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Oct 11, 2005

The neural basis of human moral cognition

An interesting review article* on the neural basis of moral cognition has been published on October 2005 issue of Nature Reviews Neuroscience by Jorge Moll, Roland Zahn, Ricardo de Oliveira-Souza, Frank Krueger and Jordan Grafman.


Moral cognitive neuroscience is an emerging field of research that focuses on the neural basis of uniquely human forms of social cognition and behaviour. Recent functional imaging and clinical evidence indicates that a remarkably consistent network of brain regions is involved in moral cognition. These findings are fostering new interpretations of social behavioural impairments in patients with brain dysfunction, and require new approaches to enable us to understand the complex links between individuals and society. Here, we propose a cognitive neuroscience view of how cultural and context-dependent knowledge, semantic social knowledge and motivational states can be integrated to explain complex aspects of human moral cognition.
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The Whole Brain Atlas

The Whole Brain Atlas has been awarded the Scientific American Science and Technology Web Awards 2005

The site is an information resource for central nervous system imaging which integrates clinical information with magnetic resonance (MR), x-ray computed tomography (CT), and nuclear medicine images. The site presents high-resolution images of various types of strokes, tumors, degenerative disorders and infectious diseases as they affect the brain over time.

Another award has gone to Mind Hacks, a blog that reports on the latest developments in neuroscience, taking a fun approach to dissemination.


Games for Health Conference

The Washington Post reports about the second annual Games for Health Conference, at University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore:

But some physicians, psychiatrists and public health experts see a more positive side: They're betting electronic games can be adapted as tools to ease medical treatments, improve patient outcomes and boost fitness and knowledge for users young and old. Government agencies including the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the Office of Naval Research and other branches of the Department of Defense are placing bets of their own, funding the development of health-related video games. Some of those projects and others were on display recently at the second annual Games for Health conference at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore. Between lectures, participants crowded into two windowless rooms for a first-hand look. In one, they could test themselves on the Kilowatt, an isometric exercise device in which players use body strength to interact with scenes on a video screen - for instance, muscling a car around a race track. In another room, attendees donned a virtual-reality helmet for a simulated plunge into FreeDive, a fantasy underwater world meant to distract pediatric patients from pain or anxiety.

More to explore

The Serious Games Initiative