Penn Current:Features

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News, Ideas and Conversations from the University of Pennsylvania July 3, 2008
Penn Current Home Research Features Interviews Ask Benny News Briefs At Work With For the Record Out and About Publication Schedule RSS Feeds What's On Event listings The belly dance troup Hipnosis performs a show for children on July 9 at 10:30 a.m. at the Penn Museum. What do you think? Send us your ideas and comments to current@pobox.upenn.edu Penn Current Editorial Staff Editor: Tim Hyland Managing Editor: Heather A. Davis Staff Writer: Greg Johnson Executive Editor: Deni Kasrel	Special Report Penn and the Brain Penn has at least 40 centers, institutes and research groups devoted to one thing: The brain. These include the Center for Neurodegenerative Disease Research, which seeks to understand the causes of Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and other disorders, and the Center for Spirituality and the Mind, which explores the relationship between neuroscience, behavior, religion and spirituality. In this special report, we highlight just a fraction of the amazing research about the brain taking place at Penn, in disciplines as wide-ranging as philosophy, neurosurgery, criminology and psychiatry. For more, visit the Comprehensive Neuroscience Center website at www.uphs.upenn.edu/penncnc. Q&A: Adrian Raine This Penn Integrates Knowledge Professor hears complaints that his research connecting brain dysfunction to crime—work that hints at the possibility of one day being able to identify potential criminals early in life—could infringe upon civil liberties. Raine understands all of the complaints and worry. But he also says he must continue. Read more ... Going deep in the brain to help Parkinson’s patients A surgical procedure that sends electrical shocks deep into the brain has given new hope to people suffering from the severe effects of Parkinson’s disease and other motor disorders. Read more... Sending signals: Prof creates ‘mini-nervous system’ Doug Smith is at the cutting edge of his field, with work that has hinted at the possibility of creating a brain-machine interface that would allow the brain to “talk" with an artificial limb, or, more recently, repairing damaged nerve systems with material grown in a lab setting, then transplanted successfully in rats. Read more... Treatment for addiction--in its many formsPenn’s Charles O’Brien Center for Addiction Treatment treats people suffering from addictions to substances including heroin, cocaine, alcohol and nicotine, and is also researching other things that may be addictive, such as video games or gambling. Read more... The mind and ‘metaphor’ A Penn philosopher applies empirical data to traditional philosophical questions to think about the brain in a new way. Read more...	Search Penn Current View Current Archives Other Useful Sites Penn Homepage Penn Digest Newsroom Research at Penn Arts at Penn Penn@Work U@Penn Jobs@Penn Staff Directory Campus Maps Library Transportation College of General Studies University Archives Penn Athletics Penn Recreation Human Resources Almanac World Cafe Live University City District Quoted Recently "Most doctors don't know how to make the diagnosis and don't really try to do anything about it until it is so easy to diagnose that all you have to do is glance at the patient." —Charles P. O’Brien, professor in the Department of Psychiatry, on a new strategy to make physicians think about alcohol abuse in the same way they think about depression, anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder. (The Washington Post, June 17, 2008)