CME INDIA Presentation by ⚜ Dr. M. Gowri Sankar, MD, Senior Assistant Professor, Dept. of General Medicine, Government Medical College and ESI Hospital, Coimbatore.
Today’s History Feature:
Prof. Dr. V. S. Ramachandran
(Born – Aug 10, 1951)
💠Indian Neuroscientist
His contributions…
🔹Prof. Dr. Ramachandran was born in Tamil Nadu. He pursued his medical studies at Stanley Medical College, Chennai and later completed his Ph.D. at Trinity College, Cambridge.
🔹After completion of his studies, he got appointed as an Assistant Professor in Department of Psychology at the University of California, San Diego in 1983 and was subsequently promoted as a Professor during 1998.
🔹In fact, he is well-known for his optimal performance in Behavioral neurology and visual perception.
🔹He further did his ground-breaking research on Phantom limbs and invented a Mirror Box – the mirror visual feedback (mirror therapy) as a treatment for phantom limb paralysis.
🔹Moreover, he was recognized as one of the first scientists to conduct research by using Functional MRI for Color Synesthesia, which arise from cross activation between brain regions.
🔹He also researched about the fascinating role of Mirror Neurons, which explains the various human mental abilities such as empathy, imitation learning and evolution of language.
🔹Thereby, he declared that “Mirror neurons will do for psychology what DNA did for biology.”
🔹Furthermore, he was the first to publish “Apotemnophilia” (Body Integrity Dysphoria) as a neurological disorder caused by the damage to right parietal lobe of brain and the neural basis of Capgras delusion.
🔹He has published more than 200 research articles in neuropsychology and he is well-known for the following best-selling books:
🔅Phantoms in the Brain (1998)
🔅Encyclopedia of the Human Brain (2002)
🔅The Emerging Mind (2003)
🔅A Brief Tour of Human Consciousness (2004)
🔅The Tell-Tale Brain (2010)
🔅The Encyclopedia of Human Behavior (2012)
🔹He has been conferred with two honorary doctorates – from Connecticut College in 2001 and the Indian Institute of Technology, Chennai in 2004. Also, he has received many awards and Fellowships from reputed institutions and societies including:
🔅Ariens Kappers Medal from the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences in 1999
🔅Annual Ramon y Cajal Award from the International Neuropsychiatry Society in 2004
🔅Henry Dale Medal from the Royal Institution of Great Britain, 2005
🔅Fellowship from All Souls College, Oxford University
🔅Fellowship from Stanford University
🔅The Government of India’s third highest civilian award “Padma Bhushan” in 2007
🔅”Scientist of the Year” from the ARCS Foundation (Achievement Rewards for College Scientists), the United States in 2014
🔹Besides, he is very fascinated by Paleontology. While he was a young boy, he used to collect the sea shells and fossils and send his findings to the American Museum of Natural History. He has shown interest in unearthing the rarities required by the museum.
🔹Indeed, he purchased the skull fossil of a dinosaur for $10,000 and donated it to the Victor Valley Museum, California in 2009. To honour his work, that Dinosaur was given the name Minotaurasaurus ramachandrani.
🔹Eventually, his consistent performance got him promoted to the present post of Director of the Centre for Brain and Cognition at the University of California and an adjunct Professor at the Salk Institute.
🔹Prof. Dr Ramachandran is a mesmerizing speaker, who delivers lectures on neuroscience connecting psychologically and philosophically in a simple way. His meticulous role in medicine has earned him the recognition – “A latter-day Marco Polo of Neuroscience” and “The Modern Paul Broca.”
A Day to Commemorate…
The Sherlock Holmes of Neuroscience
Celebrating his birthday today💐
Prof. Dr. V. S. Ramachandran 🙏
Discover CME INDIA
- Explore CME INDIA Repository
- Examine CME INDIA Case Study
- Read History Today in Medicine
- Register for Future CMEs
Happy Birthday to Genius Prof Dr V S Ramchandran.. Regards 💐💐🇮🇳🇮🇳🇮🇳🇮🇳
Very happy birthday our batchmate Genius VSR.
Dr. Alamelu. MS mCh, FrcsஒFics
stanleyean.
Global eradication of COVID-19 more feasible than for polio: Analysis
The global eradication of COVID-19 is more feasible than it is for polio, but considerably less so than it was for smallpox, according to an analysis published in the journal BMJ Global Health on Tuesday. Public health experts from the University of Otago Wellington in New Zealand noted that vaccination, public health measures, and global interest in achieving this goal all make eradication of COVID-19 possible.
However, they said, the main challenges lie in securing sufficiently high vaccine coverage and respond quickly enough to immune-escape variants of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.
The authors estimated the feasibility of COVID-19 eradication, defined as ‘the permanent reduction to zero of the worldwide incidence of infection caused by a specific agent as a result of deliberate efforts’.
They compared it with two other viral scourges for which vaccines were or are available — smallpox and polio — using an array of technical, sociopolitical, and economic factors that are likely to help achieve this goal.
The authors used a three point scoring system for each of 17 variables such as the availability of a safe and effective vaccine, lifelong immunity, impact of public health measures, and effective government management of infection control messaging among others.
The average scores in the analysis added up to 2.7 for smallpox, 1.6 for COVID-19, and 1.5 for polio, they said.
Smallpox was declared eradicated in 1980 and two out of the three serotypes of poliovirus have also been eradicated globally.
“While our analysis is a preliminary effort, with various subjective components, it does seem to put COVID-19 eradicability into the realms of being possible, especially in terms of technical feasibility,” the authors wrote in the study.
They acknowledge that relative to smallpox and polio, the technical challenges of COVID-19 eradication include poor vaccine acceptance, and the emergence of more highly transmissible variants that may evade immunity, potentially outrunning global vaccination programmes.
“Nevertheless, there are of course limits to viral evolution, so we can expect the virus to eventually reach peak fitness, and new vaccines can be formulated,” the authors explained.
“Other challenges would be the high upfront costs for vaccination and upgrading health systems, and achieving the necessary international cooperation in the face of ‘vaccine nationalism’ and government-mediated ‘antiscience aggression’,” they added.
The researchers also suggest that the persistence of the virus in animal reservoirs may also thwart eradication efforts, adding, however, this does not appear to be a serious issue.
They noted, on the other hand, there is a global will to tackle the infection.
The massive scale of the health, social and economic impacts of COVID-19 in most of the world has generated “unprecedented global interest in disease control and massive investment in vaccination against the pandemic,” the authors said.
Unlike smallpox and polio, they said, COVID-19 also benefits from the added impact of public health measures, such as border controls, social distancing, contact tracing and mask wearing, which can be very effective if deployed well.
“Collectively these factors might mean that an ‘expected value’ analysis could ultimately estimate that the benefits outweigh the costs, even if eradication takes many years and has a significant risk of failure,” the authors added.
Very nicely written. The “Phantom limb” sensation well cured by the Mirror neurons activation is well summarised