Left-handed people really do have different brains and genes from right-handed people. Yet left-handed people are almost never included as study subjects in scientific research. Therefore in an article in Nature Reviews Neuroscience, Roel Willems and his colleagues from the Donders Institute and Max Planck Institute in Nijmegen call for more research into left-handed people. The article was published online on 12 February 2014.

Left-handed people are rarely included as study subjects for brain or genetic research because the differences with right-handed people cause noise in the final results. However, left-handed people form about ten percent of the entire population and their brains and genes contain interesting information about the functioning of both halves of the brain as well as about several psychiatric disorders. 'Research into left-handed people is therefore interesting because of the noise they cause', thinks neuroscientist Roel Willems from the Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour at Radboud University Nijmegen. With the opinion article he calls upon his fellow researchers to stop excluding left-handed people from studies.

Missed chance for the neurosciences

'One of our studies from 2009 clearly shows why research into left-handed people is so vital', says Willems. 'According to the textbooks, facial recognition takes place in the right half of the brain. Our research revealed that the same process takes place in both halves of the brain in the case of left-handed people, but with the same final outcome. That is a fundamental difference. And left-handed people might process other important information differently as well. The minimal amount of research into this is, in my view, a missed chance for the neurosciences.'

SOURCE
http://medicalxpress.com/news/2014-02-scientists-urged-excluding-left-handed-people.html

TYPES OF HANDEDNESS
Redirected handedness = learned handedness
Natural handedness = genetic or inherited
Pathological handedness = caused by brain injury or other pathology

( notesCollapse )

You will find me down by the river,
getting high on my mortality;
I'll be holding hands with that nameless beauty,
or whoever wants to stand next to me.
--Sinead Lohan lyric

Thoracic Outlet Syndrome Tests have poor validity, as there is a false positive rate of 53-92%. So if someone does this test on you and you have a positive result (usually a + is elicited pain/numbness/tingling or loss of a pulse), it doesn't mean anything for sure. Positive tests should be "assessed cautiously".
( moreCollapse )

MIDTERM IS WEEK 5
bring fasting info page for Thea
don't mobilize hands/wrists in case of arthritis until you have a firm dx
know the disease process
don't do grade 3+ if inflamed
( notes on Frangos' lab class 2-5pmCollapse )

Which condition demonstrates nonuniform joint space narrowing, osteophytes, subchondral sclerosis, & subchondral cysts?
( moreCollapse )

I am hanging out at a roadside pullout with lots of hippies, somewhere in the south. There is a river down below, but the crowd isn't interested in the river. Instead everybody is hanging out with the cars and smoking dope. They're a friendly crowd and I am right at home. I am doing something, and when I finish I decide to head north, but instead I drive south. I go south a few miles before checking the map, turning around, and heading back toward more familiar grounds.
( moreCollapse )

CARPAL TUNNEL SYNDROME
--CTS-->median nerve compression neuropathy (pinkie & 1/2 ring finger not involved)
--swelling, inflam, pressure in tunnel
--ETIO: trauma, overuse (flex, ext, gripping, keyboard), constriction (tenosynovitis of flexor tendons, RA, osteoarthritis, ganglion or neuroma) systemic conditions (diabetes, pregnancy, obesity, hypothyroid, renal dz)
--S/Sx: pain in wrist and hand, burning, numnbness and tingling in fingers, weak thumb abduction (thenar atrophy), usu worse at night, mb retrograde pain to elbow/shoulder), "flick sign"=relief by flicking wrist as if shaking down thermometer, often bilateral but greater on one side
--Tx: avoid aggrav, ice/heat, ultrasound, laser, brace, anti-inflam, local injx
--Dx: nerve conduction velocity test 84% true positive, 95% true negative
--Tx: surgical release 80% success
--Dx: Phalen's test, Tinel's sign, weak thumb abduction, thenar atrophy
( moreCollapse )

Shakti is eating the dregs of my morning smoothie. It is made of fresh pineapple and cherries with the usual powders and potions added. She is sitting on my desk and dipping her paw in the thick green mush, then licking it off her paw. ...
( moreCollapse )