Neuroscience: My life with Parkinson's. Roughly a year ago, I found myself at an elegant dinner party filled with celebrities and the very wealthy.
I am a young professor at a major research university, and my wife and I were invited to mingle and chat with donors to the institution. To any outside observer, my career was ascendant. Having worked intensely and passionately at science for my entire adult life, I had secured my dream job directing an independent neuroscience research laboratory. I was talking to a businessman who had family members affected by a serious medical condition. He turned to me and said: “You're a neuroscientist. My gaze darted to catch the eyes of my wife, but she was involved in another conversation.
It was a secret that I hadn't yet told any of my colleagues: I have Parkinson's. I am still at the beginning of my fascinating, frightening and ultimately life-affirming journey as a brain scientist with a disabling disease of the brain. The first signs Listen I considered many possibilities. Mind matters. Brain connectivity study reveals striking differences between men and women. A new brain connectivity study from Penn Medicine published today in the Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences found striking differences in the neural wiring of men and women that's lending credence to some commonly-held beliefs about their behavior.
In one of the largest studies looking at the "connectomes" of the sexes, Ragini Verma, PhD, an associate professor in the department of Radiology at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, and colleagues found greater neural connectivity from front to back and within one hemisphere in males, suggesting their brains are structured to facilitate connectivity between perception and coordinated action. In contrast, in females, the wiring goes between the left and right hemispheres, suggesting that they facilitate communication between the analytical and intuition. In the study, Verma and colleagues, including co-authors Ruben C. Gur, PhD, a professor of psychology in the department of Psychiatry, and Raquel E. RSA Animate - The Divided Brain.
Researchers Debunk Myth of“Right-Brained” and “Left-Brained” Personality Traits. Chances are, you’ve heard the label of being a “right-brained” or “left-brained” thinker.
Logical, detail-oriented and analytical? That’s left-brained behavior. Creative, thoughtful and subjective? Your brain’s right side functions stronger —or so long-held assumptions suggest. But newly released research findings from University of Utah neuroscientists assert that there is no evidence within brain imaging that indicates some people are right-brained or left-brained. For years in popular culture, the terms left-brained and right-brained have come to refer to personality types, with an assumption that some people use the right side of their brain more, while some use the left side more. Following a two-year study, University of Utah researchers have debunked that myth through identifying specific networks in the left and right brain that process lateralized functions.
“It’s absolutely true that some brain functions occur in one or the other side of the brain. Nine Things Educators Need to Know About the Brain, by Louis Cozolino. In an excerpt from his new book, psychologist Louis Cozolino applies the lessons of social neuroscience to the classroom.
The human brain wasn’t designed for industrial education. It was shaped over millions of years of sequential adaptation in response to ever-changing environmental demands. Over time, brains grew in size and complexity; old structures were conserved and new structures emerged. As we evolved into social beings, our brains became incredibly sensitive to our social worlds. This mixture of conservation, adaptation, and innovation has resulted in an amazingly complex brain, capable of everything from monitoring respiration to creating culture.
This evolutionary history poses a challenge for educators. If we are going to move forward, we will have to admit that a one-size-fits-all model of education is doomed to fail the majority of students and teachers. 1. Our brains require stimulation and connection to survive and thrive. 2. 3. Why Do We Get Bored?