© Credit: © lunamarina / FotoliaScientists have developed and validated a new method to identify which people are narcissistic: just ask them.

Scientists have developed and validated a new method to identify which people are narcissistic: just ask them.

In a series of 11 experiments involving more than 2,200 people of all ages, the researchers found they could reliably identify narcissistic people by asking them this exact question (including the note):

To what extent do you agree with this statement: "I am a narcissist." (Note: The word "narcissist" means egotistical, self-focused, and vain.)

Participants rated themselves on a scale of 1 (not very true of me) to 7 (very true of me).

(How narcissistic are you? Take the test here.)

Results showed that people's answer to this question lined up very closely with several other validated measures of narcissism, including the widely used Narcissistic Personality Inventory.

A study conducted at the City College of New York (CCNY) in partnership with Georgia Tech looks to have found a highly reliable way to predict audience reaction to TV shows and commercials. The method involves studying the brainwaves of only a few individuals as they watch the content. According to the researchers, these observations of brain activity reflect with considerable accuracy how larger audiences will respond to the same content.

In the Nature Communications study, researchers explain how they analyzed the brainwaves of sixteen people who were connected to EEG electrodes as they watched mainstream television productions - namely scenes from The Walking Dead series and several commercials from the 2012 and 2013 Super Bowls.

The main indicator of engaging and appealing content was that different people's brains responded in the same way upon viewing. When similar brain activity was noted, it was when watching something that had a record of being popular with audiences based on social media data provided by the Harmony Institute and ratings from USA Today's Super Bowl Ad Meter. For example, very similar brainwaves were observed in participants as they watched a 2012 Budweiser commercial that featured a dog that fetched beer.

The public had previously voted the ad as their second favorite that year. On the flip side, there was much less "brain agreement" when those taking part saw a GoDaddy commercial featuring a kissing couple, which rated among the worst ads in 2012. The accuracy with which the method could predict reaction to Super Bowl commercials was put at an impressive ninety percent.

The discussion around neuroenhancement, especially the kind you might be able to try at home, has largely centred around brain-boosting chemicals. But smart drugs aren't the only way that more intrepid transhumanists are trying to spur their cognitive function.

On Tuesday night, I went along to meet a few neuroenchancement enthusiasts at London Hackspace, where they introduced me to their homebrew variety of a method of brain stimulation called transcranial direct current stimulation, or tDCS. This experimental technique applies a small electrical current to your head to try to stimulate certain areas of your brain. It's literally an attempt to jolt your neurons into firing.

I came across Dirk Bruere on a transhumanist subreddit, where he posted about the meeting. He explained in an email that he was trying to get a group together, ultimately to look into "less mainstream stuff like low intensity patterned magnetic fields, cold laser stimulation and the effects of modulated IR and microwaves," but that he'd bring his homemade tDCS kit along that evening.

The equipment was very simple; Bruere said part of the point was to show how cheap and easy it could be. Two wires came out of a black box with an LED and a tempting big red button. On the end of the red wire was an anode, on the end of a blue a cathode. Two small sponge pads fit the copper electrodes, and were soaked in salt water before being applied to the user's head. A Nike sweatband held them in place.

Probably for as long as humans have been able to grasp the concept of consciousness, they have sought to understand the phenomenon.

Studying the mind was once the province of philosophers, some of whom still believe the subject is inherently unknowable. But neuroscientists are making strides in developing a true science of the self.

Here are some of the best contenders for a theory of consciousness.

Reports of people having "near-death" experiences go back to antiquity, but the oldest medical description of the phenomenon may come from a French physician around 1740, a researcher has found.

The report was written by Pierre-Jean du Monchaux, a military physician from northern France, who described a case of near-death experience in his book Anecdotes de Médecine. Monchaux speculated that too much blood flow to the brain could explain the mystical feelings people report after coming back to consciousness.

The description was recently found by Dr. Phillippe Charlier, a medical doctor and archeologist, who is well known in France for his forensic work on the remains of historical figures. Charlier unexpectedly discovered the medical description in a book he had bought for 1 euro (a little more than $1) in an antique shop.

When a person experiences a devastating loss or tragic event, why does every detail seem burned into memory; whereas, a host of positive experiences simply fade away?

It's a bit more complicated than scientists originally thought, according to a study recently published in the journal Neuroscience by Arizona State University researcher Sabrina Segal.

When people experience a traumatic event, the body releases two major stress hormones: norepinephrine and cortisol. Norepinephrine boosts heart rate and controls the fight-or-flight response, commonly rising when individuals feel threatened or experience highly emotional reactions. It is chemically similar to the hormone epinephrine -- better known as adrenaline.

In the brain, norepinephrine in turn functions as a powerful neurotransmitter or chemical messenger that can enhance memory.

