Man the Manipulator by Dr Jack Lewis

Iterative cycles of human brains adapting to environments and environments being adapted by human brains have enabled our species to thrive in a wider variety of ecological niches than any other mammal across the length and breadth of the entire globe. Of vital importance to our adaptability is the emergence of cognitive faculties enabling us to circumvent the painstakingly slow processes involved in evolutionary change that drive behavioural adaptations in most other multicellular species.

Mnemonic Techniques (Memory Tricks) by Dr Jack Lewis

The successful creation of memories relies upon a densely packed and highly interconnected network of brain cells called the hippocampus nestling deep within the temporal lobes. The hippocampus resides within the medial or “inward” facing part of the temporal lobe which is a key component of the emotion-producing limbic system. So the first tip to creating memories that are easily and effectively recalled is to ensure that they incorporate some kind of potent emotion. The hippocampus is also highly connected to all sensory areas. Consequently, the second tip for creating memories that are swiftly and faithfully recalled is to make them multisensory. So with any mnemonic strategy you must commit items to memory by not just imagining what it would look like, but also what would it sound like, smell like, feel like and taste like too. Now that we’ve got some of the basic principles of forming strong memories safely tucked into our belts, it is time to explore the various mnemonic techniques available to us for organising groups of memories together in such a way that every item can be successfully recalled, at will….

Why People Drop Litter by Dr Jack Lewis

What do green spaces (parks, fields, commons etc.) do to the human brain? Why do people drop litter? How does visible evidence of anti-social behaviour affect the way other people behave? How would people behave if those responsible for keeping one of London’s finest Royal Parks clean were to down tools for an entire weekend?
All of these questions were asked of Dr Jack by The One Show reporter Justin Rowlatt in Hyde Park where the Keep Britain Tidy campaign ran an interesting experiment over the weekend to see how people would react if the rubbish they dropped was left to accumulate. This brainpost details some of the background to Dr Jack’s comments on tonight’s show (BBC1, 7pm).

Psychology of Travel by Dr Jack Lewis

In Autumn 2010 I was presented with an exciting opportunity: to act as neuroscience consultant for the neuromarketing section of a study that Sparkler, a leading media market research company, were conducting on behalf of Thomson Holidays. Thomson had expressed an interest in understanding the psychology of travel. Up until recently their tag line was: “Holidays built with you in mind”. I immediately envisaged the compelling possibility of changing this to: “Holidays built WITH YOUR mind”.

Fear, social networking and politics – what exactly does the amygdala do? by Dr Jack Lewis

If you take a quick peak in most neuroscience textbooks you will most likely be informed that the amygdala is a critical part of the emotion-generating limbic system and that it’s primary role is to trigger the fear response. However during the few days between Christmas and New Year I found myself writing two separate #braintweets that described a pair of recent studies that identified a positive correlation between the size of a person’s amygdalae and high-level brain functions that, on the face of it, have nothing to do with fear whatsoever: 1) a larger social network and 2) a conservative political persuation. Here I investigate how these seemingly incompatible findings about the amygdala all fit together. I argue that, tempting as it is to draw the facile conclusion that that people with large amygdalae are more fearful in general, which makes them more likely to vote conservative and to nurture a large group of allies to protect themselves, in all likelihood this is probably not the case.

Dr Jack Lewis’ Top 100 #BrainTweets – vote for your favourite

Some of you will already be using Twitter on a daily basis. Others may have heard of it but don’t really get what it’s all about. In this blog, Dr Jack explains why he thinks Twitter is worth bothering with, offers a retrospective on the pearls of brain news/trivia he has been offering every day for the last few months and asks you to choose which of his first 100 “BrainTweets” you found most interesting.

Crash course in brain anatomy anyone?

A pair of cartoon rodents give a quick guided tour to the different parts of the human brain.

It’s a shame they don’t really mention the role of each area they name.

I guess that would have made making the lyrics rhyme even more complicated!

I have endeavoured to give a quick overview of which bit does what in the order that they are covered in the cartoon…

Ischaemic versus haemorrhagic stroke

This article explains the basic difference between stroke versus haemmorhage. Many different types of disability can result when the blood supply is interrupted according to which brain areas are damaged. It is almost always possible to regain some if not all of the lost functions by training intact brain areas to take over from damaged regions through absolute dedication to hours and hours of rehabilitation exercises.