49 posts · 34,636 views
Although much of my time is spent thinking and talking about brains I hope that's not the extent of who I am or what I do. I get paid to think. About thinking. I love it. In May 2010 I received my Ph.D. in neuroscience from the University of California, Berkeley; I received my bachelors degree in psychology in 2002 from the University of Southern California. Specifically I study the role that neuronal oscillations play in human cognition, with a specific focus on the role that neuroplasticity plays in cognition. I work with patients with brain damage or implanted electrodes to learn about how different brain regions communicate in memory and attention. I study how patients with brain damage recover from stroke or other kinds of neurological damage.
Bradley Voytek
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- December 26, 2012
- 06:44 PM
- 12 views
Dystextia
by Bradley Voytek in Oscillatory Thoughts
There's a fascinating, very short report out in JAMA marking the first case where text messaging abnormalities were the first signs of a neurological abnormality.The paper, "Dystextia - Acute Stroke in the Modern Age", documents the case of a pregnant woman who suffered a small "acute ischemic infarction" (stroke) in her left insula (below). As per medical radiological tradition, the right side of the brain image represents the left side of the patient's brain, because they flip them (suppo........ Read more »
Ravi, A., Rao, V.R., & Klein, J.P. (2012) Dystextia: Acute Stroke in the Modern AgeDystextia. Archives of Neurology, 1. DOI: 10.1001/jamaneurol.2013.604
Dronkers, N. (1996) A new brain region for coordinating speech articulation. Nature, 384(6605), 159-161. DOI: 10.1038/384159a0
Dronkers NF, Plaisant O, Iba-Zizen MT, & Cabanis EA. (2007) Paul Broca's historic cases: high resolution MR imaging of the brains of Leborgne and Lelong. Brain : a journal of neurology, 130(Pt 5), 1432-41. PMID: 17405763
- November 28, 2012
- 04:25 PM
- 152 views
Video games give kids dementia?
by Bradley Voytek in Oscillatory Thoughts
PANIC.As much as I enjoy silly people, I really dislike jumping on the silly person bandwagon here but I feel compelled to counter nonsense with real sense.As Vaughan Bell over at mindhacks has repeatedly noted, Baroness Greenfield of Oxford likes to turn to the press to talk about how video games, the internet, and other generally fun things are ruining the brains of our children.In response, Ben Goldacre has made a simple request of the Baroness: publish your findings in a peer-reviewed study......... Read more »
Green, C., & Bavelier, D. (2003) Action video game modifies visual selective attention. Nature, 423(6939), 534-537. DOI: 10.1038/nature01647
- November 16, 2012
- 02:47 PM
- 163 views
Face processing in the brain: "That was a trip"
by Bradley Voytek in Oscillatory Thoughts
There's a cool new (open access!) case study out in the Journal of Neuroscience by my friend and colleague Josef Parvizi. The paper, "Electrical Stimulation of Human Fusiform Face-Selective Regions Distorts Face Perception", is an analysis of a single subject, Ron Blackwell (he gave his name freely), an engineer from the Bay Area.Mr. Blackwell had experienced seizures since he was a teenager, but for decades his medication had staved them off. Slowly, however, the medication became less eff........ Read more »
Parvizi J, Jacques C, Foster BL, Withoft N, Rangarajan V, Weiner KS, & Grill-Spector K. (2012) Electrical stimulation of human fusiform face-selective regions distorts face perception. The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience, 32(43), 14915-20. PMID: 23100414
- September 20, 2012
- 05:35 PM
