I absolutely love the TED talks!  This one by brain expert, Vilayanur Ramachandran is so good I had to post it.  He gets a standing ovation at the end for good reason!  He is a great speaker.  In this talk he discusses the research being done using specific brain injuries to map the brain but also goes into some fascinating rehabilitation techniques that he has developed.  Especially amazing is the use of the mirror box for the treatment of phantom pain and also for use in stroke rehabilitation.

Vilayanur Ramachandran is the director of the Center for Brain and Cognition at the University of California, San Diego, and an adjunct professor at the Salk Institute. He is the author of Phantoms in the Brain, the basis for a Nova special, and A Brief Tour of Human Consciousness; his next book, due out in January 2008, is called The Man with the Phantom Twin: Adventures in the Neuroscience of the Human Brain.  Newsweek magazine named him one of the "hundred most prominent people to watch in the next century".

Besides being a fascinating talk (which is why I am posting it on the blog) it is also fun to watch people as they speak.  Vilayanur is a phenomenal speaker!  He keeps the talk moving with a great use of storytelling.  He also slips in humor which keeps everyone quite engaged. 

The only problem with the presentation was that on film he looks down most of the time.  He was on a raised stage.  I do not know if the room he was speaking to was on one level or if the seating was tiered.  When a speaker has lights shining on him an easy mistake he can make is to speak to the first few rows since they are all he can see.  The rest of the audience is in blackness since the speaker is blinded by the lights when he looks out.  If you are being filmed looking out is an important thing to remember!

I am curious to hear about work using the mirror boxes for stroke patients.  If readers know about stroke rehab being done using mirror boxes, please post a comment.  This is the first time I have tried to put a Ted Talk in so we will see if it works.