Hyderabad -Daljeet (name changed) remembers "everything" about the accident 20 years ago. There was his bike, the car that had screeched to a stop ahead of him and that sickening moment he went headlong into glass and metal.

"I have never been able to properly describe what happened that night. I have, however, recounted the story at least 5,000 times to friends, family and experts. Seconds after the crash, I felt myself floating into a sleep... I guess my body had given up. And then suddenly, I was hovering a few feet away from the scene and looking at the crowd - no smell, no breathing but surrounded by throbbing lights and a strange humming.

Doctors would later say the glass from the car had blinded me and that my head and neck had taken a massive jolt rendering me unconscious. But I still remember the face of the man who had first pulled me out, him screaming, Usko uthao, usko uthao, and my torn blue shirt. Two months later, I surprised my mother with the details of the accident and that's when it occurred to me, I was outside my body for maybe a minute. I was also able to vividly describe my rescuers and as the years passed, my descriptions went from family discussions to at least 10 counselling sessions."

But Daljeet believes that just one of his therapists may have really paid any attention to his story.

"The others claimed my brain had simply gone into this 'safe mode' to protect itself and me. They said it was a natural reaction; but what about those faces, the model of the ambulance vehicle...what about those details? I would like to believe it was an experience, a moment of clarity in which I was between worlds."

Then, there's the case presented by a leading surgeon from Hyderabad.

"During one of the several surgeries I've had over the years, a nurse happened to comment on the body of one of the patients on the operating table. She said she was 'fat' and that it was getting increasingly difficult to manoeuver amidst all the flab. There's no possible way the patient could've heard the comment, but two days later, following recovery, I walked into a massive argument between staff and the patient and we had to apologise. It was the strangest thing. How did a patient, breathing through a machine, with her chest open, hear a whisper?"

Lack of sleep, already considered a public health epidemic, can also lead to errors in memory, finds a new study by researchers at Michigan State University and the University of California, Irvine.

The study, published online in the journal Psychological Science, found participants deprived of a night's sleep were more likely to flub the details of a simulated burglary they were shown in a series of images.

Distorted memory can have serious consequences in areas such as criminal justice, where eyewitness misidentifications are thought to be the leading cause of wrongful convictions in the United States.

"We found memory distortion is greater after sleep deprivation," said Kimberly Fenn, MSU associate professor of psychology and co-investigator on the study. "And people are getting less sleep each night than they ever have."

American scientists studied the effects of mindfulness meditation on stress levels and came to the conclusion that just three consecutive days of 25-minute meditation can significantly alleviate stress.

The technique of mindfulness meditation has helped many people to improve the overall state of their mind and body. However, until now, most studies have been mainly focused only on the therapeutic effects of the long-term meditation practice.

New research at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, for the first time demonstrates that brief sessions of mindfulness meditation can significantly lower levels of psychological stress in just three days.

Sometimes overthinking something is just another way to avoid thinking about it.

Published on January 18, 2014 by Neel Burton, M.D. in Hide and Seek

I once received a call from a junior doctor in psychiatry in which he described a recent in-patient admission as 'a 47-year old mother of two who attempted to cessate her life as a result of being diagnosed with a metastatic mitotic lesion.' A formulation such as '...who tried to kill herself after being told that she is dying of cancer' would have been much better English, but would also have been all too effective at evoking the full horror of this poor lady's predicament.

The above is a good example of the ego defense of intellectualization. In intellectualization, the uncomfortable feelings associated with a problem are kept out of consciousness by thinking about the problem in cold, abstract, and esoteric terms.

Here is a second example. An ambitious medical student once asked me whether she should take up a career in academic medicine, despite (or so it seemed) having already made up her mind on the matter. I raised some arguments in favor and then some arguments against such a move, in particular that only a very small number of people engaged in medical research ever make a significant discovery. As she did not seem to be taking this argument on board, I asked her to name just one major breakthrough from the past 50 years in the life of a particular top-rated medical research department. Instead of accepting that the department had not made a single major breakthrough in 50 years of publishing one academic paper after another, she resorted to questioning the definition of a breakthrough and then even the value of making one.

Third example: After being discharged from hospital, a middle-aged man who had almost died from a heart attack spent several hours a day on his computer researching the various risk factors for cardiovascular disease. He typed out long essays on each of these risk factors, printed them out, and filed them in a large binder with colour-coded dividers. After having done all this, he became preoccupied with the vitamin and mineral contents in various kinds of food, and devised a strict dietary regimen to ensure that he took in the recommended amounts of each and every micronutrient. Despite living on a shoestring budget, he spent several hundred dollars on a high-end steamer on the basis that it could preserve vitamins through the cooking process. Although he expended an inordinate amount of effort, time, and money on his persnickety diet, he did not once consider even so much as cutting back on his far, far more noxious smoking habit.