During my fleeting time here in Paris, I have made it my personal mission to visit the Eiffel Tower as many times as possible (Fig. 1). It began one of the first days I was here when I decided to go for a morning run. Not having any particular place to go, I decided to run to the Eiffel Tower and back, which came to about 3 miles exactly with a short selfie break in the middle. The next day, I didn’t want to use up any data mapping my way around the area, so I ran the same path again, and took another selfie. The same thing happened the day after that. It has actually become a small comfort for me, and I am now known as the tall, sweaty girl in the coffee shop at the end of the street that always comes in early in the morning, out of breath, and never having perfect change. Continue reading “I fell for Eiffel”
Research is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re gonna get
Last week, we visited the Musée du Chocolat (Fig. 1). Probably one of the hidden gems in Paris, the museum features an exhibit on the origins of cocoa with free chocolate samples, a live chocolate making demonstration with free chocolate samples, and a chocolate molding class with lots of free chocolate samples. Chocolate may seem like a simple dessert featured in your average Twix bar, but cocoa has been used for over 4,000 years in different cultures and products. Many people in the chocolate world regard chocolate making and molding as an art form. From personal experience, the process is much more difficult than it may seem. Our class chocolates were still delicious, but were described as “child-like” by a passing-by chocolatier (Fig. 2).
Continue reading “Research is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re gonna get”
Photo Post 4 – Musée Fragonard
During the first week, we visited the Musée Fragonard. This housed a series of preserved animal and human displays with a variety normal and abnormal morphology. Animal research has always been a key component of scientific exploration. There are many biological processes corresponding to human functioning and animal models allow an in depth look at these mechanisms and their dysfunction. For example, they had a lamprey on display, which is a common experimental model for central pattern generators in neuroscience research. However, the issue, especially relevant in the world of neuroscience, is that there are limits to comparing animal and human processes. Therefore, without human models we have a restricted understanding of risks and safety of certain treatments. However, as exemplified by the flayed human display (shown above) and the ‘Our Body’ exhibit, we have strict expectations regarding manipulation of human bodies, even after death.
Photo Post 3 – Artists and Robots
A couple weekends ago, I visited the Artists and Robots exhibit at the Grand Palais. The show included a series of robots that could “see” and “draw,” digital and sound engineering displays, as well as humanoid robot designs. There is a similar exhibit up in the High Museum of Art in Atlanta titled “Design in the Digital Age,” that showcases work by the Joris Laarman Lab in digital design and creation of works of art. The issue that both exhibits are trying to examine is what role does new technology have in our lives and in our modicums of human achievement such as art. As our understanding of the brain grows, we are getting closer to modelling human processing and creating potentially conscious robots that exceed our current limits of human ability. We need to think about what role and limits this neurotechnology should have.
Photo Post 2 – Musée d’Histoire de la Medicine
On June 4, our class travelled to the medical school to tour the Musée d’Histoire de la Medicine. They have on display a series of medical advancements and tools, ranging from the first prosthetics to horrifying instruments used to remove kidney stones, all the way to a small decorative coffee table made completely out of human parts. One of the larger spectacles was the electroshock therapy. In the 19thcentury, this machine, used to deliver a light shock to the patient, was thought to cure depression or insanity. While this contraption looks archaic, the use of electrical impulses to modulate brain activity remains prevalent today. Treatments range from deep brain stimulation for the treatment of Parkinson’s Disease to home transcranial direct current stimulation thought to improve a range of cognitive functions (Wexler & Hamilton, 2017). There is evidence of behavioral changes, although questions of the underlying biolgical mechanisms remain undetermined.
Works Cited:
Wexler, Anna & Hamilton, Roy H. (2017). Crowdsourced tDCS Research: Feasible or Fanciful?AJOB Neuroscience, 8(1), 50-53.
