Σάββατο 3 Μαρτίου 2012
Μπάνκερ Ρόι: Μαθαίνοντας από το ξυπόλητο κίνημα-Bunker Roy
 |
| Ινδια (Photo credit: chandrika221) |
Translated into Greek by Dimitra Papageorgiou
Richard Dawkins: 'Somebody as intelligent as Jesus would have been an at...
 |
| Image via Wikipedia |
Catholicism, Contraception and Secular Morality at Notre Dame by Sean Fa...
 |
| Image via Wikipedia |
:http://store.richarddawkins.net/products/attack-of-the-theocrats-how-the-reli....
Learn about a Ten Point Vision of a Secular America
:http://richarddawkins.net/videos/644419-atheism-a-new-strategy-richard-dawkin....
And learn "Why Romney's Religion Matters
http://richarddawkins.net/videos/644784-why-romney-s-religion-matter
Faircloth is Dir. of Strategy & Policy for the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason & Science -- US.
Πέμπτη 1 Μαρτίου 2012
God of the Gaps - The Story of God - BBC
 |
| Image via Wikipedia |
The third episode considers how the idea of God has been challenged by modern ideas, especially scientific theories and discoveries.
Professor Robert Winston presents a definitive three-part documentary series on the history of mankind's quest to understand the nature of God. The Story of God is an epic journey across continents, cultures and eras exploring religious beliefs from their earliest incarnations, through the development of today's major world faiths and the status of religious faith in a scientific age.
The series examines the roots of religious beliefs in prehistoric societies and the different ways in which humanity's sense of the divine developed. It looks at the divergence between religions that worship a range of deities and those that represent strict monotheism.
ΚΑΤΑΣΤΡΟΦΗ ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΟΥ ΠΟΛΙΤΙΣΜΟΥ
 |
| Image via Wikipedia |
Τρίτη 28 Φεβρουαρίου 2012
Δ.Καζάκης - Συνέντευξη στο STV
 |
| Image via Wikipedia |
"οσοι στηρίζουν τις πολιτικές αυτές πρέπει να εγκληθούν επί εσχάτη προδοσία"
"βρισκόμαστε σε κατάσταση κοινωνικής Εθνοκάθαρσης.."
"Μέρκελ και Σαρκοζί δεν θα επιτρέψουν να πάμε σε εκλογές"
"ποτέ άλλοτε η Ελλάδα δεν χρειαζόταν τα παιδιά της όσο σήμερα.."
Schizophrenia: When hallucinatory voices suppress real ones, new electronic application may help
Schizophrenia: When hallucinatory voices suppress real ones, new electronic application may help
"The patient experiences the inner voices as 100 per cent real, just as if someone was standing next to him and speaking" explains Professor Kenneth Hugdahl of the University of Bergen. "At the same time, he can't hear voices of others actually present in the same room."
Auditory hallucinations are one of the most common symptoms associated with schizophrenia.
Neural activity ceases
Dr Hugdahl's research group has made use of a variety of neuroimaging techniques, including functional magnetic resonance imaging technology (fMRI) to enable them quite literally to see what happens inside the brain when the inner voices make their presence known. The project received funding under the NevroNor national initiative on neuroscientific research administered under the auspices of the Research Council of Norway
Images of patients' brains reveal a spontaneous activation of neurons in a particular area of the brain -- specifically the rear, upper region of the left temporal lobe. This is the area responsible for speech perception, and when healthy people hear speech it becomes activated. So what happens when patients with schizophrenia hear a real voice and a hallucinatory one at the same time?
"It would be natural to assume that neural activity would increase somewhat -- even twofold. But quite the opposite takes place; we actually observed that the activity ceased altogether," states Professor Hugdahl.
Losing contact with the outside world
In order to learn more about what was happening, Hugdahl and his colleagues Kristiina Kompus and René Westerhausen carried out a meta-analysis of 23 studies. These studies focused either on spontaneous inner-voice triggered neural activation in subjects with schizophrenia or the stimulatory reaction prompted by actual sounds in both healthy and schizophrenic subjects.
