Category Archives: Edition 1

Epilepsy is a neurological condition that affects 50-300 million people globally and is characterized by abnormal brain activity resulting in the presence and recurrence of seizures.1 Of the affected individuals, 30% exhibit drug-resistant epilepsy (DRE), a form of epilepsy in which current anti-epileptic drugs are ineffective in treating their condition.

COVID-19 is the current global pandemic that has affected millions around the world. While it appears that respiratory distress such as fever, dry cough, lung inflammation, and pneumonia are common symptoms among COVID-19 patients, neurological symptoms such as anosmia and ageusia are also becoming more common.

I walk along a path not seen by man, Converging on two roads, what path shall I take? As a decision has already been made, I follow the will of my brain. 

Electroencephalography (EEG) has long been used to measure brain activity. An event-related potential (ERP) measures an EEG response to a specific stimulus, usually over several hundred milliseconds¹. There are several ERP components, named based on their polarity and latency, that provide insight into human perceptual processes and impairments in certain conditions, such as concussion.

Most people learn about colours in kindergarten. Blue and yellow makes green, red and blue makes purple! Despite this, even today, much is unknown about the science of colour perception. However, a good understanding of current theories is crucial to help advance our knowledge of how colour is perceived. 

I wanted to visually represent regions of the brain alongside some of their respective functions. The frontal lobe is responsible from emotion, movement, speech and problem solving. The parietal lobe is responsible for spatial awareness, tactile sensation and hot and cold perception.

Dr. Macknik and Dr. Martinez-Conde have been working on a new approach to implant devices into the human brain to restore vision in patients that experience blindness. Their new prosthetic system, called OBServ, should perform better and restore vision to levels unreached by traditional visual prosthetics.

Reading peer-reviewed articles is a fundamental skill that is at the core of learning about and participating in science. It is the primary method by which the community keeps up-to-date with new findings and ideas. It can sometimes be intimidating to read a scientific paper, especially in an unfamiliar field filled with jargon.