View allAll Photos Tagged cognitive
Alex awoke to the soft hum of biometric monitors and the faint scent of sterilized air. The room was bright, seamless, and eerily silent, save for the rhythmic pulsing of his own vitals displayed on a translucent holographic screen beside him.
He blinked, his mind still hazy from post-surgical sedation. His body felt… different.
Not in the way pain usually announced itself after a major operation—but the complete absence of it. No soreness, no stiffness, nothing.
He looked down.
Instead of a standard hospital gown, he was wrapped in a tight, high-tech PVC-like suit—a combination of blue, green, and reinforced black suspenders strapped to his upper body. His legs were encased in thick, glossy synthetic material, compressing but oddly comforting. The final thing he noticed was the yellow straps across his abdomen, thighs, and waist—secured snugly against his skin.
They must’ve been part of the pain management system, he reasoned.
“Welcome back, Alex,” a voice chimed overhead. The hospital AI.
“You are currently in post-op recovery following abdominal reconstruction surgery. Your neural block system has been activated for optimal healing. Please remain still.”
Alex flexed his fingers experimentally. He felt fine. More than fine.
“What’s with this suit?” he asked groggily, brushing his hands against the smooth material covering his waist.
“Post-operative compression wear, integrated with neural dampeners. Your body is healing faster than projected. You may experience a mild euphoria—this is normal.”
Alex exhaled, adjusting himself on the bed.
Mild euphoria? This wasn’t mild—it was the best he’d felt in years.
The Discharge & The Straps
By the time he was cleared to leave, the hospital had issued him a set of the same specialized straps he had worn in recovery.
“Many patients experience residual discomfort,” the nurse explained as she handed them over. “These will help stabilize your posture and provide additional relief.”
Alex had no idea how much he’d come to rely on them.
At home, he realized he couldn’t sleep without them. When he wrapped the yellow straps around his waist and thighs, a wave of calm settled over him. The pressure was soothing, but there was something else.
A sort of deep relaxation, like his brain was getting gently switched off.
He assumed it was just the effect of thick PVC pressing on key nerve points. Maybe some deep-tissue stimulation. He never questioned why they worked so well.
But he should have.
Because the yellow straps weren’t just PVC.
They were coated with a microscopic, slow-releasing neurochemical blend—one designed to suppress pain, enhance sleep, and subtly rewire the brain’s response to discomfort.
Alex thought he had simply gotten used to the comfort.
What he didn’t know was that he was never supposed to keep them.
The Side Effects
Weeks passed, and Alex hadn’t had a single restless night.
He wrapped himself in the straps every evening, securing them with the same firm, structured pattern the hospital had used. The effect was instantaneous—his mind eased, his body felt weightless, and he slipped into unconsciousness like a dreamless void.
But then the daytime fog started.
•He found himself forgetting details—small things, like where he placed his keys.
•His reaction times slowed.
•He felt disconnected from discomfort, from hunger, even from urgency.
•A strange dulling of sensation settled in.
One evening, he stubbed his toe against the edge of his bed. Hard. It should have hurt. But he felt nothing. He glanced down. His skin was already bruising purple, but there was no pain, no sharpness, no reaction at all.
Alex frowned. That wasn’t normal.
That was the first time he considered maybe the straps weren’t just pressure therapy.
The Truth About the Yellow Straps
His curiosity turned into paranoia. He started analyzing the material, scanning for any biometrics the hospital hadn’t disclosed.
And that’s when he found it.
The straps contained a pharmaceutical coating, a self-regenerating neural agent that had been subtly altering his perception of physical sensations.
It was a silent dependency system. A form of post-op neuroprogramming that kept patients compliant, relaxed, and unaware of lingering pain.
He wasn’t healing faster. He was just… feeling less.
Alex’s chest tightened.
Was this intentional? Had the hospital meant for him to become dependent on this?
Or was he never supposed to take them home?
The more he thought about it, the more disturbing the implications became.
The question wasn’t just what was in the straps.
The real question was…
How many other patients had never questioned them at all?
Chapter 2 - Discovery
For weeks, Alex had been torn between paranoia and dependence. He knew something was off about the yellow straps, but at the same time… they worked.
Even as his senses dulled, even as his pain response faded into nothing, he couldn’t bring himself to stop using them.
But one night, on a whim, he tried something different.
The Headwrap Experiment
He sat on the edge of his bed, straps in hand, running his fingers over the smooth PVC surface.
“What if I wrapped them around my head?” he thought.
A ridiculous idea—why would that even work? The straps were designed for post-op recovery, not some futuristic sleep therapy.
But his curiosity overpowered logic.
