brain

 Dolphins are my favorite animals, partly because of their extra-cute appearances: “friendly smile”, little flippers, and sleek and shiny body. But their intelligence is what amazes me the most. I once watched a video about dolphin training. I remember in one of the training sessions, the trainer asks the dolphin to go grab a ball from a basket, yet there is no ball in that basket. So the dolphin takes back the empty basket with him to show the trainer and presses the “No” button available. In another session, the trainer gestures two dolphins to perform two simple tricks then gestures them to perform the two tricks in one action. The dolphins immediately perform a combination of the two tricks without the trainer teaching them how.

 Kathryn Gould

Professor Grobstein

Neurobiology

14 May 2010

Tackling Trauma

Liz Frontino

The Blood-Brain Barrier: An Obstacle for Treatment

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    Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASDs) are serious neurological disorders, which usually present themselves in an individual before three years of age. The spectrum refers to the wide variety in severity and type of characteristics. Young autistic individuals generally appear physically normal but engage in a variety of bizarre activities that are markedly different from those of other children their age. They often appear disconnected, self-absorbed, and avoid major and minor routine changes. Both autistic children and adults are generally seen (to varying degrees) to be impaired socially and emotionally, as extremely sensitive to loud noises, lights or smells, and as having difficulty with language as well (9).

 “The Brain—is wider than the Sky—

For—put them side by side—

Therapeutic Clowns and the Effects They Have on Hospitalized Children

    Oliver Sacks’ novel, An Anthropologist on Mars, contains seven fascinating and strange neurobiological stories that explore unique perceptions and experiences of both the world and oneself in the world. The first tale, “The Colorblind Painter”, is about Jonathan I., a painter who, after an accident, lost his ability to perceive color in the world, his memories, and even his dreams. He could not remember what color ever looked like (the entire concept was obliterated from his brain), yet, intriguingly, it was determined that he could discriminate wavelengths of light.

Reading Temple Grandin’s Animals in Translation for my book commentary for this course, I came across an interesting passage in which Grandin notes that on a very basic level, human beings and animals have the same kinds of brain cells—the same neurons—we just use them differently. Grandin concludes, “That means that theoretically we could have extreme perception the way animals do if we figured out how to use the sensory processing cells in our brains the way animals do” (63).