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The Scicurious Brain

The Scicurious Brain


The Good, Bad, and Weird in Physiology and Neuroscience
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    Scicurious Scicurious is a PhD in Physiology, and is currently a postdoc in biomedical research. She loves the brain. And so should you. Follow on Twitter @Scicurious.
  • What makes naked mole rats cancer resistant?

    Sci is at Neurotic Physiology today talking about a new study in naked mole rats! Because everything is better when there are naked mole rats in it. It turns out that naked mole rats are resistant to cancer? Why? The answer may be called hyaluronan. Head over and check it out!

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    OCD and Optogenetics: Lighting the brain up to shut a behavior down

    Screen shot 2013-06-14 at 3.11.59 PM

    People who suffer from obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) can’t help some of their actions. They suffer from severely intrusive thoughts and anxiety, which they know are not right. And they feel a compulsion to do rituals to get rid of them. Maybe it’s repetitive hand washing. Maybe it’s checking that the stove is off exactly [...]

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    A genetic history of leprosy

    Lepers,_Tahiti_(1898)

    Leprosy is one of those diseases that, when I first read about it, haunted my imagination. I had sad pictures of haggard, dirty people, wearing sackcloth, covered in sores or maybe with toes, noses, or hands missing, shuffling alone, wearing a bell to make that no one would go near…the leper. To be a leper [...]

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    Obesity and OCD: 1 + 1 = 0

    Sci is at Neurotic Physiology today, talking about an interesting new study. There’s one gene that, when you knock it out, produces obese mice. There’s another that, when you knock it out, produced overgrooming mice, a model of OCD. When you knock BOTH the genes out, what do you get? And overgrooming obese mouse? NO. [...]

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    Fighting stress with adenosine antagonists

    A_small_cup_of_coffee

    When I am stressed (and I’m stressed a lot of the time, as I bet a lot of you are as well), I turn to coffee. Not just to keep me going through the time when I need to get things done, but also for relaxation. For me, the smell and taste of coffee brings [...]

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    Friday Weird Science! moths who live on sloths!

    There once was a moth Who lived on a sloth And its larvae they did eat sloth s**t For the sloth is so slow The moth’s nowhere to go So try as it might, it can’t quit. Sci is at Neurotic Physiology today for Friday Weird Science! Head over and check it out!

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    Best of the Blogs!

    I’m featured in this month’s Best of the Blogs video! You know you want to check out my Daisy Buchanan voice.

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    Science Communication Tips: We can hear you

    In light of some of the recent twitter happenings around evolutionary psychologist Geoffrey Miller, I’ve got to thinking about practices and pitfalls in science and social media. And I think Miller’s example provides a good story for how NOT to do twitter. Here’s a social media tip: we can hear you. But that shouldn’t scare [...]

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    5-HT1A Receptors and the Effectiveness of ECT

    Screen shot 2013-06-02 at 10.37.30 PM

    Most people have heard of ECT: Electroconvulsive Therapy. A lot of people will immediately think of the scene during One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, which doesn’t give you a very good picture. People think of ECT and think of horrible seizures, something terribly dangerous. But it’s not like that anymore. Now, ECT is usually [...]

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    Friday Weird Science! The Concrete Enema

    Yes. You read that correctly. Someone did this. And I’ve written about it! Why? How? Wherefore? Head over to Neurotic Physiology to check it out!

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