Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘evolution’

Genetic road signs for super-size coffee SUV drivers

Posted in ADORA2A, DRD2, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 4, 2010 | Leave a Comment »

If you’re a coffee drinker, you may have noticed the new super-sized portions available at Starbucks.  On this note, it may be worth noting that caffeine is a potent psychoactive substance of which – too much – can turn your buzz into a full-blown panic disorder.  The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for psychiatry outlines a [...]

Read Full Post »

My genes tell me that smokin’ and drinkin’ are sins

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , on February 9, 2010 | Leave a Comment »

Image by muffintoptn via Flickr Humans are spiritual creatures – there’s no denyin’.  How & why we got this way is one of THE BIG questions of all time.  Since our genome shapes the development of our brain and its interaction with our culture, its not a surprise to see that, from time to time, [...]

Read Full Post »

C.H. Waddington provides conceptual framework for shifting influences of genes and environment in the development of mind

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 12, 2010 | Leave a Comment »

Just a pointer to onetime University of Edinburgh Professor C.H. Waddington’s 1972 Gifford Lecture on framing the genes vs. environment debate of human behavior.  Although Waddington is famous for his work on population genetics and evolutionary change over time, several of his concepts are experiencing some resurgence in the neuroimaging and psychological development literatures these [...]

Read Full Post »

Recalling finch beaks using variable decision criteria to learn from whence we came

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on December 14, 2009 | Leave a Comment »

Image via Wikipedia In his book, The Beak of the Finch, Jonathan Weiner describes the great diversity of finches on the Galapagos Islands – so much diversity – that Darwin himself initially thought the finch variants to be completely different birds (wrens, mockingbirds, blackbirds and “gross-bills”).  It turns out that one of the pivotal events [...]

Read Full Post »

Insights on emotional attachment found in pain gene (OPRM1) – poets everywhere say, “I told you so”

Posted in OPRM1, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on December 8, 2009 | 1 Comment »

Image via Wikipedia If you slam your hand in the car door and experience physical pain, medical science can offer you a “pain killer!“.  Certainly morphine (via its activation of the mu opioid receptor (OPRM1)) will make you feel a whole lot better.  However, if your boyfriend or girlfriend breaks up with you and you [...]

Read Full Post »

Look deeply into my eyes and let me see your genes

Posted in OTR, OXTR, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on November 24, 2009 | 1 Comment »

*** PODCAST accompanies this post *** Nowadays, it seems that genomics is spreading beyond the rarefied realm of science and academia into the general, consumer-based popular culture.  Quelle surprise!?  Yes, the era of the personal genome is close at hand, even as present technology  provides – directly to the general consumer public – a  genome-wide [...]

Read Full Post »

Interview with Dr. Garet Lahvis on genetic and animal models of empathy and social behavior

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , on November 14, 2009 | Leave a Comment »

Image by juanpol via Flickr It was a great pleasure to speak with Professor Garet Lahvis from the Department of Behavioral Neuroscience at the Oregon Health and Science University, and learn more about how the biology of empathy and social behaviors in general can be approached with animal models that are suitable for genetic studies.  [...]

Read Full Post »

Interview with Dan Weinberger, M.D. on KCNH2 and schizophrenia

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on October 27, 2009 | Leave a Comment »

Image by Oliver Lavery via Flickr Daniel R. Weinberger, M.D., Chief of the Clinical Brain Disorders Branch and Director of the Genes, Cognition and Psychosis Program, National Institute of Mental Health  discusses the background, findings and general issues of genes and mental illness in this brief interview on his paper, “A primate-specific, brain isoform of [...]

Read Full Post »

Interview with Dr. Christina Barr

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , on October 6, 2009 | Leave a Comment »

Image via Wikipedia Many thanks to Dr. Christina S. Barr from the National Institutes of Health/National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism-Laboratory of Clinical and Translational Studies, National Institutes of Health Animal Center for taking the time to comment on her team’s recent publication, “Functional CRH variation increases stress-induced alcohol consumption in primates” [doi:10.1073/pnas.0902863106] which [...]

