fMRI on the Radio
In the previous post I referred to fMRI, or functional magnetic reasonance imaging. What the heck is that? A National Public Radio (NPR) audio clip outlines what it is and what is does.
Disgust in the Brain
In movement education work we all too frequently see that understanding and experiencing action can be two completely different things. But what about feeling, as in emotions? It turns out that, at least in the human emotion of disgust, both the experience and the understanding of it seem to trigger the same areas of the brain. European researchers have published a study of neural understanding and experiencing emotions in Neuron. The study's subjects first smelled a disgusting odor in a test tube, and then watched a video of someone else displaying disgust. fMRI images showed that roughly the same areas of the brain were activated. So there seems to be more evidence that the idea that the pain is in the brain, as I wrote about elsewhere, isn't just a clever saying but can be demonstrated.