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Welcome to Ormond Neuroscience’s wonderful brain blog. Here you’ll find a great collection of interesting posts about the brain, neuropsychology and neuroscience. The brain is such an awesome piece of biological equipment, carefully honed by evolution over the course of millennia to be the powerful organ that you have encased inside your skull. Without your brain, you’d not exist. With your brain, you can generate an infinite number of thoughts, imagine the impossible, dream of your future and reminisce about your past.

Which Organ is the most Important?

Which is the most important organ in the human body? You can do without your gall bladder, get by on one kidney, and still survive, albeit precariously, without your liver. Seems to me that it comes down to your heart and your brain. I’m certainly not the only person to believe that the brain is the most critical organ!

Sure, your heart is important and, yes, you die when it malfunctions, but ultimately it is just a pump.  A truly remarkable pump, for sure, but still just a pump.  It’s your brain that allows you to experience being alive, your heart just keeps you alive.  On the scale of which is the most important organ, there is no doubt that your brain is number one. 

It’s your brain that creates meaning, your brain that sees the connections between things, your brain that facilitates insight, grasps semantics and gives you bursts of creativity. It’s your brain that lets you feel joy, that allows for the feeling of exhilaration, that lets you fall in love.  Ultimately, even orgasm is a function of the brain.

So, take your brain on a journey of self-exploration and browse our brain blog. We have fascinating articles on the following topics in our blog:

Click one of the links above to explore a specific subject area or read our most recent posts, as shown below.

An Awesome Neuroplasticity Power Surge to Boost Recovery

Neuroplasticity is critical to brain function. It’s so critical, that without it, you would die! Wow! That’s a surprising statement.…

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The Horror of Wildfires: Smoking out our Beautiful Brains

The Surprising Connection Between Wildfire Smoke and Brain Health: What You Need to Know Wildfires are getting worse. Look at…

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Special Treatment For Inflammation And Misfolded Proteins

Current Research and Therapeutics for Misfolded Proteins Can we attribute intentionality to inflammation? Perhaps it was originally well-intentioned, the good…

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The Remarkable Phenomena of Mad Cows, Knotted Nerves & Misfolded Proteins

The Classic Case of Misfolded Proteins Did you know that misfolded proteins cause Mad Cow Disease? Strictly speaking, people don’t…

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New Evidence Shows Breathing In Air Pollution Linked To Alzheimer’s

Toxic air pollution increases the risk of Alzheimer’s disease. The closer you live to major roads, the higher the chances…

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The Awesome Complexity & Astonishing Beauty of Proteostasis

Misguided & Misguiding: Misfolded Proteins Proteostasis is the system our bodies use to keep proteins in functional balance. Normally, it…

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Happiness in a Pill: Do Antidepressants Really Work?

Do antidepressants really work? Well, for some people with severe major depressive disorder there are some benefits. However, the less…

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The Magic of Levodopa in Parkinson’s Disease

Why do we give levodopa to people with Parkinson’s disease instead of dopamine? After all, loss of dopamine, a major…

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Does Stroke Cause Scar Tissue In The Heart?

Cardiac Scar Tissue After Stroke. The consequences of stroke are long-lasting, not just on the brain but also on other…

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Safety of Ritalin: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

The safety of Ritalin has been in the spotlight in recent years.  Ritalin is widely used to manage the symptoms…

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Powerful Tools to Boost Neuroplasticity after TBI

How do you boost neuroplasticity after a traumatic brain injury?  What can you do to ensure that you make the…

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Turns Out That Depression Isn’t Strongly Genetic After All. Really? Astonishing!

A powerful piece of medical dogma is the notion that depression has genetic roots.  This is the idea that if…

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Mental Illness, Love and Telomeres

Telomere length predicts lifespan.   Now, a new study has shown an association between childhood trauma, shortened telomere length and mental…

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Short-cuts Result in the Misdiagnosis of Dementia: It’s Terrible!

A recent study showed a high rate of misdiagnosis of dementia when using brief cognitive screening tools. Incredibly, 35.7% of…

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Scary Risk of Worsening after Elective Abortion in MS Patients

Wow, this is a remarkable finding…  Pregnant multiple sclerosis (MS) sufferers who undergo elective abortion have significantly increased risk for…

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Do herpes and inflammation make you cranky?

Confocal microscope image of cerebellar Purkinje cells.  Stained with tdTomato, they appear golden!  Image courtesy of National Institute on Alcohol…

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The Amazing Microanatomy of the Synapse

Synaptic Update Wow, what a fascinating take on the synapse!  Compare these two images of the active zone of a…

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Amazing Plan to Neutralise the Bad Guys in Alzheimer’s Disease

If you have one copy of a gene called apoE4, then your chances of developing Alzheimer’s disease are more than…

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Watch out! Artificial sweeteners increase risk for stroke and dementia!

If you consume drinks that contain artificial sweeteners in preference to those that contain sugar, you have an increased risk…

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Was Asperger a bad guy? Did he have Asperger’s?

Startling new evidence shows that Hans Asperger, after whom Asperger’s syndrome is named, was a Nazi sympathiser. He referred mentally…

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The poor little boy who got baked for too long

How long can baby can stay in mum’s tum? Most of us are aware that premature delivery of a baby…

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Amazing Potential Benefits Of Intermittent Fasting For Dementia

Recent research in humans shows that intermittent fasting results in greater diversity of the gut microbiota.  Furthermore, intermittent fasting resulted…

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The Surprise of High-Fat Diet, Brain Swelling and Memory

If you’re eating a high-fat diet, you could be causing inflammation in your brain! High-fat diet? Think burgers and ‘some…

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Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) by the Millions: Amazing Stats

“Worldwide, more  than 50 million people have a traumatic brain injury (TBI) each year, and it is estimated that about…

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Neuroscience Myths: Recovery After TBI Plateaus At Two Years

One of the myths in the neurosciences is that recovery after TBI (traumatic brain injury) plateaus two years after the…

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The Magic and Curse of Oxygenation After Brain Injury

Oxygenation as Treatment for Brain Injury Should we treat brain injury patients with oxygenation? It seems an almost silly question.…

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Diffusion Tensor Imaging: The Spectacular Power and Awesome Beauty

Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) created these beautiful brain scans. You’d think that the colours were added by a creative artist.…

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Is There A Viral Cause Of Alzheimer’s?

Could Alzheimer’s disease (AD) be due to a viral cause? This idea links to the importance of olfactory impairment in…

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Anosmia: When you can’t smell the roses anymore

Impaired sense of smell (anosmia) is an early warning sign of neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s dementia, Parkinson’s disease, Korsakoff’s…

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Rotten Teeth make for a Rotten Brain

Oral bacteria in Alzheimer’s brains. Rotten teeth are associated with dementia. Recently, researchers were amazed to find a seven-fold increase…

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Interpersonal Violence: An Unparalleled Horror In South Africa

In South Africa the leading cause of traumatic brain injury (TBI) is interpersonal violence, whereas in most countries motor vehicle…

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Spectacular Results: New Findings In Cannabis And Epilepsy

Finally, some decent quality research into cannabis and epilepsy. A paper published in the New England Journal of Medicine discusses…

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Strange but True: Horrific Tapeworm in the Brain

Neurocysticercosis: Tapeworm in the Brain Did you know that you can get tapeworm in the brain? It goes by the…

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Amazingly, Dissociative Seizures Are not Really Epilepsy

Dissociative Seizures We have been seeing an increasing number of patients with dissociative seizures at Ormond Neuroscience.  Alternatively, perhaps I…

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