Math and Brain Types

Some research suggests that different types of learning styles can affect how quickly and efficiently students learn math skills. This research suggests that left-brain dominant students can have an easier time grasping concepts and solving problems in math and science, while intuitive, artistic, right-brain dominant students take more time to absorb and retain these concepts.

On the other hand, right-brain dominant students tend to have an easier time with analyzing literature, writing essays, learning a foreign language, and designing or creating works of art.

Of course, there is a down side to brain dominance. Taking more time in one subject can lead to falling behind! Students who take longer to learn a concept will often get frustrated and give in. This means that right-brain dominant students' math scores suffer--not because other students are smarter or more capable, but because other students simply wired in a way that makes them faster.

I'd like to hear your thoughts on this. First, take the left-brain right brain quiz, and then share your thoughts with the comment link below. Do you feel that your brain type is related to your grades in math, art, or language arts?

Source: http://homeworktips.about.com/b/2009/07/26/math-scores-and-brain-types.htm

BRAIN: How Gamblers Think?

The brains of gamblers respond similarly to the brains of lab animals after being given euphoria-inducing drugs or when being tempted by good food, according to the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Results of tests conducted by researchers at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and two other institutions suggest that the same mental circuitry is involved in the highs and lows of winning money, abusing drugs, or anticipating a tasty meal.

Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), researchers mapped the neural responses of 12 male subjects while they played a simple game of chance in which they could either win or lose money. Each subject was give a $50 stake and told that they might lose some or all of the money, keep it (break even), or even increase it. The subjects then played a game similar to the "wheel-of-fortune" game found in most casinos. The trials were divided into two phases — expectancy and outcome. During the expectancy phase, the subjects were shown how much money they might win depending upon where the arrow stopped on a spinning disk. During the outcome phase, the arrow stopped on a designated monetary value, and the subjects found out whether they had won or lost money on that spin.

Data produced while the players watched the spinner showed:
•The incentive of money produced blood flow changes in the brain similar to those seen in response to other forms of rewards, such as euphoria-producing drugs;
•Blood flow in three areas of the brain rich in dopamine receptors, the NAc, SLEA, and hypothalamus, roughly paralleled findings in monkeys during anticipation and experience of reward;
•The right side of the brain responded predominantly to winning or the prospect of winning, while the left side of the brain responded to losing.
According to the researchers, the response patterns observed suggested that dysfunction of neural mechanisms and psychological processes crucial to decision-making and behavior may contribute to a broad range of impulse disorders such as drug abuse and compulsive gambling.

Hotdogs Can Cause Brain Tumor?

I have heard that if a child eats a certain number of hot dogs per week that the probability of a brain tumor is tremendous. Is this correct?

Answer: No, a child will not be at a greater risk of forming brain tumors if he eats too many hot dogs. However, moms-to-be may want to cut hot dogs and other processed meats such as bologna, sausage, pepperoni and other packaged luncheon meats out of their diets for that reason.

Your question probably stems from research that looked for a possible correlation between the consumption of processed meats by pregnant women and the occurrence of brain tumors in their children. Laboratory research performed on lab animals showed that substances formed from sodium nitrites would cause neurological tumors in the offspring of female animals that were fed the nitrates.

These findings spurred researches to study human populations and they found that women who ate more processed meats had children who were more likely to develop brain tumors. Later research also found that women who ate diets high in processed meats were also more likely to have babies who weighed less than they should.

While there is a correlation between mothers-to-be and childhood brain tumors, that same risk doesn't extend to the children when they eat hot dogs. Actually, while rates of childhood brain cancer went up in the 1970s through the 1990s, the amount of nitrites used in processed meats actually went down.

Hot dogs, franks, wieners or whatever you wish to call them are certainly not healthy foods for children or adults to eat even if they don't cause brain tumors in people who eat them. Like other processed meats, they are high in calories and saturated fats. Plus they contain those nitrites, which may combine with other substances to form N-Nitroso compounds in the body.

These compounds may be part of the reason why eating processed meats has been associated with a higher risk of cancer, not just brain cancer in children of women who eat processed meats, but also for colorectal cancer in adults.

Another reason why hot dogs are unhealthy may be due to the overall diet of a typical hot dog eater. People who eat high fat diets including red and processed meats are more likely to be overweight or obese, plus that hot dog may be taking the place of a much more nutritious fruit or vegetable. Hot dogs are also prone to carry the bacteria called listeria that causes foodborne illness.
Hot dogs, like all processed meats, should be eaten only rarely. While the occasional hot dog at a baseball game may not ruin your health, frequent consumption of hot dogs and other processed meats cannot be part of a healthy diet.

Brain Surgery -Right Frontal Craniotomy

On Tuesday May 29th at 3:00pm EDT, University Hospitals Case Medical Center Cleveland, Ohio, will host a live webcast to demonstrate the removal of brain tumor and epileptic focus from an awake patient using intra-operative MRI and brain mapping. See this on OR-Live.com


The patient was a middle-aged gentleman with new onset seizures. An MRI showed what appeared to be a low grade glioma near the motor strip on the right. Studies have shown that complete removal can cure the seizures, improve quality of life and survival, but this is difficult to do with conventional technology without harming the surrounding normal brain because its difficult to determine where tumor ends and normal brain begins.