Photo Post 1 – Cheese Tasting
On May 30th, we travelled to a local fromagerie for a cheese tasting. We tried 6 different cheeses from different regions of France, including one from the northwest region of Normandy known as camembert. Camembert is a soft cheese that features a creamy center and fermented outer shell. Recent research has been investigating the possible neuroprotective aspects of cheese and dairy products, specifically cheeses that have been fermented with bacteria. Epidemiological studies have shown preliminary evidence that fermented dairy products may be associated with prevention of cognitive decline. A recent study specifically examined the anti-inflammatory effects of microglia, possibly implicated in cases of dementia, and potential components of the cheese surface that could promote this activity (Ano, Kutsukake, Hoshi, Yoshida, & Nakayama, 2015). While this data is not yet clinically applicable, this line of research into neuroprotective effects of simple dietary changes has a lot of potential.
Works Cited:
Ano, Y., Kutsukake, T., Hoshi, A., Yoshida, A., & Nakayama, H. (2015). Identification of a novel Dehydroergosterol enhancing microglial anti-inflammatory activity in a dairy product fermented with Penicillium candidum. PLoS One, 10(3). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0116598
Elephants and dolphins and humans, oh my
Earlier this week, we took a class trip to Musée de l’Homme, which as your rudimentary French might suggest, specializes in all things human. This anthropological museum opened an exhibit just this past March titled, “Néandertal l’Expo,” and covers everything from general Neaderthal knowledge to lesser known facts and findings. Incorporating archeological findings, popular culture, and interactive displays, this exhibition comprehensively covers the misconceptions, controversies, and remaining mystery surrounding Neanderthal life and extinction, and is a must see for any Paris travelers with moderate to extreme interest in anthropological sciences. The rest of the museum includes everything from displays on evolution, human history, science of language, world cultures, gender issues, all the way to Lucy the 3 million-year-old Australopithecus and one of the most prominent fossil findings of all time.
Got concussions?
This past weekend, we traveled to Stade de France to watch the Top 14 final game in France, featuring Montpellier and the Castres. After being handed a Montpellier flag for free, we became avid fans (Fig. 1). Unfortunately, the Castres came out on top and won the coveted Brennus Shield. During our time at the game, we saw medics come out to the field four times, 3 fights, hundreds of tackles, and I believe a couple lost teeth. Needless to say, rugby is an unforgiving sport and results in copious amounts of player to player collisions (Fig. 2).
This high impact nature of the sport was the motivation behind a recent study that examined the effects of recurrent concussions in retired professional rugby players long-term (Decq et al., 2016). There has been a rise in concussion research within the past couple decades, stemming from findings of brain injury and abnormalities in boxers and more recently American football players that had suffered repeated blows to the head. However, much of the foundation of this work has been in post-mortem examinations of athletes who suffered severe neurological symptoms during their lifetime, or case studies that detail the decline in brain and cognitive functions of former contact sport athletes (Perrine, Helcer, Tsiouris, Pisapia, & Stieg, 2017). For us to establish a potentially causal link between these sports and these neurological effects, which are also prevalent to an extent in the general population, we need to perform larger scale, comparative studies, like the Decq et al. (2016) study. Continue reading “Got concussions?”
Mona Lisa Smile
Over this past weekend, my roommates and I toured almost all of the main Paris highlights, covering enough distance to walk across the diameter of Paris and back. The moment we were set free in the city, our first stop was to visit the illustrious museé de Louvre. After getting sidetracked in every room along the way by some masterpiece or another, and following some other equally confused tourists, we finally made it to the Mona Lisa. I had to push some innocent bystanders out of the way but was able to make to the front, directly in front of Mona herself, and she did not disappoint (Figure 1).
Over recent decades, research in the visual system and neural processing of visual arts has grown. There are novel insights into how visual information is sent to the brain, as well as how different pathways and even disorders help us understand how art is viewed and created. Ironically, this path has led us to much of the same conclusions and tactics that visual artists have been using for centuries. Leonardo da Vinci’s perhaps most renowned masterpiece is often characterized by her overall sense of ambiguity. Whether intentional or not, Mona Lisa appears almost androgynous, her gaze appears to follow you without making direct eye contact, and she sits there with the tiniest suggestion of a smile. The most typical question you are supposed to ask yourself while looking at her is whether or not she is smiling. Art historians will call her coy, playful, or confusing and accredit this to an intentionally blurry depiction of her mouth. However, work by renowned neurobiologist Dr. Margaret Livingstone may provide a purely scientific explanation for this, and has helped me apply my vast NBB301 visual system knowledge.
Continue reading “Mona Lisa Smile”