Read Full Post »

Science fun – pliocene hominin rap

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged on October 6, 2009 | Leave a Comment »

Read Full Post »

neo-Darwinist graffiti

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on October 1, 2009 | Leave a Comment »

Read Full Post »

Getting to know my inner shark

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , on September 29, 2009 | Leave a Comment »

Am having a wonderful time reading, “Your Inner Fish” by Professor Neil Shubin – an exploration into the deep evolutionary roots of the human body.  Amazed to contemplate the embryonic structures known as the branchial arches, or gill arches – which we share with sharks! – and the role of the gcm2 gene that is [...]

Read Full Post »

rs1799971 affirms common neural pathway for social and physical pain

Posted in Cingulate cortex, Insula, OPRM1, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on September 10, 2009 | Leave a Comment »

Image via Wikipedia What hurts more – a broken toe or a broken heart?  Ask a parent and their forlorn 15 year-old who was not invited to the party that everyone is going to, and you might get different answers.  In some cases, the internal anguish of social exclusion or estrangement, may even – paradoxically [...]

Read Full Post »

Human brain looks the other way while ancient genomes romp and play

Posted in Intronic or repetitive sequences, tagged , , , , , , , , on August 8, 2009 | Leave a Comment »

Image by Kevin Steele via Flickr For more than a decade, we’ve known that at least 95% of the human genome is junk – or junque – if you’re offended by the thought that “you” emerged from a single cell whose genome is mostly a vast pile of crap – or crappe – if you [...]

Read Full Post »

What it Means to Be Human (World Science Festival)

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged on August 2, 2009 | Leave a Comment »

Image via Wikipedia pointer to this 5-part video discussion from the 2009 World Science Festival. In part 1 @ 8:30mins Sir Paul Nurse makes the plug for the nexus of neuroscience-genomics-humanities.  In part 3 @0:20secs Renee Reijo Pera makes the case for basic developmental biology as a key, while @12:00mins Francis Collins makes the case [...]

Read Full Post »

“A merry heart doeth good like a medicine” and other predictions of a polyvagal theory

Posted in Vagus, tagged , on May 18, 2009 | Leave a Comment »

Image via Wikipedia Recently, I’ve been reading Brian Boyd’s new book, On the Origin of Stories, – a lengthy work that relates human evolution to our creative processes.  This line of inquiry is closely related to an interest in genetics and brain function, since links between genetic variation and brain function can be used as [...]

Read Full Post »

Ungroomed granddaughters protest epigenetic marks on BDNF

Posted in BDNF, tagged , , on May 8, 2009 | Leave a Comment »

Image via Wikipedia Among mammalian species, moms can have it rough. THEY do the foraging and the child rearing usually without the help of dad who may or may not be prancing about defending his territory or doing who knows what.  The biological systems that manage such a predicament for the female would, not surprisingly, [...]

Read Full Post »

Genome prepares us for certain environmental cues: “I was expecting that!”

Posted in Visual cortex, tagged , , on March 31, 2009 | Leave a Comment »

Image by cobalt123 via Flickr Is the human brain a blank slate? or a pre-programmed machine that is ready to take the S.A.T.s right out of the box? Obviously neither, or both as it were. Some have gingerly waded into the nature vs. nuture debate and suggested that the human brain comes pre-wired to receive [...]

Read Full Post »

Evolutionary origins of brain size reflected in facebook friends

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged on February 22, 2009 | 2 Comments »

Image by ChrisL_AK via Flickr How many “facebook friends” do you have?   Well, of course, this depends on many things – perhaps just a matter of how much time you spend “on” facebook.  We all know of a few super facebookers with +300 friends and super-duper profligate facebook whales with +1000 friends, but it turns [...]

Read Full Post »

Happy 200th birthday Charles Darwin ! Here’s an inherited acquired characteristic for you

Posted in Hippocampus, tagged , , on February 9, 2009 | 1 Comment »

Cover via Amazon Few may pause on February 12 to note the 200 year anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin and 150 years since the publication of  “On the Origin of Species” (click here to download).  To some extent, this may be expected since much of the controversy  (creator vs. autonomous biochemical processes) seems [...]

Read Full Post »

Older Posts »