Magnetoencephalography...

At 22 words long I would be able to beat anyone at scrabble using this word!! I said yesterday I'd write more about the machine pictured above. I shall keep it brief, or try to...thanks Jenny! Cardo, please take notes here. Takako is doing fascinating work in the research labs at Baycrest trying to better understand how the brain works, and in my words, after at least an hour and a half of deep & fascinating discussion I can say this..and Takako if you ever get to read this please correct me ( using a POST below) if I have got it wrong BUT...here goes and deep breath...essentially she is trying to identify the source of, and links between, musical intelligence and sensory-motor or body-based intelligence in the brain, contributing to better understanding the complexities of how musical intelligence is both received and processed by the brain. She posits that the sources of musical and sensory motor processing may be closely linked in terms of how the brain processes them and this knowing is of great importance is relation to people who may have had strokes.

It is not a new experience for me to meet a musician, it is a big new experience for me to meet both a musician and a neuroscientist, investigating musicality in the brain...thanks Takako for all you passed on to me and for your latest research paper you gave me too! Also, as I understand it she has discovered through her researches, that the brain is somehow able to anticipate or project forward the missing beats when the original stimulus of a regular pulse is suddenly interrupted (experimentally); which she says is evidence of very sophisticated brain processing. She also spoke to me about the strong connections she is discovering between the sensory-motor and musical processing areas. As a dance therapist this is fascinating to learn about, and I think is of great importance for the DMP community back in UK, and I look forward to more communications with Takako in the future. Her paper is very dense and detailed and Cardo I will definitely need your help to look at this & interpret when we're back.

The next blog will be about my inspiring meets today with staff at the Reitman Centre at Mt Sinai Hospital. A very special team indeed, involved in the treatment/care and support for people with dementia and their care-givers here in Toronto, who I feel very proud to have had the opportunity to meet today. Also, one of those never to be forgotten occasions when you meet someone who takes you to a great cafe; feeling afterwards ( 3 hours later) that their generosity, their warmth in giving so much of what they know on so many subjects surrounding old age- is inspiring and awesome both. Thank you Stephen.

Now I'm knackered...more when I can...as the pace quickens. Off to the Baycrest Day Care Facility tomorrow am. Bon Nuit!! & phew...................................still too long...........oh dear!!