In an earlier blog, I recommended that you look at “Children of the Code” as a reference for gaining a deeper understanding of dyslexia and its human costs. I really hope that you’ve taken a look at this wonderful resource. One of the best treatments in this outstanding series of documentaries summarizes the often-tragic human…
Alcohol is our best-studied neurotoxin. You can pickle a brain in booze. At somewhat lower concentrations that are quite easily achieved in drinking humans, ethanol alters synaptic spines and their plasticity, greatly reduces the complexity of neuronal interconnections, ultimately kills off your neurons, and shrinks your brain. Cognitive and motor losses are the predictable behavioral…
James B. Watson, the genetics pioneer, is the first individual in the history of the universe to have his DNA completely sequenced. In a statement that testifies to his infectious enthusiasm for nerd science (for which, if you’ve had a conversation with him, you know that Watson is obviously genetically endowed), Jim was “thrilled to…
David Boulton’s “Children of the Code” is a wonderful, general resource for educating yourself, a class, a teaching staff, your professional assistants — or any other group with a need to know — about the miracle of reading. A second, very enlightened focus of Boulton’s opus is on the origins of, and the great personal…
Nancy Martin-Crisco wrote a heart-rending response to a blog I posted (“How to get PTSD. Twice. Worse.”) that you all should read. Her son Christopher was diagnosed with PTSD after service in Afghanistan. After a few months stateside, he was redeployed to Baghdad. It was NOT good for him. Addiction, divorce, separation from his child,…
I delivered a lecture about ethical considerations related to the neuroscience of brain plasticity to a class at Stanford last night, and thought it might be fun to reiterate some of the issues raised for those bright young men and women struggling to understand how to behave in their professional lives. The class is organized…
A child therapist who I very greatly respect, Ann Osterling (from Champaign, Illinois) wrote me an email message in response to my (undoubtedly superficial) comments about Down Sydrome that I thought everyone interested in helping these kids would enjoy reading. In her words: You threw out the idea of intensive early intervention as one option…
There are now a number of published studies that have revealed that the progression of Alzheimer’s-like pathologies can be slowed down by housing mice or rats in enriched (vs impoverished) environments. I’ll discuss this growing body of literature supporting the prophylactic or rejuvenative power of exercising your brain and body (at least if you’re a…
My wife Diane and I visited our friend Mary in the hospital on Friday. Mary had just had her “knee replaced” — which is a rather spectacular modern procedure, unimagined not too many years ago. Another modern, commonplace aspect of this kind of surgery was being “enjoyed” by Mary at her morphine-on-demand dispenser! Her machine…