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Articles and reports on medical procedures usually aren’t the easiest reading, no matter how much information they impart. But technical writer Steven Gulie tells a clear and compelling tale of what it’s like to develop Parkinson’s disease at an early age and a successful medical journey that has help him regain function he might not otherwise have regained.

This is a nicely written piece. Gulie relates his experiences: of developing Parkinson’s at an early age; of undergoing a couple of medical procedures to implant electrodes in his brain when medication stopped working; and of regaining function afterward.

What’s interesting to me is how the nervous system reorganizes to adapt to the implanted electrodes and reduce the symptoms. I especially appreciated Gulie’s description of consciously participating in the fine tuning of the electrodes.

And if the written article isn’t enough, there’s a cool video narrated by Gulie.

There’s usually not a lot of Feldenkrais-related news in the general press. But today when I was using the search terms “awareness brain movement” in Google News, up popped a very nice (and useful) article. One of the things I find so useful in Feldenkrais practitioners improve mobility is writer Kathleen Longcore’s sensible treatment of the Method. That is, the article is fairly comprehensive in telling the readers what Feldenkrais is and how it works, and then supporting that with clear examples from clients.

Though the article’s title features the term mobility, the idea of body awareness gets a clear spotlight:

“When you learn to ride a bike, it’s not through bio-mechanics and physics. It’s a brain awareness of how to balance on a bike. Once you learn, it’s hard to explain how you do it.”

Some of the client examples keep the light on the awareness aspect of the Method:

“I got interested in the brain connection,” said Jenkins, 51. “It’s calming, even though the brain is engaged. Through movement, you are creating new neural pathways, giving your brain new options.”

This article would make a clear and accessible introduction of Feldenkrais for almost anyone. Well done!

Who wants to be a millionaire? Probably not just the people who try their luck on the popular (U.S.) television network program, or those who religiously buy lottery tickets or trek to casinos. It’s natural to want better stuff that money might be able to buy: bigger houses and the such.

But the bigger, better stuff comes with an often unthought of tariff: that is, you gotta maintain it once you get it. And this maintenance probably costs a lot more than you might think, in both money and time. Kevin Kelly makes the case in Being is All Maintenance. It’s not just that the stuff wears as it ages. As Kelly points out, even if you don’t use the stuff hard, the things around it are constantly changing:

That is a foolish as expecting your new boat to remain seaworthy as long as you don’t mess with it. But while it sits there “doing nothing,” the weather, the sea, the elements are steadily eroding it away. Even if you change nothing about your boat, or on your website, everything around it is changing. Operating systems and browsers get upgraded. Monitors evolve. Code gets corrupted. Bugs accumulate. Spammers and viruses attack. Rather than just purring along self-sufficiently, a popular website requires something to be repaired or tended to nearly everyday.

Mostly, our image of the cool stuff in the imagined futures of Star Wars, Star Trek don’t include maintaining the stuff. I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t want to put my carcass into a Windows-based transporter.

We will be like herders again, engaged in technological husbandry. Or we can see ourselves as techo gardeners, pulling bugs and viruses from our rainforest of gear. It’s not unpleasant work; just more than we thought.

Kind of like blogging?

Audio of this post

The ability to balance is pretty critical in everyday functioning, not to mention various performance arts and athletics. One way of working to improve balance involves challenge. Purposely get into a situation that challenges balance and then revert to the usual. For example, if possible, stand on just one leg for a short period of time, and then come back to standing on the usual two. Usual standing might feel easier, more balanced. Progressively more challenging situations might produce more changes: close the eyes while standing on one leg, walk on a balance beam, etc.

All of this assumes an intact vestibular system, the complex inner ear mechanism associated with balance, equilibrium and orientation. But what if the vestibular system is severely damaged by injury, disease, or other sorts of deterioration? One potential solution is a computer-based implant, similar to the cochlear implants used to restore hearing to those with compromised hearing.

Good news. Researchers are working on developing and testing inner ear implants. Animal-based research shows promise for such implants. First efforts produced a motion-detector based device that tracked head movement in only one plane. Using accelerometers instead, a newer approach, tested on chinchillas, allows tracking in three dimensions.

Power requirements and battery life have been issues. Who wants to stop to change batteries for something implanted in your head? But the accelerometers use less juice, and may be a step toward a solution. And the researchers have developed a virtual inner ear to use in testing new designs.

Amidst the swirling snow and frigid temperature, I was able to pick up a copy of Sharon Begley’s new book Train Your Mind, Change Your Brain. I had heard Begley talk about neuroplasticity on NPR’s Science Friday and decided I wanted to read the book.

What I find particularly fascinating in Begley’s presentation is the idea that significant brain changes (that is, plasticity) don’t happen without paying attention:

As well will see, neuroplasticity is impossible without attention and mental effort. (from the first chapter)

Begley goes on to point out situations where such changes work well: depression, dyslexia and athletics or performance arts. I’m sure there are many others, including meditation, since the books structure revolves around a 2004 meeting between the Dali Lama and neuroscientists.

Vision is yet another promising function touched by the wand of plasticity. I’ve written elsewhere about some of my vision experiences during my training as a Feldenkrais practitioner.

But today I ran across an unlikely method of improving brain processing involved in vision: video games. A University of Rochester study suggests that the more challenging the game, the better the chance for improving spatial visual skills. Among college kids who were not experienced at video games (yes, they evidently found some) those who played Unreal Tournament, a shooter game, improved spatial visual skills after practicing an hour a day for 30-days. Other kids played the old Tetris game, and showed no improvement.

Maybe Steven Johnson was onto something with his idea that Everything Bad is Good for You.

Ryan Nagy has taken the leap into Feldenkrais podcasting. You can find the first, an interview with Martin Weiner, on Ryan’s blog site, or you can subscribe to the RSS feed or in iTunes. Be sure not to miss the riveting story of how Ryan came to the Feldenkrais Method and what Martin has to say about it, towards the end of the recording.

Working in Movement features a lot of material on brain plasticity. I became fascinated with the topic from my practice in the Feldenkrais Method. But as I began to search for more information, I found it not the most popular topic in the press. That’s beginning to change as more neuroscience focuses on the topic, thanks to brain imaging technologies and mounting curiosity among those in the field. But still, you sometimes have to wade though dense scientific literature to mine nuggets of plasticity-related information.

How refreshing then to find science writer Sharon Begley as a guest on NPR’s Science Friday last week. The occasion was a plug for Begley’s new book, Train Your Mind, Change Your Brain. Begley and host Ira Flatow chat quite eloquently about plasticity, including subjects like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy that can change depressive thinking patterns, and Constraint Based Therapy that can help people recover motor function even long after the original injury. What I found especially revealing was the idea that it takes lots of practice of effect these changes, and to have them become, if not permanent, at least enduring.

The audio is well-worth having a listen.