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.

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