Eye movements in Autism

Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder that becomes appearant early in life. These children (and adults) struggle daily with this disorder's effects on social functioning, including language and communication, learning, and unusual behavioral patterns.
An interesting study focused on understanding some of the ways that autism affects a person's view of the world, and how that in turn can make social situations so dreadfully complicated for them.

Interpretation of social situations often requires your eyes to "scan" or search another person's face for clues to what that other person is thinking, saying, or feeling.

The figure below, taken from this study, shows the importance of understanding the manner in which the speakers are conversing, rather than just what the speakers are saying.
This is crucial to understanding social scenerios, and is the reason why people with autism have such a hard time in public.
Figure: Visual Focus of an Autistic Man (Red tracing) and a Normal Comparison Subject (Yellow tracing) when shown a film clip portraying a flirtatious exchange

From the Article: "The figure shows the visual
scanning paths of the two participants during this 7-
second shot. The data are shown collapsed onto one still
image. From the scanning pattern in this figure, the viewer
with autism (red path) seemed not to understand the inviting,
flirtatious nature of the interaction—or the impact
of these behaviors on Martha’s husband in the back, since
he did not once glance at the action in the background. In
contrast, the normal comparison viewer’s visual scanning
does track the important social clues."

Defining and Quantifying the Social Phenotype in Autism
Am J Psychiatry 159:6, June 2002

The Historical Perspective of the Spleen

The spleen was felt by the ancient Greeks and Romans to play a significant role in human physiology. Aristotle thought that the spleen was on the left side of the body as a counterweight to the right-sided liver.¹ He believed that the spleen was important in drawing off "residual humors" from the stomach. The spleen was also felt to "hinder a man's running," and Pliny reportedly claimed that "professed runners in the race that bee troubled with the splene, have a devise to burne and waste it with a hot yron [AKA they burned it away by jabbing themselves in their left flank with a hot iron] ."²
The exceptional speed of giraffes was felt to be related to the erroneous belief that giraffes were asplenic [without a spleen]. Early references to removal of the spleen to increase speed make it apparent that it has
long been known that the spleen is not absolutely necessary to sustain life.

[PS- A study in 1992 in rats confirmed that after their spleens were removed they could indeed run faster]

The Amazing Phone Ride

So I got to school this morning and realized that my new (AKA expensive) cell phone was no longer on my hip.
I had a feeling that it fell off this morning as I wiped Heather's windshield with a towel to remove the frost/dew so that she could see well on her drive to work (which is about an hour trip each way).
I left school and drove back home as fast as I could to try and find my phone before someone else would find it and become the proud new owner.

No luck. I searched everywhere in the parking lot. Multiple times.

I just knew it was gone for good. I caught Heather on Google Chat to tell her that I lost my phone.
After talking to me, she went out to the Faculty parking lot, looked at her car, and found my phone on her windshield wiper!

It survived an hour-long drive on the interstate without falling off.
Amazing.

Sharing the Wealth....

Of Knowledge.

I've decided to return to the basics with this blog: to document my experiences in life AND in medicine. The majority of pre-clinical medical education revolves around memorizing and understanding hundreds of thousands of minutia about biochemistry, physiology, and histology/pathology of disease. As you can understand, I decided long ago that you, my few but dedicated readers, wouldn't want to be bored to death reading a blog about that stuff. You want something interesting, something that can be read relatively quickly, and something memorable. You don't want to feel like you're studying for a test the next day.

HERE'S the good news! Every now and then there are some really interesting medical topics and mechanisms of disease, and I decided this weekend that I should be sharing this cool stuff with you!

Let me know what you think, and also let me know if there are any medical diseases or random questions you would like me to investigate or answer (for example: Heather asked me the other night if I could explain why a baby's eyes are blue during the first few weeks of life. We both knew that it happens in babies, but we didn't know the biological reasons behind it. So, I looked in 3 of my textbooks to finally come across the answer. It will be one of my next few posts.....)

Best-Selling Nerd Shirts

These 5 shirts crack me up (well, not so much the Pluto one, but the other 4 do!)....They are the top 5 sellers on a website I stumbled across today. If you want to check out some of the other "Nerd shirts," click on any of the shirts below.

America Is Better Than That

"That guy making $40,000 a year will get a tax cut under my plan. I will provide a tax cut to 95% of Americans. That guy who makes a million dollars a year, his taxes ARE going to go up,..because he makes more than $250,000 a year..... The notion that those of us who have been extraordinarily lucky can't pay a little bit more so the waitress down the street, or the guy making $40,000 or even the guy making $70,000 can get a little bit extra so that he can put away a little savings and watch his child walk off that stage with a college diploma in her hand-- I think America is better than that. I think we want to make sure everyone's got a fair shot in this society." -Barack Obama, Sept 9, 2008

New Ride

So after checking GovDeals daily for almost a year, I finally had enough money and enough buyer-beware experience to pick out a nice, used Police Impala.

Why would I buy a used police car?
The price. You can get these for about half of what the civilian versions cost.
The features. Automakers like Ford (who make the Crown Victoria police cruisers) and Chevrolet (makers of the Impala) add a lot of heavy duty features to these service fleets. From "Surveillance Mode" which kills all of the vehicle's lights for doing radar, to Heavy Duty suspension, engine, and cooling system, these cars are ready for whatever you can throw at them.

So, now we have a larger car for some road trips, and I have a new toy for responding to Fire and Medical calls with the Toney Fire Department. Check it out.

Growing up, Managing money

Growing up has its perks....but the mundane tasks that go with growing up can be time-consuming at best. Take, for example, managing your money. I've been using Mint.com for the past 6 months, and can now say it's the best solution I've found for keeping tabs on...well...my tabs.

It lets you see all of your accounts in one place, which is nice because logging into 4 different financial websites to check balances is a lot of work and often results in me just not going to any of the websites at all....

It gives spending habits, budgeting ideas, and all sorts of cool graphs and charts.

My favorite part is that it does everything for you automatically.

It imports every purchase and categorizes it intuitively. You can also "train" it to remember certain stores, etc.

The difference between this and programs like Microsoft Money is that it does everything for you, ultimately making your life just a little bit easier.

Try it out for yourself......

Primary Care Crisis

As you may or may not know, America's healthcare system consistently ranks lower than 40th in the World Health Organization's rankings of health statistics. Many Americans believe that we, the most powerful country in the world, also have the best doctors, best treatments, and best health-outcomes. Sadly, that statement is far from the truth.

One of the reasons behind our poor ranking is the lack of primary care that Americans receive . Fewer medical students are going into a career as a family physician either in big cities or in small, rural American towns. Because of this, illnesses go un-treated and diseases such as high blood pressure and diabetes go un-diagnosed. Early detection and treatment of high blood pressure can add 5 more years to a person's lifespan.

To me, it's no wonder that fewer of us medical students go into primary care after graduation. We're getting not-so-stable cues from those already on the front line.

A survey conducted by Physicians Practice magazine last year asked primary care physicians nationwide how they felt about their initial decision to practice family medicine:

"Only 39.5 percent said they would follow the same career track; 38.7 percent said they would have chosen to become surgical or diagnostic specialists; and 21.8 percent replied that they wouldn't have gone into medicine at all. "

The New "MacBook Air" Makes Fatty Laptops Disgusted With Themselves, Anorexic

Aw, PC, don't get that look on your face. You're not fat, you're just well-built. Just because the MacBook Air is incredibly thin and sexy doesn't mean I love you any less. I mean, you've got so much more personality! You've got things like a built-in ethernet, optical drive, removeable battery AND user-upgradeable RAM and hard drive. That slinky little b*#*%  doesn't have any of that.