Talk:Paleoneurobiology

What's the best way to address the History section

There are a lot of different ways that this section can be organized, but we need to decide what way is best. The Tilly Edinger section may be long, but there also isn't an article dedicated to her that we could refer readers to. We could also try to cut it down to the material that is pertinent to the history of the article--for example, the cause of her death may not be as important as the posthumous publication of the annotated bibliography. Also, does the generic history of neuroscience need such a prominent place in the article, or would it be sufficient to briefly describe the important parts of the history (comparative anatomy comes to mind), while linking to the main neuroscience article which has a comprehensive history section that further explains many of the points in the section as it stands? What do you think?Annie.barber (talk) 23:14, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Merging

I copied my sandbox article to the main article. Some things experienced overlap while other things fit in as entirely new sections. I'm working on "zipping" everything together... feel free to laugh at my inefficiency.Annie.barber (talk) 04:04, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Reorganization

I'd be interested in discussing a reorganization of some content. For example, the Methodological Development section might be better suited in the history section because of the fact that it happened nearly 25 years ago and is much less of an issue now. I also think a separate section dedicated to brain endocasts may be better suited than describing it in the introduction--after all this is an article about paleoneurology and not endocasts. It might also be adviseable to roll the CT section into the endocast section because CT has been in use in paleoneurology for many years already--in other words it's not new and it's just another way to build an endocast--in this case a virtual one.Annie.barber (talk) 01:27, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Non-peer review

Hey guys, great job thus far. It looks like you are closing in on the final product, but I just have a few suggestions:

• Hyperlinks in the first paragraph (e.g. endocast--this is the first time you use the term, so it should be hyperlinked)
• Maybe include a quick sentence/phrase about what an endocast is in the intro
• Maybe make "Limitations" its own heading, rather than a sub-section of "Significance"
• Final comment: Have you found any advancements that have been made as a result of discoveries in paleoneurology? You do a great job of describing what paleoneurology is, but now I'm intrigued--what have they found as a result of it? You touch on this in the history section, but maybe some specific examples? Also, is there a journal of paleoneurology where people publish their findings in this field? If so, it might be interesting to include this
  Good luck! 136.167.123.243 (talk) 22:01, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the clear and specific tips! We added changed the error with multiple endocast hyperlinks, added a sentence about its definition in the intro and made limitations its own heading. With regards to the discoveries from paleoneurology, we are looking over the papers to have more to add to this. Thanks again for you help! Deroberm (talk) 10:16, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Great advice on all counts! I'll have more time after the semester to find some information about what knowledge paleoneurology has contributed to the scientific community which I think will tie in nicely with the concept of "advancements" as far as the article is concerned. Unfortunately that's not one of the things that I even thought of adding to the article so I don't even have a clue. Annie.barber (talk) 23:29, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Georgia Tech Neuroscience Project

Hi Hope, Michael, Ryan and Lauren, I'm in Dr. Potter's intro neuro class at Tech and we were given basically the same project. I haven't seen the article since November 8th when a substantial outline was due, so I was very surprised to come back and find that in the place of the stub I chose for my project there was a full fledged article. I still have to contribute to get credit, and as that is the case, I have a lot I expect I will be able to add and improve in this article which will be good for all of us. I went ahead and read your content as well as all of the peer reviews and I agree on several points. A lot more depth is needed in some areas (morphometric analysis, computed topography, and EQ, for example), while other sections need a lot of refining (mainly the history section and I'm excited to say that I have an entire paper dedicated to how awesome Tilly Edinger is and some of the things she had to endure to continue her research). I also plan to roll the general definition into the introduction, elaborate on the methods for creating endocasts (natural endocasts are actually very rare and most of those that are studied are made artificially). I will also leave the article with fully functioning links, spelling, and grammar (the latter of which are only missing due to a lack of embedded spell checker) as well as better encyclopedic language (I personally believe an encyclopedia article should remain as unbiased as possible with very little extraneous language). In addition to the sources you used (of which I am familiar with four), I have nine novel journal articles and an entire book on the subject that I will use as references. I look forward to hearing back from you and making this article seriously good (my own personal goal is to have this article reach featured article status as I find the topic that cool and interesting). Cheers, Annie.barber (talk) 01:09, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

My wiki project was due on Friday at 7 PM, so I've already turned in a version that is completely my authorship in my sandbox. There are still a few things that I want to contribute, but there are other assignments in other classes that are more urgent right now. I didn't want to merge it with your article and drastically change things that you've worked so hard on already. I would rather work together to incorporate the two articles into the best article possible.

