The ability to entrain brain wave patterns opens up an exciting world of mind-boggling possibilities. Researchers in neuroscience could not contain their excitement. "It’s difficult to try to responsibly convey some sense of excitement about what’s going on," said UCLA neurophysiologist John Kiebeskind. "You find yourself sounding like people you don’t respect. You try to be more conservative and not say such wild and intriguing things, but damn! The field is wild and intriguing. It’s hard to avoid talking that way...We are at a frontier, and it’s a terribly exciting time to be in this line of work"

Are people fascinated by so much in the world because of their intellectual development, or does consciously feeding our mind stimulate high level thought and creative ability? Steve Pavlina, for example, writes, "Leonardo da Vinci, considered a genius by any reasonable standard, achieved competence across a diverse set of fields, including art, music, science, anatomy, engineering, architecture, and many others. While some would argue that such wide-ranging interests were a result of his intelligence, I think it is more likely that they were the cause of it - or at least a major contributing factor."

Excerpt from Shrink Rap Radio interview by David Van Nuys, Ph.D., plus video of Taylor at TED Conference. ///

Jill Bolte Taylor, Ph.D.:  "You have this ongoing brain chatter in the left hemisphere, in the language centers that is designed to have communication, and it helps you retain information about the external world... So it’s always relating me to the information in the external world, and when that circuitry went off – turned off - I found myself flushed in silence, and an unusual silence.

"But in the silence there’s so much!  I’m no longer distracted by the details of the external world, and I was captivated by the magnificence of the present moment."

EurekAlert press release - NIH/National Institute of Mental Health -- Most people inherit a version of a gene that optimizes their brain's thinking circuitry, yet also appears to increase risk for schizophrenia.

Neurologist Oliver Sacks has documented extraordinary things about the brain. In his new book "Musicophilia", the stories turn personal as he filters medicine through his lifelong passion for music -- both as a listener and as an accomplished amateur pianist.

New research on individuals with schizotypal personalities – people characterized by odd behavior and language but who are not psychotic or schizophrenic – offers the first neurological evidence that they are more creative than either normal or fully schizophrenic individuals, and rely more heavily on the right sides of their brains than the general population to access their creativity.

Questions are raised continually as to what are the differences in brain mechanisms, if any, between (a) prodigies with certain musical or mathematical skills, for example; (b) persons with savant syndrome with similar skills and abilities and (c) the rest of us who function quite normally overall but lack some spectacular area of expertise.

Savant Syndrome raises many questions. But two especially intriguing questions are of particular importance: (1) How do they do it? and (2) What does savant syndrome say about hidden potential, perhaps, within each of us.

The use of advanced medical imaging technologies is yielding information not only about pathologies such as schizophrenia and Alzheimer's, but also the biology underlying healthy cognitive skills.

There seems to be an endless fascination with looking for differences in behaviors, attitudes, abilities and brain function between the sexes, but as a scientific pursuit it is a search with both technical and political / philosophical dimensions, and findings that are often inconsistent or open to variable interpretation.