Insula – Knowing Neurons

A sleeping brain on the left versus a brain lifting weights on the right. Illustrated by Rajamani Selvam.

The Neuroscience of Motivation and How to Improve It

September 4, 2019September 4, 2019 Marco Travaglio 0 Comments Dopamine, Insula, Limbic, Mesolimbic Pathway, Motivation, MRI, neurotransmitter, Nucleus accumbens, Prefrontal Cortex, Reward-Seeking Behavior, Ventral Tegmental Area

Motivation can be a hard thing to come by. Whether at home, at school or at work, most of us have been in a situation where we know exactly what… Read more

Brain Development Culture

What Were You Thinking!?: Teenagers show different processing of positive and negative consequences across adolescence

August 23, 2018August 23, 2018 Jack-Morgan Mizell 0 Comments Adolescence, Adolescent, Adults, Aging, Anterior insula, Brain, Brain activity, Brain vulnerability, Cognitive neuroscience, Consequences, Decision-making, Development, Experience, Harvard, Insula, neurobiology, Neurodevelopment, Neuroscience, Sensory systems, Spindle neuron, Striatum, Teenagers, Teens, Von Economo neuron, WHO, World Health Organization

Anyone who has spent time around teenagers knows they don’t always consider the full consequences of their actions. Just consider the dozens of YouTube videos involving falling dressers or fireworks… Read more

Big Ideas Did You Know?

You’re Not as Rational as You Think: Political Philosophy and the Science of Irrationality

August 17, 2017August 17, 2017 DanielToker 0 Comments 2004 Presidential Election, Amygdala, George W. Bush, Insula, irrationality, John Kerry, Neuroimaging, Neuroscience, philosopher-kings, Plato, political philosophy, Politics, presidential election, reason

ognitive scientists have known for decades that humans are inherently irrational when it comes to making economic decisions. This may seem obvious to a good poker player, who will likely… Read more

Did You Know? Neuro News Neuroscience Technologies

The emotional mechanics of the robot-human interaction

August 12, 2015March 5, 2017 knowingneurons 5 Comments Amygdala, Emotion, Insula, mentalizing network, MRI, MTN, Nao, person perception network, PPN, Robot, Robot-human interaction, Uncanny valley

First impressions are pivotal. While reading another person’s cues, an abridged version of them forms as we draw on complex social inferences in merely seconds of interaction. That is, if… Read more