Wednesday, February 15, 2006

Tous les matins du monde

Sitting here in the office stressing about quals, it occurs to me that the pen I am using is crappy. It's a cheap ball point rather than one of the rollers that I prefer. So I head down to the hall to the lab tech's desk, where our lab's cache of pens is stored. After locating a satisfactory replacement for my ball point, I stop to reread the humorous items that her office has posted on its door. One item is a page from a "Deep Thoughts" (as in the old SNL bit) page-a-day calendar that reads, "I think a good movie would be about a guy who's a brain scientist, but he gets hit on the head, and it damages the part of the brain that makes you want to study the brain."

This gets me thinking: Isn't about time that we tracked down the part of the brain that makes you want to study the brain? Has someone done an fMRI study that compares the brains of neuroscientists to non-neuroscientists yet?