Brain After Coma

Patrick Flanagan may be regarded as one of the most important scientists of the last 45 years” (“- GIE -”). He has made many discoveries and inventions in three different scientific fields. What began Flanagan’s career was likely his guided missile detector that was sold to the U.S. Military. “Flanagan . . . was employed by a Think Tank at The Pentagon, and later as a consultant to the NSA, CIA, NASA, Tufts University, the Office of Naval Research, and the Aberdeen Proving Grounds for the Department of Unconventional Weapons and Warfare” (“Patrick Flanagan”). Flanagan has invented and developed many technologies in his career. For the most part, Patrick Flanagan is a scientist. “At 14 he developed the Neurophone, an electronic device that transmits sound from the skin directly to the brain, through the nervous system, not the bones or ears” (“The Flanagan Follies”). He was unable to obtain a patent for this invention until 1968, which was ten years after he invented it. Flanagan finally obtained patent number 3,393,279 when the neurophone allowed a deaf employee to hear at the patent office. “The man was totally nerve deaf in one ear and almost toally deaf in the other . . . Patrick . . . [after showing the man how to use the neurophone] played a record of the famous Maria Callas singing . . . as he [the deaf man] was able to hear the undistorted beauty of her voice, the tears of joy streamed down his face” (“Patrick Flanagan’s Neurophone”).

I will now discuss how I was thinking and feeling during this event. I had been working at the hospice for over a year and had looked after patients with MND before. I had an idea of how it can affect communicating with the patient. I was apprehensive about approaching Patient A as I didn’t know what difficulties I may find whilst trying to communicate with her. She was able to communicate very well using the pen and writing down, and using hand gestures. I learnt that by speaking clearly with easy to answer questions we were able to communicate with each other effectively. Afterwards I felt pleased that were able to determine the problem and find a solution for her, despite the communication barriers.

His first experiment was on a 3 year old child that was blindfolded. Lamal & Windholz (1986) explained that he used a bell as the conditioned stimulus and honey as the unconditioned stimulus (p. 193). After several dozen trials, the child responded to the bell conditioned stimulus with the movement of his mouth and an increased rate of swallowing (Lamal & Windholz, 1986, p. 193). The conditioned stimulus still occurred after a two week period. In his second experiment, he conditioned a 6 year old child to respond to a bell and uses pieces of chocolate as the unconditioned stimuli (Lamal & Windholz, 1986, p. 193). He also did experiments on generalization and differentiation. His experiences were on sound and tactile stimuli.

Dr. Fox is an emergency physician at UCI Medical Center, treating and diagnosing patients using an ultrasound. His scope of research involves looking at patients’ internal organs via ultrasound, which is much quicker and less harmful than using x-ray scans that are traditionally used in emergency departments. He is also a part of the American Institute of Ultrasound in Medicine (“Faculty and Staff”). Dr. Fox is also a director of instructional ultrasound and is the assistant dean at the UCI School of Medicine (“John Christian Fox”). He started an ultrasound rotation at the UCI School of Medicine, and with a grant given by SonoSite, Inc., the ultrasound curriculum is now embedded within the UCI School of Medicine curriculum (“Faculty and Staff”). He went to Tufts University School of Medicine, receiving his MD in 1997 (“John Christian Fox”). His main research focus is to try to incorporate ultrasound more into the emergency department, and tries to find revolutionary ways to utilize ultrasound, especially because it is very cost-efficient and images are seen real-time, unlike MRI scans or x-rays, which can emit harmful radiation or results take much longer to acquire. Eric Viquez is one of the Bio 199/EMRAP (Emergency Medicine Research Associates Program) students in Dr. Fox’s ultrasound lab. He is currently a 4th year undergraduate biological sciences major who is going to medical school in the fall; he shadows shifts with Dr. Fox and

In Eric Kandel's Aplysia experiment, Kandel showed that a slug lost sensitivity in its gills, after repeated contact to which Carr states "the brain...change[s] with experience, circumstance, and need". Both, Kandel's and Merzenich's, experiments lead to the same conclusion of the physical body adapting in real-time to the environment. Carr briefly writes how a man named Bernstein regained movement in his hand and leg after damaging his brain which regulated movement and how through the use of technology analyzing neural activity, Carr tells how violinists had increased cortical areas of their right hand compared to nonmusicians, and compared to their own left cortical areas. Carr's final example for the brain's plasticity is with Pascual-Leone's experiment. Pascual-Leone mapped the brain activity of a group of people playing certain notes on a piano, and a group imagining themselves playing the notes. He concluded that their brains had both changed in response to the experiment, both in playing, and imagining playing. Pascual-Leone's work showed that the human brain can change itself neurologically without physical activity. Carr summarizes, "We become, neurologically, what we think". Carr asserts through these scientific experiments that not only were Freud, J.Z. Young, and William James, correct , but "the adult brain...is not just plastic but...'massively plastic.'" Carr

In 2002, Mike Webster, a legendary football player, suddenly died at the age of 50. After examining his body, Dr. Bennet Omalu became curious as to what exactly was the cause of Webster’s death. Being a neuropathologist, Dr. Omalu knew Webster’s death was related to his brain. Omalu took samples of Webster’s brain and studied it over

Physicians describe a concussion as an immediate and transient neural function post traumatic impairment such as vision disturbance, alteration of consciousness, and other signs which result from brainstem involvement. An impulsive force or direct head blows leading to head acceleration are the leading causes of concussion in sports. However, not all reported loss of consciousness mean it is a concussion. The public mostly associates concussion with sports such as football, ice hockey, and boxing and it is not a major problem in other sports. The assumption is that most of these sports-related traumatic brain injuries that occur are concussions. Sports concussion is a

Concussion or mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) represents the most common type of traumatic brain injury (TBI). Even though this type of TBI is called “mild”, the effect on the family and the injured person can be devastating. Concussions can be tricky to diagnose and there is no specific cure for concussion. There is growing recognition and some evidence that mild mechanical trauma resulting from sports injuries, military combat, and other physically engaging pursuits may have cumulative and chronic neurological consequences [3, 4]. However there is still a poor understanding of concussions and their effects. Studying mild brain injury in humans is challenging since it is restricted to cognitive assessment and brain imaging evaluation. Animal models provide a means to study concussions in a rigorous, controlled, and efficient manner with the hope of further diagnosis and treatment of mTBI.

Hurley’s article didn’t present a compelling argument to Morales-Quezada experiment of sending electrical currents to the brain. The author’s tone of the article was too informal and laid back, it seems as if he was having an underlying conversation regarding a serious matter. The author’s word choice wasn’t clear and the language used wasn’t as professional as it should be. Hurley made countless grammar errors in few of the passages and needed to provide more information about the exact procedures of

To begin with, according to an article written by Lyons, MD, “Deep brain stimulation (DBS) has developed during the past 20 years as a remarkable treatment option for several

I was also surprised to see a comatose patient gain consciousness after 35 days. As a part of a team caring for this comatose patient in the ICU, I was involved in monitoring his vital signs, airway, nutrition and urine output. I worked closely with other members of the health care team to maintain his physical health. Swithching him form oropharyngeal ventilation to cricothyrotomy for airway management was another challenging task caring for this patient. I built a good rapport with his family members as I communicated

Dr. Malcolm Sayer is a shy, absent minded, and a plant loving neurologists. He used to work in a laboratory before. He was put in charge of several seemingly catatonic patients at the Bronx psychiatric hospital. There he proves that he was a determined and a caring doctor. He discovered that there is certain stimulus that the patients show responsive. Lucy Fishman caught his attention and he offers a complete visual field by painting the floor tiles with the help of

The human brain is utterly baffling. A small organ weighing merely three pounds as an adult has the ability to control and shape a human’s life. Without it there would be nothing. There are so many different functions… and with that there are so many things that can go horribly wrong. It is amazing the capacities and that it possesses and we do not even realize it. That is why studying neurology and working on the treatment of neurological disorders is so critically important. Through the examination of Huntington’s disease, Bell’s Palsy, and Aphasia, neurologists can work to better the human mind and cure the diseases that attack it, which will infinitely enhance the lives of humans and create a brighter future for us all.

Harvey Fletcher and Wilden Munson revealed, among other things, that the human ear is not linear, and is not capable of

The neurons in the brain tissue communicate with each other via electrical signals, generating measurable action potential activity. Electrophysiological techniques have been developed to measure this electrical activity. Electrophysiological techniques are some of the classic methods of brain research, partly because they are very sensitive and accurate. They provide quite a number of insights into the subject’s mind as well as allow for study of how the brain works. They can be used during brain surgery as well as when the patient is awake and conscious, as the brain itself does not sense pain during the measurements. Although electrophysiology has been around for close to half a century, it has attained appreciable advances only in the last two decades. These advances have revolutionized the study of brain structure and functions, allowing neurophysiologists to monitor the brain’s activities directly during experiments (Sutler et al., 1999). Even with its significant impact in neurology, however, its presence has been so commonplace that many people no longer realize its ubiquity. This essay explores three electrophysiological techniques namely patch clamp, sharp electrodes, and brain slice recording. It describes how each of these techniques works as well as how advances in the techniques have