Neuroscience & Neurology | February 09, 2010 | By Meghan Meyer, PhD student | 1 Comment

“I Feel Your Pain” – The Neural Basis of Empathy

Last month, a terrible earthquake raised havoc in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. While the Haitians in Port-au-Prince are miles away from us, witnessing media images of their physical and emotional suffering moves us tremendously, and motivates many of us to respond to their distress with monetary and other donations. In a sense, this is an amazing human feat—that we are able to feel for other people’s far away tragedies. How is it that we are so moved? This is a question about human empathy, and it has boggled the minds of great thinkers for centuries. Indeed, German philosopher Rudolf Lotze coined the term empathy (einfuhlung) to literally mean “in” (em) and “feeling” (pathos), or “to feel into.” Read more →

Neuroscience & Neurology | February 07, 2010 | By Dirk Hanson, MA | 3 Comments

Speaking in Tongues – A Neural Snapshot

“Asaria isa asaria ari masheetee sadabada vena amina gotaya menda meshela mosha nami ki toro ma…”

Glossolalia, or speaking in tongues, has fascinated thinkers ever since the “tongues of angels” descended upon early believers as a gift from the Holy Ghost in the New Testament of the Bible. This unusual mental state, characterized by utterances that sometimes sound like an untranslated psalm from Mars, typically occurs during instances of religious excitation, and is primarily associated with Pentecostal religious practices. It has commonly been considered a form of ecstatic trance accompanied by verbal utterances not found in any language. Read more →

Neuroscience & Neurology | February 05, 2010 | By Shaheen E Lakhan, MS, MEd, PhD, MD | 0 Comments

Neuro Case 1 – Using Transcranial Doppler for Basilar Artery Occlusion

Welcome to the first of a series of neurological cases to be featured on Brian Blogger. We will periodically choose the most enlightening cases from the Journal of Medical Case Reports (JMCR) for which I serve as an Associate Editor. I will present the case as published, discuss the implications of the findings or techniques employed, and the case author is then asked to comment on our blog to address our readers.

Published by BioMed Central, JMCR “is a peer-reviewed open access journal that will consider any original case report that expands the field of general medical knowledge.” To submit a case report for publication, please review the JMCR submission checklist. Read more →

Psychiatry & Psychology | February 03, 2010 | By Jennifer Gibson, PharmD | 5 Comments

Journal Retracts Autism Research

In 1998, a landmark study was published in the medical journal The Lancet. It was the first major research that suggested a link between the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism. Almost immediately following publication, the rates of vaccination plummeted and the incidence of measles escalated among children. Since then, the subject has been the source of much controversy, and much of the science has been disproved in other research. Now, the original journal admits it may have made a mistake in publishing the research in the first place. Read more →