<![CDATA[io9: epilepsy]]> http://tags.lifehacker.com/assets/base/img/thumbs140x140/io9.com.png <![CDATA[io9: epilepsy]]> http://io9.com/tag/epilepsy http://io9.com/tag/epilepsy <![CDATA[The Strange Case of Seizures That Turned a Woman Into a Man]]> Researchers report an odd case in the latest issue of Epilepsy & Behavior. Whenever their patient had an epileptic seizure, she thought she'd become male - and that other women near her had turned into men too. What caused it?

Apparently when this woman had seizures, she felt that her voice had become deeper and her arms were hairy. Once, when a female friend of hers with her as a seizure came on, she thought her friend was turning into a man too. The woman had no history of mental illness, nor did she have symptoms of gender identity disorder.

After imaging her brain, the researchers discovered that she had some damage to her amygdala, and weird electrical activity in her right temporal lobe during seizures. Had they discovered some gender identity center of the brain, which when damaged results in the feeling of changing sex? Absolutely not. In fact, there is no such center in the brain.

Instead, the researchers believe that this unusual case is simply one flavor of a more general experience of self-alienation that comes during epileptic attacks.

Reports ScienceNow:

More likely, [New York University neurologist Orrin Devinsky] says, the amygdala is one node in a network of brain regions essential for self-identity. When neural activity in this network goes haywire, a range of bizarre experiences can result, Devinsky says. The Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky wrote of feeling the presence of God in the moments preceding a seizure. More common, Devinsky says, are feelings of déjà vu or its opposite, jamais vu, the sense that a familiar environment has become unfamiliar. "In epilepsy, you can experience these intense and extreme emotions and in some cases misidentification of yourself and where you are in relation in the world," he says.

via Science Now

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<![CDATA[First-Ever Example of a Computer Hack Attacking People's Brains]]> Neal Stephenson speculated about computer viruses that could crash human brains in his classic novel Snow Crash, but the technology to do something like that has always seemed (luckily) far in the future. Now, however, computer hackers have created a loophole that lets them do it today. Over a month ago, a group of anonymous people exploited a fairly well-known software vulnerability that allows them to flood web forums with a lot of posts. In this case, however, the posts were on an epilepsy site — and many contained images full of flashing icons explicitly designed to cause seizures.

Epileptics visiting the forum clicked on links to the images — which masqueraded as links to helpful medical websites — and were confronted with blinking images that induced migraines and seizures. Other posts contained the flashing images already. It's not yet known how many people were affected, but the FBI is now investigating and the website is being monitored. It is the first known example of a website attack that was also in essence a physical attack.

According to AP:

The hackers who infiltrated the Epilepsy Foundation's site didn't appear to care about profit. The harmful pages didn't appear to try to push down code that would allow the hacker to gain control of the victims' computers, for instance.

"I count this in the same category of teenagers who think it's funny to put a cat in a bag and throw it over a clothesline - they don't realize how cruel it is," said Paul Ferguson, a security researcher at antivirus software maker Trend Micro Inc. "It was an opportunity waiting to happen for some mean-spirited kid."

In a similar attack this year, a piece of malicious code was released that disabled software that reads text aloud from a computer screen for blind and visually impaired people.

While these cases of computer-generated brain attacks obviously only work on a specific population, what they reveal is a strong will to engage in these attacks. As brain-computer interfaces become more commonplace, such attacks could affect a broader range of people very quickly.

Hackers Posts Cause Seizures [AP via PhysOrg]

Hackers Assault Epilepsy Patients via Computer [Wired]

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<![CDATA[Martian Invaders Go To Pinball Hell]]> There's something pulpy and eye-searing about these images of Attack From Mars, a 1995 Bally pinball machine. This guy is selling his machine online, and he's taken insanely detailed photos of every part of the machine, including a hauntingly gorgeous image of the plastic aliens trapped in a glowing red pinball inferno. Click through for more images, but be warned: this machine can cause epilepsy!

Here's the full image of the game, lit up and bright red: AFM077.jpg
In addition to photographing every angle of the game's art and inner workings, the seller took this lovely photo of its epilepsy warning. Consult a doctor if battling the invaders From Mars causes any serious symptoms! AFMepilepsy.jpg

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