Annie, thanks again for the comments and advice. I'm doing what I can about researching a little more about morphometric analysis, computed topography and EQ specifically also inserting some other sources that come up with the same conclusions, just to reiterate some of our topics. I think we've gotten some good collaboration here to make a great article in the end. Okadala (talk) 02:31, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Peer Review

I feel that this article was very clear and well written. It provided a good explanation of the history and process of Paleoneurology. The only area for improvement that I can see is maybe adding more hyperlinks in the Methods of Research subsections. For example if you can find pages on the Broca's cap or Holloway and Falk, they would be good topics to provide more background on. Also I think it would be beneficial to include a line or two in the research section about the application of the use of these visual techniques. What effect will these developments have on the future of medicine and further research? All in all, very good article.

Drewmokas (talk) 12:00, 16 November 2011 (UTC) You're right the Methods of Research section was a little lacking in hyperlinks. I added a few. Thanks Drew. rscully22 (talk) 5:39, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Peer Review

Hi guys! I thought this was a very interesting topic and overall great article. On the whole I would try to include more links; some suggestions may be to link 'rationalism' and 'transcendentalism' under the history section, 'midsagittal' under Methods of Research and 'Broca's under asymmetry. I also noticed that endocasts was linked twice and I believe you should only link terms once per article. Finally, I'm not sure if there are more examples of the EQ quotient, as it depends on the data, but if there are those would be great! Zonfrell (talk) 05:02, 15 November 2011 (UTC) Lexi (Zonfrell (talk) 11:28, 15 November 2011 (UTC) Thanks for those edits. I've taken care of the first ones and I will try to insert more about the EQ. Okadala (talk) 04:52, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

Peer Review

Hey guys, In general this article was extremely well done. I especially thought you guys did an awesome job covering the methodology of paleoneurology and establishing that there are clear limitations to the study while showing modifications to the research methods being used. One section that I think could use some work is the History section. This section really describes a general history of comparative anatomy and study of neurology, it seems that only the last couple of sentences give a history of paleoneurology. I noticed this because gave a broad description like this in the current research section article and it was pointed out to us by one of wikipedia's editors. Also, at the end of the second paragraph in the history section I think you meant to use "descent with modification", right now it says "decent". Great job, (Adondaki (talk) 16:31, 14 November 2011 (UTC)) Thanks for pointing that out. It was one of those typos spell check doesn't catch. Also more was added to the history section. rscully22 (talk) 4:00, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Peer Review

Overall, this was an amazing article. It was both well organized and well-written. I especially loved how you went all the way back to Ancient Egypt in the history section. It was both interesting and informative.

The only thing I did pick out to improve was the amount of hyperlinks. You could definitely add more without clouding up the article. Just a few places I picked out were in the History section, where you could link to some of the earlier movements, such as rationalism and transcendentalism. Also in the “Overall Brain Volume” subsection, you could probably link several of the anatomical terms.

This was, seriously, a great article.

Kniemeyer (talk) 04:18, 9 November 2011 (UTC) Links added, thanks for the positive feedback! Okadala (talk) 04:58, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

Peer Review (2)

This article is extremely clearly written and flows naturally from one section to the next. In your history section, there is typo that needs to be fixed 'decent' should be 'descent'. It would add depth if you explained what the key findings of that publication regarding comparative neuroanatomy were. The first sentence of the limitations section is a bit choppy, and there are a few typos in the paragraph. The asymmetry paragraph is really cool! Is there any chance you can get a picture to illustrate the radiographic visualization techniques?

After reading your article, it seems like a "future research" section would culminate the information presented throughout the article. Overall it is a good article with solid facts in it. I agree with Kniemeyer that more links and citations would further strengthen the article.

~ Meredith Kochmd (talk) 23:18, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the helpful suggestions! More links were added, and we're working on finding more examples of key findings. Jinhl (talk) 13:34, 7 December 2011 (UTC) I'm trying to figure out a more clear way to connect paleoneurological processes of studying endocasts to a more human/clinical research perspective (basically that studying brain-casts between species and between human subjects over the years yields clues to brain organizational changes.) Difficult to find "cutting edge research"; which would be the best! Okadala (talk) 02:35, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Peer Review (3)

One formatting issue immediately jumped out at me upon reading this article. According to Wikipedia convention, only the first letter of a heading is capitalized. Hence, if the heading is a phrase, such as “Convolution pattern and cerebral organization,” then only the first letter of the first word is capitalized.

Regardless, this article is very well organized; I think that the headings represent the most important aspects of defining paleoneurology and its techniques. The headings give the article good direction so that the reader can clearly understand the steps in which the article will proceed.

One suggestion in order to make the headings more cohesive would be to have a transition between the end of the Limitations section (under the Importance of paleoneurology heading) and the Current Research Advancements heading. The end of the Limitations section mentions the development of techniques, so perhaps you could have the examples of current research immediately following? Just a suggestion to improve the flow of the article! Well done.

