About two weeks ago, I read a research report in one of our best fundamental neuroscience research journals, Nature Neuroscience, that documented neurological consequences of migraine headaches in a mouse model. This is one of those animal models of a human vascular/neurological condition that appears to relatively faithfully reproduce the physical, chemical and electrical sequelae…
The New York Times has just informed us all, in an April 29 article, that “Chemotherapy Fog is No Longer… an Illusion”. It’s official now, all you cancer survivors! The Voice of Authority has spoken! (Here’s the full article.) As if you didn’t already know. Seriously, the NY Times article did make the important points…
Not Shakespeare, mind you. We’re talking about the infamous Mr. Seung-Hui Cho. Stephanie noted in a comment that Sharon Begley had written very cogently (and generally in agreement with what I had written) about the origins of behavior that could result in something like the Virginia Tech massacre. Sharon Begley is a highly informed science…
I again completed Posit Science’s “BrainHQ”, about a week ago, and have been alert to possible changes that I might be able to attribute to it. Two stand out. I have been writing another book, and had written a chapter in which the reader surveys their neurological status by conducting a series of simple, self-administered…
The U.S. Department of Education recently published a report that they prepared for Congress summarizing the gains achieved by children using computer-based training in reading and mathematics, comparing randomly assigned classes of children who did or did not use these tools (“Effectiveness of Reading and Mathematics Software Products: Findings from the First Student Cohort”; Report…
While I was working in Mexico, my wife Diane spends much of each day in an immersion Spanish class. She began by taking Spanish classes at a local community center. Now that she has the basics, an immersion class in which you have to operate in the second language is pretty effective. After two weeks…
I attended a scientific meeting a few years ago in which Bill Jenkins, the program development team leader at Scientific Learning, described a radically improved version of one of their middle- and high school-targeted language learning programs (which they call “Literacy Advanced”). They have completely re-worked the game-play aspects of these exercises. Changes resulted in…
Serum BDNF (brain-derived neurotrophin factor) has been repeatedly shown to be lower than normal in schizophrenic, bipolar and depressed patient populations. Moreover, the severity of manias or depression have been shown to be inversely correlated with serum BDNF. This key brain trophic factor plays a complicated panoply of roles in brain development, in maintaining the…
The Brain That Changes Itself (2007) by Normal Doidge, M.D. This interesting book chronicles some of the stories of the men and women who have ushered in the new “brain plasticity” revolution in neuroscience. As we repeatedly emphasize in this blog, the brain is no longer viewed by neuroscientists as a machine that is hard-wired…