A perfect blend of medical drama and spiritual insight, Gray Matter is a fascinating account of Dr. David Levy’s decision to begin asking his patients if he could pray for them before surgery. Some are thrilled. Some are skeptical. Some are hostile, and some are quite literally transformed by the request. Each chapter focuses on a specific case, opening with a detailed description of the patient’s diagnosis and the procedure that will need to be performed, followed by the prayer “request.” From there, readers get to look over Dr. Levy’s shoulder as he performs the operation, and then we wait—right alongside Dr. Levy, the patients, and their families—to see the final results. Dr. Levy’s musings on what successful and unsuccessful surgical results imply about God, faith, and the power of prayer are honest and insightful. As we watch him come to his ultimate conclusion that no matter what the results of the procedure are, “God is good,” we cannot help but be truly moved and inspired.

Medical thriller.

This book constitutes the proceedings of a NATO Advanced Research Workshop held at Chateau de Bonas (France) from 10-15 July 1990 on the Midbrain Periaqueductal Gray Matter (PAG). The aim of this meeting was to review and integrate our knowledge about the functional, anatomical and neuro chemical organization of the PAG. The PAG has been the subject of many investi gations during the last decade usually on different topics (e.g., pain modulation, defensive and sexual behavior) and generally there has been little interchange between the different research areas. The main purpose of this meeting was to bring together, for the first time, scientists who have worked on the PAG from different perspectives. This book does not pretend to present an exhaustive review of the data collected during the last 20 years of research on the PAG. The contributors to this book have been selected because their data provide key elements in the search to understand both the organization of the PAG and the role of this structure in the integration of behavior. We believe that this book will provide clues that will assist in unraveling the organization of the PAG in the coming years.

Gray Matter, Matters is a book that will revolutionize school and clinical practices. For the first time, professionals in the educational domain will be challenged to rethink by which method children with brain injury are to receive services. Neurodevelopmental disorders are frequently misdiagnosed as learning disabilities." These disorders of childhood are presumed to be of psychological origin. This book discusses the myth of learning disabilities, emotional disturbances and "other health impaired." The use of labels to remediate neurodevelopmental disorders is inappropriate and may lead to school dropout. Nontraumatic brain injury (NTBI) typically results from biological and/or environmental factors. As such, NTBI will be manifest as learning, speech and language, motor, emotional and behavioral disturbances. These children do not have a history of traumatic brain injury (TBI). The lack of knowledge of the brain-behavior relationship leads to erroneous educational practices. When these practices are applied, children are punished for their inability to attain academic mastery. Teachers may be incorrectly blamed for failing to help children move out of the cycle of failure. When children present with learning, emotional or behavioral difficulties, professionals in the schools typically overlook biological antecedents. In this book, childhood disorders will be explained from a neurodynamic perspective. Now children with nontraumatic brain injury will finally get the recognition and assistance they need. Educators are challenged to embrace the tenets of cognitive neuroscience. This is a must read for parents and professionals who desire to move children through the continuum of academic progress.

Simultaneously restless and enchanted, the primary speaker of these poems is a tourist in the truest sense. She finds herself on trains, in the backcountry of the American wilderness, in crowded European hostels, and in Vietnam, eating a partially fertilized egg. All the while, Michigan, the landscape of childhood, serves as her reference point ("A rustic sort of place I can't back away from"). Inspired by the Buddhist concept of anatta, or "no-self," the speaker navigates unfamiliar terrain, sparking the question of identity and the agent of its construction. The poems ask how through perception the body metabolizes experience. From this intersection the passionate investigation of consciousness takes flight, framing the slippage between thinking and being, the feast of the subconscious and the seeds planted from waking life, the impermanence of a given moment, versus the materialism of memory, the reality of isolation despite the presence of a crowd, the influence of culture versus biology's common baseline. Drawing from contemporary neuroscience and rare case studies, the poems illuminate the peculiar, interrelated aspects of the mechanisms of the brain and personality. But there is nothing clinical about these poems, culled from dreams and memory fragments. The question of consciousness gives rise to the distinct human ability to reflect, to invent. Which is what the poems-poignant, strange, radiating musicality-enact: someone gropes for the deer mount its goofy snarl and patchwork hide a ruse underway laughter in the pantry the deer lifted into someone's sleep (from "Staff After Hours") Not the love a mile underground on a train that slows into the station like a sore arm bending, but the kind boarded on a ship and sailed hard into the storm we've made of ourselves. (from "Please do Not Touch") Gray Matter: 1. the material of the brain. 2. an expression naming an idea or situation held in shadow. This book tangles with the unknown, but also celebrates the seductive curiosity its mystery provokes. It is a love letter from the imagination to the scientists and philosophers who, despite remarkable attempts, still cannot locate its source.

The human mind is a learning machine. We are constantly taking in new information, processing that information, and making decisions based on what we learn. Biofeedback is a process that teaches the mind so that it can learn to control the body. This book is a comprehensive look into this holistic type of learning; it explores how moods, muscles, nerves, and brain waves can be controlled by the mind through biofeedback treatment. Biofeedback also examines the discussions surrounding this topic. Though a lot of research has gone into exploring the mechanisms of biofeedback, science cannot explain exactly how the mind learns, so it cannot explain exactly how biofeedback works, either. And for this reason, biofeedback has long been questioned by traditional medicine.