Campanelli514 (talk) 05:16, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for the feedback! There is now a section entitled "Advancements in Radiographic Techniques" to hopefully increase the flow of the transitions and overall cohesiveness. Jinhl (talk) 13:36, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Peer Review (1)

Interesting article. Okadala did some excellent work here. However, there are some things I would fix. In the introduction, the sentence, “Endocasts are formed either naturally, when a skull is filled with sediment that solidifies and fossilizes, or artificially; endocasts may also be created in the laboratory by casting the interior of the skull with a casting medium such as latex or silicone” is a little awkward. It might sound better if you said, “Endocasts are formed either artificially or naturally, when a skull is filled with sediment that solidifies and fossilizes. Endocasts can be artificially created in the laboratory by casting the interior of the skull with a casting medium such as latex or silicone.” It sounds better.

Also I would place the “methods of research” section above the “importance of paleoneurology” section because typically when someone is searching for something, they want to know what it is before they find out why it is important (they already know why it’s important otherwise they wouldn’t be searching for it). You might even move the whole “importance” section into the introduction, since that’s kind of what the introduction is for. Plus your introduction is a little short anyway. It might look better to have more stuff in it anyway.

It also seems like the “studies of interest” and “current research” sections are basically the same thing, so it might be good to just combine the two, unless you make the distinctions between the two a little more clear. Westerdahl (talk) 21:02, 15 November 2011 (UTC) Thanks for the shout-out. Will work on those edits. Okadala (talk) 04:57, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

Peer Review (4)

Hey guys. Overall this is a very concise and streamlined article. That said, there are several areas which could be improved in terms of formatting. "Importance of Paleoneurology" section heading has paleoneurology misspelled as "Paleoneurolgy", so you should fix that (not trying to nitpick, just giving you a heads up). Also you should consider link up more terms in your article to their respective wikipedia page. In the limitation of paleoneurology, the section ends awkwardly. It is mentioned that the development of more advance tools is being used to refine the study of endocasts but there isn't a real follow up describing any of those tools. A sentence or two on that would really round out that section. Otherwise that sentence could probably just be incorporated into the proceeding paragraph. The current studies section and studies of interest should probably be rearranged so that the article ends with current studies with studies of interest as the proceeding article. Smaild2011 (talk) 20:04, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestions! All of your advice was incorporated into our final edits. Jinhl (talk) 15:31, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Peer Review (5)

Hi Guys, I thought this was a great article, and that your explanations were very concise and informative. I definitely agree with some of the previous comments that more hyperlinks could be added (for Australopithecus afarensis or more of the people in the history section for example). This is just a slight detail, but under Relative lobe size the sentence should probably say "it is impossible to determine the accurate location..." Also I feel as though you could add a bit more to the Importance section, for example why is it important to determine the average body weight of a species? Do researchers believe that brain volume correlates with intelligence? What is the importance of determining lobe sizes? For example what would the impact of having a much smaller frontal lobe have on a species? Also, if you could somewhere connect or discuss how understanding paleoneurology may affect our understanding or knowledge of ourselves as an evolving species, I feel that would be valuable for this article. Barnarev (talk) 21:53, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your suggestions! We've taken them into account and are working on adding more to the areas you mentioned. Jinhl (talk) 16:10, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

"For example what would the impact of having a much smaller frontal lobe have on a species? " - It definitely correlates with development of higher cognition...I'll look for some source that I can insert in! Okadala (talk) 02:37, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Peer Review (6)

You guys did an amazing job with this article. I would recommend proofreading it though. One error I found was in the History section you referred to Darwin's book as "the origin of species." It should be capitalized and italicized. Also I think you can go into more detail in describing the implications of paleoneurology in the Importance section. Everything was well organized. You may want to go into more detail about what the findings of paleoneurology allows scientists to assess. Very well done.Grant.vandervoort (talk) 03:43, 16 November 2011

Thanks for your help! I changed the title of the book and we will be adding to the implications of paleoneurology. (UTC)Deroberm (talk) 10:16, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Peer Review (7)

