waves. This energy is then grouped into categories based on its wavelength into the electromagnetic spectrum. These electric and magnetic waves travel perpendicular to each other and have certain characteristics, including amplitude, wavelength, and frequency (Fig. 3).

Fig. 3. EM spectrum. source: UC Davis

Importantly, EM radiation can either act as a **wave** or a **particle**, namely a **photon**. As a wave, it is represented by velocity, wavelength, and frequency. As a particle, EM is represented as a photon, which transports energy. Photons with higher energies produce shorter wavelengths and photons with lower energies produce longer wavelengths.
> 11 votes

# Answer
If "brain waves" produce a time-varying electric potential as shown on the EEG, then as far as I know electromagnetic waves are present. I was taught that you cannot have a time varying electric potential without creating an electromagnetic wave. You can try browsing wiki explanation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxwell%27s\_equations, but the main idea is that a time varying electric field cannot exist without the presence of a time-varying magnetic field. I admit I have basically zero background knowledge on brainwaves, however after reading the two previous thorough answers I was left wondering why a brain wave would not fall into the category of electromagnetic waves.

"An electric field is not electromagnetic (EM), because it is not (necessarily) accompanied by a magnetic component." This is theoretically true for static electric fields, but I think static electric fields are similar to a "vacuum state" in the sense that they don't exist in real life or even if they did it would be really hard to measure without perturbing the system.

Waves are not static and, therefore, the EEG certainly shows a time-varying electric field.
> 8 votes

# Answer
This is an important question for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the pervasive conflation of "brain waves" with EM or radio waves in popular media and even in some articles in Scientific American. The three top-voted answers at this point (June 2019) by Robin Kramer, AliceD, and bobby although apparently inconsistent, are all correct, but lack some detail that can resolve the apparent inconsistency.

To begin, as Robin states and AliceD implies, Brain waves are NOT electromagnetic (EM) waves; brain waves are the term given to the patterns of voltage differences measured between two electrodes connected to the three dimensional extracellular fluid matrix surrounding the brain (as shown beautifully by Robin). This matrix includes the skull and scalp of the subject, and since the skull has a high resistance, the current that eventually makes it to the scalp is quite small and produces a very small voltage as it flows through the somewhat resistive scalp between the two electrodes. During open skull surgery, the EEG recorded from the brain surface is 10-100 time larger as the current does not have to flow out through the skull to reach the electrodes and then back again. These voltage patterns of course go up and down, thus producing "waves" in the EEG record of voltage versus time as AliceD explains.

This is not the same sense of the term "wave" that is used in physics to describe wave phenomena; generally physicists talk about waves as solutions to differential wave equations, including Maxwell's equations. Only in the broadest sense of some possible periodicity of the phenomenon producing ups and downs in a graph of the phenomenon versus time can the commonality of these two senses of the word "wave" be identified. Note, however, that physicist's solutions to wave equations can be quite general, and include any combination of solution functions that take as arguments (ax+bt) and (ax-bt) representing forward and backwards traveling solutions. Hence, a square pulse will solve wave equations, and given that any realistic signal has a Fourier representation, any signal can be said to be comprised of a weighted sum of sine and cosine "waves" as described by AliceD, even if the signal itself is not periodic.

EM waves are solutions to Maxwell's equations that carry energy through space by means of changing electric and magnetic fields that can travel long distances from where they are launched and are associated with far-field energy. This far-field energy is no longer affected by its source, nor does its fate affect its source. This is different than the energy in the electric and magnetic fields related to the current flow in the extracellular matrix; this is called the near-field, and it comprises the motive power that drives the current flow. Attention to details is important here; EEGs do not record electric fields, they record differences in potential. Potential is a scalar field with a single numerical value at each point in space and no absolute zero point - hence having to always measure the difference in voltage (potential) between two points and to have connections to the extracellular fluid matrix circuit, whereas the electric field is a vector field with a magnitude and direction at each point in space. The electric field is the gradient of the potential, and this is the direction that the current will flow in isotropic extracellular fluid. Changing the potential at points in the extracellular matrix will change the near-field electric field and thus the three dimensional pattern of current flow and any recorded potential differences. Brain waves are these latter potential differences due to the near-field energy in the electric and magnetic fields, and separate from the far field effects of radiated energy in the form of EM waves.

Now, bobby points out that changing potential differences representing brain waves imply changing electric fields that, as Maxwell says, produces changing magnetic fields, which, in turn generates a changing electric field, etc - and we're off to the races: an EM wave is launched! Or is it?

One needs a device called an antenna to transduce a changing voltage/current into and EM wave, and a very basic rule for antennas is that they only start converting significant amounts of energy when the size of the antenna approaches 1/4 the wavelength of the signal being radiated. So let's see how big our antenna would need to be for a 10 Hz alpha wave to be launched out of our scalp. Since EM waves travel at the speed of light, or 300,000,000 m/s, our scalp would have to be 75,000,000 meters in size! I don't have the equations here, but it's pretty obvious that essentially zero energy at 10 Hz is going to be radiated. And if one wanted to pick up that signal, the receiving antenna would have to be equally large! Seventy five Megameters is pretty damn big.