It emerged that many researchers had observed either that a spontaneous activation of neurons occurs in patients hearing inner voices or that the patients' perception of actual voices becomes suppressed when these are heard simultaneously with inner voices. No one had seen the connection between these findings.
"Previously, we thought these were two separate phenomena. But our analyses revealed that the one causes the other: when neurons become activated by inner voices it inhibits perception of outside speech. The neurons become 'preoccupied' and can't 'process' voices from the outside," explains Professor Hugdahl.
"This may explain why schizophrenic patients close themselves off so completely and lose touch with the outside world when experiencing hallucinations," he purports.
Electronic app designed to improve impulse control
Hugdal and his colleagues made yet another discovery that may well help explain how the lives of these individuals become consumed by inner voices. It turns out that the frontal lobe in the brains of schizophrenia patients does not function exactly the way it should. As a result, these patients have a lesser degree of impulse control and are unable to filter out their inner voices.
"Every one of us hears inner voices or melodies from time to time. The difference between non-afflicted individuals and schizophrenia patients is that the former manage to tune these out better," the professor points out.
If patients could learn to stifle inner noise it could have a huge impact on our ability to treat schizophrenia, he states. To this end, Professor Hugdahl's research group has developed an application that can be used on mobile phones and other simple electronic devices, to help patients improve their filters.
Wearing headphones, the patient is exposed to simple speech sounds with different sounds played in each ear. The task is to practice hearing the sound in one ear while blocking out sound in the other. The application has only been tested on two patients with schizophrenia so far. The response from these patients is promising, Dr Hugdahl relates.
"The voices are still there, but the test subjects feel that they have control over the voices instead of the other way around. The patient feels it is a breakthrough since it means he can actively shift his focus from the inner voices over to the sounds coming from the outside," the professor explains.
Schizophrenia: When Hallucinatory Voices Suppress Real Ones, New Electronic Application May Help
Image captures of the brain show how neurons are activated in healthy control subjects when hearing actual voices (top row) whereas activation fails to occur in patients who experience auditory hallucinations. (Credit: Kenneth Hugdahl)
ScienceDaily (Feb. 3, 2012) — When a patient afflicted with schizophrenia hears inner voices something is taking place inside the brain that prevents the individual from perceiving real voices. A simple electronic application may help the patient learn to shift focus.
Auditory hallucinations are one of the most common symptoms associated with schizophrenia.
Neural activity ceases
Dr Hugdahl's research group has made use of a variety of neuroimaging techniques, including functional magnetic resonance imaging technology (fMRI) to enable them quite literally to see what happens inside the brain when the inner voices make their presence known. The project received funding under the NevroNor national initiative on neuroscientific research administered under the auspices of the Research Council of Norway
Images of patients' brains reveal a spontaneous activation of neurons in a particular area of the brain -- specifically the rear, upper region of the left temporal lobe. This is the area responsible for speech perception, and when healthy people hear speech it becomes activated. So what happens when patients with schizophrenia hear a real voice and a hallucinatory one at the same time?
"It would be natural to assume that neural activity would increase somewhat -- even twofold. But quite the opposite takes place; we actually observed that the activity ceased altogether," states Professor Hugdahl.
Losing contact with the outside world
In order to learn more about what was happening, Hugdahl and his colleagues Kristiina Kompus and René Westerhausen carried out a meta-analysis of 23 studies. These studies focused either on spontaneous inner-voice triggered neural activation in subjects with schizophrenia or the stimulatory reaction prompted by actual sounds in both healthy and schizophrenic subjects.
It emerged that many researchers had observed either that a spontaneous activation of neurons occurs in patients hearing inner voices or that the patients' perception of actual voices becomes suppressed when these are heard simultaneously with inner voices. No one had seen the connection between these findings.
"Previously, we thought these were two separate phenomena. But our analyses revealed that the one causes the other: when neurons become activated by inner voices it inhibits perception of outside speech. The neurons become 'preoccupied' and can't 'process' voices from the outside," explains Professor Hugdahl.
