Talk:Human brain

Contents

1 No dispute 2 Placement of gruesome image 3 Removal of {disputed} 4 Heart-brain neurodynamics 5 Differences in male and female brains? 6 Functions of parts of the brain 7 Mind and brain

No dispute

There is no dispute over the content of this page.

One writer who has extra technical capacity, labeled an administrator, held a grudge against a person whom he thought was editing the article. The writer, RickK, went on a rampage of reverting articles edited by someone against whom he thought he held a grudge. That's all.

I don't know what KingTurtles goal was in blocking the article from further edits. At least, for now, he helped RickK control his behavior when RickK was otherwise unable to contribute to improving the content because of his raging hatred for a contributor he decided has no value.

There is no dispute over the content of this article and there never has been. It is a personality conflict driven by a long time contributor who feels his prejudices, based on his suspicions about the identity of writers, are a reliable guide for governing an open source project. Since users cannot be identified, attention to content provides a more reliable guideline than emotional reactions to personal suspicions.

RickK, and the handfull of other administrators who can be expected based on prior performance to jump into this or any other fray where they smell blood in the water, would do better to spend more time reviewing content and less time following their adrenal reactions when they get upset over circumstances they fear threatens their attachments to their status in a so-called community. Somebody else 05:15, 29 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Does anyone know the copyright status of Image:Nih_brainpic.jpg? It purports to be from the National Institutes of Health, which would probably make it copyright-free. But it appears that there may be reason to carefully review the contributions of the user who uploaded it. There appears to be a similar situation with Image:Human_brain_NIH.jpg and Image:Human_Brain_NIH.jpg (two very similar, but distinct, images). Wmahan. 21:18, 2004 May 4 (UTC)

I found the NIH page for Image:Human_brain_NIH.jpg and put that info on the image page. Image:Human_Brain_NIH.jpg was merely a horizontal flip of the former. I redirected all links to the former picture and removed the latter. →Raul654 21:34, May 4, 2004 (UTC)

Nice job, and thanks for the prompt response! Wmahan. 21:50, 2004 May 4 (UTC)

Note also that Image:brain.png and the following text were repeatedly removed by anonymous users before the page was protected: Correlation of particular conscious activities with likely neural structures suggest three levels of consciousness in humans. One theory devides human consciousness into a protoself, a core consciousness and an extended consciousness.

User:Somebody else, I am a little skeptical of your comments because of your lack of useful contributions to Wikipedia. Wmahan. 21:26, 2004 May 4 (UTC)

Placement of gruesome image

For those accustomed to seeing brains in laboratory settings, the upper placement of this image might be no problem. For others, especially those who may have had to wash away pieces of brain matter after a traumatic incident, placement of the image might tend to trigger unpleasant or even harmful memories. Since those who have seen brains before are not particularly served by one placement or the other, but those who may be sensitive to the issue could be disturbed, I recommend placing it lower on the page. Thus, readers have an opportunity to activate neuro-linguistic pathways that prime the brain for ideas about intimate exploration of externalized brains before parsing the image. Then, the image presents to a mind already contemplating brains in a laboratory setting rather than as a raw image that may trigger whatever thoughts of whatever might be their most recent or most defining experience with the subject of the image.

A better configuration might present the image in its original black background, as offered by NIH, or at least surrounded by a box. Not all readers are college students or graduates - some are veterans of war, or family members who have seen loved one's disembodied brain matter after a traumatic event. Since sometime sooner or later we will be experiencing the return to civilian life, and to the public readership, of recent war-veterans many of whom have been traumatized by viewing disembodied brain matter, and since their further traumatization might cause harm to them, their families or their communities, this consideration may be especially important. The top-of-page placement might be common style by force of habit in this project, but failure to consider diverse readers might be insensitive or even gratuitous.

In summary, if you are making scores of daily edits at Wikipedia based primarily on habit and subjective impressions, please pause a moment to contemplate the input of donors who have experience in matters regarding reader service, neurological assimilation of imagery and the social dynamics of traumatization.

Dubious 18:13, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)

This issue, where images on a page may be offensive to some, has come up before on (to my memory) Penis and John F. Kennedy assassination. Our policy is - Wikipedia is not bowdlerized, nor do we want to be. By your very own assertion, some people have bad memories associated with clowns - should that stop us from putting pictures on our clown article? Of course not. The picture here is much better than the old one - it is larger, higher resolution, and contains significantly more detial. It absolutely should go here.

