Tag Archive | Brain
Rewriting the Book on the Brain
Students might sometimes think that their textbook appeared out of thin air, the accumulated knowledge of a field spontaneously forming into a heavy slab of facts and figures. But textbooks are like any other type of book, with flesh-and-blood authors who labor over the words within and make a million tiny decisions to shape the […]
The Wandering Cells of Migraine Aura
Many people who suffer from regular migraines experience a kind of prelude to their attack, known as a migraine aura. Less than an hour before the headache begins, the person experiences a sensory or motor disturbance, such as flickering shapes and a blind spot, or disturbances of a motor or language nature. In 1941, a […]
One Foot in Front of the Other
There are few biological functions that we take for granted more than gait, the intricate symphony of motion that happens almost automatically when we walk or run. Gait is programmed deep into the nervous system of animals, an activity so robust that it is maintained even when large segments of brain are removed. Those crude, […]
Tricking Touch with Plaids
Imagine yourself at a street corner, watching cars go by and waiting for your turn to cross. When the eye tracks a moving object like a car, it inspires fireworks of activity in the visual systems of the brain. Initially, the information is pixelated into independent scraps, as primary visual neurons respond to their preferred […]
Where Categories Meet Decisions
One of the most important functions of the brain is to make decisions. Even the simplest animals need to make choices based on sensory information: is that thing over there food or a predator, and should I eat it, or run from it? Making the right decision is literally a matter of life or death. […]
Can a Warm Room Melt Climate Change Skepticism?
As Chicago digs out from under two feet of snow and summer feels a million years away, it’s time for the usual jokes doubting the existence of global warming to come from certain quarters of society. It’s apparently a human reflex to start questioning the gradual climb of Earth’s temperatures while shivering knee-deep in snow […]
From Wasp Fungus to New MS Drug
Just twenty years ago, there were no therapies available for the management of multiple sclerosis. Physicians could give patients drugs to try and blunt the damage caused by the disease’s intermittent attacks on the central nervous system, but no therapies had been proven effective at preventing those attacks. That changed in the mid-90′s, when successful […]
Searching for Genetic Fossils
The hunt for human origins typically takes the form of fieldwork, with teams of paleontologists scouring the earth for the fossil that will add to the story of how our strange species came to be. That search has taken scientists from Africa to Siberia, adding a pelvic bone fragment here and a skull pan here […]
Linkage 3/12: Radioactive Cigarettes and Black Penguins
For the return of Linkage after a week’s dormancy, here’s an interesting paper from the journal Proceedings of the Natural Academy of Sciences – PNAS, in scientific shorthand – a quickfire roundup. Radioactive Cigarettes As one of the most popular addictive substances in the world, tobacco has drawn a lot of research attention. Scientists have […]
Luke Skywalker’s Hand and How Touch is Like Vision
Perhaps the most famous neuroprosthetic device in movie history shows up at the end of The Empire Strikes Back. In the final scene, Luke Skywalker is fitted for a new, robotic hand to replace the one so cruelly lopped off by (spoiler alert!) his father’s lightsaber. To test out the new hand, Luke first flexes […]
