Category Archives: Scientific Learning
The brain plasticity revolution
I delivered a lecture at the University of Konstanz in Germany two weeks ago, as a part of the celebration of the 100th Anniversary of the Heidelberg Akademie. This is one of 7 scientific academies in Germany. Because Germany was created as an amalgamation of powerful states in the 19th Century, its scientific academies originate with and are still identified … Continue reading
Autism and early oxygen deprivation 2
I received a wonderful comment about the hypothesis that early umbilical cord clamping might contribute to the risk of origin of autism from a wonderful former colleague, Dr. David Blake, a researcher in the Department of Neurology at the Medical College of Georgia. His observations: Fraternal twins typically have different placentas, whereas identical twins share a placenta but have different … Continue reading
Autism and early oxygen deprivation
In a July 9th, 2008 post, I added oxygen deprivation incurred at childbirth as another factor potentially contributing to an increased incidence in autism. As I noted in that blog: “We have published compelling evidence that peri-natal anoxia meets all of the other criteria for adding to “noisy” brain processing. It can have strong, selective impacts on cortical inhibitory processes, … Continue reading
Autism, mercury, video games, the Courts, and Arnold
The several-month-old report by the Masters of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims on the “Omnibus Autism Proceeding” is old news, but I thought I’d put an oar in, by saying that this is something that the courts got right. There is a large body of evidence that demonstrates, to a level of near-certainty, that the mercury compound used as … Continue reading
Brain plasticity and criminal behavior; part 5
If you have just discovered this topic, go back to Part 1 (April 3), Part 2 (April 5), Part 3 (April 7) and Part 4 (April 24); whereupon you shall be fully qualified to advance to Part 5. Before I begin to talk about commonly applied strategies of prevention and rehabilitation designed to reduce the numbers of criminal offenders and … Continue reading
Brain plasticity and criminal behavior; part 4
[If you have not been following these blogs, may I suggest that you go back to Parts 1-3 (April 3rd, April 5th & April 7th), and get up to date on this discussion. Without that background, these arguments, going forward, are just not going to make as much sense.] A young adult American – usually male – has committed a … Continue reading
Perception, illusion, prediction, magic, autism
There is an enjoyable article in the current issue of Wired in which the magician Teller (the silent, smaller and more sneaky chap on the Penn and Teller team) engages in a conversation with the science writer Jonah Lehrer about the neurological bases of magic. Reading this article led me to a review on this subject published in Nature Reviews … Continue reading
Brain Plasticity and Culture
In a recent book “Brain and Culture” (MIT Press), Dr. Bruce Wexler, a Yale psychiatrist, considers some of the many implications of brain plasticity research for cultural progressions. One special point of his book is the way that our brains specialize, through our plasticity mechanisms, to create a model of the culture (our world) into which we just happen to … Continue reading
Brain plasticity and the law
My wife Diane and I just returned from a working visit to Japan (I was an instructor in a “Spring Symposium” in Kyoto, attended by top Japanese neuroscience doctoral students and postdoctoral fellows). On this trip, we took an extra day to stay overnight in a Buddhist monastery on Mount Koyosan, a sacred site deep in the mountains north of … Continue reading
