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The Man Who Tasted Shapes
''The Man Who Tasted Shapes'' is a book by neurologist Richard Cytowic about synesthesia. Summary The book is divided into two parts. In the first part, Cytowic describes his chance encounter during a dinner party on February 10, 1980 with MW, the "Man Who Tasted Shapes." Cytowic describes how his host reported that "There aren't enough points on the chicken!" and how this chance comment led to Cytowic's investigations of the neurological phenomenon of synesthesia. Early chapters include background information on how the brain is organized, drawn mainly from Paul D. MacLean's Triune Brain theory. Cytowic describes MW's synesthesia, noting the consistency of his reports, that such experiences are "generic" and consistent over time. Chapters dealing with more scientific theories, data and experimentation are alternated with autobiographical and more personal chapters describing the historical details of Cytowic's investigations into synesthesia. In order to explore ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Cytowic
Richard E. Cytowic is an American neurologist and author who rekindled interest in synesthesia in the 1980s and returned it to mainstream science. He was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for his ''New York Times Magazine'' cover story about James Brady, the Presidential Press Secretary shot in the brain during the assassination attempt on President Reagan. Cytowic’s writing ranges from textbooks and music reviews, to his ''Metro Weekly'' "Love Doctor" essays and brief medical biographies of Anton Chekhov, Maurice Ravel and Virginia Woolf. His work is the subject of two BBC Horizon documentaries, “Orange Sherbert Kisses” (1994) and “Derek Tastes of Earwax” (2014). In '' Musicophilia'', Oliver Sacks writes: In the 1980, Richard Cytowic made the first neurophysiological studies of synesthetic subjects... In 1989, he published a pioneering text, ''Synesthesia: A Union of the Senses'', and this was followed by a popular exploration of the subject in 1993, ''The Man Who Tas ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Amphetamine
Amphetamine (contracted from alpha- methylphenethylamine) is a strong central nervous system (CNS) stimulant that is used in the treatment of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), narcolepsy, and obesity. It is also commonly used as a recreational drug. Amphetamine was discovered in 1887 and exists as two enantiomers: levoamphetamine and dextroamphetamine. ''Amphetamine'' properly refers to a specific chemical, the racemic free base, which is equal parts of the two enantiomers in their pure amine forms. The term is frequently used informally to refer to any combination of the enantiomers, or to either of them alone. Historically, it has been used to treat nasal congestion and depression. Amphetamine is also used as an athletic performance enhancer and cognitive enhancer, and recreationally as an aphrodisiac and euphoriant. It is a prescription drug in many countries, and unauthorized possession and distribution of amphetamine are often tightly controlled due ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
2003 Non-fiction Books
3 (three) is a number, numeral and digit. It is the natural number following 2 and preceding 4, and is the smallest odd prime number and the only prime preceding a square number. It has religious or cultural significance in many societies. Evolution of the Arabic digit The use of three lines to denote the number 3 occurred in many writing systems, including some (like Roman and Chinese numerals) that are still in use. That was also the original representation of 3 in the Brahmic (Indian) numerical notation, its earliest forms aligned vertically. However, during the Gupta Empire the sign was modified by the addition of a curve on each line. The Nāgarī script rotated the lines clockwise, so they appeared horizontally, and ended each line with a short downward stroke on the right. In cursive script, the three strokes were eventually connected to form a glyph resembling a with an additional stroke at the bottom: ३. The Indian digits spread to the Caliphate in the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mnemonist
The title mnemonist refers to an individual with the ability to remember and recall unusually long lists of data, such as unfamiliar names, lists of numbers, entries in books, etc. Some mnemonists also memorize texts such as long poems, speeches, or even entire books, of fiction or non-fiction. The term is derived from the term mnemonic, which refers to a strategy to support remembering (such as the method of loci or major system), but not all mnemonists report using mnemonics. Mnemonists may have superior innate ability to recall or remember, in addition to (or instead of) relying on techniques. Structure of mnemonic skills While the innateness of mnemonists' skills is debated, the methods that mnemonists use to memorize are well-documented. Many mnemonists have been studied in psychology labs over the last century, and most have been found to use mnemonic devices. Currently, all memory champions at the World Memory Championships have said that they use mnemonic strategies, such a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Solomon Shereshevskii
Solomon Veniaminovich Shereshevsky (russian: Соломон Вениаминович Шерешевский; 1886 – 1 May 1958), also known simply as 'Ш' ('Sh'), 'S.', or Luria's S was a Soviet journalist and mnemonist active in the 1920s. He was the subject of Alexander Luria's case study ''The Mind of a Mnemonist'' (1968). Studies Shereshevsky participated in many behavioral studies, most of them carried out by the neuropsychologist Alexander Luria over a thirty-year time span. He met Luria after an anecdotal event in which he was scolded for not taking any notes while attending a work meeting in the mid 1920s. To the astonishment of everyone there (and to his own astonishment in realizing that others could apparently not do so), he could recall the speech word for word. Throughout his life, Shereshevsky was tasked with memorizing complex mathematical formulas, huge matrices, and even poems in foreign languages that he had never spoken before, all of which he would memorize w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alexander Luria
