Word: cortex
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...their dive. Divers sometimes unaccountably passed out during relatively shallow dives (up to four atmospheres of pressure used to be considered safe). The British study, involving some 2,000 tests, proved that oxygen, forced into the tissues under pressure, somehow intoxicates the central nervous system and poisons the brain cortex. (Whales, biologists have observed, bypass the whole oxygen problem by collapsing their lungs during deep dives...
...says Dr. Weidenreich, has not reduced modern man's brain; it remains about the same size as that of the Neanderthal man. According to the latest theory, brainpower depends not on shape or size but on configuration of the brain surface and on the development of the cerebral cortex. Says Weidenreich: "The attempt to equip dolichocephalics as such with certain characteristic mental qualities ... is nothing but a revival of ... phrenology...
Mumbling about what happens to the "hypothalamic proclivities" when they are released through concussion from "the higher control of the cortex," the special ist began to draw the marks of the wound on a scratch pad. "A person in this state," he concluded, "may find ... his disability offers a convenient escape from responsibilities, you understand...
...Loyola, Alexander, Caesar, Peter the Great (see BOOKS), Napoleon and possibly Hitler.-In the Medical Record, Brooklyn's Dr. Edward Podolsky explains why epilepsy may be a spur to greatness. Epileptic fits result from a disturbed electrical equilibrium in the brain. Electrical energy continually piles up in the cortex (brain covering), is discharged at irregular intervals in fits. Many epileptics are nobodies, but the brilliant ones drive themselves like maniacs while the energy piles higher & higher...
Under the stress of tiring work or a shortage of oxygen, the cortex (outer layer) of the kidneys' adrenal glands secretes unusual amounts of certain hormones known as 17-ketosteroids (containing one oxygen and 17 carbon atoms). They are discharged in the urine. The investigators discovered that the output of ketosteroids (and of urine) rose in direct proportion to fatigue and loss of efficiency. There was wide variation among individuals; those with the greatest stamina showed the smallest secretion of ketosteroids...