Regardless of which prompt you choose, please use the Tag “Neuroscience” on your post.

For your blog prompt this week, you are to choose one of the following TED talks:

• Daniel Wolpert: The real reason for brains
• Jim Fallon: Exploring the mind of a killer
• Rebecca Saxe: How we read each other’s minds
• Suzana Herculano Houzel: What is so special about the human brain?
• Siddharthan Chandran: Can the damaged brain repair itself?
• Thomas Insel: Toward a new understanding of mental illness
• Miguel Nicolelis: Brain to brain communication has arrived
• Paul Zak: Trust, morality, and oxytocin
• Sarah Jayne Blakemore: The mysterious workings of the adolescent brain
• Jocelyne Bloch: The brain may be able to heal itself – with help

Each talk focuses on a different aspect of the brain. In your response, address the following issues:

• What drew you to choose the talk you did?
• Briefly summarize the talk.
• What did you find most interesting about the talk?
• How trustworthy did you find the presenter and the information she or he presented? Explain why. (Note: you must go beyond talking about the reputation of TED talks in general)
• Come up with a research idea of your own based on the information presented in the talk and briefly outline how you would conduct it.

Because of the exam this week, the first impression post will be due by the beginning of class on Friday, 9/22. The refinement posts for this topic will be due at noon on Tuesday, 9/26. For refinement posts, I want you to focus on critiquing the assessment of why the presenter was or was not trustworthy and the research design for the proposed study your classmate creates.

I look forward to seeing what you write!

Header image: CC by Flickr user Caitlinator