Alexander Romanovich Luria (russian: Алекса́ндр Рома́нович Лу́рия, p=ˈlurʲɪjə; 16 July 1902 – 14 August 1977) was a Soviet neuropsychologist, often credited as a father of modern neuropsychology. He developed an extensive and original battery of neuropsychological tests during his clinical work with brain-injured victims of World War II, which are still used in various forms. He made an in-depth analysis of the functioning of various brain regions and integrative processes of the brain in general. Luria's magnum opus, ''Higher Cortical Functions in Man'' (1962), is a much-used psychological textbook which has been translated into many languages and which he supplemented with ''The Working Brain'' in 1973. It is less known that Luria's main interests, before the war, were in the field of cultural and developmental research in psychology. He became famous for his studies of low-educated populations of nomadic Uzbeks in the Uzbek SSR arguing ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The National Enquirer
The ''National Enquirer'' is an American tabloid newspaper. Founded in 1926, the newspaper has undergone a number of changes over the years. The ''National Enquirer'' openly acknowledges that it pays Source (journalism), sources for tips, a common practice in tabloid journalism that results in conflicts of interest. It has also been embroiled in several controversies related to its catch and kill practices and allegations of blackmail. It has struggled with declining circulation figures because of competition from other glossy tabloid publications. In May 2014, American Media announced a decision to shift the headquarters of the ''National Enquirer'' from Florida, where it had been located since 1971, back to New York City, where it originally began as ''The New York Enquirer'' in 1926. On April 10, 2019, Chatham Asset Management, which had acquired control of 80 percent of AMI's stock, forced AMI to sell the ''National Enquirer''. This came after Chatham owner Anthony Melchio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tabloid (newspaper Format)
A tabloid is a newspaper with a compact page size smaller than broadsheet. There is no standard size for this newspaper format. Etymology The word ''tabloid'' comes from the name given by the London-based pharmaceutical company Burroughs Wellcome & Co. to the compressed tablets they marketed as "Tabloid" pills in the late 1880s. The connotation of ''tabloid'' was soon applied to other small compressed items. A 1902 item in London's ''Westminster Gazette'' noted, "The proprietor intends to give in tabloid form all the news printed by other journals." Thus ''tabloid journalism'' in 1901, originally meant a paper that condensed stories into a simplified, easily absorbed format. The term preceded the 1918 reference to smaller sheet newspapers that contained the condensed stories. Types Tabloid newspapers, especially in the United Kingdom, vary widely in their target market, political alignment, editorial style, and circulation. Thus, various terms have been coined to desc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cerebral Cortex
The cerebral cortex, also known as the cerebral mantle, is the outer layer of neural tissue of the cerebrum of the brain in humans and other mammals. The cerebral cortex mostly consists of the six-layered neocortex, with just 10% consisting of allocortex. It is separated into two cortices, by the longitudinal fissure that divides the cerebrum into the left and right cerebral hemispheres. The two hemispheres are joined beneath the cortex by the corpus callosum. The cerebral cortex is the largest site of neural integration in the central nervous system. It plays a key role in attention, perception, awareness, thought, memory, language, and consciousness. The cerebral cortex is part of the brain responsible for cognition. In most mammals, apart from small mammals that have small brains, the cerebral cortex is folded, providing a greater surface area in the confined volume of the cranium. Apart from minimising brain and cranial volume, cortical folding is crucial for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Limbic System
The limbic system, also known as the paleomammalian cortex, is a set of brain structures located on both sides of the thalamus, immediately beneath the medial temporal lobe of the cerebrum primarily in the forebrain.Schacter, Daniel L. 2012. ''Psychology''.sec. 3.20 It supports a variety of functions including emotion, behavior, long-term memory, and olfaction. Emotional life is largely housed in the limbic system, and it critically aids the formation of memories. With a primordial structure, the limbic system is involved in lower order emotional processing of input from sensory systems and consists of the amygdaloid nuclear complex ( amygdala), mammillary bodies, stria medullaris, central gray and dorsal and ventral nuclei of Gudden. This processed information is often relayed to a collection of structures from the telencephalon, diencephalon, and mesencephalon, including the prefrontal cortex, cingulate gyrus, limbic thalamus, hippocampus including the parahippocampal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Functional Neuroimaging
Functional neuroimaging is the use of neuroimaging technology to measure an aspect of brain function, often with a view to understanding the relationship between activity in certain brain areas and specific mental functions. It is primarily used as a research tool in cognitive neuroscience, cognitive psychology, neuropsychology, and social neuroscience. Overview Common methods of functional neuroimaging include * Positron emission tomography (PET) * Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) * Electroencephalography (EEG) * Magnetoencephalography (MEG) * Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) * Single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) * Functional ultrasound imaging (fUS) PET, fMRI, fNIRS and fUS can measure localized changes in cerebral blood flow related to neural activity. These changes are referred to as ''activations''. Regions of the brain which are activated when a subject performs a particular task may play a role in the neural computations which ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Amyl Nitrite
Amyl nitrite is a chemical compound with the formula C5H11ONO. A variety of isomers are known, but they all feature an amyl group attached to the nitrite functional group. The alkyl group is unreactive and the chemical and biological properties are mainly due to the nitrite group. Like other alkyl nitrites, amyl nitrite is bioactive in mammals, being a vasodilator, which is the basis of its use as a prescription medicine. As an inhalant, it also has a psychoactive effect, which has led to its recreational use, with its smell being described as that of old socks or dirty feet. It is also referred to as ''banapple gas''. It was first documented in 1844 and came into medical use in 1867. Uses * Amyl nitrite is employed medically to treat heart diseases as well as angina. * Amyl nitrite is sometimes used as an antidote for cyanide poisoning. It can act as an oxidant, to induce the formation of methemoglobin. Methemoglobin in turn can sequester cyanide as cyanomethemoglobin. * ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
