With our final topic of the basal ganglia: those centres that direct repeated and refined motions, this is a relevant story on their role in habit formation. Researchers at MIT found that repeated learned tasks are stored in the basal ganglia. Once the cues that drive the habitual behaviour are removed, test animals would return [...]
Monthly Archive for October, 2007
Tryptophan, Typography and Tripping
Posted in Behaviour, Limbic, Perception, Sleep on Oct 28th, 2007
Something to consider over the Harvest Feast Holiday is cuddling up with a good book. A couple suggestions to fuel your mind would be Oliver Sacks’ new book on music-mind connections. The NYTimes wrote a nice review. Another set of essays to prepare you for the third unit of the course are: The Trouble with [...]
I’m innocent, my hand did it….
Posted in Brain, Cortex, Hearing, Perception on Oct 18th, 2007
As we continue to dive deeper into the functional mapping of the cortical regions of the brain, we will see that even though we make firm distinctions as to what parts connect to what– there is always a kink in the plan… This is a series of clips of the famed neurologist V.S. Ramachandran that [...]
Parallel Universes
Posted in Vision on Oct 18th, 2007
The sense of depth perception is critical to the survival of hunters such as cats and birds of prey such as hawks and owls. The initial visual processing for this occurs in lateral geniculate nucleus. While there is retinal input to the many layers of the LGN, the vast majority arrives as “feedback” from the [...]
As we move into somato-sensory and motor systems, the notion of left-brain and right-brain issues comes to the forefront. There are many stories that we will explore that deal with how the brain splits up tasks of perception and control, but not always in an even-handed fashion. One particularly cool account considers how when ducks [...]
Peppers Pamper a Peck of Pain
Posted in Channels, Pain, Perception on Oct 6th, 2007
By at least one measure surgical pain management techniques haven’t changed significantly since the first use of ether at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) in Charlestown in 1846. Anesthetics—both general and local—work by blocking or interfering with signals from all neurons, not just the pain-sensing ones. While these techniques do block pain, they come with a [...]
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