More than seven years ago, I listened to a video from a student in my online course on the neurobiology of everyday life. I couldn’t believe my ears. I was certain that the speaker was mistaken, confused. What she spoke of was an impossibility. But I was the one who was mistaken. That fateful day was the first time I […]
As a longtime fan of Dr Lisa Sanders’ New York Times column on diagnosis, I was excited to listen to Every Patient Tells A Story (Random House Audio, 2009). I happily looked forward to an anthology of favorite cases that she had already presented. However, when I started to listen to the Audible book, read by the author, I quickly realized […]
For about 6 months I have been cognizant that my vision has deteriorated. I also am aware that the deterioration is concentrated in my left eye. I have run through my ritual often: close my left eye and not much changes. Then close my right eye and everything is blurry, multiple images water colored on top of each other. With […]
Once upon a time there was dead and there was alive. The twain did not meet nor intersect outside of religious miracles. The era of dead-or-alive lasted for millennia until the 20th century when technological advances inserted an in-between state that consisted of alive only because of medical assistance. The first crack in the dead-or-alive edifice started with ventilators, machines that […]
As many of you know, I love to hear your stories of your encounters with your brains. Through a circuitous route (no other type appears to exist in my world) that involves a marvelous final MOOC project by Luiz Meier (more on that another time), I was privileged to receive the following description of a subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) from Paul Van […]
I’ll be talking about the movie Concussion on WTTW, channel 11 here in Chicagoland. I look forward to talking with Phil Ponce on my second stint on Chicago Tonight (on my first visit, I talked about our work with rats and helping behavior). To anticipate talking about concussions (more so than about the movie), I thought I’d get into the spirit and give […]
The Tim Hunt comments from last week set off a firestorm of ridicule, indignation and despair. In the wake of this depressing reminder of the challenges ahead for women and men in science, I was thrilled to learn that Martin Chalfie, winner of a Nobel Prize for Chemistry, was coming to give a talk. From long ago interactions, I knew Dr […]
I am working in earnest on the 2nd edition of my textbook entitled Medical Neurobiology (Oxford University Press, 2011). I have taught from this book to Pritzker medical students four times (2011-14). While teaching medical students is most directly relevant to a textbook that specifically targets medical students, I also learned so much from teaching undergraduates in University of Chicago’s Study Abroad […]
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The brain is sooooo cool! 