Humor me and read the following :p
I think I just made an important decision for my future. I'm not going to pursue the post-graduate scholarship.
With that consideration, my days as a student are numbered. So please pardon my last few geeky entries.
Well, the following is interesting stuff (at least to me!) If you have the patience, I promise it's gonna be a fun read. :D
In the brain, this area called the somatosensory cortex was mapped out by providing electrical stimulation to various parts and determining sensation that was localized to a specific part of the body. This somatotopic mapping, also termed the homunculus, has two representations: one depicting which part of the brain stimulates which part of the body, the other in the form of a caricature showing a distorted "little man inside the brain" with large lips, tongue and hands, because of correspondingly greater sensory feed to these parts. Eg, we utilize our hands extensively for daily chores, and we need our mouth for taste and speech (erm... maybe occasionally for some other leisure activity too :p).
There is this other interesting experiment conducted by renowned neuroscientist Ramachandra, in which he lightly stimulated touch sensation on different parts of the body of a patient with a cotton swab. When he informed the patient to close his eyes and briefly stroked his left cheek, he was astonished the patient reported feeling touch to his hand. Now now... here is the twist: the patient lost his arm in an accident years ago!
Now you know phantom limb is actually real.
*Ooo... chilly!!*
Why on earth did this happen? If you take a close look at the homunculus of the brain, the sensation for hands lies just to the side of the face. Because the hand region was deprived of input due to the lost of the limb, it was "hungry" for new input, so the sensory region normally destined exclusively for the adjacent hand cortex now "invades" the vacated territory. Thus, a touch of the face is misinterpreted by the higher brain centers as arising from the hand instead. This implicated very interesting phenomena about the brain: that it has a tremendous plasticity for change, and that underutilized regions do not undergo atrophy (degenerate or waste away), but may be over-ridden by adjacent functions.
While having more of the brain devoted to a body part may not necessarily be beneficial to amputees because of the sensory mismatch, it apparently is to instrumentalists. *MUSICIANS AMONGST OUR MIDST HEAR OUT!* Violinists and other string instrument players must continually finger the instrument (NO PUN INTENDED) with their left hand, holding the bow in the other. Functional imagining of the brain shows that the amount of cortex devoted to the fingers of the left hand is greatly enlarged in string musicians, presumably from the greater stimulation of these digits. It is likely that this is an exaggerated version of a continuous remapping process that goes on in everyone's brain as each person's life experiences vary.
How apt. This relates to the next part I've been dying to get to! Remember the little man in the brain? Now let us add two and two together. Greater stimulation results in higher tendency for the brain to invest more interest in that anatomy right? Which in turn becomes reflected in the little man in the brain right?
Guys, think about what's your favorite past time... Does it involve your right hand? Does the aftermath account for most of your use of tissue paper at home?
Alright, so there you have it. This is what my education has given me! And the government is complaining students nowadays have no creative thinking?!? *beaming from ear to ear*
My parents are gonna be so proud...
With that consideration, my days as a student are numbered. So please pardon my last few geeky entries.
Well, the following is interesting stuff (at least to me!) If you have the patience, I promise it's gonna be a fun read. :D
In the brain, this area called the somatosensory cortex was mapped out by providing electrical stimulation to various parts and determining sensation that was localized to a specific part of the body. This somatotopic mapping, also termed the homunculus, has two representations: one depicting which part of the brain stimulates which part of the body, the other in the form of a caricature showing a distorted "little man inside the brain" with large lips, tongue and hands, because of correspondingly greater sensory feed to these parts. Eg, we utilize our hands extensively for daily chores, and we need our mouth for taste and speech (erm... maybe occasionally for some other leisure activity too :p).
There is this other interesting experiment conducted by renowned neuroscientist Ramachandra, in which he lightly stimulated touch sensation on different parts of the body of a patient with a cotton swab. When he informed the patient to close his eyes and briefly stroked his left cheek, he was astonished the patient reported feeling touch to his hand. Now now... here is the twist: the patient lost his arm in an accident years ago!
Now you know phantom limb is actually real.
*Ooo... chilly!!*
Why on earth did this happen? If you take a close look at the homunculus of the brain, the sensation for hands lies just to the side of the face. Because the hand region was deprived of input due to the lost of the limb, it was "hungry" for new input, so the sensory region normally destined exclusively for the adjacent hand cortex now "invades" the vacated territory. Thus, a touch of the face is misinterpreted by the higher brain centers as arising from the hand instead. This implicated very interesting phenomena about the brain: that it has a tremendous plasticity for change, and that underutilized regions do not undergo atrophy (degenerate or waste away), but may be over-ridden by adjacent functions.
While having more of the brain devoted to a body part may not necessarily be beneficial to amputees because of the sensory mismatch, it apparently is to instrumentalists. *MUSICIANS AMONGST OUR MIDST HEAR OUT!* Violinists and other string instrument players must continually finger the instrument (NO PUN INTENDED) with their left hand, holding the bow in the other. Functional imagining of the brain shows that the amount of cortex devoted to the fingers of the left hand is greatly enlarged in string musicians, presumably from the greater stimulation of these digits. It is likely that this is an exaggerated version of a continuous remapping process that goes on in everyone's brain as each person's life experiences vary.
How apt. This relates to the next part I've been dying to get to! Remember the little man in the brain? Now let us add two and two together. Greater stimulation results in higher tendency for the brain to invest more interest in that anatomy right? Which in turn becomes reflected in the little man in the brain right?
Guys, think about what's your favorite past time... Does it involve your right hand? Does the aftermath account for most of your use of tissue paper at home?
Alright, so there you have it. This is what my education has given me! And the government is complaining students nowadays have no creative thinking?!? *beaming from ear to ear*
My parents are gonna be so proud...