Sympathy minus empathy

I feel bad for you, but I don't really know why.

Those ignorant atheists

Andrew O'Hehir's review of Reason, Faith, and Revolution, by Terry Eagleton.

Seems to be religion more as metaphor or symbolism or an analytic framework concerning the good life than as concrete reality.

Karen Armstrong, interviewed. Historian and former nun Karen Armstrong says the afterlife is a red herring, hating religion is a pathology and that many Westerners cling to infantile ideas of God.

Perceptions/impressions of classical music

Thesis: Carl Stalling has for-ever-after altered our experience of classical music.

Casual Fridays: Can we really tell what a musical work is "about"?, especially Sammy's comment and following.

Also, Even isolated cultures understand emotions conveyed by Western music.

Both from Cognitive Daily.

Great Society?

Chip Ward on homelessness.

Makes me want to rub people's noses in it. Hard.

Including my own.

Where's LBJ when we need him?

Dopamine

Dopamine is a:

• neurotransmitter
• precursor of norepinephrine (noradrenaline) and epinephrine (adrenaline)
• member of catecholamine family

Functions in brain include:

• behavior and cognition
• motivation and reward
• mood
• attention
• learning

Dopaminergic neurons chiefly in:

mesocorticolimbic system (?) (reward, cognition, motivation)

• mesolimbic pathway
  • ventral tegmental area (VTA) of the midbrain
  • nucleus accumbens
  • amygdala
  • hippocampus
  • medial prefrontal cortex
• mesocortical pathway
  • ventral tegmentum
  • cerebral cortex
  • frontal lobes
  • dorsolateral prefrontal cortex

substantia nigra

Motor control

arcuate nucleus

lactation, growth hormone and appetite involvement

More?

• reinforcement
• anticipatory (wanting) vs consummatory (liking)(the reduction in dopamine did not reduce the rat's consummatory pleasure, only the desire to actually eat)
• motivation
• anhedonia
• social anxiety/withdrawal
• pain
• salience