NBB Summer Program in Paris

June 13, 2022June 13, 2022

15 Minutes of Musée

Eugenie Fiocre by Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux (1863)

Even though this was our two paper week, Zoe and I still found time to visit the Musee d’Orsay on Wednesday afternoon. It’s about a 15 minute walk along the Seine from our apartment, and we stopped at the Bouquinistes, or booksellers, on our way for some posters and trinkets. We’re going to have to go back again this week because we only got through the first two floors, which focused a lot on the architecture of Paris and also featured many sculptures. On my unofficial quest to incorporate dance into every blog post, I found a bust of Eugenie Fiocre by Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux from 1863. I was initially drawn to the bust because of its intricacies in the details of the fabric and hair, but with the help of my trusty google translate app, I realized Eugenie Fiocre was a principal dancer with the Paris Opera Ballet. She was the first to dance many of the principal roles in ballets the company still performs today and is even depicted in a Degas painting. She was definitely a huge celebrity in France in the late 1800s, which was a really interesting concept to think about. From what I’ve seen around Paris thus far, only very powerful people like politicians or war heroes have had busts of themselves made, so it was cool to see a famous dancer also be immortalized in this way.

L’Escalier de l’Opéra (The Opera Staircase) by Victor Navlet (1880). This painting depicts the Royal Opera house, where Fiocre would have performed.

This got me thinking about the persistence of the idea of fame and celebrity throughout history. I wondered what it is about humans that makes us become so invested in the lives of people we don’t know. There has been research investigating what makes some people more prone to “celebrity worship” than others (McCutcheon et al. 2002). In some cases, people can become so invested in the lives of their favorite celebrities that they become addicted to feeling a personal connection with that person. The Celebrity Worship Scale, created by McCutcheon, Lange, and Houran, laid the groundwork for a study by Sansone et al. in 2014. They identified celebrity worship as a continuum ranging from enjoying watching and reading about a celebrity to showing excessive empathy and obsessive behavior toward a celebrity (Sansone et al. 2014). These studies show how the idea of celebrity in human culture has had an impact on clinical psychiatry, which I had not thought about before. From even before Eugenie Fiocre to the Kardashians today, humans have been fascinated by fame for many years, not without implications on the brain.

Me outside the museum, looking especially Parisian in a linen overshirt.

References:

McCutcheon, L. E., Lange, R., & Houran, J. (2002). Conceptualization and measurement of celebrity worship. British journal of psychology (London, England : 1953), 93(Pt 1), 67–87.

Sansone, R. A., & Sansone, L. A. (2014). “I’m Your Number One Fan”- A Clinical Look at Celebrity Worship. Innovations in clinical neuroscience, 11(1-2), 39–43.

June 13, 2022June 13, 2022

Surprise ! It’s a soccer match!

On Friday, June 3rd, my group presented article 3 which focused on the association between participation in professional rugby and mild traumatic brain injuries. Our group introduced the article with a brief presentation on how the game of rugby works, including the different player positions and responsibilities on the field. Leaving class as rugby experts, we were excited to travel to the Stade de France to watch a rugby match between France and Denmark.

As my roommate and I were walking toward the stadium from the metro, we realized the crazy number of fans that were waiting in line to get in. After getting the flag of France painted on our cheeks to prove team pride and blend in, we made our way into the enormous stadium to search for our seats. Minutes before the game started, we finally realized that the field setup did not match the rugby setup. Instead of the H-shaped goal posts, there were two soccer goals.

As I took this photo, the realization hit that this looked suspiciously like a soccer game.

Although it wasn’t what we were expecting, it was certainly a nice surprise! We were originally tasked to pick out a rugby player and keep track of each time they suffered a hit to the head for the duration of the match. Shifting our task to the soccer match, we noticed that there were few to no instances that the players received a hit to the head unintentionally. Instead, the players seemed to intentionally hit the soccer ball with their heads as part of a play. The combination of so much movement across the field and no real-time replays resulted in an estimation that the French team’s individuals had this type of hit at least 7 times.

Jewel, Khushi, Solanch, and me when we found out we were at a soccer match!

