This is Part II of the post from Wednesday regarding UNMC’s Science Café. Part I is here. Continuing below is the other half of Dr. Singh’s six astonishing examples of recent and mind-blowing developments in our understanding of the brain and the mind.

4 – Anosognosia or “denying your weakness” is a fascinating and disturbing revelation. A patient who was paralyzed on one side of his body denied that he was paralyzed. On being asked to clap his hands, the patient proceeded to wave one hand in the air, as if clapping both together. Subsequent enquiry led the patient to affirm that he did clap and heard it too! Another accidental discovery resulted, by way of a treatment that also produces rapid eye movement. While the patient experienced rapid eye movement, he stopped denying his paralysis! As soon as the rapid eye movement ceased, he reverted to a denial of his paralysis. The medical profession do not know why this is, but know that rapid eye movement also occurs as a phase of sleep, when the brain opens the door into our subconscious; an area usually locked away from our wakeful and conscious selves. Somehow, the patient was accessing his subconscious, which was delivering the information to his conscious mind that he was, indeed, paralyzed. What does this mean for the future? Will we all soon be able to induce the unlocking of our subconscious minds?

5 – Presenting immense ethical quandaries is the new study of readiness potential. Dr. Singh gave this example of a patient who was asked to tap his finger just three times in a ten minute period. The researchers could watch the brain’s neural activity during that period. They discovered that the brain triggered a “readiness” state immediately prior to the body being commanded to act in the specified way. In other words, the researchers knew before the patient that the patient was going to act!

Consider the implications this has for the concept of free will. The ethical issues are far reaching. Minority Report anyone?!

6 – Dr. Singh gave a further patient example. This patient suffered standard dementia symptoms and was placed into long-term care. This patient was formerly an accountant with no artistic talent of note. However, after being enrolled in the care home’s art activity class, the patient demonstrated an objectively high standard of artistic talent. The world of medicine previously understood that damage to one part of the brain should have no effect upon other parts responsible for different functions. What the researchers discovered was that when one part of the brain is damaged, other parts can actually develop enhanced functioning. The implications are that nature may provide a silver lining to a dark cloud.

A final word about Dr. Singh. He was a fascinating speaker, but more than that, he is one of those rare scientists who are able to straddle knowledge of intensely complex scientific issues and simple layman explanations. While erudite, he concisely explained complex issues in terms understandable to non-scientists. What a pleasure to hear him talk. I look forward to the next event.

Tags: doctor sanjay singh, science cafe, UNMC

Written by Stuart
David Day | Associates
About the Author: Stuart is constantly curious and believes conversation matters, for business, people and community. Feel free to join in...

This entry was posted on Friday, February 13th, 2009 at 11:40 am and is filed under Fun, Science. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.