Neurology Center

Galileo would be turning in his grave. His achievement was to set science on the course which has made it into an astonishingly successful means of generating knowledge. Yet some people not only reject the truths of the science that Galileo did so much to advance; they do it in his name.Intro: In Denial?Scientific truth is increasingly disbelieved, and this is a new phenomenon, so much so that new...

Over the past few weeks, Christian neurosurgeon Michael Egnor, who writes on Evolution News & Views, and atheist neurologist Steve Novella (Neurologica) have been having an, er, vigorous debate about what neuroscience can tell us about materialism and the soul. As reported in New Scientist, this is part of an apparant attempt to undermine the materialist position (that all mental processes are...

Via Dr Shock, there's a new blog just been started by an anonymous American man who will soon be undergoing deep brain stimulation (DBS) for clinical depression, as part of a blinded trial.It sounds like it's going to be fascinating reading - to my knowledge this is the first blog of its kind. I've always been a big believer in the important of first-hand reports in psychiatry and neurology, but sadly...

Update: See also Lessons from the Video Game BrainThe Journal of Neuroscience has published a Swedish study which, according to New Scientist (and the rest) is something of a breakthrough:First 'Placebo Gene' DiscoveredI rather like the idea of a dummy gene made of sugar, or perhaps a gene for being Brian Moloko, but what they're referring to is a gene, TPH2, which allegedly determines susceptibility...

Previously I posted about the much-maligned serotonin theory of depression and tentatively defended it, while making it clear that "low serotonin" was certainly not the whole story. Critics have noted that the serotonin-is-happiness hypothesis has become folk wisdom, despite being clearly incomplete, and this is generally ascribed to the marketing power of the pharmaceutical industry. What's also...