Following the preliminary discussion of mTBI in professional rugby players and reflecting on the soccer match, I was curious to learn more about the prevalence of concussions. According to Bunc et al.,2017, a professional soccer player hits the ball with their head between 6-17 times per match. As with professional rugby players, a team of researchers also found “increased evidence for brain atrophy”, or loss of neurons and neuronal connections when they compared imaging to a non-soccer player control group (Tysvaer et al., 1989). These specific findings led to recommendations on emphasizing head injury assessment and treatment, using proper head play techniques, and using a different size ball (3-5) depending on the age ranges of the players. It’s interesting to learn and see how neuroscience findings translate to real-world implications.

Bunc, G., Ravnik, J., & Velnar, T. (2017). May Heading in Soccer Result in Traumatic Brain Injury? A Review of Literature. Medical archives (Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina), 71(5), 356–359. https://doi.org/10.5455/medarh.2017.71.356-359

Tysvaer, A. T., Storli, O. V., & Bachen, N. I. (1989). Soccer injuries to the brain. A neurologic and electroencephalographic study of former players. Acta neurologica Scandinavica, 80(2), 151–156. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1600-0404.1989.tb03858.x

June 13, 2022June 13, 2022

Ancient Burr Hole Equipment

Last week, we visited the Musée d’Histoire de la Médecine at Université Paris Cité. The museum was very beautiful with lots of wood paneling and skylights. There were also quite a few paintings that depicted how medicine was conducted in the earlier centuries. The main part of the museum, however, was the medical equipment. A case of tools used for drilling burr holes in the skull can be seen in the picture above. Burr holes have been used for centuries to treat intracranial diseases and release pressure. In the past, it was believed that burr holes could rid people of evil spirits. Today, drilling burr holes is much more precise and requires MRI and CT imaging to ensure it is being done in the correct place. The technology is also much more advanced, so the drills only cut through bone and spare the brain tissue.

June 13, 2022June 13, 2022

A Visit With Unique Wax Models

Today we ventured to the Musée de Moulages for the second time. Although it was an optional excursion, I was excited to go and see the different skin disease and conditions. Traveling to the museum allowed us to walk through a new arrondissement of Paris and see a beautiful canal. Held within hospital grounds, we saw patients enjoying the outdoors and doctors taking a break or walking to a neighboring building in the hospital.

One of the photographs displayed in the entryway of the museum to illustrate a dermatological condition.

Upon entering the museum, we saw drawings and paintings of patients with different skin conditions. In the entryway, there was a sculpture of Louis IX, the ancestor of Henry IV. Upstairs housed the real exhibit: over 4,800 castings of all types of dermatological problems, from syphilitic chancres to eczema to elephantiasis. Jules Baretta is the one who first started making the wax dermatological models after his great success with his realistic models of fruit. Despite these fascinating displays, we were strictly prohibited from taking photos, as they came from moldings of real patients, so the museum is protecting their privacy. I think it is important that the museum values the privacy of the patients so strongly, even though the patients are most likely dead.

A selfie with the different photographs and drawings of dermatological patients.

I was most fascinated by the syphilis exhibition, one of their largest displays with 442 wax models. In class, we learned about neurosyphilis and ocular syphilis and their corresponding symptoms. As I was a part of the group who presented on this target article, I had the pleasure of finding Google Images of these symptoms, such as the chancres. I realized that Google Images only displayed the mild versions of the symptoms. The extent to which syphilis can affect the body is truly horrifying, most of which I don’t think I’ll be able to unsee. I think modern medicine has come a long way since the creation of some of these castings. Doctors can detect syphilis sooner and treat it easily with penicillin, so the symptoms are not as severe.

It is important that these skin diseases are still understood and studied, even though we use photographs instead of wax models, because there has been a rise of syphilis in the past two decades, specifically in women and congenital syphilis. The museum displayed the presence of congenital syphilis in babies, and it was very unfortunate. Testing for neurosyphilis can still be difficult, but doctors normally rely on the CSF Venereal Disease Research Laboratory with a higher titer cutoff to diagnose neurosyphilis (Chow, 2021). Without modern medicine and antibiotics, a lot more people would die from syphilis and neurosyphilis.

