Well done BrigantesNation!

close
more_vert
Littlestone L
Littlestone May 30, 2006 15:42:48
Replying to moss

>As autism is a particular condition of the brain, you really can't backtrack it to shamanism or cave art, these things arose from hunting or a need for religion; perhaps it is her 6th sense which has become fully developed and it this she shares with prehistoric man/woman..<

But would you not agree that 'abnormal' brain functions might be similar to artificially induced abnormal brain functions? I don't now the answer to that moss but it is a fact that numerous artists (poets, writers and musicians included) were either not 'normal' (in the medical sense of he word) or they induced 'abnormality' through artificial agents.

H Hob
Hob May 30, 2006 18:23:49
Replying to Littlestone

>'abnormal' brain functions might be similar to artificially induced abnormal brain functions?

Aye, if it weren't for the abnormal states, neuroscientists wouldn't know a fraction of what they've deduced about the normal* functioning of the brain.

I often wonder about how brain pathology would have been perceived back in prehistory. Given that trepanation seems to have originated back in the paleolithic, there must have been an awareness that the mushy stuff inside the skull has a link to behaviour, even if it was just the observation that a whack on the bonce can sometimes make people start to act strangely.

Here's some stuff about holes in the head in times gone by:
http://www.trepan.com/survey.html

*Please take the inverted commas as a given when I'm using the N-word and it's opposite.