Neuroanatomy Quotes- 2010 Edition

Melissa made sure to keep track of all thee quotable quotes of neuro:


"I like to think of tear fluid as eye saliva" Dr. Bales

"This should all be coming back to you from gross... there should be a big sucking sound in this room as all the knowledge floods back into your brain." Dr. Bales on the ciliary ganglia

"You just can't move one eye out at a time. We're not chameleons, maybe it would be cool if we were, but were not." Dr. Bales on horizontal gaze.

"There is one thing that is almost impossible to get, and if your patient got it, they are probably dead." Dr. Bales on combined cranial nerve lesions.

"I always thought it was cheating to use the bar, you should just use your macula" Dr. Bales on tightropists walking the niagra gorge carrying poles to aid their balance.

Bales "What do you call it, The business in the....::gestures with hands::"
Student: "A mullet?"
Bales: "yeah, a mullet."

"If your motor thalamus is not properly inhibited, it's bad news." Dr. Bales

"Let's say that there are two college roomates, and they share a shower, well there may be fecal material in the shower..." Dr. Saviola on how tape worms can be transmitted from person to person.

"cannibalism is probably never a good idea" - Dr. Saviola

"So, what do you need to know? Well, all of them"-Al Tikriti

The cerebrum might say [to the cerebellum], "Mini brain, you complete me." -Bales (in his notes)

"Now this..is the speech banana."-Martin, on the sound level vs. frequency chart

“some excuse for women, they can kick their spouse at night. Like my wife…she always wake me up at night.”-Dr.Wong, on Restless Leg Syndrome

“the brain is sensitive to being injured… it doesn’t like it very much” Dr. Pummerantz on Bacterial Meningitis and its symptoms.

“Getting old is a good excuse for a lot of things, but not for Parkinson’s” Dr. Qazi on Parkinson's disease occuring more frequently in the middle aged individuals (less than 1% in age 65+)

"I’ve never really asked a patient what makes them develop the urge to utter an obscenity, but I think it is an urge that a lot of adults have too." Dr Qazi on Tourette’s Disorder.

“most of you have heard of this ::giggle::..get high and euphoric by sniffing cocaine and smoking it.”-Dr. Wong

“Did I mess this up…oh..well, let me go onto the next slide.”-Bales

"The Auricle is cartilage that is covered in skin, this is the part that flaps in the wind for some people" Dr. Felton on the External Ear

“eh, I think it’s true, but you can look it up. Swimmers ear, like for people in georgia, may be why people speak funny in that area." -Dr. Felton

"If some one is sweaty and has an itch in their ear, and they try and itch it with a paper clip…or an ice axe..”-Felton

“they didn’t actually take a person and slice their head open like that. It’s just a picture.”-Dr. Felton, referring to a cartoon drawing of the ear

“this is a hoaky picture, I hate this picture. At least they made it look pink.” -Felton, referring to an electron microscope picture.

“I wanted to show a picture of an eardrum with a Q-tip going through it. But I figured that you knew not to do that anyway, so I didn’t show it.” -Dr. Felton

Necrotizing external otitis (malignant external otitis): “you can tell they’re severe b/c they contain the words “necrotizing” and “malignant.” You NEVER want to hear those words.”-Felton

Aspergillus niger: “that’s the one when you pull an orange from behind the milk in the fridge, it’s been there for a few months…it’s all black or something…” -Felton

"I'm going to go a few minutes over and finish this up so you won't be in here til lunch time. You can then go and practice your movement disorders again." Dr. May in referrence to the DO 2013 class filming a dance bit before his lecture for the class video.

"I had a second year student come up to me and tell me, 'Oh Dr. Martin, I remember what you told us about the pinna'... and I thought to myself well that's good, at least you remember something." Dr. Martin on the function of the pinna

"One student looked into the ear of a child and found a cockroach, and that was unpleasant for the student *chuckles to self*" Dr. Martin on the things one can find in peoples ears.

"Those whacky early zoologists considered gill stuctures as visceral, so we are stuck with the term
“visceral” attached to striated muscles [a concept which makes my head hurt]" Dr. Bales on the difference between SVE of the head and GSE, in his lecture document.

"Massive excitation of the cerebellum makes you wonder why it doesn't just dance right out of your head." Dr. Bales on the circuitry of the cerebellum.

