HUB's LIST of medical fun facts

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science.
– Albert Einstein

The rising moon looks huge, but is it all in our head?
Is it because of mist, or the atmosphere acting as a lens, or its comparison to objects on the horizon? None of the above. In fact the moon also appears much larger to astronauts who have no nearby objects in view. There are two reasons, both in your brain. The first is the Ponzo illusion, created by the brain’s interpretation of perspective.  (“Looking at 2 equal horizontal lines placed between 2 vertical lines that converge slightly at the top, the top line will always look longer.”) The other reason is that our brain perceives the sky as a flat-bottomed bowl rather than as a hemisphere. The combination of these two brain perceptions is why we think the rising moon on the horizon looks bigger because we think it is farther away. One thousand years ago Ibn al-Haytham noted that an object of fixed size will look larger if it’s farther away. To tell you the truth, I think that explanation is counter-intuitive, and I don’t understand or accept it, but I am no medieval philosopher.  (Read the explanation by a modern astronomer for your self in Sci AM Jan.2025 p.78 or don’t believe it.)

Music and speech sounds go to different parts of your brain.
The brain receives all sounds through the inner ears, but music and speech are interpreted by different parts of the brain. How does the brain know which part to engage to receive and interpret the sound? “Amplitude modulation” or how fast the volume of the sound changes is the clue. Across all spoken languages speech volume varies twice as fast as the volume changes of music. The slower, more regular changes in volume of music is always perceived as music, not speech. Faster, irregular volume change is perceived as speech. The research authors speculate about the evolutionary advantages of the two different amplitude modulation ranges; fast speech is best for rapid communication (to warn each other about looming threats), and the slower music modulation is better for enhancing social bonding by allowing “comfortable human movement” (aka dancing). As usual the article ended with “more research is needed”.(Sci Am Jan. 2025 pg. 80)

Ultrasound waves to the brain stimulate mindfulness.
Researchers bombarded a specific area of the brain known as the “region associated with introspection and off-task wandering” with low-intensity ultrasound for 5 minutes in 30 participants. As a result, participants reported “heightened mindfulness — the ability to be fully present in the moment, without judgement toward others or the self.” No negative side effects were noted. (Sci Am Oct. 2024 pg. 12)

What ever happened to the Havana Syndrome?
Speaking of negative side-effects from energy-wave bombardment of the brain, what about ten years ago when thousands of American embassy workers in Cuba and Russia suddenly developed painful ringing or buzzing in their ears, dizziness, headaches, nausea, and confusion; “The Havana Syndrome”.  No source of an acoustic weapon wielded by foreign powers was found at that time by several U.S. federal agencies. The syndrome was ultimately labeled as psychosomatic. Recently the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a report of a new type of weapon that generated “pulsed electro-magnetic energy”, and assessed that it was 50% probable that it caused the Havana Syndrome. Not all agencies agree, but the consensus about it being psychosomatic is eroding. The author ends his article with “The Trump administration will have to decide how to respond to the new analysis, if at all.” (The Atlantic Magazine, Shane Harris, 2024)

Brains can “see” sound”?
Echolocation is a known ability of persons who are blind at an early age can develop by learning to make rapid mouth clicks and “see” objects by hearing differences in the reflections of the sounds ( like bats or dolphins). It was assumed that this was a skill developed by blind people as a compensation for having no sight. In 2021 a study showed that sighted people could develop the same skill after training 2-3 hours twice a week for 10 weeks. Both sighted and blind groups received the same training, and both groups developed echolocation skill that accurately found different size objects, perceived their orientation, and even let them find their way through a maze using only mouth clicks and their hearing. Surprisingly, both sighted and blind persons showed the same brain wave response patterns on the visual cortex of their brain. Almost all of the blind participants reported that even after three months their new echolocation skill made them feel “more independent with a feeling of increased well-being.” (Sci Am Dec, 2024 pg.14)

Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCI) are no longer science fiction.
Several BCIs devices have successfully allowed patients to communicate by speaking or to move previously paralyzed limbs. All BCIs are based on micro electrodes and a computer chip implanted on the brain cortex. It is energized by the electronic activity of the brain when the patient thinks. The signals from the implant are sent over wires to an external computer which interprets the signals and instructs muscles to move or generates understandable speech emitted from a computer. Each of these implant successes depends on very thin wire electrodes inserted in the part of the cortex surface that is known to control speech or the targeted muscles.

Neuralink, a company owned by Elon Musk, has successfully tested a brain electronic implant that wirelessly allows the patient to control a computer, ie; move the cursor. The 30 year old man, quadriplegic from a diving accident six years ago, can now play video games, chess, and surf the internet just by thinking about moving the cursor.

The surgery to plant the device is rather simple for the neurosurgeon who makes a one-inch hole in the skull. A robotic instrument then places the implant, the size of a quarter coin, with its very thin wires in the correct part of the cortex surface. The surgeon then closes the skull and skin flap. When the patient thinks about where he wants to move the cursor, his brain activity is signaled over the air from the implanted chip to an external computer that moves it accurately! Neuralink has reported that these implants have been placed in three patients so far. This first patient has already had his implant wires adjusted when the cursor started moving erratically.

PS: A stock tip from an unlikely source (me): If you are like my friend Allen W. who is eagerly awaiting Neuralink to go public so he can pounce on the stock offering, you don’t need this tip. But if you are watching the progress of other BCI companies, here is a list of the ideal characteristics of implant devices that you might want to invest in:
1. high performance decoding (number of cortex implant electronic wires range from 53 to 235),
2. reliability over the long term (preferably 10 years),
3. completely free of wires attached to the patient,
4. large band-width to capture lots of information-bearing cortical signals,
5. ease of implantation AND explantation without injury to the brain.

“The convergence of neuroscience, artificial intelligence, and engineering of neural interfaces continues to bring us closer to realizing the goal of restoring naturalistic functions to affected persons.” (NEJM Aug. 15, 2024, pg. 654, Edward Chang, MD)