tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6719356366303333951.post6306964567996842450..comments2024-01-02T04:55:07.853-05:00Comments on Pieces of Me: A Question of Value: What Does Cognitive Neuroscience Really Contribute?JLKhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05396471022931966499noreply@blogger.comBlogger12125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6719356366303333951.post-25851038354706174502012-01-20T09:05:27.586-05:002012-01-20T09:05:27.586-05:00cognitive neuroscience didn't work at all, we ...cognitive neuroscience didn't work at all, we need to change all its principles.viagra onlinehttp://www.mutualpharmacy.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6719356366303333951.post-47742694613931362612009-03-04T14:34:00.000-05:002009-03-04T14:34:00.000-05:00Thanks for stopping by, CogPsy!You're absolutely r...Thanks for stopping by, CogPsy!<BR/><BR/>You're absolutely right about some fMRI and other neuroimaging studies that are valuable for what they bring to the table. Those studies are usually (but not always) the ones that end up in textbooks, and it's fantastic to have them. <BR/><BR/>What frustrates me primarily about cog and soc neuroscience is the amount of money being diverted to them without regard to the quality and value of the science they are producing. As an undergrad, I was advised that if I had the slightest interest in neuroimaging to make that my focus because that's where the money is and the jobs are. <BR/><BR/>It holds a lot of promise for the somewhat-distant future, but I feel that right now it gets a disproportionate amount of press and financial attention. I would prefer to see those $$ diverted into advancing the technology first, and using the existing technology second. I also think, to echo your statements, that we need to train students in these fields to avoid disregarding the behavioral components of their research. I think too many of them are doing just that.JLKhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05396471022931966499noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6719356366303333951.post-56737270966848278022009-03-04T00:19:00.000-05:002009-03-04T00:19:00.000-05:00Hey there, CogPsy from physioprof here. I don't ha...Hey there, CogPsy from physioprof here. I don't have a blog, sadly. I have a dissertation in the works - kind of kills all other pursuits.<BR/><BR/>I think cognitive neuroscience CAN be well-done and can make substantive contributions if done correctly. There are actually a few decent fMRI studies out there, really, there are. In fact, we've got some collaborators in Belgium that we work with on fMRI stuff. There's also been a lot of advancement in the actual fMRI analyses that makes the method more precise in both space and time, and some new techniques can eliminate some of the sketchy statistics involved (see, for example, http://www.psy.vanderbilt.edu/tonglab/publications/YamashitaEtAl_2008_Neuroimage.pdf). The problem is wading through all the crapola to find these few gems. <BR/><BR/>I come from a "break the model" training background - take a model and break it's assumptions and/or pit it against another model that makes an opposing prediction, then see what happens. The conclusions are pretty damn clear in these types of studies. As I said over on physioprof, the key is that a neuro study has to be good on it's own - WITHOUT the fMRI portion. Say I find that people's behavior is totally different in two conditions. If I can also show that the areas of the brain they use in those conditions are completely dissociated, that's pretty strong evidence that they are using an entirely different strategy/information set/etc. to do the task. But, without a compelling behavioral result, I don't think we have any business AT ALL doing fMRI. Certainly "where" is a big part of "how", but if you don't have a decent behavioral study in the first place, then you are missing the "WHAT". And that is a very serious problem. The funding agencies are only exacerbating it by pouring money into neuro and other applied research while starving basic research.<BR/><BR/><BR/>@ Daedalus - are you familiar with Randy Nelson's work with gene-knockouts and NO? I think you'd love it. What's not to love about psycho mice?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6719356366303333951.post-59338244693288670372009-01-15T11:42:00.000-05:002009-01-15T11:42:00.000-05:00James Dean and Donna - if you haven't had a chance...James Dean and Donna - if you haven't had a chance to read the PsyBlog posting that inspired this post, take a minute and check it out. <BR/><BR/>Or google "social cognitive neuroscience contraversy" and see what comes up, because there has been a sudden shitstorm in the field over an article showing that faulty statistics used in fMRI studies led to inflated, actually impossible correlations. <BR/><BR/>The researchers "forgot" that the probability of two events occuring together cannot be greater than the probability of each occuring separately. <BR/><BR/>Whether the fMRI itself is useful is not in question. The problem is that some cognitive neuroscientists are trying to stretch fMRI-only data to make conclusions about cognitive theories. The author of psyblog asks (not an exact quote) "How can an fMRI be used to compare two theories?"<BR/><BR/>I'm not looking to argue against fMRI as a tool in cog-neuro, but there are some very important questions and evaluations that need to be taken into consideration before we continue to invest billions of dollars into this line of research. <BR/><BR/>There's been way too much, "Wow! The area that I thought would light up during this task lit up on the fMRI! Therefore, my theory that children learn lots of valuable skills from playing video games must be correct!"