The findings may have relevance for the prevention and treatment of epilepsy, and possibly in the exploration of other aspects of brain functions, from creative thought processes to mental illnesses such as schizophrenia. Full Story »
Posted by Melva Hackney
[Added: Thanks to Patricia Blochowiak for finding the original article, which is indeed important and worth a read. However, its publication date does not match that given in the TerraDaily report here reviewed, being 1254812553 PNAS July 24, 2007 vol. 104 no. 30, rather than "An article published today, July 16, 2007, in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences". Furthermore, Margot Bumpus' eurekalert link shows that TerraDaily simply lied by crediting the article to "Staff Writers" when it was just a passed-along-unchecked press release. TerraDaily gets my lowest rating for credibility.] ALthough I am quite interested in this field, and reasonably up with the play, I found the explanations obscure. The writers rambled through too much background before explaining the core discovery. Then that discovery was poorly explained, as they used the old and misleading "electric current" image for the transmission of neural excitation. I logged in to PNAS online, and could not find the article in the July 17, 2007; 104 (29) issue where they said it was! Searching on "Traub" and "Hamzei-Sichani" in the author index got no results, and no article title seemed remotely related. I then went to the SUNY website and found that Dr Traub is indeed a researcher in this field, but found no mention of the discovery or the article. Perhaps someone will quickly see what I missed, and locate the source, but for now I have to wonder about the care with which the article was prepared.
