Here’s the latest news about The Brain from Top to Bottom.

As of May 2012, the site provided beginner, intermediate, and advanced discussions of 155 different subjects, for a total of 465 main content pages, plus 74 supplementary modules and 4 guided tours.

May 2012

Topic: Mental Disorders; Sub-Topic: Alzheimer's-type Dementia

A Beginner History Module: Dr. Alois Alzheimer's First Cases
An Intermediate Tool Module: The Effects of Normal Aging on Our Cognitive Abilities
An Advanced Tool Module: Prospective Treatments for Alzheimer's

Recent media coverage listed in the "Publicity" section of this site includes:

In its Web page about the human brain (first published in January 2007 and updated in November 2011), L'Encyclopédie de l'Agora, a Quebec-based, French-language online encyclopedia, highlights The Brain from Top to Bottom and describes the method used to navigate this web site.

March 2012

The Brain from Top to Bottom home page gets a new look

The Brain from Top to Bottom Blog launched

June 2011

Topic: Pleasure and Pain; Sub-Topic: Avoiding Pain

An Intermediate Experiment Module: Acupuncture and the Placebo Effect
An Intermediate Tool Module: Anesthesics and Analgesics
An Intermediate Tool Module: Ethical Issues Raised by the Placebo Effect

Recent media coverage listed in the "Publicity" section of this site includes:

In February 2011, the web portal Thot Cursus, "Le monde de la formation à distance", put The Brain from Top to Bottom in his repertory of free e-learning resources.

In January 2011, The Brain from Top to Bottom was briefly reviewed in Perspective infirmière, the magazine of l'Ordre des infirmières et infirmiers du Québec (OIIQ) (vol. 8, no 1).

In December 2010, the blog Mister Medicine made a list of 50 great ebooks for nurses entitled "Top 50 eBooks for Nurses". The Brain from Top to Bottom has been selected in the "Anatomy" section of this list.

In October 2010, The Brain from Top to Bottom was briefly reviewed in the magazine Sciences et Avenir, no 764, p.58.

In August 2010, The Brain from Top to Bottom was briefly reviewed in the magazine Les Dossiers de La Recherche, no 40, p.96.

May 2010

Easier navigation from topic to topic

a) A new navigation box in the upper left-hand corner of each content page now lets you switch among the site's 12 main topics without having to go back to the home page first. This box shows the same 12 icons as on the home page. Place your mouse cursor over any icon, and the corresponding topic name appears at the top of the box. To go to that topic, just click the icon.
b) Tabs now make it easier for you to consult the supplementary information modules for which icon links are provided on the left side of the current page. These tabs group these icons by module category (Experiment, History, Tool, Researcher, and Linked). In addition to having a light-green border, the icons for the modules developed especially for this site are now identified by their clickable titles as well.
c) Hyperlinks in the site's navigation boxes are now visually identified in the same way as those in the text. In other words, whether you are reading text or using a navigation box, all you need to remember is that if a word is in colour and underlined, then if you click it, you will go to related information at the level of explanation identified by that colour. This new standardized appearance for hyperlinks will make the site much easier to use!

Recent media coverage about this site (listed in the "Publicity" section of this site)

In March 2010, The Neuroscience Information Framework (NIF), sponsored by the NIH Blueprint Consortium, includes The Brain from Top to Bottom as part of its catalog of web-based resources relevant for neuroscience research.

February 2009

Topic: The Emergence of Consciousness; Sub-Topic: The Sense of Self

One Beginner History Module: When the History of Science Sheds Light on the Philosophy of Mind
One Intermediate Tool Module: Similarities and Differences Between the Brain and a Computer

A new preview feature, Snap Shots, has been added so that you can see thumbnail previews of the Web pages to which our Linked module icons (the ones without green borders) will take you on other sites. Simply place your mouse cursor over the icon, and a small Snap Shots window opens immediately, showing a thumbnail image of the page to which that icon will take you. This feature not only makes consulting these external sites easier and more intuitive, but also lets you quickly tell whether you have already visited a given site, when there are lots of module icons on the same page.

Among the examples of recent media coverage listed in the "Publicity" section of this site, three have made us especially proud.

In January 2009, the French version of The Brain from Top to Bottom was nominated at the 22th Roberval Award in the Multimedia category.

In February 2008, the French version of The Brain from Top to Bottom was briefly reviewed in the magazine Les Dossiers de La Recherche, no 30, p.97.

In December 2007, The Brain from Top to Bottom was reviewed by Dr. Kevin Ahern (scroll down the page to find it) in Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News, Dec 1, 2007 (Vol. 27, No. 21 ).

November 2007

Topic: Sleep and Dreams; Sub-Topic: The Sleep / Dream / Wake Cycle and Our Biological Clocks

One Beginner Tool Module: Sleep in Other Animals
One Intermediate Tool Module: The Possible Functions of Sleep
One Intermediate Tool Module: Lucid Dreaming
One Intermediate History Module: How Biological Clock Genes Were First Discovered in Fruit Flies
One Intermediate Tool Module:
Sleep Regulation and Circadian Rhythms: A Two-Process Model
One Advanced Tool Module:
Your "Mental Stopwatch"

A new, Flash-enabled home page with new user-friendly features. For example, whenever you place your mouse cursor over one of the site's main topics, you now see a list of all its sub-topics and can access any of them directly. The left-hand menu has also been extensively reworked to give you much easier access to all of the site's contents. Meanwhile, all of the site's "housekeeping" features have been moved to the menu at the bottom of the page.