<BR/><BR/>Huge leaps are being taken to connect the "where" to the "how" and/or "why." Which is how science works when generating new research and tools for discovery. But we have yet to see a transition to the middle-ground experiments where step-by-step analysis evaluates the "how" and "why" that were initially arrived at by that huge leap.JLKhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05396471022931966499noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6719356366303333951.post-49310764159754364972009-01-14T23:32:00.000-05:002009-01-14T23:32:00.000-05:00I see both James Dean's and JLK's point, but I hav...I see both James Dean's and JLK's point, but I have to side with Dean.<BR/><BR/>The 'how' is part of the second (third? fourth?) set of questions. Can you get anywhere without answering 'where' first<BR/><BR/>Even when where, what, how, and when have been answered, translating all that knowledge into practical applications may take some time and perhaps some non-intuitive directions.<BR/><BR/>I do agree that it's time to move on the next stage instead of simply repeating fMRIs one after the other because we can.Donna B.https://www.blogger.com/profile/16771075314473811594noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6719356366303333951.post-71982585624839337492009-01-14T16:08:00.000-05:002009-01-14T16:08:00.000-05:00@ James Dean:When I question the "how" I am thinki...@ James Dean:<BR/><BR/>When I question the "how" I am thinking in terms of information that is beneficial to cognitive studies, not necessarily the physiological "how."<BR/><BR/>When we are able to figure out ways to improve learning in children through fMRI studies, we will then be making progress in cognitive neuroscience. But so far, nothing (that I am aware of) that these studies have shown us have any practical applications whatsoever to the real-world problems that cognitive psychology attempts to address.JLKhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05396471022931966499noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6719356366303333951.post-14764084777564305002009-01-14T15:43:00.000-05:002009-01-14T15:43:00.000-05:00I would simply caution that in a brain, where the ...I would simply caution that in a brain, where the processing algorithms are manifest in the physiological structure, 'where' is a very large part of 'how'.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6719356366303333951.post-16501247310755995882009-01-10T20:12:00.000-05:002009-01-10T20:12:00.000-05:00Daedalus, I have nothing but respect for your love...Daedalus, I have nothing but respect for your love affair with NO. <BR/><BR/>That said, I have no idea what the fuck you're talking about. I'm a social science gal, D. <BR/><BR/>"That vasodilation is caused by neurogenic NO exceeding the threshold for sGC, generating cGMP and causing vasodilation." - It may as well be written in hieroglyphics for me.JLKhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05396471022931966499noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6719356366303333951.post-53088223552401406012009-01-10T16:35:00.000-05:002009-01-10T16:35:00.000-05:00To me, the most important take-home message from f...To me, the most important take-home message from fMRI is how important NO is in the brain.<BR/><BR/>What the fMRI BOLD technique actually measures is acute changes in O2Hb level caused by acute vasodilation on sub-second time scales. That vasodilation is caused by neurogenic NO exceeding the threshold for sGC, generating cGMP and causing vasodilation. That NO is the mechanism by which the brain meta-programs itself. <BR/><BR/>That shows that basal NO is critically important in the regulation of brain activity. The NO generated to cause neuronal activation adds to the basal NO that is already there and when the sum exceeds the activation threshold is when stuff gets activated. The basal NO level is an important and necessary component of the NO that causes that activation. <BR/><BR/>This is how stress changes the meta-programming of the brain, by changing the range of the NO signals.daedalus2uhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10416564922288784455noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6719356366303333951.post-54593184400665498132009-01-07T18:50:00.000-05:002009-01-07T18:50:00.000-05:00since i focus a lot more on neurochemistry/neuroph...since i focus a lot more on neurochemistry/neuropharm than on functional assays, i am not an expert on functional assays. however, the whole lack of ability to describe a cause/effect relationship, among many other things, causes me to take any fMRI study i run across with a handful of salt.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6719356366303333951.post-43449105207178380382009-01-06T21:18:00.000-05:002009-01-06T21:18:00.000-05:00Thanks for the link, CPP. Though now my blogroll i...Thanks for the link, CPP. Though now my blogroll is becoming excessively long because of my new adventures through the blogosphere!<BR/><BR/>When I posted this, I didn't realize what was going on out there because social neuroscience isn't my thing. The weird coincidence is I just started reading "Social Intelligence" by Daniel Goleman last night, and until then I hadn't heard of it before. Suddenly today I'm finding out that it's part of this "scandal."<BR/><BR/>Strange timing, seriously.JLKhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05396471022931966499noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6719356366303333951.post-76835475589742007682009-01-06T18:29:00.000-05:002009-01-06T18:29:00.000-05:00The problem that is leading to this debate in psyc...<I>The problem that is leading to this debate in psychology is the fact that those sexy fMRI images are dazzling the sources that provide funding and diverting much-needed dollars to these programs when they could be supporting more "valuable" lines of research.</I><BR/><BR/>It's also filling pages of high-impact-factor journals with garbage at the expense of decent science:<BR/><BR/>http://scienceblogs.com/cortex/2009/01/voodoo_fmri.phpAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com