Slowly, he wrapped the longest strap around his forehead, pulling it snug but comfortable. The second strap he looped under his chin, securing them in place like a makeshift sleep hood.
The moment the last buckle clicked—
Darkness.
Instant. Total. Perfect.
The Best Sleep of His Life
Alex woke up 8 hours later, feeling like he had slept in a void of absolute peace.
No grogginess. No fog. No side effects. Just pure, uninterrupted rest.
He glanced at the clock. Not a single restless moment.
It was the best sleep he had ever experienced.
And for the first time since the surgery, he didn’t feel numb. His pain perception was normal, his reflexes were sharp. The lingering haze that had clouded his thoughts was gone.
Had he… been using the straps wrong this whole time?
The Search for Answers
His hands flew to his tablet. He logged into an underground pharmaceutical panel, bypassing the usual consumer filters to access the raw medical data on the neural agent.
The moment he typed in the chemical composition (extracted using a makeshift molecular scanner), the system pulled up a classified pharmacology entry:
SUBSTANCE ID: NEURODORMIN-XV
Status: Controlled Neurotherapy Agent
Primary Use: Induces deep, restorative sleep in high-anxiety or post-trauma patients
Administration Method: Scalp and cranial compression therapy ONLY
WARNING: Improper application may cause neural desensitization, reduced pain response, and cognitive dulling.
Alex stared at the screen.
He had been strapping them to his body, letting the drug seep into his system in the wrong way, causing all the weird side effects.
But wrapped around his head? It was working as intended.
He had accidentally discovered the right method—by sheer dumb luck.
The Dependency Warning
Then he scrolled further down.
A flashing red advisory appeared:
⚠️ WARNING: High Risk of Dependency ⚠️
Neurodormin-XV is habit-forming. Users may develop psychological reliance due to extreme sleep quality enhancement. Abrupt cessation may lead to withdrawal symptoms including insomnia, paranoia, and neural overstimulation.
Alex scoffed. Like he cared.
He had spent years struggling with crippling insomnia, tossing and turning, waking up exhausted, trapped in a cycle of sleepless misery.
If this meant he could sleep like a king every night?
Fine.
He wasn’t about to give that up.
Dependency? That was a problem for Future Alex.
For now, he tightened the straps, laid back, and drifted off into another perfect night’s sleep.
THE END.
Award-winning photojournalist, Karim Ben Khelifa, is widely known for his coverage of the Middle East conflicts, especially the Iraq and Afghan wars, where he covered the insurgent sides. While a Fellow at the Open Documentary Lab at MIT, Ben Khelifa designed and prototyped his latest project The Enemy. This immersive installation uses VR to bring the audience into conversations between enemies within longstanding global conflicts. During his residency, he collaborated with Fox Harrell of the Imagination, Computation and Expression (ICE) Laboratory, to integrate concepts from cognitive science and Artificial Intelligence-based interaction models into the project to engender empathy.
ACRM Cognitive Rehabilitation Training — SECOND EDITION
Manual • Online course • In-person Workshops • Hosting & sponsoring
EXTENSIVELY revised — includes ALL strategies • 500+ pages • companion website materials
• NEW & updated treatment recommendations
• EXTENSIVELY revised — quadrupled in size
• ALL-NEW chapters
• Robust companion website
• Supplemental materials — for students & instructors
The ACRM community group — the Brain Injury Interdisciplinary Special Interest Group (BI-ISIG) ACRM.org/bi literally wrote the book on brain injury rehabilitation. Now in its second edition, this training program includes:
• The Manual — 500+ pages available in print & e-versions
• Recorded online training course — with CME/CEUs
• IN-PERSON workshops — with CME/CEUs
• Hosting/sponsoring, multi-seat/ group licensing opportunities
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ACRM holds the largest interdisciplinary rehabilitation research event every Fall: ACRM Annual Conference :: Progress in Rehabilitation Research :: Translation to Clinical Practice :: ACRMconference.org
For information on exhibiting, sponsoring, and advertising opportunities please contact sales@ACRM.org or phone +1.703.435.5335 or use this form ACRM.org/salesform.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ACRM: American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine: Improving lives through interdisciplinary rehabilitation research
JOIN Us. Be MOVED.
DISCOVER ACRM Member Benefits
SIGN-UP & receive FREE ACRM eNews: ACRM.org/enews
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It's that funny feeling you get, when it just doesn't feel right. (massive oversimplification...). Sending something off to an external website is definitely not cognitive dissonance. From the talk by Gavin Bell of Nature.
