This is an excellent talk by brain expert, Vilayanur Ramachandran. He gets a standing ovation at the end for good reason! He is a great speaker.
In this talk he discusses the research being done using specific brain injuries to map the brain but also goes into some fascinating rehabilitation techniques that he has developed. Especially amazing is the use of the mirror box for the treatment of phantom pain and also for use in stroke rehabilitation.
Vilayanur Ramachandran is the director of the Center for Brain and Cognition at
the University of California, San Diego, and an adjunct professor at
the Salk Institute. He is the author of Phantoms in the Brain, the basis for a Nova special, and A Brief Tour of Human Consciousness; his next book, due out in January 2008, is called The Man with the Phantom Twin: Adventures in the Neuroscience of the Human Brain. Newsweek magazine named him one of the “hundred most prominent people to watch in the next century”.
I am curious to hear about work using the mirror boxes for stroke patients. If readers know about stroke rehab being done using mirror boxes, please post a comment.
