Bullets, beauty queens and Gordon Holmes
I've just found this fascinating article on how legendary neurologist Gordon Holmes discovered how the visual cortex represents visual space after studying World War One soldiers who had experienced...
View ArticleAlzheimerâs Resources - Psych Central
As we try to learn more about Alzheimer’s, especially if we’re caring for a family member or a resident in a nursing home, we’re appreciative of books and online resources that can help us understand...
View ArticleBetween a rock and a hard bass
This study is a little different in that the science is completely bona fide, but the scientific paper is a very funny read. Their public health recommendations are a particular gem: Though exposure to...
View ArticleWould you Hire the Brain?
A 16-year-old starts his own computer consulting and repair business, Hire the Brain—impressive. Today’s Columbia Tribune tells how Collin Driscoll, who has Asperger Syndrome, started his company with...
View ArticleTriggering the dreamy state
The great British neurologist John Hughlings-Jackson famously described the 'dreamy state' reported by some epileptic patients during seizures where they experienced complex hallucinations - sometimes...
View ArticleNeuroimaging, before the invention of television
Neuroscience textbooks often suggest that the ability to image the structure of the brain in living patients started in the 1970s with the introduction of the CT scanner. What they tend to forget is...
View ArticleThe long term effects of banging heads on the field
Sportsmen who suffer concussion in early adulthood may experience long-term reduction in brain function well into later life, according to a study released this week. Although the study had only 40...
View ArticlePeering into the darkness, through the key hole
Locked-in syndrome is a dramatic condition where, after brain stem damage, patients are conscious but paralysed and can only communicate with the outside world by an eye-blink or muscle twitch. Because...
View ArticleThe light controlled brain and other tales
Stanford University have put a series of engaging TED style 10 minute lectures up on YouTube where some of their leading researchers discuss cutting-edge cognitive science research - curing blindness...
View ArticleA cognitive science of spiritual healing?
Time magazine has an interesting article on the neuroscience of spiritual experience and why religious belief has been linked to better health. It's not the most gripping article in the world and...
View ArticleWorking Memory Training can Influence Brain Biochemistry
I wanted to alert you to a very interesting finding published in a recent issue of Science, one of the world's leading scientific journals. The study was led by Dr. Torkel Klingberg and his colleagues...
View ArticleKey to neurosurgery success
I've just found this remarkable CT scan in a 1997 article entitled 'Trans-orbital penetrating head injury with a door key'. The paper reports that "A 71-year-old-female was answering the door when she...
View ArticleBrain implants and cognitive side-effect trading
This week's Nature has an interesting article on the ethics of electronic brain enhancements. It does something quite unusual for an article on technological brain enhancements - it talks about the...
View ArticleRewiring the brain for fun and profit
Wired has just published an excellent two part article on neuroengineering, the practice of altering the brain with electronics or optics. It looks at a number of interesting projects, from light...
View Article"My story is about not giving up hope"
We've reported before on brain imaging research that shows brain activity in those in a 'persistent vegetative state'. What I didn't know until today was that one subject in this research, Kate, has...
View ArticleBrain stimulation - the next interrogation aid?
An article just published online for the Behavioural Science and Law journal discusses whether magnetic brain stimulation could be used in lie detection and interrogation. It is based on the premise...
View ArticleProjected at high speed for an unknown reason
We present a unique instance of a severe, high-energy, penetrating orbitocranial injury caused by a solid metallic rod that corresponded to the spray valve lever handle of a kitchen sink pre-rinse...
View ArticleWiring and plumbing in the brain
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience has a great two page article that nicely summarises the thinking about how blood flow measured by brain scans relates to the workings of the neurons. No one with common...
View ArticleSweet anaesthesia and the mystery of consciousness
Discover Magazine has an excellent article on the science of anaesthesia and why doctors need to struggle with the problem of consciousness to make someone comfortably numb. If you're not familiar some...
View ArticlePermanently altering brain function, outside the skull
A surgical team from Italy have just reported that they've altered human brain function through neurosurgery conducted from outside the skull, by using beams of radiation. The technique is known as...
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