This is why the EEG electrodes have to touch the scalp or otherwise connect to the actual circuit in which current is flowing rather than than just be placed nearby to pick up radiated EM energy from the brain. And while it's true a number of tricks can be pulled (as is done in cell phones dielectric antennas) to reduce this size by maybe a factor of ten, even for 100Hz or 1000Hz signals, virtually no energy is going to radiate from the scalp, nor will EM waves be picked up and converted into changing potentials on the scalp from the EM milieu around us. Cell phones can be small because they utilize signals in the range of 3 GHz where 1/4 of a wavelength is about 2.5 cm, or an inch.

So, even though there could be EM waves produced by brain "waves", practically speaking, it doesn't happen, and looking in detail at how EM wave are radiated reveals that the brain "wave" is, in fact, a different phenomenon from any EM wave that it might be associated with or generate.

Perhaps the most succinct way to pinpoint the difference is to note that EM waves consist of packets of energy propagating through space via self-regenerating changing electric and magnetic fields that have units of volts/meter and amps/meter, while brain "waves" are difference in voltages between two points on the scalp measured in Volts - note that they have different units. With brain "waves", essentially no energy is leaving the scalp and radiating into space because the frequencies are too low and the scalp is far to small to act as an effective antenna to convert them into EM waves.
> 0 votes

# Answer
Strictly from a point of view in physics, there are only 4 fundamental interactions: gravitation, electromagnetic, weak interaction and strong interaction.

The weak and strong interactions only exist in sub-atomic, so they won't contribute anything to brainwave. The gravitation interaction, while theoretically affects, is extremely tiny to the point that it can be neglected either. **Therefore, everything the brain does is electromagnetic.** In fact, every chemical process can also be said to be purely electromagnetic.

I must emphasize this is strictly a physics point of view, because I know in other fields, like biology or neuroscience, it is impractical to group every *form of electromagnetic interaction* in one basket. Electric field, magnetic field, radiation, Van de Waals interaction, you name it, are different forms of electromagnetic interaction.

What can be quite confusing is that in biology or neuroscience, the term *electromagnetic* can be used for a form of such interaction: the co-existence of electric field and magnetic field. This is why we can say that electric field is not electromagnetic. This is, strictly from a physics point of view, wrong. However, this is just different interpretations of the term, so biologists and neuroscientists can safely use that statement.
> 0 votes

# Answer
I think the posted question could be re-worded as - 'In what ways are Brain Waves and Electromagnetic Waves the same and/or different' - to help with giving an answer the person was looking for in their question.

To summarize an answer - They are both frequency patterns but occur from different phenomena. Brain Waves deal with particular states of neurological activity in a physical brain. Electromagnetic waves deal with the propagation of energy from sources of atomic matter (atoms). Brain waves may consist of Electromagnetic waves (radiation) but Electromagnetic Waves do not consist of Brain Waves.
> 0 votes

# Answer
Brain 'waves' by nature are EM waves, albeit very weak and in the range of 1-100hz, which for waves, is a very weak oscillating cycle in the hundreds per second. For comparison, a standard EM radio wave will oscillate in MHZ range at millions of cycles per second. That being said, the technicality is that any travelling electric current will generate a concurrent magnetic field, and be electromagnetic in nature. New research in Neuroscience is coming forward to better understand the electromagnetic aspect of brain waves. In the EM realm they are incredibly weak and without correct shielding from other EM radiation, pretty much impossible to detect. However, studies in mice have shown their brain to have an electric field that can help brain waves propagate, and any travelling electric current such as in neurons firing will be electromagnetic in nature because an electric current cannot exist without the accompanying magnetic field.
> -1 votes

# Answer
My belief of electromagnetic brain waves such as today prosthetics technology that is just for fronting in today's society with smart prosthetics moving with the thought of process of your brain hooked into your electromagnetic nervous system. Are brain waves electromagnetic frequency generator 10 to 100 cycles per minute of electromagnetic frequencies or other words electromagnetic static.. flowing through our neurons and nerve endings that give us a full word mobility of motion. The conscious of life is electromagnetic frequencies of our brain wave electromagnetic static frequencies that generate movement and thought site feeling all our emotions... There are electromagnetic fields around us that interfere with our surroundings. The brain waves much lower frequency of electrical magnetic pulses.. so if Prosthetics can be tapped into are immune system of nerves and electromagnetic or should I say electrostatic static field of ones human ability.. so the question here would be if Prosthetics can tap into are electromagnetic state of brain waves. That are electrical and nature such as everything else around us how is it that are brain waves are not electromagnetic. But just at a lower frequency of rate of pulse of electromagnetic frequencies at a different rate of speed and frequency that is detectable in measurable
> -4 votes

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Tags: terminology, eeg, electrophysiology, brain-waves, meg
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# Question
Title: Special treatment of youngest member of a group
In the German language, there is a term for the youngest member of a family: "Nesthäkchen".