The CGI Conference brings together classroom teachers, administrators, researchers, and professional developers from across the country. Educators develop and extend their understanding of CGI, learn about the latest research advances in CGI, and share about the impact CGI has on mathematics learning in PreK-6 classrooms.
Interdisciplinary Cognitive Assessment and Management of Patients with Brain Tumors in Inpatient Rehabilitation 616851
MORE & REGISTER: cdmcd.co/qEMPD
World’s largest rehabilitation research event: ACRM Annual Conference 2019 CHICAGO :: Progress in Rehabilitation Research :: Translation to Clinical Practice :: ACRMconference.org
Neil Fest. A day-long symposium celebrating Professor Neil Stillings and featuring his former students presenting their research in the fields of cognitive science, artificial intelligence, psychiatry, and more.
Memory & Attention
It is essential for cognitive study to explore memory, and it is impossible to treat cognition and remembrance as separate elements. Our past experience always biases our perception. What we have perceived will go through our imagination, and it will be stored in memory. We repeat this roop every day. It is impossible to see more things than our imagination and memory allow us to see. At the same time, it means that if we have more imagination and more kinds of recollections, we might be able to see more elements in the world. A series of experiment was conducted to explore our attention and memory in space.
sayakashiraishi18@gmail.com
MORE:
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"ACRM Cognitive Rehabilitation Manual & Textbook SECOND EDITION is a wonderful evidence-based clinical resource for professionals and an insightful “how to” learning tool for students in rehabilitation-oriented graduate programs." — Michael Fraas, PhD, CCC-SLP, MHL, CBIS, Speech-Language Pathologist; Private Practice, Seattle; Primary Author ACRM Cognitive Rehabilitation Manual & Textbook SECOND EDITION
~~~~~~
MORE:
The ACRM community group — the Brain Injury Interdisciplinary Special Interest Group (BI-ISIG) — literally wrote the book on brain injury rehabilitation. Now in its second edition, this training program includes:
1) MANUAL & TEXTBOOK: 500+ pages (two versions: softcover & ebook)
2) ONLINE COURSE (six months of access to recordings of a two-day workshop) with continuing education credits available
3) IN-PERSON TRAINING (two-day live, in-person workshop)
4) HOSTING in-person training at your facility
5) MULTI-SEAT license of ONLINE COURSE & MANUAL
6) Pediatric Cognitive Rehabilitation Training (one-day in-person workshop)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ACRM holds the largest interdisciplinary rehabilitation research event every Fall: ACRM Annual Conference :: Progress in Rehabilitation Research :: Translation to Clinical Practice :: ACRMconference.org
For information on exhibiting, sponsoring, and advertising opportunities please contact sales@ACRM.org or phone +1.703.435.5335 or use this form ACRM.org/salesform.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ACRM: American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine: Improving lives through interdisciplinary rehabilitation research
JOIN Us. Be MOVED.
DISCOVER ACRM Member Benefits
SIGN-UP & receive FREE ACRM eNews: ACRM.org/enews
GET ACTIVE in ACRM & receive the ARCHIVES of PM&R: ACRM.org/join
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Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT): The Model CBT is based on the premise that our thoughts cause our feelings and behaviours,and not external things, like people, situations, and events. www.cbt.ie
This is all of us from the ACSENT lab at UCT (Except Colin who was on sabbatical) - we do cognitive psychology, eyewitness memory, virtual reality, and experimental neuropsychology (trauma and spatial memory). Photo taken by lab intern Steven Bowles.
Study Examines Cognitive Impairment in Families With Exceptional Longevity | Alzheimer's Reading Room
photo attribution: sean dreilinger durak.org
Jerry Kang: Immaculate perception?
Jerry Kang is a Professor of Law and Asian American Studies at UCLA. His work examines the legal implications of socio-cognitive implicit bias, or unintentional racism. Our ability to judge whether we are racist may not even be obvious to us if we look deeply at ourselves. Kang disseminates the work of other cognitive neuroscientists who study implicit bias and stereotype threat, and he extrapolates the implications of this work in a legal setting. He has received the highest honor for his teaching at UCLA, the University Distinguished Teaching Award in 2010.
jerrykang.net/2011/03/13/getting-up-to-speed-on-implicit-...
www.law.ucla.edu/faculty/all-faculty-profiles/professors/...
Victoria is in Physics Education, studying cognitive science and how it is that we muck up teaching science (physics especially). A lot of her work with her advisor centers around science for young-ish children, maybe 10-12 years old. One of their recurring things is playing with toy cars, and they are always on the lookout for good mechanical cars that actually demonstrate how the system works.
