Brain Blog Breakdown

March 11, 2009 11:48 AM

What are your favorite neuroscience blogs?

I want to start reading some good neuroscience blogs. There are a lot out there, and I'm interested in finding out which ones various MeFites might give their stamp of approval. My particular interest is in social neuroscience, but please don't limit your responses based on that. Blogs that are somewhat related to neuroscience are would also be great to hear about (i.e. cognitive science, psychology, etc.). Also, do you have a particular method of staying current with said blogs that you feel is particularly effective?

posted by solipsophistocracy to computers & internet (8 comments total)

I'm a big fan of Steven Novella, the author of NeuroLogica. He's president of the New England Skeptical Society and hosts one of my favorite podcasts (The Skeptics Guide to the Universe). I don't read the blog regularly, but he refers to it frequently on the podcast. He's particularly good at debunking pseudoscience when it wanders into the realm of neuroscience.
posted by diogenes at 12:03 PM on March 11 [1 favorite has favorites]

Neurophilosophy.

Garden of Forking Paths -- a blog on the philosophical problem of free will, possibly of interest.

PsyBlog (psychology)

Scroll down near the end of this webpage for lots of links to "cognitive science weblogs" (might be pretty dated).

"Philosophy, etc." is a philosophy blog with some posts on the mind, sometimes bringing in empirical research. Of course, you can easily find tons of philosophy blogs and then look through them for posts on the mind, but as someone who often reads philosophy blogs I can vouch for this as one of the best (check the comments sections for illuminating, vigorous debate).*

*I recommend keeping up with more philosophical discussions along with the more scientific ones. Neuroscientists may draw all sorts of philosophical conclusions from their data, and it's entirely possible that they'll unwittingly make philosophical errors in doing so. Each field has its strengths and weaknesses, and none has a monopoly on the truth.
posted by Jaltcoh at 12:04 PM on March 11 [1 favorite has favorites]

Mind Hacks and ScienceBlogs Brain and Behavior are two great jumping points. You can find tons of interesting links through them. My favorite is the Frontal Cortex.
posted by TNOTGILL at 12:25 PM on March 11

Neurotopia--just happened across it the other day.
posted by idb at 12:54 PM on March 11

The Thinking Meat Project.
posted by tangerine at 4:22 PM on March 11

It's not very formal or technical, but Jonah Lehrer's blog is good. He's a regular on the always-spectacular Radiolab (see how I snuck a Radiolab rec in there?)
posted by you're a kitty! at 6:12 PM on March 11

Neuroanthropology is sooo good. Nuanced and thoughtful writing about the intersections of mind and culture.

The Neurocritic and Neuroskeptic critique sloppy research (and sloppy reporting about good research), which is important for lay readers who want to be alert to some of the methodological issues...and often hilarious too.

At Scienceblogs, I like Developing Intelligence (pretty technical) and Mixing Memory (now defunct, but great archives). Also seconding Neurotopia.
posted by introcosm at 9:41 PM on March 11

Thanks very kindly, folks. Neurotopia in particular is blowing my mind.
posted by solipsophistocracy at 10:21 AM on March 12