Word: neuroscientist
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Dates: during 1992-1992
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...there are stars in the Milky Way. Each one of these receives input from about 10,000 other neurons in the brain and sends messages to a thousand more. The combinatorial possibilities are staggering. The cerebral cortex alone boasts 1 million billion connections, a number so large, marvels neuroscientist Gerald Edelman in his recent book about the brain, Bright Air, Brilliant Fire, that "if you were to count them, one connection per second, you would finish counting some 32 million years after you began...
Normally, the caudate nucleus filters the flood of anxious feelings and sensations that are relayed from the orbital cortex, an area of the brain just above the eyes, and sends only the significant ones on to the thalamus for further action. But in people with obsessive-compulsive disorder, says neuroscientist Lewis Baxter, who led the team, the caudate nucleus is "a poor executive officer. He's bombarded with messages from worrywarts. But instead of setting priorities, he gets excited about all the messages and passes them on to the dispatcher...