The Michael J. Fox Foundation has a good, basic introduction to the neurobiology of Parkinson’s disease. The brief animate video provides an overview of affected parts of the brain as well as the role that dopamine, a neurotransmitter – a chemical in the brain that allows brain cells to communicate with each other – plays in Parkinson’s disease. Click on the link below and then click on the video link titled PARKINSON’S AND THE BRAIN to learn more about how Parkinson’s disease affects the brain.
The National Parkinson’s Foundation produced a series of brief videos providing overviews of Parkinson’s disease related topics by prominent clinicians and researchers in the field of Parkinson’s disease. In one video, we are provided with an overview of the questions of whether or not we can cure Parkinson’s disease and how do we treat Parkinson’s disease.
The short answer is: no, we cannot right now cure Parkinson’s disease. We have hopes that stem cell therapies will work but there are a number of issues related to stem cells that make them potentially problematic (e.g., how do we make sure they don’t turn into cancers).
We can, however, treat symptoms of Parkinson’s disease with drug, physical, and cognitive therapies. L-dopa is effective at reducing tremors in most people and well as increasing rate and speed of movement. In some cases, deep brain stimulation is warranted. It has shown to be quite effective for many people. But for now we cannot cure Parkinson’s disease.
This brief video provides an overview of some of the common misconceptions about Parkinson’s disease, including causes, course, and outcome. For example, a single head injury will not cause Parkinson’s disease, at least there is no scientific evidence of it occurring. However, repeated head injuries might result in someone who is predisposed to Parkinson’s appear with symptoms earlier than they otherwise would be. This is the same with any environmental factors, such as pesticides or heavy metals (researchers have not shown a solid link between environmental hazards and Parkinson’s disease).
Watch this brief video for a few other misconceptions about Parkinson’s disease.
Here’s an old but good video of Carl Rogers giving an explanation of his Person Centered Therapeutic approach.
Here is the second part of the video where you can see Rogerian therapy in action:
Notice how Person Centered Therapy is non-directive. This means that the therapist does not provide answers for a client, the therapist helps clients work towards their own answers while being as supportive and reflective as possible.
There are more parts to the video, which can be found on YouTube.
Motivation is an area that many researchers study: psychologists, marketers, economists, sociologists, anthropologists, and just about any other field within the social sciences. Anything can motivate us – food, sex, sleep, rewards, pain – but what motivates us to perform better at work or in anything we do? This is the question addressed in the following video clip. This is one of the best introductions to motivation (especially as it applies to a business setting) that I’ve seen.
I posted this on my neuroimaging blog and thought I should post it here too. This is a video I put together about the cingulum, a prominent white matter fiber track in the brain that is involved in emotion, attention, memory, among many other functions. All images except one from Gray’s Anatomy (the anatomy book, not the T.V. show) were created by me using some fairly advanced imaging techniques. If you are interested about some of the techniques, read my neuroimaging blog.
I posted a video of my brain on YouTube just to show the quality of MRI scans we have now (and the fun things we can do with post-processing). The scans were done on a 3T Philips Achieva MR scanner. We acquired 2 T1 scans of my brain (160 1mm slices – 1 mm cubed voxel size) then post-processed the DICOMs using FreeSurfer. The skull-stripped output files (in NIFTI format) were then rendered in 3D in OsiriX. I created a fly-through movie of the brain and exported it as an MP4 movie. If you have any questions about the process, feel free to ask.
Aphasia is an acquired disorder of language. It can manifest in various ways, including difficulty speaking or difficulty understanding speech or language. Stroke is the most common cause of aphasia with up to 40% of stroke patients experiencing some sort of aphasia. Depending on the nature of the injury (e.g., stroke, tumor, trauma), aphaisa can be temporary or permanent. Even in cases of severe stroke, some types and aspects of aphasia are treatable, with language improving over time. While language does not usually return to pre-morbid functional levels, many people with aphasia benefit greatly from speech therapy.
The following videos demonstrate two different types of aphasia – Broca’s aphasia (or non-fluent) and Wernicke’s aphasia (or fluent). Notice the differences between the aphasias.
Here is the video PBS recently made about Parkinson’s disease called My Father, My Brother, and Me. From what I’ve watched so far, it’s done a good job putting a face to Parkinson’s disease while also focusing on the research and clinical aspects of it.
Yesterday I posted a video clip about Clive Wearing. Here is the first part of a different documentary about Clive. This video goes more in-depth about his condition. Clive is sometimes referred to as the man with the shortest memory. Not only were his two hippocampi destroyed, but also surrounding areas of the his temporal lobes as well as portions of his left frontal lobe. He also remembers very little from before his illness, which is quite rare; this condition is called retrograde amnesia. Clive lives in an ever-present now, without connection to past or future. Other parts to this video can be found on YouTube.
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