In Science this week, MIT neuroscientist Susumu Tonegawa and colleagues describe their recent research illuminating the biological mechanisms behind the sensation of déjà vu. (The journal paper is locked up, but there’s a good Scientific American account of the research.) The authors conclude that a set of neurons located in the hippocampus — specifically in [...] Read more – ‘New research on the brain mechanisms for déjà vu’.
Here’s the full déjà vu story, for those who don’t have a Times account: July 2, 2006 Déjà Vu, Again and Again By EVAN RATLIFF Pat Shapiro is a vibrant woman of 77, with silver hair, animated blue eyes and a certain air of elegance about her. She lives with her husband, Don, in a [...] Read more – ‘Full déjà vu story’.
Left out of my recent story on déjà vecu were some of the more interesting studies trying to create déjà vu-like sensations in a laboratory, in order to better understand what causes the everyday version of the phenomenon. Akira O’Connor, a grad student of Chris Moulin (the déjà vecu researcher in the article) has had [...] Read more – ‘Inducing déjà vu in the lab’.
The worst thing about researching or writing about déjà vu? The jokes. “It’s f*&#ing terrible,” Chris Moulin said when I asked him about the barrage of déjà vu humor faced by any scientist who decides to tackle it as a serious scientific topic. Even I’ve pretty much heard them all over the last couple of [...] Read more – ‘Let me guess…It’s almost like you’ve read this before’.
The story I’ve been working on for the last few months, about déjà vu and an associated condition called déjà vecu, is out this weekend in the New York Times Magazine. It’s also available on their site here, I’ll post the whole story back here in a week. I’ll also be posting some stuff that [...] Read more – ‘Déjà vu, Again and Again’.