It can also reasonable to conclude that the image with the most detail and resolution should be placed nearest the part of the article that contains the most detail and resolution. That way, the eye can go from text that explains details to images that exhibit those details. The top of the article is an overview, where competition for readers attention might distract from the overview or the table of contents. There has actually quite a bit of literature published on eye-movement and page layout. Sept. 11 was about the only time in recent publishing history when a major segment of the industry concurred that images best told the story and replaced dominant text with a dominant image in prime page-space. Dubious 19:02, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)

However, as a compromise, I would suggest using the old image at the top of the page, and the more detailed (possibly offensive) one later on. That way - as you suggest - the easily offended would not be 'shocked' into seeing it early in the article. →Raul654 18:28, Apr 15, 2004 (UTC)

That would work. If Wikipedia is not bowlderized means reader service always takes a back seat to the most raw, potentially offensive presentation of any image, then we could find plenty of raw images to shock readers who first open a page. But placing the image lower on the page doesn't necessarily bowlderize the image - it simply places it in a context that might best serve the most readers (rather than perhaps in a place that best serves the most tenecious editors by enforcing arbitary policy at the expense of all other considerations). Bowlderizaton alone might not be reason to consider aspects of reader service, but somewhere, if Wikipedia policies do not already, they need to explain and suggest reader service.

Your suggestion is exactly what I considered. The only reason I had not replaced the top image with another is that I had not yet found an image that fills the space and serves the reader by offering new information. The MRI composite on lists of regions brings in some new information - it at least allows comparative analysis of two different human brains and viewing formats, but I suspect their is an even better image somewhere, or that may be composed, for that prime spot on the page. If your doing images on this page, you have my vote for that configuration. My other advice would be that the MRI-composite should be flipped if it is placed on the right of the page, and likewise the photo-image should be unflipped if it is ever placed on the left. Comparison with the original NIH version indicates this is actually a mirrored image, and as such is an inaccurate depiction. Dubious 18:48, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Removal of {disputed}

Given an almost total lack of "factual dispute" on this talk page, I'm removing the {{disputed}} message from the article. -- Yath 09:11, 16 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Heart-brain neurodynamics

Is anyone familiar with neurocardiology, such as the research done at the Heartmath Institute (http://www.heartmath.org/research/index.html)? I've read mention that activity in neural tissue in the human heart has been shown to influence behaviour and higher cognitive functions.. "heart-brain neurodynamics". It seems like making reference to or linking to an entry on this area in this article could be pertinent for many individuals in their understanding of the brain, although I'm not familiar enough with the field to know if it's considered controversial.

The summary of the book Neurocardiology--Anatomical and Functional Principles, by J. Andrew Armour, M.D., Ph.D, writes "Groundbreaking research in the field of neurocardiology has established that the heart is a sensory organ and a sophisticated information encoding and processing center, with an extensive intrinsic nervous system sufficiently sophisticated to qualify as a "heart brain." nectarflowed 17 Sept 2004

Differences in male and female brains?

The male's and famale's brain is apparently quite different. However, there is no mention about it in the article.

Structurally, they are identical (IE, a male human's brain has all the same regions and connections as a female's). I suspect the difference is primarly chemical (IE, woman have a higher concentration of neurotransmitter X while men have more of neurotransmitter Y). →Raul654 11:02, Nov 27, 2004 (UTC)

That's bullshit, women consistently have a thicker corpus callosum. Babajobu 22:44, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I think this associated press quote has interesting bearing on this topic:

"The scientific dogma used to be that hormones alone could “masculinize” the brain, he said. But he identified 54 genes that work differently in the brains of male and female mouse embryos just 10 days after conception — before sex hormones are ever produced. Doctors also once thought that how people were raised and their genitalia were enough to determine gender...But Reiner began seeing children who had been assigned to one sex as babies and a few years later began identifying themselves as the other." [1] (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6994580/)

--Nectarflowed 19:28, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Functions of parts of the brain

I've seen pictures that show what each part of the brain does (ie, the front lobe performs xx function). it would be nice to see that information of wikipedia. Jm51 02:35, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

This article is indeed in dire need of a proper diagram of the brain. - Quirk 14:05, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Mind and brain

I read there is no dispute over the accuracy of this article; however I think it implies we know more about the relation between mind and brain than we actually do. I also think an article on the differences between males and females would be welcome; I tried to find on starting here. Gene Ward Smith 19:48, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)