49 Medbloggers submitted a post for this grand round on A Chronic Dose: A Chronic Illness Blog. The theme was the best writing of the year--the funniest, most poignant, most controversial, etc. from their blog. Have fun. My post is about Psychiatrists wearing a white coat. Didn't read the theme properly, just submitted a recent interesting post, will make this up later next week. In Scotland all white coats are banned for doctors. The national uniform will include tunics in four shades of blue, with navy trousers for clinical staff. Support staff, such as porters and catering employees, will wear shades .....read more »

I am not a firm believer of Internet Addiction. One of the main features of addiction is having complaints, suffer complications of the addiction. The main features of an addiction are social and/or emotional problems leading to doctors visit or other forms of help seeking. So what we are looking for is teenagers using the Internet as there only way to communicate, play and doing that at night. Anyone can explain to them why that isn’t healthy. Internet is mostly defined as excessive use, withdrawal, tolerance and negative consequences. If these flimsy characteristics are followed most of us suffer from .....read more »

The operation is Wednesday. Patient 005 is having a deep brain stimulation device implanted on Wednesday, give him some support, here: DBS TrialRelated posts: New Trial On Deep Brain Stimulation for Treatment Resistant Depression Virtual Deep Brain Surgery When are you eligible for a trial with deep brain stimulation ..read more »

Besides gadgets Dr Shock is also addicted to pens. I love pens and still use a Montblanc fountain pen. Since recent digital pens exists. The newest digital pen Oxford Papershow is a digital pen which you can use with powerpoint. You can make annotations directly onto a live Powerpoint presentation using special digital paper, or create an electronic flipchart projected into your screen or wall. Presentations and meetings instantly become more interactive and interesting as the audience can contribute and their comments can be added there and then. The kit consists of a digital pen, USB key, interactive paper and a .....read more »

Dr Shock is now also on Twitter. I use it for blog promotion, microblogging and networking. With microblogging I mean publishing links from websites, blogs, and other remarkable online findings such as my RSS feeds in Google Reader that I won't use on my blog but are worth the read. The networking became of great value yesterday. I was trying to upgrade my wordpress blog to 2.7 because it incorporates automatic wordpress updates. Due to some unexperienced use of FileZilla the blog could not be reached. Error messages drove Dr Shock to panic. Fortunately one of the followers, mdbraber, heard his .....read more »

ScienceDaily (2008-12-03) -- A new universal test to predict the risk of someone succumbing to major depression has been developed. The online tool, predictD, could eventually be used by family doctors and local clinics to identify those at risk of depression for whom prevention might be most useful. Predict Depression The risk algorithm, developed by a team led by UCL Professors Michael King and Irwin Nazareth, was tested in 6,000 people visiting their family doctor in six countries in Europe (UK, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, Slovenia and Estonia). Its accuracy was also tested in nearly 3,000 GP attendees in a further country, .....read more »

Stunning images of the brain. Online neuroscience photography gallery from an exhibition going on tour in 2009, Enception.org. From Mind Hacks The Fire Within, thanksRelated posts: Encephalon 57 on Mind Hacks The Neuroscience of Pregnancy Brain Blogging, The Fourty-Fifth Edition ..read more »

This robot fixes Rubik's cube in about 3 minutes, they enhanced the speed of the video at the end, nevertheless magnificent to watch.....Related posts: Robot with a Human Face The musical robot that plays Flight Of The Bumblebee Emotional Robot: empathy? ..read more »

Images were taken with a scanning electron microscope, digitized, and then animated. Created by Tina (Weatherby) Carvalho. Go see this interesting animation of a real neuron The next image is also from Microangela it is a single neuron which has been grown in a petri dish. The lump at the far end is the cell body. The flat part spread out at the closer end is the growth cone area, a part of the neuron that is trying to find the cell(s) it's supposed to make a synapse with. The skinny part in between is the axon. The little hairs sticking up .....read more »

This is the blogosphere's neuroscience blog carnival that focuses specifically upon the brain, neuroscience, perception and behavior. Go read this grand round on Living The Scientific Life Related posts: Healthy Living Blog Tips Carnival Praxis Blog Carnival no. 6 Encephalon #71 is up ..read more »