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Neurologist
Diagnoses and treats disorders of the nervous system — brain, spinal cord, and nerves.
Did you know?
The human brain has approximately 86 billion neurons — each connected to thousands of others
How subjects help
- Biology: Understand how nerves carry messages and what goes wrong in epilepsy or stroke.
- Chemistry: Choose medicines that calm overactive brain signals and prevent seizures.
- Physics: Read brain wave recordings and scans that measure the brain's electrical activity.
- Psychology: Test a patient's memory, speech and thinking to find which brain area is affected.
A famous name
Jean-Martin Charcot: Founder of modern neurology who first described ALS and defined multiple sclerosis in the 1860s.
Try it yourself: Catch a falling ruler
- Your partner holds the ruler at the top so it hangs down, with the 0 end just above your open thumb and finger.
- Without warning, at any moment in the next 5 seconds, your partner lets go. Catch it as fast as you can.
- Read the centimetre mark where you caught it and use the card to turn it into a reaction time. Have 5 tries each.
- Compare your best and average times with your partner's. Try again with your other hand, or with your eyes closed while your partner says "now".
Neuroscientists and neurologists measure reaction times in thousandths of a second to study how fast signals travel from the senses to the brain to the muscles, and how tiredness, age or illness change that.
Adapted from Neuroscience for Kids (University of Washington): Reaction Time.
Also try: Keep a sleep diary like a sleep scientist.
Known for it in
USA, Germany, UK, France, Japan