- 87 views
NeuroImage paper: "A method for event-related phase/amplitude coupling"
by Bradley Voytek in Oscillatory Thoughts
For those of you who haven't noticed, the title of this blog is "Oscillatory Thoughts" which really does refer to my research interests. The gist is this: neuronal activity oscillates and these waves play an important role in our cognition.This latest paper of mine published in NeuroImage (accepted PDF version), "A method for event-related phase/amplitude coupling", is--as you can infer from the title--a method describing a different way of analyzing neural data than has been used befo........ Read more »
Voytek B, D'Esposito M, Crone N, Knight RT. (2012) A method for event-related phase/amplitude coupling. NeuroImage. DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2012.09.023
- August 30, 2012
- 11:35 AM
- 240 views
Allen Brain Institute
by Bradley Voytek in Oscillatory Thoughts
Yesterday I gave a talk at the Allen Brain Institute (twitter) about my work on brainSCANr and how it integrates with their Allen Brain Atlas.view from my hotel roomFor those of you not familiar with the organization it was started by Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft. So far he's invested about $500,000,000 of his own money to allow the Institute to prosper. They've got several concurrent projects going on, namely looking at gene expression in the human and mouse brain, connect........ Read more »
Lein ES, Hawrylycz MJ, Ao N, Ayres M, Bensinger A, Bernard A, Boe AF, Boguski MS, Brockway KS, Byrnes EJ.... (2007) Genome-wide atlas of gene expression in the adult mouse brain. Nature, 445(7124), 168-76. PMID: 17151600
Ng L, Bernard A, Lau C, Overly CC, Dong HW, Kuan C, Pathak S, Sunkin SM, Dang C, Bohland JW.... (2009) An anatomic gene expression atlas of the adult mouse brain. Nature neuroscience, 12(3), 356-62. PMID: 19219037
- August 7, 2012
- 10:13 AM
- 230 views
The Adventures of Ned the Neuron!
by Bradley Voytek in Oscillatory Thoughts
I've been itching to announce this for months, but I've been biting my tongue. Now I can finally let the neuron out of the bag.Ladies and gentlemen I'm proud to introduce to you a joint project between my wife Jessica Voytek and our friend Erica Warp: The Adventures of Ned the Neuron! To get the important pitch out of the way first, please go contribute some money to their Kickstarter campaign to help them get started if you want to help. Also, please consider following their company o........ Read more »
Voytek JB, & Voytek B. (2012) Automated cognome construction and semi-automated hypothesis generation. Journal of neuroscience methods, 208(1), 92-100. PMID: 22584238
Warp E, Agarwal G, Wyart C, Friedmann D, Oldfield CS, Conner A, Del Bene F, Arrenberg AB, Baier H, & Isacoff EY. (2012) Emergence of patterned activity in the developing zebrafish spinal cord. Current biology : CB, 22(2), 93-102. PMID: 22197243
Marriott G, Mao S, Sakata T, Ran J, Jackson DK, Petchprayoon C, Gomez TJ, Warp E, Tulyathan O, Aaron HL.... (2008) Optical lock-in detection imaging microscopy for contrast-enhanced imaging in living cells. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 105(46), 17789-94. PMID: 19004775
Wyart C, Del Bene F, Warp E, Scott EK, Trauner D, Baier H, & Isacoff EY. (2009) Optogenetic dissection of a behavioural module in the vertebrate spinal cord. Nature, 461(7262), 407-10. PMID: 19759620
- August 1, 2012
- 09:36 AM
- 193 views
The deception ratchet
by Bradley Voytek in Oscillatory Thoughts