Unfortunately, on Wikipedia I can't find any more details - only the book/film with the same title has a Wikipedia page.

I have seen it several times where the youngest team member gets special treatment. Mostly the older team members are kind to the youngest member, and thus the youngest member has more freedom/rights than the other team members.

What is this phenomenon called in psychology?

BTW, I guess this phenomena is valid for many mammals.

# Answer
> 3 votes
I'm not aware of any special technical term for such a phenomenon, though colloquially the youngest child may sometimes be called "the baby of the family". Furthermore, I'm not aware of this phenomenon existing outside of family dynamics - it might be just your personal experience. In the workplace for example, the youngest members of a team may be treated as inexperienced or incompetent, as competition or threat, or as subordinate or servant. Favouritism may equally be shown to the eldest, most senior, most productive, or most visionary members of a team.

Within families, a number of surveys have suggested that parents do appear to favour their youngest children. However, a few interpretations of this phenomenon are possible. One interpretation is that younger children demand and respond to preferential treatment over their older siblings (eg, Jensen & McHale, 2017). Another is that younger children are easier to manage than older children, and in fact they receive no better treatment than their older siblings did at the same age (eg, Mumsnet, 2018). It is also possible that there is a cuteness effect:

> ... human adults react positively to infants who are stereotypically cute.

Also of note: Being the youngest child does not grant any special advantage later in life.

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Tags: social-psychology, terminology, developmental-psychology, parenting
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# Question
Title: How many different synapses can an axon form? How do they differ?
It is estimated that the in the human brain there are about 100 billion neurons.

With thousands of synapses for each of them, the total number of synapses is over 100 trillion.

Yet each neuron has one axon with which it can output signal. Obviously each axon forms more than one synapse (else the number wouldn't add up), but how many? It should be thousands per axon, with several different neurons. Is that so?

# Answer
You're right - from the simple math in the numbers you've given, you can deduce that each average neuron makes thousands of connections (sending and receiving).

Of course, this varies a bit by cell type:

* There is one special synapse called the Calyx of Held which is a nearly one-to-one connection between certain types of cells in the auditory brainstem: one globular bushy cell makes only 1 or 2 calyx synapses with MNTB neurons (though they also have collaterals to other targets) which themselves receive 1 or at most 2 calyx synapses (though they also receive a small fraction of input from other sources) (Smith et al 1991, Smith et al 1998, Rodríguez‐Contreras et al 2006)
* Napper and Harvey 1988 estimate about 175,000 synapses arrive at each Purkinje cell in the cerebellum.
* The ballpark number of "thousands of synapses per neuron" is reasonable for most cells, however.

Neurons can and do make multiple synaptic connections with the same post-synaptic cell - that's one of the ways to regulate the strength of connection between two neurons - but most synapses will be from different neurons.

Synapses on different compartments of a cell can have different effects, because they tend to sum more with other local connections and less from far ones, and because synapses closer to the cell body are more likely to directly control firing than synapses far away.

Axons from many cell types in neocortex have a complex branching pattern, where axons often branch both locally as well as sending various collaterals to other areas of neocortex and even to subcortical structures (see some examples in Ojima et al. 1991 & 1992). They make synapses all along these branches except for the longest projection stretches.

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Hawkins, J., & Ahmad, S. (2016). Why neurons have thousands of synapses, a theory of sequence memory in neocortex. Frontiers in neural circuits, 10, 23.

Napper, R. M. A., & Harvey, R. J. (1988). Number of parallel fiber synapses on an individual Purkinje cell in the cerebellum of the rat. Journal of Comparative Neurology, 274(2), 168-177.

Ojima, H., Honda, C. N., & Jones, E. (1991). Patterns of axon collateralization of identified supragranular pyramidal neurons in the cat auditory cortex. Cerebral Cortex, 1(1), 80-94.

Ojima, H., Honda, C. N., & Jones, E. G. (1992). Characteristics of intracellularly injected infragranular pyramidal neurons in cat primary auditory cortex. Cerebral Cortex, 2(3), 197-216.

Rodríguez‐Contreras, A., de Lange, R. P., Lucassen, P. J., & Borst, J. G. G. (2006). Branching of calyceal afferents during postnatal development in the rat auditory brainstem. Journal of Comparative Neurology, 496(2), 214-228.

Smith, P. H., Joris, P. X., Carney, L. H., & Yin, T. C. (1991). Projections of physiologically characterized globular bushy cell axons from the cochlear nucleus of the cat. Journal of comparative neurology, 304(3), 387-407.

Smith, P. H., Joris, P. X., & Yin, T. C. (1998). Anatomy and physiology of principal cells of the medial nucleus of the trapezoid body (MNTB) of the cat. Journal of neurophysiology, 79(6), 3127-3142.
> 3 votes

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Tags: neuroscience, neuroanatomy
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