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Cerebrum 1998

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Cerebrum

When an American President “Loses It”

It has happened, of course—and not infrequently. Just in this century, American presidents who continued to serve in office while seriously neurologically impaired include Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Dwight D. Eisenhower. In the first two, there is a credible historical case that the results were catastrophic on a world scale. But the real question is: Could it happen again? Neurologist James Toole headed a Working Group on Presidential Disability, established in 1994 at the invitation of former President Jimmy Carter and Atlanta’s Carter Center, that made strong recommendations for guarding against a recurrence, but little has been done. As a result, says Dr. Toole, a time bomb (or a somewhat larger explosive) is ticking away. There are steps that would be simple—though not politically easy—to implement.

By: James F. Toole, M.D.

Cerebrum

Scientific Research

Who Benefits? Who Pays?

How can we guarantee a healthy research enterprise in an era of budget cutbacks, competition among diseases, and public demands for quick results?

By: Leon N. Cooper, Ph.D.

Cerebrum

Animal Fear and Human Guilt

A pioneer of research on temperament looks at recent research on the neural bases of fear.

By: Jerome Kagan, Ph.D.

Cerebrum

Brain Death in an Age of Heroic Medicine

When the technology of heart transplantation and life-support machines overtook the traditionally accepted criterion of death—cessation of heartbeat—an alternative criterion emerged. Irreversible loss of brain function, or “brain death,” for all the debates and recent attacks it has provoked, has worked well as a determinant of death, argues Dr. Guy McKhann.

By: Guy McKhann, M.D.

Cerebrum

Brains and Machines

Correcting Some “Famous Mistakes”

Could a machine think? In the era of computing machines, that has become our way of posing centuries-old philosophical questions about the mind and body (including the brain).

By: John R. Searle

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