The recent admission by Jonah Lehrer of fabricating quotes in his latest book has caused a lot of schadenfreude, bloviating about the "state of journalism", etc. People are writing a lot about what this "means".(source)I've been critical of Jonah Lehrer in the past because of his seemingly blind exaltation of neuroscientific findings but noted that this is a symptom of the state of cognitive neuroscientific research in general. After all these years, I believe I've finally identif........ Read more »
Ann E. Tenbrunsel, & David M. Messick. (2004) Ethical Fading: The Role of Self-Deception in Unethical Behavior. Social Justice Research, 17(2), 223-236. DOI: 10.1023/B:SORE.0000027411.35832.53
Chang LJ, Yarkoni T, Khaw MW, & Sanfey AG. (2012) Decoding the Role of the Insula in Human Cognition: Functional Parcellation and Large-Scale Reverse Inference. Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991). PMID: 22437053
- July 23, 2012
- 11:52 AM
- 308 views
Why we play
by Bradley Voytek in Oscillatory Thoughts
Someone on Quora asked me answer this question: "Why does our brain crave entertainment? And should we give in to its cravings?" Initially I was going to decline, but when I thought about it, it started to sound like an increasingly fun challenge. Here's my full response:*****In short, yes, "entertainment" is beneficial to our neural health. And yes, for various definitions of "entertainment" we should absolutely "give in"!There is a reason that young mammals play and frolic.It's practice.Lion c........ Read more »
Draganski B, Gaser C, Busch V, Schuierer G, Bogdahn U, & May A. (2004) Neuroplasticity: changes in grey matter induced by training. Nature, 427(6972), 311-2. PMID: 14737157
- July 16, 2012
- 03:19 PM
- 383 views
Building a better RoboCop
by Bradley Voytek in Oscillatory Thoughts
This week marks the 25th(!) anniversary of RoboCop, one of the hallmarks of 1980s US cinema and hero of Detroit.Detroit's soon-to-be RoboCop statue!This past weekend was also my 15th (or so) year attending Comic-Con. In a row. Because I didn't get to hear about the new RoboCop remake starring Gary Oldman, Samuel L. Jackson, and Hugh Laurie, I decided to celebrate this nerdistry my own way: by talking way to much and overthinking a plate of beans.This is me priming myself to t........ Read more »
Maguire EA, Gadian DG, Johnsrude IS, Good CD, Ashburner J, Frackowiak RS, & Frith CD. (2000) Navigation-related structural change in the hippocampi of taxi drivers. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 97(8), 4398-403. PMID: 10716738
Baba Shiv, & Alexander Fedorikhin. (1999) Heart and Mind in Conflict: the Interplay of Affect and Cognition in Consumer Decision Making. Journal of Consumer Research, 26(3), 278-292. DOI: 10.1086/209563
Yun RJ, Krystal JH, & Mathalon DH. (2010) Working memory overload: fronto-limbic interactions and effects on subsequent working memory function. Brain Imaging and Behavior, 4(1), 96-108. PMID: 20503117
LaBar, Kevin S, & Cabeza, Roberto. (2006) Cognitive neuroscience of emotional memory. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 54(1), 233-264. DOI: 10.1038/nrn1825
Berger TW, Hampson RE, Song D, Goonawardena A, Marmarelis VZ, & Deadwyler SA. (2011) A cortical neural prosthesis for restoring and enhancing memory. Journal of neural engineering, 8(4), 46017. PMID: 21677369
Doppelmayr M, Finkenzeller T, & Sauseng P. (2008) Frontal midline theta in the pre-shot phase of rifle shooting: differences between experts and novices. Neuropsychologia, 46(5), 1463-7. PMID: 18280523
Talwar SK, Xu S, Hawley ES, Weiss SA, Moxon KA, & Chapin JK. (2002) Rat navigation guided by remote control. Nature, 417(6884), 37-8. PMID: 11986657
- June 16, 2012
- 12:45 PM
- 256 views
Defending Jonah Lehrer
by Bradley Voytek in Oscillatory Thoughts
