The Brain
Reading is something you do
If you’re reading something, even a one-sitting short story or article, you’re making a commitment. You’re making a lot more of a commitment because reading is in fact extremely interactive from a neurological point of view. Your brain lights up a lot. Whereas [listening to] music is more like something that happens to you, reading […]
Daniel Tammet on Perception, Language, and Meaning
Daniel Tammet‘s TED talk A Different Way of Knowing is a fascinating look at how humans perceive language and meaning. Perceptions are at the heart of how we acquire knowledge. Esthetic judgements rather than abstract reasoning guide and shape the process by which we all come to know what we know. Highly recommended: Daniel’s book, […]
Exercise: Fertilizer for the Brain
Here’s some great motivation to keep up with your running program: John Medina is a developmental molecular biologist who posits that exercise is like fertilizer for the brain. From his book Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School: At the molecular level, early studies indicate that exercise stimulates one […]
Superior Autobiographical Memory
Imagine what it might be like to have perfect recall of every day of your life. 60 Minutes aired a fascinating story on five people who have Superior Autobiographical Memory–the ability to recall every day of their lives with frightening accuracy. The discovery of people with instant access to virtually every day of their lives […]
A Piece of Their Mind
Tatiana and Krista Hogan are craniopagus twins–twins conjoined at the cranium: Tatiana and Krista are not just conjoined, but they are craniopagus, sharing a skull and also a bridge between each girl’s thalamus, a part of the brain that processes and relays sensory information to other parts of the brain. Or perhaps in this case, […]
Tom Lubbock: A Memoir of Living with a Brain Tumor
The Guadian published a fascinating memoir from Tom Lubbock, who describes living with a glioblastoma multiforme, an extremely rare brain cancer in his left temporal lobe–near the area of the brain responsible for speech and language. An art critic, Lubbock made his living by writing: On the one hand, the fear of losing language is […]
The Brain that Changed Everything
Esquire Magazine’s November issue has a fantastic profile on Henry Molaison and his remarkable brain. Brain surgery, whatever the era, always requires at least two frightening qualities in its practitioners: the will to make forcible entry into another man’s skull, and the hubris to believe you can fix the problems inside. After a bicycle accident […]
Concussions: football–your weekly dose of brain damage
Sports Illustrated published a compelling article on long-term brain damage in NFL players–the cumulative effects of weekly hits to the head. Dr. Ann McKee, an associate professor of neurology and pathology at Boston University, studies the brains of deceased NFL players to better understand cumulative trauma to the brain: This slide of a cross-section of […]
Head Cases: Stories of Brain Injury and its Aftermath by Michael Paul Mason
Who are we, other than our brains, really? Mason is a brain injury case manager who explores this question, profiling 12 brain injury survivors and their individual struggle to reconcile their former and present selves. The brain, the core of our very self, is so powerful, yet shockingly frail. The microscopic connections that make up thoughts, […]