Interesting article so far! I would like to start off with the suggestion of combining the introduction and general definition sections into one, larger introduction simply because I think having both is a little redundant and I think the introduction could use a little more elaboration. Also the word “endocranial” in the introduction should be hyperlinked to the wiki page for “endocranium.” There are also many other words that I think would be appropriate to hyperlink through out the article like, “fossilized” in the introduction and “morphology,” in the Hominid Paleoneurology section. The readability of the History section is very good, although the phrase “sprung forth” in the second paragraph could be replaced with a simpler phrase like “became popular.” Also “rationalism” and “transcendentalism” should be hyperlinked in this section, as well as “homologies,” which can be linked to the wiki page on homology. I also think this topic lends itself particularly well to the inclusion of multiple comparative images of fossilized skulls. I think it would also be best for the introduction of the “Importance of Paleoneurology” to be added to the introduction of the article, and the heading should then focus strictly on the limitations paleoneurology faces. mistamoneill(talk) 04:00, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback! We've added the links you've suggested, in addition to several others. We did add some more information to the introduction to emphasize the importance of paleoneurology at the beginning. Your suggestions were really helpful! Jinhl (talk) 15:59, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Peer Review (8)

This is a very well done article. The organization of subtopics was well thought out and your wording within each paragraph was clear. I agree with the above comments that additional hyperlinks to anatomical words such as 'midsagittal' and 'Broca's' would improve readers' understanding. You might want to consider adding a "See Also" section to link your article with other related topics. Great job! Kpangakis (talk) 19:14, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the helpful tips. We added the suggested hyperlinks to help make it more clear. Deroberm (talk) 10:16, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Peer Review

This is a very interesting topic and I think you have done a great job delving into a wide variety of subtopics regarding paleoneurology. The section on asymmetry I found particularly interesting and well written. As for any constructive comments, I think it would be good to go back and read over the article. I think there may be a few grammatical and syntax errors scattered throughout the article that could be corrected. (At the risk of sounding condescending, I don’t want to note every grammatical problem, but I think some sentences could be re-worded to sound a bit more succinct.) As for specific points of observation, I think the Introduction and the General Definition could be consolidated into one section, since they are both short sections and address the same idea. The History section is very interesting but most of the section seems to be dedicated to study of the brain pre-paleoneurology. While it is no way a problem, you do not get to the ‘invention’ of paleoneurology until the end of the section and you do not say much about its ‘inventor’ Tilly Edinger. Under the Methods of Research section, you may want to briefly explain what sulcal is and how it relates to the research method. Also, it could be interesting to expand on the EQ and talk more about its practical application, instead of simply defining it. As a final point, I think it would make the overall article more unified if you were able to draw each section into the definition of paleoneurology. As it is, you have many good points, but some seem to be free floating ideas. If you could tie all of them together, it could make the article even better. Aronej (talk) 00:44, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestions. We've gone back and proofread to hopefully eliminate all syntax errors. Although the History section does discuss pre-paleoneurology information, we think it's important to give readers a context in which this topic was developed. Also, there is additional information on Tilly Edinger now to expand on the historical aspect. The suggestion for greater unity within the article was noted; we've tried to enhance this while refraining from being redundant or superfluous statements. Thanks again for your feedback! Jinhl (talk) 17:31, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Peer Review

This article is one of the most interesting articles I've read. The details in the article are great, but there are some things that I believe will help boost the article's quality. First, if you include a larger section about endocasts, including the steps of formation, both naturally and artificially, would be great. Second, there are a lot of names in the article that can be omitted. I feel that if the reader wanted to know more about the research, they can simply refer to the references. The names just clutter the article and limiting the details of the article to information about the topic and famous people involved in the research would help greatly. It just makes the article much more straightforward. Overall though, great job! SKChan903 (talk) 02:50, 17 November 2011 (UTC) I think we addressed all of these issues. Additional information on endocasts was imortant. Thanks for the advice. rscully22 (talk) 3:49, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Peer Review

As noted above, very interesting article. Interesting how paleontology and neuroscience can be linked. Overall its a very good article. However there were some things especially under History that I felt could be improved. The opening part of the sentence "The late part of the 19th century in comparative anatomy" sounds awkward to me could use a little rewording, maybe "Comparative anatomy in the latter part of the 19th century". The last paragraph has both "explosion of ideas" and "explosion in ideas" which seems slightly repetitive. You mention Tilly Edinger as the founder but very little about her. What was her paper about? Why was it important and how was it so different from previous research? These are all questions I was wondering about when I read your article. With these minor changes and some other revising I think you guys will have an even better paper. (Molonyc (talk) 03:16, 17 November 2011 (UTC)) Thanks for your input! I changed the opening sentence of the history paragraph and we expanded on Tilly Edinger. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Deroberm (talk • contribs) 03:10, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

The study of brain evolution is "Paleoneurobiology" not "Paleoneurology"

I think that the page should be renamed "Paleoneurobiology" since the field is a subfield of neurobiology (the study of the anatomy, phisiology, and evolution of the nervous system) and not of neurology (which is a subfield of medicine that deals with the disorders of the nervous system). Paleoneurology would be the investigation of the presence of diseases like migraine or epilepsy in our ancestors which is not what this discipline is about.

References