Usual warning about brains and guck and stuff like that!
Oh Yes – like this one.
(From the website of Eric R. Marcotte, PhD)
Brain Matters has an anecdotal feel, which divides things up into various catchall chapters. The current chapter is a rare one about the mind rather than the brain and has mentioned an article in Science1,which examines how the brain reacts to having to work hard, say having to read particularly complex sentences. This made me think of something from Godel. Escher, Bach where the author talks about the possibility of making a record that would break the record player on which it was played. I seem to remember that it might have to be tailored to the particular record player to be used. I should look it up to be sure of what it was actually trying to say but the relevant part is that I am wondering if it is possible to write a sentence that would make a brain seize up. I don’t mean in any psychological way – that would be hypnosis, but just a set of words the process of reading it and processing it into meaningful thoughts would be so complex as to jam up the brain. What with it being Michael Palin night, this has reminded me of the deadly Python joke which would kill anyone who read or heard it.
The more physical chapters of the book have brought back all the images that used to fascinate me in my mother’s medical books. I would stare at the illustrations of how to open the skull, marvelling at how it was possible to actually get into someone’s head and still have them wake up afterwards. I am now amazed all over again at the brilliant devices that are now used to get through the cranium: drills which stop turning the instant they break through the bone so avoiding damaging any of the fragile membranes that lie beneath, the Gamma Knife which can act on a deeply buried tumour without any opening having to be made and many more procedures and tools. This makes me wonder what sort of company actually makes these devices. They can’t have a huge stock; everything must be made to order. With my cynical view of the world of business, I sometimes wonder how the low demand end of the market actually survives. Maybe the things are just darned expensive.
1. Marcel Adam Just et al., “Brain Activation Modulated by Sentence Comprehension,” Science 274 (1996): 114-16.
(I've always wanted to use a footnote. My life is complete.)
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