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Welcome to the Neuroscience for Kids Newsletter.
In this issue:
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Neuroscience for Kids had several new additions in January including:
A. January Neuroscience for Kids Newsletter was archived
http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/news2301.html
B. Neuroscience in the News
http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/inthenews.html
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The Neuroscience for Kids "Site of the Month" for February is the University of Chicago "MRI Brain Atlas" at:
https://jhpmribrainatlas.rcc.uchicago.edu/
I have always been fascinated with maps. For example, I always carry city maps when I travel, topographic maps when I hike in the mountains and guide maps when I visit a museum. A map of the brain is called an "atlas." Dr. Javad Hekmat-panah, a neurosurgeon/neurologist at UChicago Medicine, has created a brain atlas using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to help people learn their way around the brain.
Start the atlas by clicking on the "MRI BRAIN ATLAS" link at the top right side of the opening web page. Read through the instructions and then enter the atlas by clicking on the "Start Atlas" link at the bottom of the page. You will need to have Adobe Flash Player installed on your computer. Click the "Start" link at the bottom right side of this new page to choose the type of sections (axial, coronal or sagittal) you want to view. After you choose one of these views, you can select from several sections. Each section labels the various structures that are visible. You can turn the labels off if you want to test yourself.
It's easy to get lost as you travel through the brain using this atlas. But don't worry. You can always return to the main page by clicking on the "home" icon on each page.
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The 2019 Neuroscience for Kids Drawing Contest is now closed and judging has begun. Winners will be contacted by email and sent their prizes.
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Brain Awareness Week (BAW) is a yearly event to promote the public and personal benefits of brain research. The official dates for BAW are March 11-17, 2019.
Everyone can participate in BAW. You might want to organize your own BAW event with demonstrations, exhibits, artwork or experiments. The Society for Neuroscience has some great ideas to help you get involved (http://www.sfn.org/baw). If you can’t have your own BAW event, then perhaps you can attend a BAW activity near you. You can find BAW events in your city by searching the Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives calendar here:
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While I was at the Society for Neuroscience meeting last November, the Dana Foundation asked if they could ask me some questions about teaching neuroscience to young students. The results of this short interview were uploaded to the Dana Foundation YouTube channel recently:
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A. "How the Brain Reads Faces by Doris Y. Tsao is the cover story of the February, 2019, issue of SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN.
B. "Mind Over Meal" by Bret Stetka (SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, January, 2019).
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A. An estimated one in four adults worldwide will have a stroke sometime in their lifetime. (Source: The GBD 2016 Lifetime Risk of Stroke Collaborators, Global, regional, and country-specific lifetime risks of stroke, 1990 and 2016, New England Journal Medicine, 379:2429-2437, 2018, DOI: 10.1056/NEJMoa1804492)
B. Composer Johann Sebastian Bach (born, 1685; died, 1750) was totally blind after a failed eye operation to treat his cataracts (Source: Tarkkanen, A., Blindness of Johann Sebastian Bach, Acta Ophthalmol., 91:191-192, 2013.)
C. The aye-aye (Daubentonia madagascariensis) is thought to be the only primate that uses echolocation to find food. (Source: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/a/aye-aye/).
D. The Ganges river dolphin (Platanista gangetica) does not have a lens in its eye.
E. The fire salamander (Salamandra salamandra) produces neurotoxins that can be sprayed at attackers.
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the Neuroscience for Kids Newsletter, send e-mail to Dr. Eric H. Chudler
at: chudler@u.washington.edu
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Your comments and suggestions about this newsletter and the "Neuroscience for Kids" web site are always welcome. If there are any special topics that you would like to see on the web site, just let me know.Eric
Eric H. Chudler, Ph.D.
(e-mail: chudler@u.washington.edu)
(URL:
http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/neurok.html)