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'Enjoyable' New Scientist'A thoughtful book' Irish IndependentFrom neurons to nations, Talking Heads is a stunning survey of the science of human connection and communicationWe are social animals and talking is part of what makes us human.But what purpose does conversation serve? In this revelatory tour of talking, neuroscientist Shane O'Mara explores why we communicate, what happens in our brains when we do it, and what it means for us as individuals, groups and societies.How do our thoughts, memories, and conversations change our brains? What does it mean that we spend most of our thinking lives in a five-minute bubble around the present moment? Why does our sense of self solidify with age, even as we grow more forgetful? In what ways do we imagine futures together? And how do our nations begin as conversations?Moving from the personal to the social and ultimately towards a radical new perspective on the defining phenomenon of our times, populist nationalism, this is the story of how conversation builds the worlds around us - and how, together, we can talk our way into a better tomorrow.'Invaluable ... Fascinating' David Crystal, author of Let's Talk

Behaviour change is hard, but O'Mara shows that by adopting strategies that are well-founded in the science of brain and behaviour individuals and organisations can adapt to the demands of the modern world. The brain matters in business. The problem is that our brains have many biases, heuristics and predilections that can distort behaviour and decision making. The good news is that we know more about how these work than ever before. O'Mara's starting point is that, as our behaviour arises from the structure and function of our brains, careful examination of a series of brain-based ('neurocognitive') analyses of common aspects of human behaviour relevant to business and management practice reveals lessons that can be used at work.

AbstractContrary to the claims of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) that its torture program was scientific, the program was not based on biology or any other science. Instead, the George W. Bush administration veneered the program's justification with a patina of pseudoscience, ignoring the actual biology of torturing human brains. We reconstruct the Bush administration's decision-making process to establish that the policy decision to use torture took place in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks without any investigation into its efficacy. We then present the pseudoscientific model of torture sold to the CIA, show why this ad hoc model amounted to pseudoscience, and then catalog what the actual science of torturing human brains—available in 2001—reveals about the practice. We conclude with a discussion of how a process incorporating countervailing evidence might prevent a policy going forward that is contrary to law, ethics, and evidence.

PUBLISHED ; Exposure to severe and prolonged stress has detrimental effects on the hippocampus. However, relatively little is known about the gradual changes in hippocampal structure, and its behavioral consequences, over the course of repeated stress. Behavioral analyses during 10 days of chronic stress pointed to a delayed decline in spatial memory, the full impact of which is evident only after the end of stress. In contrast, concurrent volumetric measurements in the same animals revealed significant reduction in hippocampal volumes in stressed animals relative to their unstressed counterparts, as early as the third day of stress. Notably, animals that were behaviorally the worst affected at the end of chronic stress suffered the most pronounced early loss in hippocampal volume. Together, these findings support the view that not only is smaller hippocampal volume linked to stress-induced memory deficits, but it may also act as an early risk factor for the eventual development of cognitive impairments seen in stress-related psychiatric disorders. ; This work was supported by Science Foundation Ireland?s STTF programme (Ref. no.: 09/RFP/NES2222?ISTTF 11) and by the Department of Biotechnology, Government of India.