9
votes
Accepted
Is Maslow's hierarchy of needs really accurate at labeling sex as a physiological "need"?
This is a trickier multi-part question to adjudicate than you might think.
Is Sex A "Need" (Physiological or Otherwise)?
Definitions of "Needs", "Motives", etc., are dime-a-dozen. Though I don't ...
- 286
8
votes
Accepted
Can you get sad by sniffing onions, just like you can get happy by forcing yourself to smile?
I assume you're referring to the experiment by Strack, Martin, and Stepper (1988) in which people rated a cartoon as funnier when they had to hold their face in a smile shape by gripping a pencil in ...
- 361
5
votes
Which personality traits are proved to correlate with any facial features?
Reading people's faces to determine their character is called physiognomy.
Some might downplay the idea that it is real but
scientists are nowadays starting to accept that there may be a ...
- 12.1k
5
votes
Accepted
What regulates the strength of motor signals?
Short answer
Muscles are controlled by motor neurons in the spinal cord. The number of motor neurons that fire, as well as their individual firing rates govern the control of muscle force.
Background
...
- 20.5k
4
votes
Accepted
Do animals that sleep during the day have a different sleep architecture than those who sleep at night?
One study (Zhao et. al., 2010), investigating the sleep architecture of two bat species (one nocturnal, and one mixed), notes the following:
C. sphinx was found to sleep predominantly throughout ...
- 1,537
3
votes
Why pale when we fear and red when we are angry
The 5F response (fright/flight/fight/freeze/fawn response) to threats is responsible for both situations.
Specifically, among other reactions, the 5F response causes the following: [emphasis mine]
...
- 12.1k
3
votes
Accepted
How is the term "physiological measurement" defined?
Physiology is a very broad term that includes neuroscience:
Physiology is the scientific study of the functions and mechanisms
which work within a living system.
Within the cognitive sciences, ...
- 19.4k
3
votes
Does anybody know a source having multi-electrode (several channels) recorded data of multiple Neurons (I prefer real data not artificial)?
https://crcns.org has several openly available datasets with recordings from many different brain areas. Each recording will likely have multiple simultaneously recorded neurons.
- 1,855
3
votes
Physiologically speaking is anxiety and adrenaline the same?
Not quite the same, although there is some overlap.
What's colloquially known as an "adrenaline rush" (e.g. what you'd experience in a roller coaster or more generally in a fight-or-flight ...
- 10.2k
2
votes
Does anxiety produce adrenaline or does adrenaline make the person anxious?
I don't think a causal relationship between the two has been established yet. I did read about an experiment conducted by Ulrich Bolm Androff, where the blood samples 10 physicians and psychologists ...
2
votes
Why does the tempo tend to get faster?
Tempo should be an objective parameter in music. The same piece is heard differently at higher tempo than in lower tempo. This is sensible if you accept an Aristotelian perspective of music, whereby ...
2
votes
Can you get sad by sniffing onions, just like you can get happy by forcing yourself to smile?
Short answer
No
Background
Onions produce the irritant syn-propanethial-S-oxide. It stimulates the eyes' lachrymal glands and thereby stimulate the release tears (source: Library of Congress). The ...
- 20.5k
2
votes
Is Maslow's hierarchy of needs really accurate at labeling sex as a physiological "need"?
Based on all the energy spent on courting and mating, both in the human and animal world, I would say yes. There is also the argument that "survival" of humans as a species depends on sex (...
- 101
2
votes
How does emotional stress cause skeletal muscle rigidity?
Short answer
The stress response included norepinephrine release, in turn increasing blood pressure. This may cause muscle tension.
Background
What an interesting question. To my surprise, I couldn'...
- 20.5k
2
votes
Would non-neural physiological insights be considered to be in the field of neuroscience?
There is increasing scientific evidence to incorporate other organ systems when considering the whole function of the nervous system. Neuroendocrinology, neurogastroenterology, and neuroimmunology are ...
- 381
2
votes
Accepted
Do bodily manifestations (e.g. jerking) and intense euphoric sensations (e.g. "heat", "electricity") always co-occur in spiritual experiences?
An inherent problem with the line of investigation is that the exhibited behaviours are inconsistent with the claimed emotions. In no other situation do the emotions of love, peace, ecstasy and ...
- 1,738
2
votes
What causes muscle stiffness contraction and tension during stress
Presumably you to mean to ask what pathway mediates muscle tension. muscle tension is controlled by the reticular formation (in the brain stem), so it doesn't require anything special to happen in the ...
- 10.2k
1
vote
What is it called when manipulating the body, such as with a smile, triggers emotion?
The specific example is called the facial feedback hypothesis:
... the conjectures ... that one's facial expression directly affects
their emotional experience. ... While James included the influence ...
- 19.4k
1
vote
Accepted
What is Cortisols role in a chronically activated fight-flight-freeze response?
The "fight-flight-freeze" response is not a list of three responses, it's a name for one, general hyperarousal response.
Often it was simply called "fight or flight" response, ...
- 7,171
1
vote
Accepted
Can signals from the prefrontal cortex alone trigger a readiness potential in the pre-supplementary motor area?
The original author is not making a claim one way or another for logical AND or logical OR within this context. The statement
the pre-supplementary motor area (preSMA), which in turn receives ...
- 7,171
1
vote
What's the difference between the neuroendocrine system vs endocrine system?
Neuroendocrine systems can be defined as the sets of neurons, glands and non-endocrine tissues, and the neurochemicals, hormones, and humoral signals they produce and receive, that function in an ...
- 12.1k
1
vote
Accepted
Are reaction time and memory physiological measure or behavioral observation?
It may help considering whether the phenomenon is under some control by the participant. Pupil dilation is a physiological measure, but the speed at which I hit a key (reaction time) is a behavioral ...
- 1,498
1
vote
Is a more specific breathing technique better than just slow, deep breathing for calming oneself?
Any anxiety — and especially with Panic Attacks — can often but not always lead to Hyperventilation. Steady, slow breathing will prevent it, whilst also helping to relieve the anxiety.
Whilst ...
- 12.1k
1
vote
What keeps the cerebrospinal fluid circulating? Is it pumped by something?
When from what I've viewed first hand through my formal study working with NANOG, SOX2, & OCT4 Trinity Factor mediation of a Non Canonical Wnt pathway in lineage regression morphology of simple ...
- 19
1
vote
How are people able to wake themselves up after a pre-specified amount of time?
The short answer is that this is unknown. However, there are a few potential leads.
One hint is that people are able to estimate the passage of time fairly reliably, and this ability seems to persist ...
- 19.4k
1
vote
Is there a correlation between facial features and personality?
Here are some recent papers about the links between face and behavior:
Kramer, R. S. S., King, J. E. & Ward, R. Identifying personality from the static, nonexpressive face in humans and ...
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible