Thursday, October 15, 2009
Leonardo da Vinci, Madonna of the Rocks, Louvre
No theme recurs so incessantly, and with such central import, both in the Leicester Codex and throughout Leonardo's writing, as the causal and material unity of the body's microcosm and the earth's macrocosm. -----------Stephen Jay Gould, Leonardo's Mountain of Clams and The Diet of Worms
Man has been called by the ancients a lesser world, and indeed the term is rightly applied, seeing that if man is compounded of earth, water, air and fire, this body of the earth is the same; and as man has within himself bones as a stay and framework for the flesh, so the word has the rocks which are the supports of the earth; as man has within him a pool of blood wherein the lungs as he breathes expand and contract, so the body of the earth has its ocean, which also rises and falls every six hours with the breathing of the world [the tides]; as from the said pool of blood proceed the veins which spread their branches through the human body, in just the same manner the ocean fills the body of the earth with an infinite number of veins of water. -------------------------------------------------Leonardo Da Vinci, The Leicester Codex
Friday, February 20, 2009
There are more than 500 million left-handed people on Earth with many notables from the past. A few:
Alexander the Great
Charlemagne-799 AD established our calendar
Queen Victoria
Winston Churchill, "Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm."
Benjamin Netanyahu
Left-handed Presidents:
44. Barack Obama "If you're walking down the right path and you're willing to keep walking you will make progress."
42. Bill Clinton
41. George H. W. Bush
38. Gerald Ford
35 Jack Kennedy
33.Harry S. Truman, "It is amazing what you can accomplish if you don't care who gets the credit."
20.James Garfield
I'm left-handed, too; )
Alexander the Great
Charlemagne-799 AD established our calendar
Queen Victoria
Winston Churchill, "Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm."
Benjamin Netanyahu
Left-handed Presidents:
44. Barack Obama "If you're walking down the right path and you're willing to keep walking you will make progress."
42. Bill Clinton
41. George H. W. Bush
38. Gerald Ford
35 Jack Kennedy
33.Harry S. Truman, "It is amazing what you can accomplish if you don't care who gets the credit."
20.James Garfield
I'm left-handed, too; )
Friday, January 16, 2009
"Delusions result from right hemisphere lesions, but it is the left hemisphere that is deluded."
People with certain types of brain disorders can suffer from delusions, which are erroneous beliefs in objects or situations that remain fixed in the mind despite evidence they are incorrect. Delusions make it hard for people to function with any normalcy in the real world and confound the doctors and therapists who are trying to help them.
Research published this week in the journal Neurology makes an important observation about the brains of people with neurological disorders, such as those with brain damage from strokes and Alzheimer's disease who suffer delusions, and suggests a novel theory for why delusions occur and persist. Researchers at New York University Langone Medical Center studied neurological patients with delusions and found a consistent pattern of injury to the front lobe and right hemisphere of the brain. It's possible that injury on the right side leads to overcompensation by the left hemisphere, thus producing delusions.
"Problems caused by these brain injuries include impairment in monitoring of self, awareness of errors and incorrectly identifying what is familiar and what is a work of fiction," said the lead author of the study, Dr. Orrin Devinsky, in a news release. "However, delusions result from the loss of these functions as well as the over activation of the left hemisphere and its language structures that 'create a story,' a story which cannot be edited and modified to account for reality. Delusions result from right hemisphere lesions, but it is the left hemisphere that is deluded."
The fact that people believe delusions despite evidence that they are wrong may be due to the dysfunction in the frontal lobe of the brain.
The research could be helpful by clarifying what psychological, cognitive and neurological mechanisms contribute to delusional thinking, the researchers said. That may lead to better strategies to treat the illness.
People with certain types of brain disorders can suffer from delusions, which are erroneous beliefs in objects or situations that remain fixed in the mind despite evidence they are incorrect. Delusions make it hard for people to function with any normalcy in the real world and confound the doctors and therapists who are trying to help them.
Research published this week in the journal Neurology makes an important observation about the brains of people with neurological disorders, such as those with brain damage from strokes and Alzheimer's disease who suffer delusions, and suggests a novel theory for why delusions occur and persist. Researchers at New York University Langone Medical Center studied neurological patients with delusions and found a consistent pattern of injury to the front lobe and right hemisphere of the brain. It's possible that injury on the right side leads to overcompensation by the left hemisphere, thus producing delusions.
"Problems caused by these brain injuries include impairment in monitoring of self, awareness of errors and incorrectly identifying what is familiar and what is a work of fiction," said the lead author of the study, Dr. Orrin Devinsky, in a news release. "However, delusions result from the loss of these functions as well as the over activation of the left hemisphere and its language structures that 'create a story,' a story which cannot be edited and modified to account for reality. Delusions result from right hemisphere lesions, but it is the left hemisphere that is deluded."
The fact that people believe delusions despite evidence that they are wrong may be due to the dysfunction in the frontal lobe of the brain.
The research could be helpful by clarifying what psychological, cognitive and neurological mechanisms contribute to delusional thinking, the researchers said. That may lead to better strategies to treat the illness.
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