bodhi tree swaying

This is straight from an article by Daniel R. Hawes in Psychology Today:

An article appeared in PLoS one this May which describes brain differences between Vegetarians, Vegans and Omnivores in the way they process pictures of animal suffering.

The study in question is a neuroimaging study intent on investigating whether

“the neural representation of conditions of abuse and suffering might be different among subjects who made different feeding choice due to ethical reasons, and thus result in the engagement of different components of the brain networks associated with empathy and social cognition”

The hypothesis behind this study is based on the observation that Vegetarians and Vegans tend to base their decision to avoid animal products on ethical grounds. Assuming that Vegetarians and Vegans – because of their underlying moral philosophies – show greater empathy towards animal suffering, it is very well possible that these differences in empathy extend beyond the animal domain

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Very interesting article from Discover about distractedness…

I am going to do my best to hold your attention until the very last word of this column. Actually, I know it’s futile. Along the way, your mind will wander off, then return, then drift away again. But I can console myself with some recent research on the subject of mind wandering. Mind wandering is not necessarily the sign of a boring column. It’s just one of the things that make us human.

Everybody knows what it is like for our minds to wander, and yet, for a long time psychologists shied away from examining the experience. It seemed too elusive and subjective to study scientifically. Only in the past decade have they even measured just how common mind wandering is. The answer is very.

Some of the most striking evidence comes from Jonathan Schooler, a psychologist at the University of California at Santa Barbara

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A U.S. researcher suggests people, despite cultural background or religion, experience the same neuropsychological functions during spiritual experiences.

Brick Johnstone, a neuropsychologist at the University of Missouri, said that transcendence — feelings of universal unity and decreased sense of self — is a core tenet of all major religions. Meditation and prayer are the primary vehicles by which such spiritual transcendence is achieved.

“The brain functions in a certain way during spiritual experiences,” Johnstone said in a statement. “We studied people with brain injury and found that people with injuries to the right parietal lobe of the brain reported higher levels of spiritual experiences, such as transcendence.”

Johnstone explained that the link is important because it means selflessness can be learned by decreasing activity in that part of the brain. He suggests this can be done through conscious effort, such as meditation or prayer. People with these selfless …

There was a rather flip, funny, yet informative article about neuroplasticity the other day in the Times (the real one, not the NYT). It’s worth reading in full, but here’s a taster:

The brain is not, as the brain trainers like to say, a muscle. It is a 1.3-kilogram crème caramel-like mix of fat, water and proteins driven by electricity and chemicals called neurotransmitters … It’s made to last, at best, about 100 years. It shrinks and deteriorates with age. By the time you’re 30 you’re probably past your intellectual peak. This is a problem, as we’re living longer and longer, and the danger is that we’ll just get stupider and stupider.

It’s a particular problem for baby-boomers, the large, rich, spoilt generation born after the second world war. They’ve had everything, they run the world, but now they’re in their fifties and sixties. They love

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