These completely passed me by last year but are well worth checking out: BBC Radio 4 broadcast a couple of excellent radio programmes – one on the effects and treatment of mild brain injury and other other on the doomed historical attempt to link intelligence to skull size.
Mild traumatic brain injury doesn’t necessarily mean that effects are minor.
For some people, fatigue, poor concentration, memory difficulties and irritability may continue when the immediate affects of the injury have subsided.
These symptoms can be quite dramatic, even after simple concussion, and there is now significant interest in this post-concussional syndrome as it is quite disabling for some people.
What is interesting, is that there is evidence that these symptoms can arise out of a combination of the original brain damage plus psychological distress and poor coping strategies.
In other words, it’s not just the brain injury that causes the problems but also how people make sense of and deal with their experience.
The programme on skull size and intelligence looks at how early 20th century researchers tried to link intelligence to skull size in the futile attempt to prove that various races where biologically inferior.
A dodgy aim but an important chapter in the history of science gone wrong.
Link to documentary on mild brain injury.
Link to documentary on intelligence and skull size.
Mind Hacks 