Language

Imagine your favorite book. Now imagine looking at the words and not being able to decipher them.

Language is such a complicated function and interpreting and producing language involves many parts of the brain. Developmentally, the spoken language is an inherent property and children speak spontaneously without being taught. Da-da-da, ma-ma-ma - it just happens, whatever the native language of the child. Most likely, this innate ability to talk developed out of the necessity for humans to communication with each other, work together, and survive.

Written language is a different matter and children do need guidance in learning to read and write. Luckily for me, my mother was a teacher and also loved to read to us (and now to her Grandkids), so I was reading at an early age and I am still an avid reader though now it is mostly lecture notes or text books. The juicy novels have to wait until winter break. Sidebar. In my opinion, character development is always better in books as opposed to movies. When some of the development is left up to the reader's imagination, it personalizes the characters as opposed to just looking at them in a film.

Alexia is a condition of "word blindness." It is the inability to read from a patient's left visual field. Therefore, the right side of the page looks great, words are there, they are readable, but the left side just looks like a picture. The patient can see the letters but not interpret them into cohesive words. The disconnect lies between the visual cortex (where a patient sees the letters) and the language center on the left side of the brain (where the patient can decipher what they mean).

Studying neuroscience is like learning where not to turn your head when a baseball is careening toward your skull with no chance of escape. Here comes the ball! Well, I like being able to see (protect the back of the head), yeah, but I also like to read (protect the left side), and what about playing soccer (protect the front)..... which way should I turn??? Whack!