"This may explain why schizophrenic patients close themselves off so completely and lose touch with the outside world when experiencing hallucinations," he purports.
Electronic app designed to improve impulse control
Hugdal and his colleagues made yet another discovery that may well help explain how the lives of these individuals become consumed by inner voices. It turns out that the frontal lobe in the brains of schizophrenia patients does not function exactly the way it should. As a result, these patients have a lesser degree of impulse control and are unable to filter out their inner voices.
 |
| Image via Wikipedia |
If patients could learn to stifle inner noise it could have a huge impact on our ability to treat schizophrenia, he states. To this end, Professor Hugdahl's research group has developed an application that can be used on mobile phones and other simple electronic devices, to help patients improve their filters.
Wearing headphones, the patient is exposed to simple speech sounds with different sounds played in each ear. The task is to practice hearing the sound in one ear while blocking out sound in the other. The application has only been tested on two patients with schizophrenia so far. The response from these patients is promising, Dr Hugdahl relates.
"The voices are still there, but the test subjects feel that they have control over the voices instead of the other way around. The patient feels it is a breakthrough since it means he can actively shift his focus from the inner voices over to the sounds coming from the outside," the professor explains.
Religion as source of goodness: Christians 5: 80 foot demons and baby sacrifices !!!
 |
| Image via Wikipedia |
When religion is becoming the point of reference to human activities, logic goes for holidays ... permanently !!!
Neurorobotics Reveals Brain Mechanisms of Self-Consciousness
ScienceDaily (Apr. 27, 2011) — A new study uses creative engineering to unravel brain mechanisms associated with one of the most fundamental subjective human feelings: self-consciousness. The research, published in the April 28 issue of the journal Neuron, identifies a brain region called the temporo-parietal junction (TPJ) as being critical for the feeling of being an entity localized at a particular position in space and for perceiving the world from this position and perspective.
Recent theories of self-consciousness highlight the importance of integrating many different sensory and motor signals, but it is not clear how this type of integration induces subjective states such as self-location ("Where am I in space?") and the first-person perspective ("From where do I perceive the world?"). Studies of neurological patients reporting out-of-body experiences have provided some evidence that brain damage interfering with the integration of multisensory body information may lead to pathological changes of the first-person perspective and self-location. However, it is still not known how to examine brain mechanisms associated with self-consciousness.
"Recent behavioral and physiological work, using video-projection and various visuo-tactile conflicts showed that self-location can be manipulated in healthy participants," explains senior study author, Dr. Olaf Blanke, from the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland. "However, so far these experimental findings and techniques do not allow for the induction of changes in the first-person perspective and have not been integrated with neuroimaging, probably because the experimental set-ups require participants to sit, stand, or move. This makes it very difficult to apply and film the visuo-tactile conflicts on the participant's body during standard brain imaging techniques."
Making use of inventive neuroimaging-compatible robotic technology that was developed by Dr. Gassert's group at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, Dr. Blanke and colleagues studied healthy subjects and employed specific bodily conflicts that induced changes in self-location and first-person perspective while simultaneously monitoring brain activity with functional magnetic resonance imaging. They observed that TPJ activity reflected experimental changes in self-location and first-person perspective. The researchers also completed a large study of neurological patients with out-of-body experiences and found that brain damage was localized to the TPJ.
"Our results illustrate the power of merging technologies from engineering with those of neuroimaging and cognitive science for the understanding of the nature of one of the greatest mysteries of the human mind: self-consciousness and its neural mechanisms," concludes Dr. Blanke. "Our findings on experimentally and pathologically induced altered states of self-consciousness present a powerful new research technology and reveal that TPJ activity reflects one of the most fundamental subjective feelings of humans: the feeling that 'I' am an entity that is localized at a position in space and that 'I' perceive the world from here."
Web address:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/04/
110427131818.htm
Εγγραφή σε:
Αναρτήσεις (Atom)