Dead salmon 'responds' to portraits of people

New Scientist ^ | September 18, 2009 | Ewen Calloway

[ancientart]

The latest weapon in the battle over the legitimacy of some functional brain scanning studies is a dead fish.

In study titled "Neural correlates of interspecies perspective taking in the post-mortem Atlantic Salmon", researchers scanned 1.7 kg (3.8 pounds) of a dead salmon while it was shown images of humans in various social situations. It's not clear how long the salmon had been dead by the time it was studied, but Craig Bennett at the University of California, Santa Barbara, says he scanned it about an hour after picking it up from the supermarket, so it was definitely already a goner.

So what did he and his colleagues find? Bizarrely, a region of the dead salmon's brain lit up during the task.

[Perdogg]

I love salmon. Just as much as I love Burger King.

[Revelation 911]

and he was tasty

[pnut22]

They also can sing after stuffed and mounted on the wall!

[billorites]

"Dead salmon 'responds' to portraits of people"

And overwhelmingly vote Democratic...

[glorgau]

Zombie Salmon!

[ConfusedAndLovingIt]

Scientist: "I need grant money. This money will be used to purchase the necessary supplies for my project."
Bureaucrat: "What supplies?"
Scientist: "Salmon."
Bureaucrat: "What will you do with the supplies when you're finished with them?"
Scientist: "Don't worry. We'll invite you to the cookouts."
Bureaucrat: "Grant approved."

[SiVisPacemParaBellum]

Quick, someone call the White House. They've discovered a new way of vetting the staff czars.

[LauraJean]

Maybe he’s pining for the fjords.

[classified]

Oh! Yours does too! I thought I had something special....

[socialismislost]

[ReagansShinyHair]

Who would think of monitoring a dead salmon’s brain while showing it pictures of people?

[Ole Okie]

They also can sing after stuffed and mounted on the wall!

Aw, those are bass, man. They sing in bass and want to go back to the river.

[Poe White Trash]

ping!

[mlo]

The point was actually to show the weaknesses of other brain MRI studies.

[azcap]

Along the same lines of demonstarting flaws in medical testing is a great article in last months Wired magazine about the Placebo effect in pharmaceuticals. http://www.wired.com/medtech/drugs/magazine/17-09/ff_placebo_effect?currentPage=all

[Rebelbase]

I went looking for a pic of a singing salmon and found this. That's one big fish!

[Yardstick]

Who would think of monitoring a dead salmon’s brain while showing it pictures of people?

You get the feeling a bong may have been involved in the test planning.

[ridesthemiles]

Another Santa Barbara citizen who has been growing some really good stuff illegally.

[ReagansShinyHair]

Yes, but a dead salmon? It sounds like such an odd idea.

I DID wonder if a bong was involved.