Chow F. (2021). Neurosyphilis. Continuum (Minneapolis, Minn.), 27(4), 1018–1039. https://doi.org/10.1212/CON.0000000000000982

June 13, 2022June 13, 2022

Musee des Moulages

Our Visit to the Dermatology museum on June 7th was very surprising. I went in expecting to not feel nauseated, but after the visit I did. We weren’t allowed to take pictures because all the molds were made from real-life patients, and taking pictures would be unethical. This visit connected to both our neuroscience classes, since we were able to connect our paper about syphilis and how a nervous system disease can also manifest onto the skin. We were able to connect our neuroscience knowledge about the neurological and ocular changes over various stages of syphilis and apply them while seeing the molds that represented the various stages of the disease on the skin.

I was also able to connect to my neuroethics research when we were informed about the reason we weren’t allowed to take pictures. It was refreshing to see how museums also require ethical guidelines when displaying structures taken from real-life patients.

My picture with the various frames of famous pathologists, dermatologists, and scientists who contributed to the museum, on the stairs leading to the museum. (We were permitted to take pictures here)

June 13, 2022June 13, 2022

Monet On My Mind

Last Sunday on June 12th I went to Giverny, Paris to visit the gardens and house of Claude Monet. My friend, Jewel and I took the SNCF train from Saint Lazare to Vernon-Giverny station from which we rented a bicycle from a nearby shop to go to Giverny. We set sail on our bikes along the French countryside and rode our way to Monet’s house.

We reached the most beautiful little town I have ever seen! The whole town was filled with colorful flowers ranging from Lillies to peonies to even white roses. We got our tickets and went straight to Monet’s gardens. The garden’s entrance felt like being in an enchanted maze, filled with the sound of birds and a feel of fresh air. I felt rejuvenated walking through Monet’s gardens and the town of Giverny itself, and I wondered why I felt so calm and energized simultaneously. We talked about neurotechnology in class- feelzing- a company manufacturing a device that stimulates the brain to feel calm and energized at the same time, and I wondered how I felt this way without a device. The only possible reason I could think of was Nature and its effects on the mind.

Riding along the Seine to get to Giverny. We rode for 6 km along the river and hillside until we reached the small town of Giverny.

It is common knowledge that being in nature helps reduce anxiety and stay calm- a sort of very natural meditation many of us experience. It is also commonly perceived that people who tend to live near a lot of nature including trees, forests, lakes, sea, mountains, etc., or interact with nature daily are happier than those who do not interact with or in nature. According to White et al. (2013), increasing green space in urban areas promotes reduced mental distress and higher well-being on an individual level. There exists an interesting theory known as the Biophilia hypothesis, proposed by Harvard biologist Edward O Wilson, that suggests that humans have an innate affiliation to other living organisms, and this spans across all cultures and countries (Selhub, Logan 2012). Biophilia is a hypothesis that may be able to explain the connection many of us feel when we are amidst nature.

According to Cox et al. (2017), increased vegetation cover and bird sound abundance were positively associated with a lower prevalence of depression, anxiety, and stress. Biologically, this increase in mental health is due to the various smells that we experience in nature including flowers, nectar, water, and also the sounds we experience from various birds, insects, animals, and moving water which helps us recover from stress than sounds of urban life, (Alvarsson et al., 2010).

Me enjoying the little pond and forest behind Monet’s house which influenced a lot of his paintings. One of his most famous series of paintings- The water Lilly series was inspired by the water lilies and bridge behind his house.

Overall, this was one of the best trips I have experienced until now and I would recommend going to Giverny to anyone looking for a “secret garden” escape from their busy life. Cycling along the Seine across the country hillside was a great therapeutic choice after a hectic week of work and papers.

References:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2872309/

https://books.google.fr/books?hl=en&lr=&id=CFd_7ujLlwgC&oi=fnd&pg=PA1&dq=being+in+nature+and+the+brain&ots=I848kBeiEQ&sig=EY9pICdBZlVPamw6uE0Gp7erWu0&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=being%20in%20nature%20and%20the%20brain&f=false

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0956797612464659

https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/67/2/147/2900179?login=true

https://jech.bmj.com/content/72/10/958.abstract

June 12, 2022June 23, 2022