BrainBlog

The INS conference has opened. Registration Desks and morning CE programs ongoing.

I have two favorite parts of any INS conference: The agora of poster sessions and The Birch Lecture (named for Herbert Birch). The Benton and - now - the Satz Awards are nostalgic reminders. Finally, Plenary C looks interesting: "Generation of New Hippocampal Neurons in the Adult Brain: Implications for Mental Health", as does Invited Symposium 3: "Global Neuroscience: Impact of Culture, Resources, and Education". I have always tracked the The Birch Lecture. Herbert G. Birch was, from all accounts, a wonderful person and an extraordinary teacher. When I was an undergraduate student, I received mentoring in developmental biopsychology from several of his colleagues and students (Susan Fleischer, Tina Moreau, and Gerald Turkewitz). I worked as a student with rat models of perinatal malnutrition, which was a methodological offshoot of his long interest in malnutrition and poverty. My MA thesis was based on his groundbreaking work exploring neonatal lateralization. He...

Just a few weeks until the Annual Meeting of the International Neuropsychological Society (INS). The conference will take place in Midtown Manhattan.

An excellent resource from the University of British Columbia (UBC) and Dr. Claudia Krebs: "Functional Neuroanatomy" link

Creating about 20 minutes of lecture content using the book by Hogancamp and Shellen and the documentary film (not the recent Hollywood movie).

Spring semester 2019 starts on Monday.

Happy Birthday, Dr. Brenda Milner! Dr. Milner has turned one-hundred years of age!

From the FDA: Early Alzheimer’s Disease: Developing Drugs for Treatment Guidance for Industry (Draft Guidance) February 2018 Early Alzheimer’s Disease: Developing Drugs for Treatment Guidance for Industry (Draft Guidance)

Simple Ways to Be Better at Remembering By Adam Popescuoct The New York Times 19 October 2017 article

Looking at a choice of a new psychopharmacology textbook for the course I teach on the topic. Do I go with the newer edition of Gregory, one of the Stahl books, or Iversen and colleagues ... or some other choice? For the clinical portions of the text, one that is linked to ICD-10 (or, at worst, DSM-5), is obviously preferred to one linked older classification systems. One with strong PK/PD content and one dealing with contentious practical issues (e.g., off-label use) would be good. How the text deals with regulatory drug discovery and drug registration processes in US and Europe would be useful but not determinative - as the topic can be handled better in class lectures and with regulatory documentation pdfs.

The Society for Neuroscience 2017 Annual Conference will be held from the 11th through the 15 of November in Washington, DC. Here is the Conference's homepage: SfN 2017 Quoting from the Conference homepage: === SfN’s 47th annual meeting, Neuroscience 2017, is the world’s largest neuroscience conference for scientists and physicians devoted to understanding the brain and nervous system. SfN invites you to its renowned venue where neuroscientists collaborate and network with peers, learn from experts, explore the newest neuroscience tools and technologies, and discover great career opportunities. Neuroscience 2017 is November 11-15 at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center. Join more than 30,000 colleagues from more than 80 countries at the world’s largest marketplace of ideas and tools for global neuroscience. To get the biggest discounts, make sure you join or renew your SfN membership now! Want the latest news about the meeting? Sign up for annual meeting e-aler...

Marian C. Diamond, 90, Student of the Brain, Is Dead By William Grimes The New York Times 16 August 2017 Read here

Dr. Keith Conners Obituary

The most detailed scan of the wiring of the human brain BBC News 03 July 2017 Link here

From The National Academies Of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine Health and Medicine Division Board on Health Sciences Policy Committee on Preventing Dementia and Cognitive Impairment Preventing Cognitive Decline and Dementia: A Way Forward Released: June 22, 2017 Available here

As June is Aphasia Awareness Month, I note I recently submitted a chapter about aphasia to be published next year. Aphasia is the loss of acquired language abilities due to brain damage, such as stroke. Neuropsychologists are often called upon to determine the nature and severity of these changes to language functioning. My contribution is a biography of Dr. Katharine McBride, a psychologist working with neurologist Dr. Theodore Weisenburg from 1929 through 1934. They created the first comprehensive aphasia testing battery that was based on the triad of: the use of psychometric tests, tests were standardized in format and scoring, and test performances included the comparative results of performances by healthy adults. McBride’s enduring contribution to aphasia assessment remains all the more exceptional as she started her role in this clinical research whilst still a graduate student. Katharine McBride would leave psychological research to become the very successful fourth preside...

Dr. Peggy Mason reported on her blog and on twitter that she will debut a new version of her MOOC course later this year: Blog post The new course will follow closely the contents of the new edition of her textbook.