Encephalon #55

The 55th edition of Encephalon (the 'emerald aniversary' edition) is now up at Neuroscientifically Challenged. My three picks as usual:

- Five points on why, even though absolutely important and fascinating, neuroplasticity has been overstated (or mis-stated at least), from Neuroanthropology. I particularly agree with point four, which states that "...much of the story of neuroplasticity is in developmental settings, in the normal interactions and activities that occur during childhood..." - an aspect very much understated, though I'd say implicitly assumed.

- From the ever thorough Mo at Neurophilosophy comes a review of Developmental topographagnosia - a disorder that essentially leads to a difficulty in producing cognitive maps, as Mo says: "It therefore seems plausible that a reluctance to form cognitive maps, starting from an early age and continuing throughout life, could result in a reduced capacity for the hippocampus to perform this particular function." For me, this seems to lead on nicely from the neuroplasticity post - development of the individual as being of central importance.

- Finally, from Neuronism comes a nice little article on computational neuroscience - building general models and theories in order to make predictions.

The next edition of Encephalon will be held here at Combining Cognits on October the 13th, so get your posts written and readied, and send them to encephalon {dot} host {at} gmail {dot} com as usual. Until then!