Linkstew

I think epilepsy is my favorite neurological disorder. Sure, there are things to be said for Broca's aphasia or prosopagnosia, but in they end they're only interesting in and of themselves.

Epilepsy, however, is my favorite, because attempts to treat epilepsy have led to so many amazing discoveries about the way the brain works. An attempt to treat HM by removing his hippocampus led to amazing discoveries about the role of the hippocampus in memory.

Attempts to treat epilepsy with a Corpus Callosotomy led to amazing discoveries about the independence of the brain's hemispheres.

And now, epilepsy treatments have led to a possible neurological basis for out of body experiences.

Besides, how could you not like a disorder that has so much in common with an orgasm? Er, and sneezing, if that happens to be your thing.

(Link and witty subject via Kevin.)

So here I am half-watching DS9, when suddenly Dr. Bashir said "... a broken femur, and a hairline fracture of the right parietal lobe."

Man! What kind of moron does it take to make that ridiculous of a mistake?

I don't typically like bashing religion, but this article is just too ridiculous. Taking a gander at the article's meta keywords, I think even the site's web monkey found this amusing, as "incoherent" was included. Here's a choice quote from the article:

"The recent release of Windows XP illustrates the concept of intelligent design. If Windows XP points to Bill Gates, how much more do the marvelous complexities of DNA point directly to God, the great Intelligent Designer?"

Billy, you should get to be good friends with Pill, because for the rest of your life, you're going to be stuck in this pill based culture. This Article on msnbc is very scary -- Schools demanding that parents give their children Ritalin. I wonder when it'll be revealed that whichever drug super power owns the name Ritalin is funding children's television and bribing these school officials...

Who, me? No, I'm not paranoid. Just a little bitter. Sure, I pop aspirin all the time, but I believe that they work. If someone replaced my apsirin with sugar pills, my belief would work just as well as the aspirin. Unfortunately, I can't replace them myself, because then my mind wouldn't let the trick work.

Belief is a damn powerful healer, but in this "advanced scientific age," people no longer believe in belief or other forms of healing -- they need "advanced" medicines and surgeries -- I'm just as vulnerable to this as anyone else, but I can recognize it in myself and others.

It's a shame to see pills being forced upon little billy as soon as possible. "Get him hooked on the program," the drug makers say. "Make him believe in us."

And next in our atlas series we have the Whole Brain Atlas, which is actually very cool. It features many images of the brain taken with numerous techniques, explanations of those techniques, and images of normal and broken brains. I recomend the java viewer for the images, by the way. It speeds up the viewing process.

I recently wrote a paper for my MCB class on everyones favorite substance to abuse, Caffeine. I did a lot of research for this paper, and here are a few of the links. Though it's a couple of years old, the Caffeine FAQ has a ton of useful info on the stuff. PlanetRX.com had a nice article about the changes caffeine causes in the brain. Howstuffworks.com also had a nice general piece on caffeine. And finally, I'm not sure what it's a part of, but this page has some nice facts about Caffeine.