Word: oswald
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Brain Researcher Ian Oswald of Oxford University's Institute of Experimental Psychology got interested in it while running sleep experiments. His volunteers were plastered with electrodes for electrocardiograph, breathing and brain-wave records. So he got instantaneous evidence of a burst of high-voltage activity in the brain, and disturbances in the heartbeat and breathing. Dr. Oswald reports in Brain that his first jerk-recording subject was a healthy, athletic type of 22, with no history of head injury or brain damage. But he had several such jerks nearly every night while falling asleep in a normal setting...
...Oswald polled 50 of his friends, found that only seven rated themselves free of falling-asleep jerks; 25 had them about three times a year; the rest reported increasing frequency up to more than once a week. Finally, Dr. Oswald had some himself. One was accompanied by the sensation of a sudden flash of light, another by "the sight of half a brick hurtling toward my face...
Still not clear from the research is the cause of the jerks. They are often triggered by a slight noise. Several of Dr. Oswald's informants thought they were associated with periods of anxiety. (In his own case, three out of four occurred in one night when he was trying to stay alert for a cry from one of his children who had an ear infection.) All the jerks came before deep sleep...
Some neurologists have equated the jerks with epilepsy, but since they are so nearly universal, Dr. Oswald doubts the connection. Anti-convulsion drugs are sometimes prescribed for severe cases; if they work, it is probably because they bring on deep sleep faster. Reassurance, suggests Dr. Oswald, may also be a good prescription...
...Died. Oswald D. Heck, 57, popular, powerful, longtime (23 years) Republican speaker of the New York state assembly, who ruled the often unruly legislators with fair play and wit, pushed through controversial measures (State Commission Against Discrimination, compulsory auto insurance, Governor Nelson Rockefeller's tough tax program); of a heart attack; in Schenectady...