LINKS - October 18th, 2023
Welcome to LINKS — my attempt to provide Rhapsody readers with five interesting stories that tell us something about what it means to be human. LINKS is published every Wednesday. Have a link you want to share? Drop it in the comments.
If You’ve Ever Heard a Voice That Wasn’t There, This Could Be Why
By Veronique Greenwood, The New York Times
“Hearing voices is more common than you might think, said Pavo Orepic, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Geneva and an author of the new paper. In surveys, scientists have discovered that many people without a psychiatric diagnosis — perhaps 5 to 10 percent of the general population — report having heard a disembodied voice at some point in their lives.”
Deep asleep? You can still follow simple commands, study finds
“A study published on 12 October in Nature Neuroscience suggests that there might be periods during sleep when that shade is partially open. Depending on what researchers said to them, participants in the study would either smile or frown on cue in certain phases of sleep.”
This Is The Largest Map of The Human Brain Ever Made
By Gemma Conroy, Scientific American
“The enormous cell atlas offers a detailed snapshot of the most complex known organ. ‘It’s highly significant,’ says Anthony Hannan, a neuroscientist at the Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health in Melbourne, Australia. Researchers have previously mapped the human brain using techniques such as magnetic resonance imaging, but this is the first atlas of the whole human brain at the single-cell level, showing its intricate molecular interactions, adds Hannan. ‘These types of atlases really are laying the groundwork for a much better understanding of the human brain.’”
The myth of man the hunter
“In the 1960s, the academic hypothesis that male hunting was central to early human civilization gave rise to an influential symposium and book called Man the Hunter (1968), edited by anthropologists Richard Lee and Irven De Vore. The publication of Man the Hunter inaugurated the academic field of hunter-gatherer studies and cemented the caricatures of man-the-hunter/woman-the-gatherer in the popular imagination.”
What to Talk About in Therapy
By Devon Frye, Psychology Today
“But while the freedom to talk about anything may feel liberating for some clients, others can find it intimidating or confusing. Someone struggling with serious anxiety, for example, may believe that voicing their worries aloud would be impossible, says Stephanie Cox, a mental health counselor in Jacksonville Beach, Florida. Because a hallmark of anxiety is avoidance, when faced with the prospect of opening up to another person, ‘someone who’s already anxious may start to think actually, I don’t want to talk about any of this.’”