Love that Anterior Commissure!
The Anterior Commissure is a six-month-old blog I've just discovered, and it's a great read. Its author, Kate, promises her blog is "exploring the intersection between hormones, brain, and behavior." And her tagline is everything I'm excited about right now: The science of sex and mating, gender and attraction, pregnancy and parental behavior.
Kate is a graduate student -- in neuroscience, maybe -- doing what seems to be very interesting work on identifying structures in the anterior hypothalamus. She's a bit mysterious about where and what she's working on; I'd love to know more.
She's named her blog after the anterior commissure because, she says,
... the AC is quite ventral, i.e. it rests almost at the bottom of the brain. Immediately below that is the anterior portion of the hypothalamus, a complex and phylogenetically old mish-mosh of cells that, for part of my thesis work, I've been attempting to identify and define. The specific region that I use the AC to find is called the medial preoptic area, which has important roles in male sex behavior, diuresis, temperature regulation, gestation, and maternal behavior.
It looks to be a nice place to read highly informed commentary on a variety of scientific topics. Check it out.
hurrah! thanks for the thoughtful shout-out.
and yes, you're right on - neuroscience it is. as i work on maternal behavior and motivation, the blog acts as some semblance of a personal journal club, so my work is much less mysterious that you might think!
Posted by: kate | October 10, 2007 at 04:57 PM