Brain Day

Had a very satisfying day last Saturday attending the Brain Day lectures. This year's theme was the sensational brain ie the interrelationship between neural injury or disorder and the senses. As well I know, the senses of taste and smell are affected in Parkinson's but one's  balance too relies on on the interplay of  the orientation centre in the inner ear, vision ("look where you're going, as somebody said to me recently as I was weaving all over the footpath), and the pressure of your feet on the ground, a veritable muti-tasking act requiring your full attention.  

Another interesting session was on the experience of pain, being an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with tissue damage, real or not. Some people it seems have a heightened response to pain, their receptors are stuck on high and they get amplified pain.  Their on cells, as it were, work overtime and their off cells don't work at all, requiring drug and/or  physio and psychological intervention to get some relief.  

Then there is the damage and sensory disturbance after neural injury eg from accidents or stroke this might be loss of sensation or abnormal sensation such as pain felt from a phantom limb which has been amputated.  Or perceiving things that don't exist as in hallucinations which can be auditory or visual.  

Here again I was struck by the amount of research and the implications of their findings on the well-being and treatment of people affected by neurological disorders.  There is hope for the future.