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Brain can view objects by touch alone

Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Posted by Vkay!!






According to researchers, the finding shows that these regions process information about objects using different types of sensory input.

The discovery was made after studying a man, known as HJA , who suffered a stroke that left a large bilateral lesion in part of the brain important for object recognition, specifically in the lateral occipital cortex (LO).

As a result, although the man was not blind, he could not process visual input normally; objects appeared to him as unrecognizable jumbles.

"It’s difficult to imagine. If he looked at a pen, he might see lines, but he couldn’t say which were the pen and which weren’t," Harriet Allen of the University of Birmingham said.

However, the man could still recognize everyday objects by grasping them, the study showed.

In the study, the researchers had HJA and control participants observe pictures of objects and scrambled images while they were being scanned by functional magnetic resonance imaging. Participants were also scanned while they touched objects with one hand.

Within a subset of the regions found in control participants, HJA showed activity only for tactile objects, suggesting that these regions are specifically involved in successful multi-modal recognition.

The results showed that activation of dorsal LO by tactile input is not secondary to visual recognition. Rather, it can operate directly through the sense of touch.

"Our data indicate, for the first time, that at least some regions in the LO can be activated normally from touch, even when input from ventral LO is lesioned and visual recognition is prevented. This is consistent with estimates of effective connectivity from fMRI that have implied that there are direct connections between somatosensory cortex and LO," the researchers said.

The study has been published online on May 28th in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication.


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Effective communication with stuttering people

Posted by Vkay!!


To make communication more effective with people, who have speech problems such as stuttering, it is a must that other people exert more effort inunderstanding the condition and knowing how to deal with them. The following are some tips that people without speech impediments can use to better communicate with people that stutter.

1. Fight the urge to end their sentences or say words for them. This is a very practical tip in creating better communication with people who stutter. Why? Because when try to finish their sentences, they get nervous and conscious that makes the room for error larger. Not doing this will make people stutter feel respected and one way of letting them know that they are not too different from normal people.

2. Refrain from saying words or phrases such as "Take a breath," "Relax," or "Slow down". When you say these phrases—even if you have good intentions—will only make the person who suffer from stuttering feel more like they are different and there's something wrong from them. Saying these things is like rubbing salt into the wound and will make them feel more ostracized from the society. Instead of saying these things, try more encouraging words such as "I understand" or "Go on" even if it takes them some time to finish the sentence.

3. Don’t look like you do not understand what he or she is saying. For people without speech problems, it is understandable to have a hard time understanding the words and sentences of people that suffer from stuttering. But then again, it is important that we show these people that they are no different from us. Most of the time stuttering is caused by none acceptance or rejection from a community. The best way to effectively send the message that we care is by understanding them even if it takes more time and effort.

4. Be more understanding and patient in listening to people who stutter. This can be shown by allowing the person to finish speaking. This is very important and a must be followed tip for communicating with people who stutter because one of the reasons behind all the stuttering that a person does is his anxiety and his lack of social skills. Being patient and allowing a person that stutters to finish what he is saying gives them the feeling of respect and acceptance which is important to their therapy.

5. Be more sensitive. If you are conversing with a person with speech problem such as stuttering, a moderate pace is very significant because it allows the conversation to naturally flow in a more relaxed manner and subtle rate. If you were talking too fast, this would put pressure on the person that stutter which will make it harder for him or her to communicate effectively.

6. Don’t show any signs of pity. The worse thing that can happen to a person with disabilities is to be treated with so much pity. Unless these people are asking for it we should look at them with pity. We should give them an equal chance to everything.

7. Always maintain eye contact. Making eye contact is important for strengthening respect. Looking a person in the eye in a conversation gives them the feeling of respect.

8. Don’t pretend that you understand what the stuttering person said even if you didn’t. Most people who stutter won't mind repeating themselves if you tell them honestly that you didn’t fully understand what he or she just said.

By saying, "I'm sorry, I didn't understand what you said" will help them exert more effort in communicating effectively.


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Water Facts : It Does Your Body Good!

Posted by Vkay!!


water-fizzle.jpg (400×300)

Approximately 75 percent of water in and on the Earth is in the oceans as salt water.

Water, the most abundant and most important nutrient in the body is as essential to life as the air we breathe. Since all body functions are dependent on water, it is evident that water is important for general physical fitness.

Copper excesses have been found in tissues of schizophrenic patients and have been traced to soft water eroding away copper pipes.

Water filters are only good if they remove the particular problem in your area and are serviced properly. This includes changing the filters on a regular basis.

According to the National Cancer Institute, nine studies correlated water quality and cancer with the drinking water in Pittsburgh, New Orleans and various cities in Ohio, New York and New Jersey.

Ice water may be harmful to persons with cardiovascular disease. Sudden drops in tissue temperatures are a shock to the system and cause a strain on the heart.

The colder the water we do drink with meals, the slower the digestive process works.

Drinking water with meals is not beneficial, since we have the tendency to wash foods down instead of adequately chewing them up.

Hot water is more dangerous than using cold water and heating it. Hot water is more corrosive and can contain larger amounts of dangerous debris.

If you consume 15 to 23 eight ounce glasses of water in a one hour period, it could be dangerous to your health.

Water in our bodies dissolves the foods, carries nutrients to various pars of the body, leaves the body as perspiration, helps maintain the normal body temperature, cleanses our systems of wastes, and is then eliminated through the kidneys at the rate of three to eight pints per day.

Americans are spending over 2.4 billion dollars on bottled water annually and are purchasing almost that dollar amount in home purifying equipment.


Most all filter systems only remove large particles. They still leave the small ones, such as viruses, etc.

There are 55,000 chemical dump holes across the United States, according to the EPA, that can leak contaminants into the water supplies in those areas.

Forty-seven percent of the water supply in the U.S. goes for food production.

To feed one person in the United States for a year, it requires approximately 1,726,000 gallons of water.

Other chemicals, such as chlorine, fluorine, phosphates, alum, sodium aluminates, and others are frequently added to drinking water for purification. Fluoridation is considered by some to be the most dangerous of all methods of treating water. Sodium fluoride, one of the most poisonous of all chemical compounds, is the active ingredient in rat poisons and moth control preparations.

Water Facts : It Does Your Body Good!

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