Cal Neuroscientist

Locally grown neuroscience, hurrah! Here's an article by a Neuroscientist who just finished his PhD at the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute on campus (just on the other side of GPB, kinda near Tolman). CSSA is good friends with Bradley Voytek, who  runs our Feel Dead Brains night for us each semester and gives a really amazing talk on the brain and neuroscience...and of course he brings a slew of brains and skulls and spinal cords plus gloves for everyone to play with. He's extremely knowledgeable and very accessible; it's always very fun to hear his talks. Which is why I was so excited to see his name in this Mind Hacks article.

The article Voytek wrote is about working with hemicraniectomy patients...that big scary word just means these patients had a sizeable part of their skulls surgically removed temporarily, usually due to some illness or infection causing really high pressure in the cranial cavity. Too much pressure on the brain can mean dead cells, and dead cells can mean dead patient, so they pop off part of that skull to let out some of that pressure. Voytek explains it in the article concisely in detail if you're interested. Anyway, he and a team of Cal and UCSF researchers have been testing EEG on these patients. What, and why? EEG (electroencephalogram) is a way of measuring the electrical activity of the brain, with some electrodes on a cloth cap placed over the scalp (IMHO, the best way to learn about this is to participate in an EEG psychology experiment on campus -- often they pay or give Psych course credit) Problem is: there's so much bone and tissue between brain and electrodes that the signals diffuse out, and pinpointing exactly where something happens is hella really hard. Enter the hemicraniectomy patient: without so much skull in the way, the EEG signal is much clearer. Anyway, read what he says instead: http://blog.ketyov.com/2009/12/research-paper-hemicraniectomy.html

I also have links to the PubMed article of the research Voytek is publishing, 'cause it ain't in print yet, and a download link to the actual article, both courtesy of the above-cited Mind Hacks article.

Go Brad!

MadCog