Specializations.

I am a biophysicist who is married to a biochemist.

A biophysicist is someone who knows less about physics than a physicist, and less about biology than a biologist.

A biochemist, on the other hand, is someone who knows everything.

"If you can't have the [static magnetic] field you love, love the [static magnetic] field you have." - William A. Edelstein

Ever have an MRI? If so, you benefited from many inventions by Bill Edelstein, whose passing, earlier this week, is mourned by many.

Brains are different like bikes are different.

The dominant analogy for the brain has tracked the leading technology of the day.

The human brain was like a clockwork, then a hydraulic system, then an electronic circuit, then a digital computer, then a computer network, – until the present day, when, according to Stephen Kosslyn & Wayne Miller, writing in the Wall Street Journal, the brain is like a bicycle:

Our brains are not engaged in some sort of constant cerebral tug of war, with one part seeking dominance over another. (What a poor evolutionary strategy that would have been!) Rather, they can be likened roughly to the parts of a bicycle: the frame, seat, wheels, handlebars, pedals, gears, brakes and chain that work together to provide transportation.

The distinguished scientist and journalist continue:

Although the ... parts of the brain are always used during all of our waking lives, people do not rely on them to an equal degree. To extend the bicycle analogy, not everyone rides a bike the same way. Some may meander, others may race.

To be sure, Kosslyn &  Miller are right: Brains are like bikes.

But Kosslyn &  Miller are wrong, in that brains are not different like bikers are different; brains are different like bikes are different.

The apt bike analogy for inter-individual differences in brain function is not inter-individual differences in how people ride bikes, but rather inter-individual differences in bikes. Road bikes, mountain bikes, cyclocross bikes, touring bikes, BMX bikes, commuters, recumbents, etc. – bikes are different.

Brains are like bikes, and brains are different from one another like bikes are different from one another – not like how cyclists ride differently from one another, okay?

Because otherwise, you're just putting Descartes in the saddle.

Proposed: Understanding the brain doesn't suck.

"... recall the famous quip from Jeff Hammerbacher, a former Facebook engineer, who said, 'The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads. That sucks.' We contend that working in biostatistics using complex neuroimaging data to solve the biggest puzzle of them all – understanding the human brain – is a worthy alternative."

-from "WANTED: Neuro-quants" by Brian Caffo, Martin Lindquist, and Ciprian Crainiceanu, which appears in the the Huffington Post.

H-index, I10-index, Etc.

Dear NeuroCooking friends, my Google Scholar Profile is now public.

Title of the Week!

"The Effect of Criticism on Functional Brain Connectivity and Associations with Neuroticism" by Michelle Nadine Servaas, Harriëtte Riese, Remco Jan Renken, Jan-Bernard Cornelis Marsman, Johan Lambregs, Johan Ormel, and André Aleman, appears in the journal PLOS ONE.

Thank you for giving me control of your brain!

Missed a birthday!

Ten days ago, NeuroCooking became four years old! Thanks for joining us here!

Free. Jazz. (or, Sidney & her man Clovis)

May I suggest that you set aside an hour before clicking through to listen to Jason Moran's amazing (and free!) "Live: Time On The Quilts Of Gee's Bend" Suite?

From the NPR website:

Jason Moran, composer and piano
Alicia Hall Moran, vocals
Bill Frisell, guitar
Tarus Mateen, bass
Nasheet Waits, drums

"Disruption is overrated."

"'Disruption is overrated,' [Stone] said. 'If you tell good stories, the platforms are sort of beside the point. We made the most analog thing you can think of, a play at the Eugene O’Neill Theater, and it worked out as well as anything we have ever done.'"

-Matt Stone, quoted by David Carr today in the NewYork Times.

"Good morning Baltimore! Every day's like an open door."

"My ma tells me no 
   but my feet tell me go!"

-from "Hairspray"'s opening song "Good Morning Baltimore!"


Tickets are still available for "Hairspray in Concert" narrated by Mr. John Waters with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra in Meyerhoff Hall, Baltimore, tonight and tomorrow night, plus Saturday and Sunday matinees. Saw the world premier last night at Strathmore; laughed so hard I cried. And how often does that happen at the symphony?


From the BSO website:

Jack Everly, conductor
John Waters, narrator (BSO debut)
Micky Dolenz, Wilbur Turnblad
Beth Leavel, Velma von Tussle
Paul Vogt, Edna Turnblad
Featuring:
Marissa Perry as "Tracy Turnblad"
Julie Kavanagh as "Penny Pingleton"
Nick Adams as "Link Larkin"
Rhiannon Hansen as "Amber von Tussle"
NaTasha Williams as "Motormouth Maybelle"
Marcus Terell as "Seaweed J. Stubbs"
Bret Shuford as "Corny Collins"
Alix Korey as "Female Authority Figure"
Chris Briante as "Male Authority Figure"
Also with: The Divas of Song (Natalie Renee, Nikki Stephenson, and Melissa VanPelt) as "The Dynamites."

Not that there'd be anything wrong with that...

My talk at the upcoming Applied Brilliance Conference will be nothing like this:

Acknowledgement of the Month!

In the special issue of NeuroImage on "20 years of fMRI," there is a fascinating and enlightening article by Dr. Rainer Goebel entitled "BrainVoyager — Past, present, future" that closes with this acknowledgement:

"Finally I want to thank Claudia for her beautiful brain that is still a mystery to me after hundreds of fMRI scans."

"Citizens Appeal to State, Seek to Protect Park."

An update is available at SaveRockCreekHillsPark.org.

A Racy Taint.

Just the final sentence of the article "Off-Color Communiques Taint FBI Sting in Court: Racy text messages between informant and agents turn off jurors" by Del Quentin Wilber, which appears on the front page of today's Washington Post:

“U [expletive] [expletive],” the agent texted back.

Title of the Week!

"Coercive Citation in Academic Publishing" appears in the journal Science.

Collaboration, Trust, and Improvisation

Readers of NeuroCooking know that I've been studying Improv for several years. (You can read some of my previous posts about Improv here, here, and here.) Recently, I've been working with Jay Rhoderick, and exploring ways in which we can collaborate, melding my expertise in communication and story with Jay's Improv brilliance. Last month, Jay and I delivered the opening plenary of the 2011 New Jersey Non-Profit Conference, leading close to 300 professionals in an exciting and interactive session exploring the traits necessary to successful collaboration, using some Improv techniques. The Foundation News Digest blog, PhilanTopic, just published an excerpt from our plenary, Productive Partnerships: Building Trust and Creating Collaborations.

To read the excerpt, 3 Ways Your T-Shape Helps You Collaborate, click here.