As we prepare for Halloween, many households will hang skeleton pictures, skeleton mobiles and even wear skeleton shirts. But how accurate are the Halloween execs at teaching anatomy? The human spine has 33 vertebrae. There are usually 7 cervical bones, 12 thoracic bones, 5 lumbar bones, 5 sacral bones, and 4 coccygeal bones. Most humans…
During the Tampa Bay Rays versus Houston Astros ALDS game October 5 th 2019, AJ Pierzynski commented on being a baseball catcher and getting hit in the head from foul tip balls. He tried to be humorous in making the comment, “I don’t mind getting hit in the head. It’s hard to get a concussion…
In patients with neck arthritis, also called spondylosis, the risk of spinal cord injury from a fall is a concern of both patients and physicians. The spinal cord is essentially an extension of the brain, which constitutes the central nervous system. If the spinal cord is damaged, it likely cannot be repaired and the neurological…
October 14 is Columbus Day, or Indigenous People’s Day. Our country historically has celebrated Columbus Day due to Christopher Columbus’s westward travels, hitting land on October 12, 1492. Of course Columbus arrived in Guanahani in the archipelago of the Bahamas, but the indigenous people gave him the impression he arrived in India. We are named…
Lumbar minimally invasive surgery (MIS) has been around since the late 1970s. It was initially used in decompressions alone, in which some bone and tissue pressing on the nerves was removed without adding any screws or rods. What was interesting about the original reports of lumbar MIS was that the technique was defined by using…
In honor of Pediatric Cancer Awareness month in September, Nebraska native Jack Hoffman was featured on College Gameday. In 2011, 5-year-old Jack had a seizure and was found to have a glioma, a type of brain tumor. The majority of pediatric gliomas present as benign, slow-growing tumors, which are fundamentally different from adult tumors. Luckily,…
Have you ever felt like you brain was acting slow… you were just not thinking clearly. You may have pondered, “I wish my brain would work better” or, “I wish I had more brain cells”? Well, turns out, at one point you did have more brain cells… they just died off. During the early stages…
A brain MRI is a way to take a picture of your brain without using ionizing radiation. It uses magnetic fields and radiofrequency pulses to produce a very detailed picture. It is crucial for the diagnosis of many neurologic conditions. The average MRI brain scan takes about 30-60 minutes to complete. To obtain the images,…
John Madden would have called it a “double doink”. Last year the Chicago Bears’ Cody Parkey missed a potentially game-winning field goal against the Eagles, in one of their more promising seasons of recent years. But Bears fans found quick salvation in their 2019 kicker, Eddy Pineiro, who was 100% in extra points and field…
Those MIT guys are at it again… Now that they’re banned from blackjack and casinos, they’ve redirected their time to research brain vascular problems… in more minimally invasive ways than ever before. Aneurysms and stroke have long been challenging conditions for neurologists and neurosurgeons to treat. Both arise from blood vessel problems in the brain.…