E08 Podcast: The Unique Human Brain: Clues from Neurology

This fifty minute podcast, recorded at the EDUCAUSE 2008 Annual Conference, features a speech by V.S. Ramachandran, Professor and Director of the Center for Brain and Cognition at the University of California, San Diego. The speech is entitled, "The Unique Human Brain: Clues from Neurology." Video for this speech is also available.

Phantom limbs foster understanding of brain function. Far from having fixed connections, even the basic "wiring" of the brain is constantly modified in response to changing sensory inputs. This has theoretical as well as practical implications for recovery of function from stroke phantom pain and RSD, a chronic pain condition, ushering in a new era for treating neurological diseases. Synesthesia, an inherited condition in which sounds and printed numbers are seen as colors, has a neural basis, which might provide clues to understanding high-level brain functions such as metaphor and abstraction that make human brains unique.