Medicine & Health:
The procedure known as trepanation, in which a hole is scraped or drilled in the skull, is an ancient form of neurosurgery that has been performed since the late Stone Age. Exactly why ancient peoples performed trepanation has remained...
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Posted on May 13, 2008 7:31 PM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
On this day in 1943, Albert Hofmann (right), a chemist working for the Swiss pharmaceutical company Sandoz, discovered the psychedelic properties of LSD. Hofmann had actually first synthesized the drug 5 years earlier, as part of a research program in...
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Posted on April 16, 2008 9:02 AM • 10 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
A 58-year-old man from Cumbria has had electrodes implanted his brain in order to treat his compulsive gambling.Raymond Mandale (right), who suffers from Parkinson's, claims that his gambling habit was caused by a prescribed drug he had been taking to...
Posted on April 7, 2008 8:22 PM • 8 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Image: Phisick Antique Medical CollectionThis highly detailed papier mache model of the human brain, which can be pulled apart to reveal labelled and numbered structures within, was created by the French physician Louis Thomas Jerome Auzoux (1797-1880).In the early...
Posted on March 19, 2008 2:46 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
The Sunday Times has an incredible story about Henry Marsh, a consultant neurosurgeon at St. George's Hospital in South London, who travels to a hospital in Kiev twice a year in his spare time to perform free operations using only...
Posted on March 17, 2008 7:04 PM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Best-selling fantasy writer Terry Pratchett, who announced in December that he has a rare form of early onset Alzheimer's, has pledged $1million for research into the disease.In a speech given ealier today at the Alzheimer's Research Trust Netowrk Conference in...
Posted on March 13, 2008 4:25 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
(AP Photo/Greek Culture Ministry, HO)This skeleton, exacavated recently in the town of Veria, some 75km west of Thessalonika, provides evidence that the ancient Greeks performed sophisticated neurosurgery. The remains, dated to the 3rd century A.D., belong to a woman...
Posted on March 12, 2008 6:51 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Thanks to Natasha Dantzig for drawing my attention to this fascinating talk from last month's TED Conference in Monterey, California: Neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor had an opportunity few brain scientists would wish for: One morning, she realized she was having...
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Posted on March 12, 2008 3:34 PM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
[Introduction|Part 2|Part 3]The study by McKemy et al is of great significance, as it led to the identification and characterization of the first cold receptor. This study also suggests that TRP channels have a general role in thermosensation, as all...
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Posted on March 3, 2008 5:32 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
[Introduction] McKemy et al (2002) used whole-cell patch clamping and calcium imaging to record the responses of cultured rat trigeminal ganglion neurons to cold temperatures and various cooling compounds. They found that the cells respond to menthol and cold with...
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Posted on February 27, 2008 12:20 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