"Some part of your consciousness will put this image together, hopefully it is focused on me right now" Dr. Bales on your brain assimilating the parts of the visual field into a coherent image.

"Most of [the visual cortex] we don't know what it does yet. If I could tell you what it was doing I would have a bigger office with at least one window." Dr. Bales

“..this is done by the superior colliculus, which I already told you that I know nothing about…”-Dr. Bales

“Alpha, beta, gamma delta..uhh…::pauses:: all these Greek syllables…”-Dr. Wong

"When I was pregnant and got a cold sore on my lip...." Followed by an awkward pause as Saviola just realizes she told the entire class that she has Herpes! (TORCH & HSV-1 lecture)

"it is no accident that these two systems are related anatomically and functionally at the
cellular level (but that is a different lecture, in a different course, in a different discipline)" Dr. Bales on the vestibular and auditory system.

"the “rocks in your head” include otolith and statolith" Bales

"The CNS can suppress back ground irrelevant noise, like some people are doing with my lecture right now." Bales

"scientific summary --> there's a whole lot a connectin' goin' on" Bales

"When a train is here, you want to be able to see the engine number so you can report the engineer for not stopping when you are on the tracks" Bales

"Geometry is a requirement to be here [as a student], but it is not a requirement to lecture." Bales on an addition error he made during lecture.

"The olfactory system is relatively less important in primates, a shark will smell you before you smell the shark" Bales

"You walk out of a crowded bar into the daylight... or have you not had that opportunity yet?" Martin on the bleaching of the cones in the retina during phototopic vision.

"I don't know what konio means, perhaps one of you will tell me in a moment when you look it up on google..." Martin

"almost everyone smells with their nose" Martin on olfactory sense.

"How do you tell if there is a Herpes infection in the cornea? Well the answer is you go to the eye clinic." Tiwari

"The book is rambling, incoherent, and doesn't make a lot of sense, this could be due to the authors or the fact that the subject matter is just rambling, incoherent, and doesn't make sense." Bales on the Thalamus

"Think of the pulvinar as the butt of the 'thalamoose' and it is mooning the corpus quadrigemina" Bales

"Things that fluctuate during sleep... including penile erection, perhaps I should point out that this does not occur in females...." Martin

"If you lesion a rat and put it in a cage, it may be like 'hey what's happenin dude?' It gets even wierder, the rat may try to hump the snake..." Bales on lesions of the amygdala.

"So you get dressed, you put on one sleeve of your sweater and you are done." Bales on hemineglect.

“so when you see a big sign that says, DO NOT URINATE HERE…you don’t” -Bales

"continual inclusion of new structures to the expanding “system” are making it less meaningful
or useful (limbic lobe --> Papes circuit --> lymbic system --> extended limbic system -->
superginormous limbic system --> whole brain)" Bales on the limbic system.

"rats prefer electrical stimulation of the septal nuclei to food and water... stimulation and lesion studies in animals and some lesions in humans have implicated the septal region in sexuality and orgasm (hypersexuality); no wonder the rats prefer stimulaton to food and water !" Bales

"Amygdala, a complex nuclei with a fantastical number of connections... all of which you will need to know for the exam..." Bales (we all pray that he was actually being sarcastic on purpose)

"Layer 2 is the most boring layer, there is not much going on there..." Bales on layers of the cortex.

"This is a photo of Keith Richards, a long time heroin user (photo of him slumped over and passed out) it looks like he is having a good time." Wong on the effects of heroin.

"The reticular formation is very involved in maintaining consciousness, and arousal. It allows you to pay attention…if , indeed, you are”-Bales

"If you decorticate a cat with it’s feet on a sling, you can get it to walk still. The motor pattern in the brainstem is still there. uh, sorry if this offends anyone..but it has been done before…”-Bales

. “Ondine’s curse. That’s not a good thing to have.” -Bales (talking about a lesion that makes you stop breathing if you sleep.

“do you want to urinate now? In the middle of lecuture, while walking to the back? Well, maybe you could just do it in your seat...of course if you have had too much to drink”-Martin (on micturition reflex)

“people are ashamed to pee their pants”-Martin

“..this figure is taken from google again>snickers<..”-Wong

"You can ask your patient, 'Do you have problems with deglutition?' and your patient will ask you 'What the hell is that?' " Martin on swallowing reflex

"If you don't treat viral conjunctivitis it will probably go away in 7 days, if you do treat it... it will go away in about a week." Mintz

"Hopefully you can do some studying of this on your own... or maybe some research." Martin on the physiology of the autonomic sexual response and orgasm.

