Neuroscience and... Rick Perry?

As you very well might have seen yesterday, Republican presidential candidate (and noted downer aficionado) Rick Perry gave the news media a soundbite comparable to the Sarah Palin - Katie Couric interview of '08.  Well, my fMRI methods professor came into class late yesterday and explained that he was just on the phone with a reporter from the New York Times.  Apparently she wanted his expert opinion on possible neural mechanisms that could explain the gaffe, and sure enough today an article was posted on the NYT Well blog titled "Rick Perry's Brain Freeze".

In the article, my professor, Daniel Weissman, explains that the mistake might be attributed to interference.

“As you search in your memory, there are all these very similar memories of parking at the grocery store that are interfering with each other,’’ said Dr. Weissman. “If there had been discussions of cutting other departments, it’s possible that there was somehow interference from those memories, and that’s why he couldn’t recall it.’’

The article actually touches on a few different interesting theories, and I would definitely say it's worth a read, despite the decidedly unscientific title.  Really though, I think it might have something to do with Perry's questionable intelligence or whatever he was on during that speech in New Hampshire.

Welcome / Happy Veterans Day!

Happy Veterans Day to everyone!

I've wanted to start a blog for a while now, but have wavered on the name, subject, and pretty much everything else for months.  Finally I've decided to just throw all of my interests into one place, talking about my life as a Neuroscience graduate student in the great city of Ann Arbor.  I'm planning on recapping concerts I go to, trips I take, new (or old favorite) restaurants I visit, new music / TV I find, brain research I find interesting, and pretty much anything I find worth reading about.  This might make things super messy and/or complicated, but hopefully everything will have a nice theme tying everything together (just don't ask me what that theme is).

Although the title of the blog is ArborCentric, my first few posts will be from Washington DC.  I'm attending the Society for Neuroscience meeting Saturday through Wednesday with ~31,000 other neuroscientists who all know way more about everything than me.  Hopefully it will be fun, and I'll learn a couple things.  I'm planning on writing about interesting posters and presentations I see, as well as recapping restaurants, food trucks, bars and clubs I visit when I'm not in the Convention Center.

As one final note, I'd like to thank all the veterans who have sacrificed so much to protect our freedom.  My favorite writer and Iraq veteran Matt Ufford (of Warming Glow and Kissing Suzy Kolber) wrote a great piece for The Classical that I think everyone should read. Puts everything in perspective on a day like this, when as many people are posting about 11/11/11 (how silly!) as Veterans Day.

I don’t begrudge sporting events their brief nods to veterans; a brief, pro forma remembrance is better than no remembrance at all. But that sanitized teaspoon of patriotism shouldn’t obscure the grim reality of the veteran suicide epidemic or increased domestic violence or rampant alcohol abuse or skyrocketing divorce rates for veterans returning to their families. Not everyone comes back broken, but nobody comes back whole.

The echoes of war last a lifetime.

via