School of Design, Engineering & Computing

New book focuses on positive and negative effects in neurology

25 August 2011

BU Visiting Professor, Jonathan Cole has co–edited a new book.

BU Visiting Professor Jonathan Cole has co–edited a new book which focuses on a range of phenomena in clinical and cognitive neuroscience and seeks to go against the grain of established thinking.

The Paradoxical Brain, published by Cambridge University Press (ISBN: 9780521115575) covers a wide scope of topics ranging from Superior performance after brain lesions or sensory loss, to Paradoxical phenomena associated with human development. The book describes ways in which brain damage or sensory loss may result in better–than–normal performance. It is particularly aimed at helping researchers develop models in brain function and aid clinicians to think of ways in which new forms of therapy may be designed and implemented.

“The book points people towards seeing positives as well as negative effects in neurology,” says Professor Cole, a consultant in clinical neurophysiology at Poole Hospital and a visiting professor at BU. “Its aim is also to ‘de–pathologise’ difference, whether this is in autism, deafness or stroke.”

The Paradoxical Brain features contributions from a number of leading researchers with the foreword by renowned neurologist and psychologist Dr Oliver Sacks and Professor Narinder Kapur. Professor Cole helped to write and shape the introduction and the final summary as well as editing each of the 24 chapters.

Kapur acknowledged Professor Cole’s invaluable contribution to the book.

“I am particularly grateful to Jonathan Cole for his priceless and timely comments over many months on the drafts of every chapter Jonathan [and Tom Manly] contributed many hours of their time on the book and their input helped shape both the chapter and the book itself in innumerable ways.”

Jonathan Cole was originally made a Visiting Professor to BU’s School of Design, Engineering and Computing (DEC) in relation to work on phantom limb pain and virtual reality. He is now also attached to the University’s cross–collaborative Centre of Postgraduate Medical Research and Education based in the School of Health and Social Care.

Professor Cole’s other research interests at Bournemouth are in phantom bladder pain, with Fran Biley in the Centre for Qualitative Research, sensory substitution with Dr Venky Dubey and Tamas Hickish in DEC and prosopagnosia, or ‘face blindness’, with Dr Sarah Bate also in DEC.