The Nerve, Fall 2010, Vol 2, Issue 1

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https://hdl.handle.net/2144/50580

Full Issue: The Nerve, Fall 2010, Vol 2, Issue 1

Editors-In-Chief: Grigori Guitchounts, Kimberly LeVine
Editors: Frank DeVita, Lauren Joseph
Associate Editors: Natalie Banacos, John Batoha, Devyn Buckley, Monika Chitre, Jennifer Richardson, Kayla Ritchie, Evan Stein
Artistic Director: Kayla Ritchie
Artwork: Mursal Atif, Devyn Buckley, Mariya Marioutina, Margaret Mcguinness, Aubrey Reuben
MBS Staff: Megan Mataga, Macayla Donegan, Shea Gillet
Advisors: Paul Lipton, Zachary Bos

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    Evolutionary psychology on the couch
    (2010) Buckley, Devyn
    Evolutionary psychology (EP) is the predominant lens of interpretation in psychology today and is expanding into the general public as a contemporary thought trend. As you may guess, it attempts to apply Darwin’s Theory of Evolution to the field of psychology. It explains observed behavior in contemporary humans as results of hard-wired predispositions produced by natural selection. While speculation has its merits, many of E.P.’s claims seem reactionary and guided by an agenda, as is evidenced by the claims’ poor believability and the lack of data that support them. As a result of an ideological polarization occurring between modern religious extremists and their counter Darwinian fundamentalists,. E.P. performs logical acrobatics to justify its speculation as fact. I aim to demonstrate the logically fallacious nature of E.P. and its ideological character, particularly as a counter-ideological reaction to the social sciences, religiosity, and feminism.
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    Does the brain run algorithms?
    (2010) Ritchie, Kayla
    Computation, or information processing, can be defined as that which describes the changes which occur in the natural world. Typically an algorithm or equation, such as the ones used in neural modeling, are employed for such processing due to their ability to describe the behavior of a system according to certain dependent and independent conditions. Due to the recent increase in processing capacity of modern computers, neuroscientists and computer scientists have attempted to model large scale brain architectures that include entire populations of neurons, or in the case of a team of Swiss researchers, the entire human brain, in hopes of simulating the processes in the brain to a point that higher cognitive functions would arise from the models. While this is an exciting prospect, it is unclear whether running the “Brain Program”, would actually yield genuine cognitive processes, simply because the brain is not necessarily a digital computer, and its functions not necessarily computational. In this paper, I pose the question: Does the brain run algorithms? I will argue that this question stems from a deeper uncertainty of whether cognitive processes are computational, and explore the implications that this may have on our ability to model the mind with computers.
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    Decoding the human memory network: a brain mapping approach to spatial navigation
    (2010) Stein, Evan Marc
    The resection of Patient H.M.’s bilateral medial temporal lobe (MTL) structures in 1957 produced a deficit in encoding new episodic memories, leaving short-term memory, non-declarative memory, and other cognitive functions intact15. The discovery of the relationship between MTL damage and the development of anterograde amnesia has provided evidence that these areas are responsible for memory processes. Animal models have also supported the hypothesis that these areas play a major role in memory function, using lesion methods that have replicated H.M.’s bilateral damage to the hippocampus and the surrounding MTL cortices20. Although animal models of memory research have provided ample evidence in support of this hypothesis, the development of human brain mapping techniques, such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), positron emission tomography (PET), diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), magnetoencephalography (MEG) and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), allow researchers to apply the findings from animal studies and Patient H.M.’s case to investigate both spatial and temporal aspects of the neural network underlying the human memory system, and more specifically, the role of this memory network in spatial navigation.
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    General anesthesia: molecules to pink elephants
    (2010) Guitchounts, Grigori
    "Gentlemen, this is no humbug,” the surgeon John Warren is said to have declared to the audience at Massachusetts General Hospital after William Morton’s first successful demonstration of general anesthesia on October 16th, 1846.1 Before then, surgery was a miserable experience for both patient and surgeon. The term anesthesia – literally meaning “without sensation” – was first used by the ancient Greek surgeon Dioscorides and resurrected by Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes after the demonstration at MGH.
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    Brain research and national defense
    (2010) Sohail, Aisha
    Formed in 1958 in response to the successful Soviet launch of the Sputnik satellite into space, national defense department agency DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) has been responsible for research into breakthrough, though often highly speculative military technology. The Eisenhower administration implemented ARPA with three concrete goals: to get us into space, protect us from Soviet missile attacks, and develop technology to detect Soviet nuclear tests. As a national security agency, DARPA has been funded entirely by taxpayer money.
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    Trick or treatment?
    (2010) Banacos, Natalie
    Fooling our own brains is an appealing concept: everyone enjoys optical illusions, magic tricks and riddles. But can fooling our brains help heal our bodies? When it comes to taking medicine, people have consistently proven themselves to be highly suggestible. The color of pills, the number of pills and the brand of pills can influence our assumptions about the medications we are taking. We tend to think that capsules are stronger than pills, and that injections are more powerful than medicine taken orally. Even surgery has been evaluated for its potential placebo effect: in one experiment on arthroscopic knee surgery, both the osteoarthritis patients receiving the operation and those who just got an incision and stitches showed significant decreases in knee pain.
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    Ten minutes to a trance: exploring I-Dosing and the binaural beat phenomenon
    (2010) Caipa, Anuhya
    In 0.19 seconds, the Google search engine retrieves over 9,600,000 results concerning I-Dosing, the newest Internet fad that is taking the world’s youth by storm. The next time you hear someone talking about drugs, you might get confused when you hear them talking about crazy beats and soundproof headphones. However, an increasing number of people are listening to sound files that are specifically designed to alter an individual’s state of consciousness and induce a ‘high’ that is claimed to mimic the psycho-physiological effects felt after the administration of an actual psychoactive drug; this “drug trip” is called I-dosing. To feel optimal effects, the user is advised to wear stereo headphones, lie down in a comfortable position in a dark room, close his or her eyes, and drift off into the world of digital- drugs1. As ludicrous as I-Dosing may seem, the scientific foundation for digital-drugs dates back to as early as the mid nineteenth century.
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    Genius or insanity?: an investigation of creativity and mental illness
    (2010) DeVita, Frank P.
    Often times, creative individuals are plagued with various psychological afflictions ranging from depression and autism spectrum disorder to conditions such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. In fact, these afflictions have beset people such as Salvador Dalí, Pablo Picasso, Sylvia Plath, Earnest Hemmingway, Pyotr Tchaikovsky and many others. A combination of mental illness and creativity spans across many different media and its bearers personify the struggle that arises from straddling the line between genius and insanity. Yet it is this paradox that has produced some of history’s greatest innovations. Only now are we beginning to understand the underlying mechanisms behind what many may be defined as both a gift and a curse. In fact, there is a neurobiological and psychological link between creativity and mental illness that may begin to resolve the line between genius and insanity.
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    Sports-related and the NFL concussions
    (2010) Batoha, John; Stein, Evan
    By November of 2009, the National Football League season was winding down, and with a playoff berth and a shot at the Super Bowl on the line, each new contest meant more than the last. “These are the games you don’t get back,” observed Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver Hines Ward.
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    The Nerve, Fall 2010, Vol 2, Issue 1
    (2010) Batoha, John; Stein, Evan; DeVita, Frank; Caipa, Anuhya; Banacos, Natalie; Sohail, Aisha; Guitchounts, Grigori; Stein, Evan; Buckley, Devyn; Ritchie, Kayla