This is a strange post for me to write because I admit I've ridden the anti-Jonah bandwagon before, advocating throwing Jonah overboard to quell the pop neuroscience storms.Upon honest introspective reflection I admit that some of my anti-Lehrerism probably stems from righteous brain-nerd ego-driven indignation. Why does this dude get all the attention when he's not even a neuroscientist?! He's just a neuroscience roadie!And that's not fair, and neither is all the shit he's getting.He's taken a ........ Read more »
Vul, Harris, Winkielman, Pashler. (2009) Puzzlingly High Correlations in fMRI Studies of Emotion, Personality, and Social Cognition. Perspectives on Psychological Science. DOI: 10.1111/j.1745-6924.2009.01125.x
Nieuwenhuis, Forstmann, Wagenmakers. (2011) Erroneous analyses of interactions in neuroscience: a problem of significance. Nature Neuroscience. DOI: 10.1038/nn.2886
Kriegeskorte N, Simmons WK, Bellgowan PS, & Baker CI. (2009) Circular analysis in systems neuroscience: the dangers of double dipping. Nature neuroscience, 12(5), 535-40. PMID: 19396166
Redgrave P, & Gurney K. (2006) The short-latency dopamine signal: a role in discovering novel actions?. Nature reviews. Neuroscience, 7(12), 967-75. PMID: 17115078
Assogna F, Cravello L, Caltagirone C, & Spalletta G. (2011) Anhedonia in Parkinson's disease: a systematic review of the literature. Movement disorders : official journal of the Movement Disorder Society, 26(10), 1825-34. PMID: 21661052
- June 4, 2012
- 06:01 PM
- 282 views
Journal of Neuroscience Methods paper: "Automated Cognome Construction and Semi-automated Hypothesis Generation"
by Bradley Voytek in Oscillatory Thoughts
The scientific method begins with a hypothesis about our reality that can be tested via experimental observation. Hypothesis formation is iterative, building off prior scientific knowledge. Before one can form a hypothesis, one must have a thorough understanding of previous research to ensure that the path of inquiry is founded upon a stable base of established facts. But how can a researcher perform a thorough, unbiased literature review when over one million scientific articles are published a........ Read more »
Voytek, J., & Voytek, B. (2012) Automated cognome construction and semi-automated hypothesis generation. Journal of Neuroscience Methods. DOI: 10.1016/j.jneumeth.2012.04.019
Schmidt M, & Lipson H. (2009) Distilling free-form natural laws from experimental data. Science (New York, N.Y.), 324(5923), 81-5. PMID: 19342586
Bowden, D., & Dubach, M. (2003) NeuroNames 2002. Neuroinformatics, 1(1), 43-60. DOI: 10.1385/NI:1:1:043
Yarkoni T, Poldrack RA, Nichols TE, Van Essen DC, & Wager TD. (2011) Large-scale automated synthesis of human functional neuroimaging data. Nature methods, 8(8), 665-70. PMID: 21706013
Lein, E., Hawrylycz, M., Ao, N., Ayres, M., Bensinger, A., Bernard, A., Boe, A., Boguski, M., Brockway, K., Byrnes, E.... (2006) Genome-wide atlas of gene expression in the adult mouse brain. Nature, 445(7124), 168-176. DOI: 10.1038/nature05453
- May 19, 2012
- 12:49 PM
- 371 views
What is the longest axon?
by Bradley Voytek in Oscillatory Thoughts
This is a fascinating question I got over on Quora.Short answer: probably the dorsal root ganglion in the blue whale.Initially I thought it would be a motor axon in the sciatic nerve, but after consideration I'm pretty sure that the dorsal root ganglion (DRG) has a longer axon than the motor information carried in the sciatic nerve (which is the longest nerve in the body, but not axon).The DRG is a weird neuron because it's unipolar, so it's got a loooong ........ Read more »
Smith, D. (2009) Stretch growth of integrated axon tracts: Extremes and exploitations. Progress in Neurobiology, 89(3), 231-239. DOI: 10.1016/j.pneurobio.2009.07.006