The top of each content page now shows you exactly where you are in the site's structure: it displays the same graphic that identifies the current topic on the home page, plus the current sub-topic and current level of explanation (Beginner, Intermediate, or Advanced).

Among the examples of recent media coverage listed in the "Publicity" section of this site, three have made us especially proud.

The Brain from Top to Bottom is mentioned in the Acknowledgement section of A Short Course in Intellectual Self-Defense, by Normand Baillargeon, 7 Stories Press, July 2007.

In summer 2006, The Brain from Top to Bottom was reviewed by Dennis Liu in CBE Life Sciences Education, 2006 Summer; 5(2): 94-98.

In March 2007, USA Today reporter April Holladay used The Brain from Top To Bottom as her primary source for a three-part series that she published on how human memory operates.

November 2006

Topic: From Thought to Language ; Sub-Topic: Communicating in Words

One Intermediate Tool Module: Sign Language
One Intermediate Tool Module: Using Wada’s Test To Identify the Dominant Hemisphere for Language
One Intermediate Tool Module: Different Types of Bilingualism
One Intermediate Tool Module: The Human Vocal Apparatus
One Advanced Tool Module: Chomsky's Universal Grammar
One Intermediate History Module: The Anatomical Traces of the Emergence of Language During Hominization
One Beginner Experiment Module: The Language Abilities of the Fetus

One Intermediate Experiment Module: What Split Brains Tell Us About Language
One Intermediate Experiment Module: Attempts To Teach Language to Primates

October 2006

Topic: How the Mind Develops; Sub-Topic: From Embryo to Ethics

One Beginner Tool Module: Resilience
One Intermediate Tool Module: Apoptosis (Programmed Cell Death)
One Advanced Tool Module: Homeotic Genes
One Intermediate History Module: The Devastating Effects of Isolation on Social Behaviour
One Advanced Experiment Module: Effects of Visual Deprivation During the Critical Period for Development of Vision

A new "site map" page which gives you an overview of all the subjects of the website.

In the User's Guide section, we put a link to a short article about this website in Science magazine, Volume 312, Number 5772, Issue of 21 April 2006.

The Brain from Top to Bottom received a 2006 MERLOT Awards for exemplary online learning resources. See all the details in the User's Guide section.

November 2005

Topic: Mental Disorders; Sub-Topic: Depression and Manic Depression

Topic: Mental Disorders; Sub-Topic: Anxiety Disorders

One Beginner Tool Module: Treating Anxiety Disorders
One Intermediate Tool Module: Anxiety Disorders and Psychoanalysis: Extinguishing Conditioned Fears by "Rewiring" the Brain
One Intermediate History Module: The Growth of New Neurons in the Adult Human Brain

The fourth question in the guided tour:
4. What's the connection between the Big Bang and a brilliant chess move?

April 2005

Topic: The senses; Sub-Topic: Vision

One Beginner Tool Module: Brodmann's Cortical Areas
One Intermediate Tool Module: Optics
One Advanced Tool Module: "Grandmother Cells", or Synchronous Discharges of Neurons?
One Beginner Experiment Module: The Blind Spot
One Beginner Experiment Module: Proving That the Periphery of the Retina Is More Sensitive to Light
One Intermediate Experiment Module : How the Brain Keeps Information from the Left and Right Eyes Separate

March 2005

Topic: Body movement and the brain; Sub-Topic: Making a voluntary movement

One Intermediate Tool Module: The hand

One Advanced Experiment Module: Activity Pattern of Neurons in the Motor Cortex of Monkeys

February 2005

Topic: Evolution and the brain; Sub-Topic: Our Evolutionary Inheritance

Two beginner History Module:
Hominization, or The History of the Human Lineage
The Expansion of the Hominid Brain

Five Intermediate Tool Module:
What Is Evolution?
Gradual Evolution or Punctuated Equilibria?
Darwin's Natural Selection
Sexual Selection and the Theory of Parental Investment
The Connection between Ontogeny and Phylogeny

One Advanced Tool Module:
Neural Darwinism

February 2003The first three questions in the guided tour:
1. Why do I say so many stupid things when I am drunk?
2. Why do I make myself sick, instead of just strangling my boss?
3. Why can I remember exactly what I was doing the morning of September 11, 2001 (or the day that JFK was assassinated)?
January 2003Topic: Emotions; Sub-topic: Fear, Anxiety and Anguish
October 2002Topic: Pleasure and Pain; Sub-topics: Pleasure-Seeking Behaviour and Pleasure and Drugs
July 2002Topic: Remembering and Forgetting; Sub-topics: How Memory Works and Forgetting and Amnesia
April 2002Topic: Anatomy and Function; Sub-topics: Anatomy by Level of Organization and Function by Level of Organization
January 2002Site development began