This one is a new favorite. This picture by itself is perhaps enough to figure out the entirety of how it works (the spiral bit is a torsional spring, it basically stores up twisting). Certainly one more picture from the top-down would do it for most people.
This one is a bit of a cop-out, really, but I did something to muck up my back/neck/shoulder and have been pretty out of it all day.
A generous $2.5 million pledge from the Manning family to the Victoria Hospitals Foundation will fund a major research project to integrate leading-edge research and care for patients living with cognitive health issues on Vancouver Island. Partnering on this project are Island Health, the University of Victoria and the University of British Columbia: ow.ly/s1p230fFzXj
Trevor Michael Brown (School of Behavioural, Cognitive and Social Sciences)
‘EEG and ERP Biomarkers, Source Localisation and Neurofeedback for Performance Enhancement in Elite Table Tennis Athletes’
Principal Supervisor: Dr Graham Jamieson
photo attribution: sean dreilinger durak.org
Jerry Kang: Immaculate perception?
Jerry Kang is a Professor of Law and Asian American Studies at UCLA. His work examines the legal implications of socio-cognitive implicit bias, or unintentional racism. Our ability to judge whether we are racist may not even be obvious to us if we look deeply at ourselves. Kang disseminates the work of other cognitive neuroscientists who study implicit bias and stereotype threat, and he extrapolates the implications of this work in a legal setting. He has received the highest honor for his teaching at UCLA, the University Distinguished Teaching Award in 2010.
jerrykang.net/2011/03/13/getting-up-to-speed-on-implicit-...
www.law.ucla.edu/faculty/all-faculty-profiles/professors/...
to the sooe re-embodies the cognitive processes and creative voices of three agents into a tangible device: a deceased author, a deep learning neural net, and an ASMR performer. These agencies are materialized in the device, which transmits soft vocalizations of an AI-generated text: its vocalizations are intended to induce autonomous physiological sensations in the listener, revealing the body as linked to the technological-sonic assemblage and initiating an intimate encounter with machine learning processes.
Credit: vog.photo
photo attribution: sean dreilinger durak.org
Jerry Kang: Immaculate perception?
Jerry Kang is a Professor of Law and Asian American Studies at UCLA. His work examines the legal implications of socio-cognitive implicit bias, or unintentional racism. Our ability to judge whether we are racist may not even be obvious to us if we look deeply at ourselves. Kang disseminates the work of other cognitive neuroscientists who study implicit bias and stereotype threat, and he extrapolates the implications of this work in a legal setting. He has received the highest honor for his teaching at UCLA, the University Distinguished Teaching Award in 2010.
jerrykang.net/2011/03/13/getting-up-to-speed-on-implicit-...
www.law.ucla.edu/faculty/all-faculty-profiles/professors/...
photo attribution: sean dreilinger durak.org
Jerry Kang: Immaculate perception?
Jerry Kang is a Professor of Law and Asian American Studies at UCLA. His work examines the legal implications of socio-cognitive implicit bias, or unintentional racism. Our ability to judge whether we are racist may not even be obvious to us if we look deeply at ourselves. Kang disseminates the work of other cognitive neuroscientists who study implicit bias and stereotype threat, and he extrapolates the implications of this work in a legal setting. He has received the highest honor for his teaching at UCLA, the University Distinguished Teaching Award in 2010.
jerrykang.net/2011/03/13/getting-up-to-speed-on-implicit-...
www.law.ucla.edu/faculty/all-faculty-profiles/professors/...
photo attribution: sean dreilinger durak.org
Jerry Kang: Immaculate perception?
Jerry Kang is a Professor of Law and Asian American Studies at UCLA. His work examines the legal implications of socio-cognitive implicit bias, or unintentional racism. Our ability to judge whether we are racist may not even be obvious to us if we look deeply at ourselves. Kang disseminates the work of other cognitive neuroscientists who study implicit bias and stereotype threat, and he extrapolates the implications of this work in a legal setting. He has received the highest honor for his teaching at UCLA, the University Distinguished Teaching Award in 2010.
jerrykang.net/2011/03/13/getting-up-to-speed-on-implicit-...
www.law.ucla.edu/faculty/all-faculty-profiles/professors/...