- May 9, 2012
- 05:59 PM
- 414 views
PLoS ONE paper: "Prefrontal Cortex Lesions Impair Object-Spatial Integration"
by Bradley Voytek in Oscillatory Thoughts
In this post I'll discuss the science behind my most recent paper in PLoS ONE, "Prefrontal Cortex Lesions Impair Object-Spatial Integration", as well as give a general update of my goings-on.It's been a while since I've posted here about my own peer-reviewed research and my personal goings on. I've had a publishing break; my most recent first-authored papers prior to this one were the three clustered back in October/November 2010:NeuronPNASFrontiers in Human NeuroscienceBut a lot ........ Read more »
Voytek B, Soltani M, Pickard N, Kishiyama MM, & Knight RT. (2012) Prefrontal cortex lesions impair object-spatial integration. PLoS ONE, 7(4). PMID: 22563375
- March 31, 2012
- 01:10 PM
- 532 views
Automated Science, Deep Data, and the Paradox of Information
by Bradley Voytek in Oscillatory Thoughts
Note: this is was originally published by me over on the O'Reilly Radar.A lot of great pieces have been written about the (relatively) recent surge in interest in “big data” and "data science", but in this piece I want to address the importance of deep data analysis: what we can learn from the statistical outliers by drilling down and asking, “What’s different here? What’s special about these outliers and what do they tell us about our models and assumptions?”The reason that big data........ Read more »
Schmidt, M., & Lipson, H. (2009) Distilling Free-Form Natural Laws from Experimental Data. Science, 324(5923), 81-85. DOI: 10.1126/science.1165893
Yarkoni, T., Poldrack, R., Nichols, T., Van Essen, D., & Wager, T. (2011) Large-scale automated synthesis of human functional neuroimaging data. Nature Methods, 8(8), 665-670. DOI: 10.1038/nmeth.1635
Ahn, Y., Ahnert, S., Bagrow, J., & Barabási, A. (2011) Flavor network and the principles of food pairing. Scientific Reports. DOI: 10.1038/srep00196
Michel, J., Shen, Y., Aiden, A., Veres, A., Gray, M., , ., Pickett, J., Hoiberg, D., Clancy, D., Norvig, P.... (2010) Quantitative Analysis of Culture Using Millions of Digitized Books. Science, 331(6014), 176-182. DOI: 10.1126/science.1199644
Golder, S., & Macy, M. (2011) Diurnal and Seasonal Mood Vary with Work, Sleep, and Daylength Across Diverse Cultures. Science, 333(6051), 1878-1881. DOI: 10.1126/science.1202775
McCabe, D., & Castel, A. (2008) Seeing is believing: The effect of brain images on judgments of scientific reasoning. Cognition, 107(1), 343-352. DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2007.07.017
- March 8, 2012
- 03:49 PM
- 524 views
The Neural Correlates of Cake
by Bradley Voytek in Oscillatory Thoughts
A few years back my PhD department, the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute at Berkeley, held a dessert competition at their annual holiday party. My wife and I came up with the above idea (which she then executed).Basically I wanted to be a smartass and poke fun at "neural correlates of" fMRI studies. The transaxial brain slice is made of melted candy, and the nucleus accumbens are "lit up" using two LEDs embedded in the cake.Needless to say, my wife won the competition.However, as I try to do, ........ Read more »
Crick, F., & Koch, C. (1995) Are we aware of neural activity in primary visual cortex?. Nature, 375(6527), 121-123. DOI: 10.1038/375121a0
Scheibel AB. (1961) Neural correlates of psychophysiological developments in the young organism. Recent Advances in Biological Psychiatry, 313-28. PMID: 14498134
- March 4, 2012
- 04:14 PM
- 499 views
Can you have sex so mind-blowing you can't remember it?
