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8th Jul 2007

The Brain, Epilepsy and Out of Body Experiences


Chris Smith

Kat Arney

This week news that men talk as much as women, cosmetics from jellyfish, songbirds "greatest-tits", a breathtaking asthma breakthrough and a gene-screen for bowel cancer. We also uncover the cause of contagious yawns, probe the brain basis of epilepsy and manic depression, and uncover a brain region responsible for out of body experiences. Plus, in Kitchen Science, Ben and Dave find out why the raisins always rise to the top of the cereal box.

 

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Science News

 

Do women really talk more than men?

It's always said that women talk more than men, but here at the Naked Scientists, its hard to get a word in edgeways as Dr Chris is always talking. Now new research from the University of Arizona sugg...
 

Greatest-"tits" - Birds stay ahead of fashion with cutting edge songs

Scientists have shown that birds move with the times by updating their songs; play them an old one and, just like teenagers at a disco, they'll desert the dance floor. Elizabeth Derryberry, from Duke ...
 

Linking cancer to the immune system

Researchers around the world are starting to realise that cancer may be more closely linked to inflammation and our immune system than we previously thought. And two new papers this week have further ...
 

Breathtaking new discovery of asthma gene

Researchers in the UK have uncovered a new gene that triggers asthma. Bill Cookson and colleagues, from London's Imperial College, compared the genes of 1000 children with asthma and 1000 healthy &quo...
 

New genes for bowel cancer

Hot off the press, scientists funded by Cancer Research UK have found a common gene variation that can increase the risk of bowel cancer. This is the first time such a common gene version has been fou...
 

Skincare by jellyfish

Researchers in Japan have finally found a use for the huge excess of jellyfish that have been turning up in Japanese waters in recent years - as a source of skincare products. Kiminori Ushida, from th...

Kitchen Science

 

Raising Raisins


Why do raisins always rise to the top of a box of muesli?
i caught this show late, and it would seem that i posted a topic that was on the show. many apologies.

although, now i have listened to the...
- paul.fr - 14th Jul 07

I have to say that I almost never listen to the show (probably a treasonable offence, but so be it); but the above does sound interesting, and makes a...
- another_someone - 14th Jul 07
Whole Thread | Post Reply

Interviews

 

Why do we Yawn?

Dr Gordon Gallup, State University of New York at Albany.
 

Epilepsy

Dr Howard Ring, University of Cambridge
 

Bipolar disorder

Professor Nick Craddock, Cardiff University
 

Science Update - Blood and Healing

Chelsea Wald and Bob Hirshon
 

Out of Body Experiences - Get Behind Yourself!

Olaf Blanke, École Polytechnique in Lausanne

Questions

 

Suncream manufacturers say you should buy new stuff every year, as the previous year’s cream loses its effectiveness. True? Or just a marketing scam to keep up sales?


 

My question is somewhat creepy. If a person is at the beach, lying in the sun, and dies, will his body continue to become more tanned? (Eww... I know.)


 

I give blood, so is it possible that people who have had a transfusion could be carrying my DNA?


 

I have a question which needs some arbitrating. When I eat raw celery my tongue goes a bit numb, but by girlfriend doesn’t believe me. I’ve looked on the internet, but haven’t seen any definitive answers about what causes this phenomenon, or whether this even really exists.


 

What is it that makes your jaw ache when you’re eating?


 

With home electrical wiring, why should the wires oxidise? Would it depend on how often the wires are used? Does it matter if they are insulated?


 

Homer Simpson once said; “Every time I learn something new it pushes some old stuff out of my brain”. I’m a history student, and as I sit here memorising the last 50 years of the EEC am I simultaneously forgetting potentially more important information, such as my sister’s birthday or how to play the harmonica?


 

Why do certain foods trigger panic attacks, and sometimes depression?


The Brain, Epilepsy and Out of Body Experiences - More about this podcast

This week on the Naked Scientists Radio Show, we're looking at repairing the brain our expert guests are Prof Olaf Blanke (Ecole Polytechnique, Lausanne) and Dr Howard Ring (University of Cambridge).

Epilepsy and Learning Disabilty

Howard's research centres around three main areas; epilepsy, autism and neurological diseases. His work with epilepsy is largely concerned with studying the management and behavioural correlates of treatment-resistant epilepsy in people with developmental or acquired brain damage. In the field of Autism research he is investigating the brain basis of specific core symptoms of autistic spectrum disorders. Finally, he is also investigating the clinical neuropsychiatric features and underlying biological processes of several neurological diseases in which there are significant neuropsychiatric manifestations. Howard will be on the show to discuss his latest research on the interactions between seizure frequency, psychopathology and severity of intellectual disability in people with epilepsy and learning disability. His study looked at 175 patients epilepsy and learning disability over a three month period, observation showed that 65 patients had no recent seizure whereas 110 had experienced one or more seizures in the previous 3 months. Results showed that depression and psychoses were more common in those with no seizures in the preceding three months but which of the psychiatric states patients experienced depended on the severity of the learning disability. Psychoses states were higher in those with mild learning difficulties whereas depression rates were higher in those with severe learning difficulties.

 Is there anybody there?

Ever get the feeling there's someone behind you? Olaf will be on the show to discuss how he can stimulate this in a person thus revealing which part of the brain is responsible. He discovered this following his investigation of a 22-year old woman who was originally being evaluated for surgical treatment of epilepsy. Olaf managed to induce the experience that all of a sudden, during the two seconds of stimulation, that there was another person in the room and that this person was always localised behind her, very specific distance, just behind her to her right. And this experience was so convincing that she actually had to turn around and look in order to make sure that there was actually nobody there. What this shows is that there is at least one anatomical mechanism that seems to be very strongly involved in generating these sensations and, although it's a highly complex phenomenon that you can find in schizophrenic patients but also in healthy subjects, it seems to be due to disturbed brain mechanisms exactly at this area. This area is known as the 'temporal parietal junction' when Olaf stimulates it on the right side of the brain the subject feels the apparition behind them but to the left, likewise stimulating the left side leads to the apparition being sensed behind the subject towards the right.

Olaf has observed that this area is also responsible for other similar illusions such as an out of body experience or the doppelganger experience where you have the impression of seeing an image of yourself outside, out of space. So all these experiences somehow seem to be generated by stimulation or interference with this area of the brain. This has major implications for researching illnesses such as schizophrenia where people experience sensations that are obviously coming from within their own brain but patients feel they're coming from outside. Olaf explains that if you ask a schizophrenic patient to grasp a glass of water and while they perform this action they could tell you that they have the experience as if somebody else were directing their arm, so it is this part of the brain which is responsible for that also.

To find out more about the work of Howard and Olaf and to learn about how are brains work and what happens when things go wrong, turn on, tune in or download (our excellent podcast of course!)



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