"Think about those cranial nerves.. you know those heads in a jar, like on futurama? There is no reason that shouldn't be..." - Bertetta on Cause of Death

"What would you predict the symptoms of thalamic lesion would be? Flip a coin or throw some darts at a dart board." Bales on thalamic lesions, and their many uncorrelatable effects

There is no such thing as brain transplants, only body transplants - Dr. Miulli, Neurosurgeon

"You will notice that I said Guillain-Barre' two times... and I didn't say the others two times." - Dr. Berman on his lectures and how to study for his Qs.

"What does the PC section have to say about this? We shouldn't ask the apple section. What's wrong you guys aren't answering? " Miulli
Student with apple "they got a virus..."
Miulli on how much of the brain has blood supply

"Brendon is going to come down here in a couple of minutes and give you a super secret password to win you $500 or something." Miulli on the lunch lecture he is giving and the intro for it.

"A few reasons not to do a rectal exam; patient does not have an anus (congenital colostomy), or the doctor has no fingers." Dr. Berman

"I'm being videotaped??? ::turns off microphone and walks out of camera range, proceeds to give answers to test:: "Well now those were the answers to the test." Miulli on the attendance to his lectures after the lunch break. -these were not actual answers to the test

"When you go into the room the pt is not going to say... I am a 45 yo right handed male with a 3 week history of back pain. It gets worse when I do the valsalvo maneuver..." Dr. Miulli on taking a thorough history.

"We are going to kill everyone in the next three slides..." Dr. Miulli on the NASCIS study I and II

"This is medicine at its best" Miulli on a massive academic spinal cord injury drug trial study where they 'forgot to use placebo'.

"Well this isn't on the test anyway so who cares..." Miulli on the difference between an epidural and subdural hematoma.

"Here is a tumor that I have made in photoshop..." Roscoe on neural pathology

"We do the same thing, freeze the tissue and put it on the shabu shabu slicer..." Roscoe on how they analyze surgical pathology specimens.

"Remember the brachial plexus? I don't.. remember that horrible thing that looks like a freeway accident... I always have to talk to students about it and pretend I know what I am talking about." - Roscoe

"We want to cut the brain open to see the germinal matrix ::cues animation of chainsaw being used to section a brain::" -Roscoe

"This is a photo of the infection occuring ::cue video of cute kittehs::" Atkinson on toxoplasmosis as a torch pathogen.

"Hopefully you don't have to remember the broadman areas... oh you do... sorry about that." Roscoe

"Use the objective when you start studying for my portion of the test at 4am the day of the test." Atkinson

"In Florida you eat the baracuda if you... want to be in a movie like Jackass or something." Atkinson on Red tide and other forms of toxin peripheral neuropathy.

"This is a horrible list... when I had to study for the neurology boards we had to memorize the inborn errors in metabolism. We had all these mnemonics, and a chart to understand the mnemonics... as soon as the test is over... you will forget them all." Roscoe

"BTW when you take your boards, and you open the letter and you pass, you realize that unless you let your driver's license lapse, you will never have to take another test again in your life, you will do a football touchdown dance ::proceeds to demonstrate::" Roscoe

"The teddy bear is the uncus, you can push on it and it is easy to push on it. But if I am the person pushing on it, and there are five of you pushing back against me there is a lot of resistance.... Now I know that is the lamest example you have ever heard...." Roscoe on uncal herniation

"Now I don't remember if theses are greek or roman columns, so we will just say their are greek or roman columns..." Roscoe on some insane way to remember that CN3 innervates levator palpebrae superioris.

"Its okay to say bruise on a medical record, but if you say contusion it sounds cooler..." Roscoe

"The teddy bear example was the worst example, well this is the second. Pretend you are ice skating on bear feet. You hit a patch that is kinda rough, you aren't moving very fast, but it still kinda hurts your feet... the brain is the same way." Roscoe on Contracoup contusion.

“I should take some of these out…I’m repeating the same things here..”-Parsa, on the repetitive slides

“the time is up, and..I’m over it…see you tomorrrow morning.” -Parsa at the end of lecture

“stage 4 is when people have diuresis, have their, um, ….episodes.”-Marti