Encephalon: Briefing the Next US President on Neuroscience & Psychology

Dear Mr or Mrs Next US President,

We are glad to wel­come you to our blog car­ni­val. After a short hia­tus, Encephalon is back and gath­er­ing steam. We have pre­pared this “revival” edi­tion just for you, so you can be well informed and impress us all dur­ing the upcom­ing Sci­encede­bate 2008.

With­out fur­ther ado, let’s pro­ceed to the ques­tions posed by 24 blog­gers on neu­ro­science and psy­chol­o­gy issues. We hope they pro­vide, at the very least, good men­tal stim­u­la­tion for you and your advisors.

Big Ques­tions

Do I deserve to vote even if I don’t have Free Will? (Marc at Neu­ro­sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly Challenged).

If cul­ture sculpts our brains, what can our brains do to refine our cul­ture first? (Stephanie at Brains On Purpose).

Is God more than a fly­ing brain? (Jes­si­ca at bioephemera).

Is Your brain real­ly read­ing This? (Pete at Brain Hammer).

A Few Intru­sive Questions 

Do you play any musi­cal instru­ment? (Megan at SharpBrains).

What exact­ly is your field of exper­tise? what will your brain focus on? (Dave at Cog­ni­tive Daily).

Are your vot­er con­di­tion­ing efforts pay­ing off so far? (Jake at Pure Pedantry).

Can you gen­er­ate new solu­tions to exist­ing prob­lems? (Pas­cale at SharpBrains).

Would you mind if we clas­si­fy your face? (Johan at Phineas Gage Fan Club).

Emerg­ing Sci­ence & Tech

How Strong is the research sup­port for Neu­ro­feed­back? (David at SharpBrains).

Just FYI-new brain-com­put­er inter­faces: the dream of every micro­man­ag­er (Mo, at Neurophilosopher).

Can dri­ving-relat­ed cog­ni­tive skills be trained? pol­i­cy impli­ca­tions? (Alvaro at SharpBrains).

How Sci­ence Is Done 

May dou­ble-blind peer review help women sci­en­tists get their share? (Cog­ni­tion and Lan­guage Lab).

One more time: there is no proven link between autism and vac­ci­na­tion, cor­rect? (Kevin at Brain Blogger).

Will the FDA, or anoth­er agency, help eval­u­ate this mir­a­cle cure for Alzheimer’s? or was it for obe­si­ty? (Neu­r­o­crit­ic).

Does cannabis use affect the brain? (Stephen at Quin­tes­sence of Dust).

Can we build More parks to reduce drug abuse? (Sandy at Mouse Trap).

Will we soon have a genet­ic screen for Parkinson’s sus­cep­ti­bil­i­ty (Chris at Ouroboros).

Is PTSD a use­ful label? (Vaugh­an at MindHacks).

You man­age stress and presure well, don’t you? (Gre­go­ry at SharpBrains).

Will this become stan­dard depres­sion treat­ment 20 years from now? (Jill at SharpBrains).

Why have psy­chol­o­gy and the CIA have a love-hate affair? (Jere­my at Advances in the His­to­ry of Psychology).

Dear Mr or Mrs Next US Pres­i­dent, we hope you have enjoyed this brief­ing. If you want to keep read­ing future Encephalon edi­tions, sim­ply con­sult the new Encephalon Blog Car­ni­val home page, and find out where it will be host­ed every oth­er week.

Of course, we’d wel­come your sub­mis­sions too. Feel free to email your blog posts to encephalon{dot}host{at}gmail{dot}com, for the March 3rd edi­tion, which Vaugh­an will host at Mind Hacks.