Eyes on the Brain

A neurobiologist explores the amazing capacity of the brain to rewire itself at any age.

Susan R. Barry is a professor of neurobiology in the Department of Biological Sciences at Mount Holyoke College and the author of Fixing My Gaze (June, 2009). See full bio

Eyes on the Brain

February 7, 2010

Body Image

Our sense of body image, of our ownership of our own bodies, is integral to our sense of identity. At first blush then, you might think that we maintain a stable, robust body image throughout life, but a few easy experiments show that this is not the case. Read More

January 18, 2010

Avatar, 3D Movies, and Our Sense of Identity.

Do 3D movies provide more than pure entertainment? Do 3D movies teach us something about our own identities and the way we relate to things in space? Read More

January 3, 2010

Look Me in the Eye!

"What is it like to look someone in the eye?" a student (I'll call her Liz) asked me a few months ago. Liz is wall-eyed. When she looks at you, one eye turns out, giving you the impression that she is looking to the side. I told her that making eye contact could be pretty intense.

December 21, 2009

NO REGRETS

The holiday season makes me think of family and stories and especially of my grandfather who had a tale, it seemed, for almost all occasions. Once, when I was a teenager, I came home from school very upset about a well-meaning act I had performed that turned out badly. The details of that incident, I have long forgotten, but I'll always remember the story my grandfather told me in response. Read More

December 16, 2009

SAY IT WITH A SONG.: RECOVERING SPEECH AFTER A STROKE

I just saw an amazing video on You Tube of one man's recovery from a stroke. After suffering a stroke on the left side of his brain, Harvey Alter could no longer speak, a condition called aphasia. After two years of speechlessness, he found a solution. Read More

December 3, 2009

GETTING GOOSED

Maybe, calling someone a birdbrain is not such a great insult. If you take the time to get to know birds, you'll realize that some are pretty smart. Are they ever more clever than people? Read More

November 25, 2009

When the right time to say "thank you" has passed you by.

Many of us have wished that we had said thank you at just the right moment but then the opportunity passed us by. This happened to me very recently. Read More

November 16, 2009

Are We Making Ourselves Stupider?

I remember the day my daughter (now age 24 years) discovered her feet. I had dressed her with brightly colored socks and laid her down on her back in the middle of our big bed. As she waved her feet back and forth, one foot passed through her field of view. She looked startled and was able to move the foot back into view. Over and over again, she wiggled her foot, saw it wiggle, and laughed. This was a big day for our little girl. She now knew what it felt like to wiggle her foot and that she could control its movements.

November 6, 2009

A child’s way of counting reveals why we are so smart.

Children first count with their fingers, a skill that depends upon specific brain-body wiring. Is our intelligence in general dependent upon brain-brain connections? Read More

November 4, 2009

A child’s way of counting reveals why we are so smart.

Ask any four-year-old child for his age, and chances are he will hold up four fingers. He will count and add with his fingers too, and this is true for children all over the world. To count with your fingers, you need to be able to move each finger separately, a skill which requires special brain-finger wiring. Does our ability to count and calculate then depend upon our brain-finger connection?

Fixing My Gaze: A Scientist's Journey Into Seeing in Three Dimensions

Neuroscience Basics

The human brain has been called the most complex object in the known universe, and in many ways it's the final frontier of science. A hundred billion neurons, close to a quadrillion connections between them, and we don't even fully understand a single cell.

Go to the Neuroscience Basics page for more on Neuroscience including:

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How early life experiences shape our character.

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