by Bradley Voytek in Oscillatory Thoughts
(Yet another post prompted by a question on Quora that got me thinking about some fun ideas. As always, caveat lector: this is just some more "science jazz"... playing around with ideas to get me thinking about things I normally wouldn't think about from a neuroscientific context.)Okay, so there's a relatively more banal answer and then a much more fun answer.Let's start with the more fun.Totally Spitballing Fun AnswerMost people know about the studies in the 1........ Read more »
Cejas C, Cisneros LF, Lagos R, Zuk C, & Ameriso SF. (2010) Internal jugular vein valve incompetence is highly prevalent in transient global amnesia. Stroke; a journal of cerebral circulation, 41(1), 67-71. PMID: 19926838
- February 13, 2012
- 04:45 PM
- 429 views
How casinos distract
by Bradley Voytek in Oscillatory Thoughts
My father lived in Las Vegas for most of my teenaged years. While I never lived there with him, my step-grandparents (who raised me during that time) loved going there. Unsurprisingly, this meant that I spent a fair amount of time in Vegas growing up.My grandparents, they were "old school" Vegas tourists. My step-grandfather was quite a gambler and played in a weekly poker game with his friends until his Parkinson's kept him from doing so. We used to stay in the Sands Hotel, made famous bec........ Read more »
Pavlova M, Sokolov A, & Sokolov A. (2005) Perceived dynamics of static images enables emotional attribution. Perception, 34(9), 1107-16. PMID: 16247880
Shiv, B., & Fedorikhin, A. (2002) Spontaneous versus Controlled Influences of Stimulus-Based Affect on Choice Behavior. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 87(2), 342-370. DOI: 10.1006/obhd.2001.2977
Wais PE, & Gazzaley A. (2011) The impact of auditory distraction on retrieval of visual memories. Psychonomic Bulletin , 18(6), 1090-7. PMID: 21938641
Clapp WC, Rubens MT, & Gazzaley A. (2010) Mechanisms of working memory disruption by external interference. Cerebral Cortex, 20(4), 859-72. PMID: 19648173
- January 11, 2012
- 01:30 PM
- 597 views
A Time article that literally makes my brain lobes explode
by Bradley Voytek in Oscillatory Thoughts
Time has just published the most frustratingly annoying piece of neurobabble I've come across (thanks for pointing me to it Avgusta!).What I'm about to say is hard for me, because I love Time; they've twice named their person of the year, and I hate to bite the hand that feeds me.But forget it... that New York Times piece that I was annoyed about from this weekend has got nothing on this one.It's a "very timely piece" about John Edwards. Is Time confused? They do know the American media is only ........ Read more »
McCabe DP, & Castel AD. (2008) Seeing is believing: the effect of brain images on judgments of scientific reasoning. Cognition, 107(1), 343-52. PMID: 17803985
- January 4, 2012
- 08:22 PM
- 713 views
5 Reasons to Love Academia
by Bradley Voytek in Oscillatory Thoughts
1. Freedom to set your own scheduleAcademia's not a 9 to 5, cubicle slave job! We didn't go to school for 20+ years to work a measly 8 hours per day for 40 hours a week.You see, there's a certain... "culture"... of academia that equates "good, smart work" with "endless hours in the lab".This kind of mentality leads to famous suggestions such as the following from my PhD institute (also referenced in Nature):1. Every one works at least 50 hr a week in the lab (e.g., 8+ hr a day, six days a week)......... Read more »
Cyranoski, D. (2011) Neuroscience in China: Growth factor. Nature, 476(7358), 22-24. DOI: 10.1038/476022a
Glass, R. (2000) A letter from the frustrated author of a journal paper. Journal of Systems and Software, 54(1), 1. DOI: 10.1016/S0164-1212(00)00020-0
Lawrence, P. (2009) Real Lives and White Lies in the Funding of Scientific Research. PLoS Biology, 7(9). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.1000197
Powell, K. (2006) Winning ways. Nature, 442(7104), 842-843. DOI: 10.1038/nj7104-842a
- December 26, 2011
- 11:39 AM
- 543 views
A New Model for Scientific Publishing
by Bradley Voytek in Oscillatory Thoughts
There's a new paper out in Frontiers in Computational Neuroscience that is relavant to my interests. The paper is by Dwight Kravitz and Chris Baker from the NIMH and is titled "Toward a new model of scientific publishing: discussion and a proposal".About two weeks ago Dwight emailed me his paper saying that he'd read a post I'd written last month for the Scientific American guest blog called "What is peer review for?" (you can check out my interview on Skeptically Speaking on this topic as well)........ Read more »
Kravitz, D., & Baker, C. (2011) Toward a New Model of Scientific Publishing: Discussion and a Proposal. Frontiers in Computational Neuroscience. DOI: 10.3389/fncom.2011.00055
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