Tag: intro-ls-23
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Troubled Waters – PBL Case
Cholera is an infectious disease that, in severe cases, results in vomiting and diarrhea, which, if left untreated, can lead to death caused by dehydration and electrolyte loss sometimes even within hours. In 1883 physician and microbiologist Robert Koch identified Vibrio cholera as the bacterium that causes the disease. It can be found in plankton,…
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Reacting Quickly – PBL Case
In 1662 René Descartes, the French philosopher, wrote about the question of how it comes that we immediately react to noxious stimuli such as heat so quickly. Since then , our understanding of the nervous system has evolved immensely, yet some of the vocabulary used and the descriptions involved remain strikingly similar. In this PBL…
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Are viruses alive? – PBL Case
One question has been puzzling scientists for a while: are viruses alive? Several criteria have been proposed to distinguish the living from the non-living, but this remains an area of active debate. In this PBL case, students must research and discuss the way we conceptualize the border between the alive and non-alive, taking into account…
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Patient H.M. – PBL Case
In 1953 Henry Molaison, who later became known as patient H.M., underwent an experimental type of neurosurgery in Hartford, Connecticut. The reason for this was that he had suffered from seizures since adolescence and these seizures had become more severe now that he was in his late 20s. Henry recovered quite well from the surgery…
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Patient HeLa – PBL Case
In January, 1951 Henrietta Lacks was referred by her doctor to Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, because she suffered from abnormal bleedings between her regular menstrual cycles. The gynecologist Howard Jones, working at the hospital, discovered a small tumor of purple color on her cervix. Mary Kubicek was successful in establishing an immortal cell line…
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Patient Frederic – PBL Case
You are a physician. It’s November and one day a patient, Frederic Cave, shows up in your open office hours and asks for your advice. He didn’t bring a health history and since it’s the first time you meet the patient, you ask him about it. Cave is 42 years old, not married, but lives…
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No Milk Today – PBL Case
You are a medical doctor. One day a mother with her four-month old infant shows up at your office. She reports that her child sometimes vomits after being fed. This alone is not a reason to worry a lot, but in addition, the baby shows rash on different parts of its body. In order to…
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Multitasking – PBL Case
Our own experience from daily life as well as studies from Cognitive Psychology tell us that some tasks can be done simultaneously without a decrease of performance in either of the two. For other tasks this is difficult or impossible to do them simultaneously. For example, the simultaneous production of different motor responses with both…
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Feeling What Is Not There – PBL Case
After an amputation, a large number of patients report that they can still feel their amputated limb as if it was still there. They report regular sensual experiences such as being touched on the missing limb and, especially in the time right after surgery, they sometimes “forget” that the limb is not there anymore. For…
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Brain Lesions – PBL Case
On September 13, 1848, Phineas Gage, a railroad construction worker, was involved in a severe work accident when, following an explosion, an iron bar passed through his head, destroying part of his prefrontal lobe. He recovered and lived another 11 years, but contemporary reports suggest that his personality changed abruptly. This turned out to be…