Thursday, June 9, 2011

Biopsychology - Letter to my Professor

I spent quite a while compiling all the resources to post this email to my professor and figured some of you might find the content intriguing or entertaining. In any case here it is:

Hello Steven,

I am not sure how busy you are but if you have a moment you might find this of interest. I was the student who had to leave early today and brought up the use of tongue stimulation as a method of therapy for "wobblers". You asked me at the time if someone was involved in the project and I cannot remember who you named so I found the relevant articles.



The article about the woman involved in the experiment can be found here: http://scienceblogs.com/neurophilosophy/2008/07/perpetually_falling_woman_learns_to_balance_with_her_tongue.php

A video of her improving her balance can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=US&feature=related&hl=iw&v=Z36LxkWt0Dk

I hope that clears up the question of whether or not the researcher you mentioned was involved.



As well as a tack on bonus considering we are doing a unit on vision I thought these two articles might be of interest:

A new imaging technique allows for imaging of rods and cones in great detail (published yesterday): http://www.opticsinfobase.org/boe/abstract.cfm?uri=boe-2-7-1864

The images are found from page 6 onwards if you wish to skip the reading.



As a final note the idea of using a 500x500 array of electrodes for recording or inducing vision got me thinking back to an older article I read that deals with facial hallucinations (sort of along the lines of the person/fire hydrant/car image you showed us), the article can be found here and the upscaling images are found on page 4: http://www.iipl.fudan.edu.cn/~zhangjp/publications/ICME2009.pdf



If you do not have time to bother with these I fully understand,

Thank you for your time,

Stowdashay

I doubt this will be of interest to many but the video showing the woman's ability to balance with the help of electrodes on her tongue is awesome.

9 comments:

  1. That's very interesting. Amazing how her balance improved so quickly.

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  2. Good read, have a great weekend!

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  3. This seems like some complicated sciency stuff. I think the professor will like your mail! :)

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  4. How does the electrical stimulation compare to the stimulation of imagining holding a floating balloon? I know and have seen how quickly people struggling on one leg stabilize when the imagine holding a balloon with one hand.

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  5. Wow convictus! I tried that and it really does seem to aid in your ability to balance. I will have to ask my professor what is happening in that case. What I can say is that the electrical stimulation in this case was to the tongue and allowed her to feel the different directions via her tongue. I will get back to you on this!

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  6. This is so strange, and fascinating. Thanks for sharing!

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  7. Don't you know anyone who sticks out or curls their tongue when balancing or aiming?

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