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Vilayanur Ramachandran studies the brain. You may have seen a profile of him in last month’s New Yorker…if you haven’t get thee to a library and check it out! Anyway, Ramachandran is an interesting speaker — he spends a lot of time dealing with bizarre neurological problems (not his own, of course), and he makes neurology sound downright fascinating. Have a look at this TED Talk from 2007 in which he describes several puzzling neurological syndromes.
Discussed: how brain damage is very selective, mapping function to structure, capgras syndrome (face blindness), the capgras delusion (in which patients believes that their friends and family are bodysnatcher-style imposters), some digs at Freudians, phantom limb syndrome, the now-famous mirror box, phantom fingers on the shoulder (!), synesthesia, kiki and boobah.
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“he makes neurology sound downright fascinating” – that’s because it IS fascinating! What always suprises me is how people can present sleep-inducing seminars out of something so inherently wacked-out-bizzaro interesting. Love the TED talks, Chris!
posted by Diana on 6-24-2009 at 3:43 pm
OK, neurology is fascinating, but I’m not certain that you can say that most neurologists are fascinating.
posted by John R on 6-25-2009 at 12:42 pm
Radiolab had a great show with Ramachandran; the other segments about a butcher losing his sense of touch and fighter pilots having out-of-body experiences at certain G levels are also very interesting. Click my name for a link to the (free, streamable or downloadable) podcast.
posted by Katie on 6-25-2009 at 2:34 pm
If you like this type of thing read Oliver Sachs and Luria.
posted by James on 6-30-2009 at 7:52 am