MORE:
EXTENSIVELY revised SECOND EDITION — includes ALL strategies • 500+ pages • companion website materials
• NEW & updated treatment recommendations
• EXTENSIVELY revised — quadrupled in size
• ALL-NEW chapters
• Robust companion website
• Supplemental materials — for students & instructors
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The ACRM community group — the Brain Injury Interdisciplinary Special Interest Group (BI-ISIG) literally wrote the book on brain injury rehabilitation. Now in its second edition, this training program includes:
• The Manual — 500+ pages available in print & e-versions
• Recorded online training course — with CME/CEUs
• IN-PERSON workshops — with CME/CEUs
• Hosting/sponsoring, multi-seat/ group licensing opportunities
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ACRM holds the largest interdisciplinary rehabilitation research event every Fall: ACRM Annual Conference :: Progress in Rehabilitation Research :: Translation to Clinical Practice :: ACRMconference.org
For information on exhibiting, sponsoring, and advertising opportunities please contact sales@ACRM.org or phone +1.703.435.5335 or use this form ACRM.org/salesform.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ACRM: American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine: Improving lives through interdisciplinary rehabilitation research
JOIN Us. Be MOVED.
DISCOVER ACRM Member Benefits
SIGN-UP & receive FREE ACRM eNews: ACRM.org/enews
GET ACTIVE in ACRM & receive the ARCHIVES of PM&R: ACRM.org/join
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TACWD
Shot for this week's Take a Class with Dave & Dave Assignment #2, Album cover: "With this one we take a small step outside our normal limitations. Create a fully conceived design for an album. like any cd or lp cover, it must be: a square, have the name of the artist, and the name of the album."
photo attribution: sean dreilinger durak.org
Jerry Kang: Immaculate perception?
Jerry Kang is a Professor of Law and Asian American Studies at UCLA. His work examines the legal implications of socio-cognitive implicit bias, or unintentional racism. Our ability to judge whether we are racist may not even be obvious to us if we look deeply at ourselves. Kang disseminates the work of other cognitive neuroscientists who study implicit bias and stereotype threat, and he extrapolates the implications of this work in a legal setting. He has received the highest honor for his teaching at UCLA, the University Distinguished Teaching Award in 2010.
jerrykang.net/2011/03/13/getting-up-to-speed-on-implicit-...
www.law.ucla.edu/faculty/all-faculty-profiles/professors/...
The Common Raven, also known as the Northern Raven, displays considerable abilities in problem solving, as well as other cognitive processes such as imitation and insight. Common Ravens have been observed to manipulate other parties into doing work for them, such as by calling wolves and coyotes to the site of dead animals. The canines open the carcass, leaving the scraps more accessible to the birds. They watch where other Common Ravens bury their food and remember the locations of each other's food caches, so they can steal from them. This type of theft occurs so regularly that Common Ravens will fly extra distances from a food source to find better hiding places for food. They have also been observed pretending to make a cache without actually depositing the food, presumably to confuse onlookers. Juvenile common ravens are among the most playful of bird species. They have been observed to slide down snowbanks, apparently purely for fun. They even engage in games with other species, such as playing catch-me-if-you-can with wolves, otters and dogs. Common Ravens are known for spectacular aerobatic displays, such as flying in loops or interlocking talons with each other in flight. They are also one of only a few wild animals who make their own toys. They have been observed breaking off twigs to play with socially.
ACRM Cognitive Rehabilitation MANUAL & TEXTBOOK — SECOND EDITION
Manual • Online course • In-person Workshops • Hosting & sponsoring >>>
EXTENSIVELY revised — includes ALL strategies • 500+ pages • companion website materials
• NEW & updated treatment recommendations
• EXTENSIVELY revised — quadrupled in size
• ALL-NEW chapters
• Robust companion website
• Supplemental materials — for students & instructors
The ACRM community group — the Brain Injury Interdisciplinary Special Interest Group (BI-ISIG) ACRM.org/bi literally wrote the book on brain injury rehabilitation. Now in its second edition, this training program includes:
• The Manual — 500+ pages available in print & e-versions
• Recorded online training course — with CME/CEUs
• IN-PERSON workshops — with CME/CEUs
• Hosting/sponsoring, multi-seat/ group licensing opportunities
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ACRM holds the largest interdisciplinary rehabilitation research event every Fall: ACRM Annual Conference :: Progress in Rehabilitation Research :: Translation to Clinical Practice :: ACRMconference.org
For information on exhibiting, sponsoring, and advertising opportunities please contact sales@ACRM.org or phone +1.703.435.5335 or use this form ACRM.org/salesform.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ACRM: American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine: Improving lives through interdisciplinary rehabilitation research
JOIN Us. Be MOVED.
DISCOVER ACRM Member Benefits
SIGN-UP & receive FREE ACRM eNews: ACRM.org/enews
GET ACTIVE in ACRM & receive the ARCHIVES of PM&R: ACRM.org/join
Not my usual style, but my fascination with contradictions won out. I would like to say this is in Albuquerque, but, alas, Kansas City, MO. I wanted to turn either north or south.