
Seizures from Solving Sudoku Puzzles - nostromo
http://archneur.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2456131
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jacquesm
That's a bit of a link-bait title, the first line of the abstract reads:

"This case report describes a patient who had hypoxia and posthypoxic
intention myoclonus and subsequently developed clonic seizures while solving
sudoku puzzles."

So the patient already had some brain damage and the puzzles were a trigger
(there are many known potential triggers for seizures including stress).

~~~
vacri
I'm finding declaring titles to be link-bait the new 'Betteridge's law' spam
on HN. In context, this title is entirely not link-bait.

Anyway, regarding seizures, absolutely anything can be a trigger, but is
highly dependent on the individual. Stress and sleep deprivation are two
common triggers for epileptics. There is an abstract concept called a 'seizure
threshold', and when you reach it, you have a seizure. Things like stress
reduce this supposed 'seizure threshold'. Multiple stressors reduce the
threshold more.

But in my time in neuro, there were a few once-offs like in this article - the
notable one was the patient who had seizures when he saw orange circles. Other
orange shapes were fine, and other coloured circles were fine - it was just
orange circles. Another was a patient who responded to ice on the lips, though
we couldn't replicate that in the lab. These kind of triggers are unique, but
they show that anything can trigger, if you have the concomitant wiring
problem in your brain...

~~~
jacquesm
The whole point of a link-bait title is that 'in context' it is still
accurate. If sudoku puzzles caused seizures _by themselves_ then the title
would be accurate. As it is the fact that that particular patient already had
a problem seems to me to be quite important and by leaving that fact out the
publication likely gets more exposure.

> anything can trigger, if you have the concomitant wiring problem in your
> brain...

Exactly. So ordinary sudoku solving people should be perfectly ok.

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _The whole point of a link-bait title is that 'in context' it is still
> accurate._

That's the basic technique if you want to mislead without saying outright,
blatant lies - you say something that's true only in a specific context,
hoping your audience will miss the context. In case of headlines, the audience
doesn't even get the context before reading the article.

Yes, I tend to bitch about that practice in journalism a lot. I find it a very
serious antisocial pattern of behaviour in media. Why is that? Because most
people _skim a lot of headlines and read only few articles of interest_. So if
your pattern of writing is: linkbait bullshit in headline,
clarification/refutation in the article, most of the audience will only read
the bullshit and read it as a fact.

And I'm talking here about things like half of my country's population talking
how our country sucks so much, because compare with Germany or France or
something, and you can sometimes trace those opinions back to actual articles
with headlines: "Poland worst in Europe in X", where the article itself
explains that it's actually 6th (!) on the list of worst European countries in
X, _behind_ Germany and France.

Sentiments of entire nations are shaped by those linkbait headlines. And then
tell me to trust the democratic process, and that headlines are absolutely not
a problem.

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flashman
Here's a short story in which certain patterns have been discovered which
break the human mind:
[http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/blit.htm](http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/blit.htm)

Putting aside fiction, these cases are always so interesting. How much has
neuroscience been advanced by studying the very particular ways in which
brains _don 't_ work?

~~~
qewrffewqwfqew
Plenty. I'd hazard that's how _most_ medical science has come to be.

If you're on this site and haven't already been strongly reccommended to read
Oliver Sacks, do so. Broader than neuroscience, look for memoirs of British
surgeons during WWII.

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blisterpeanuts
$30 for a 24-hour "subscription" (presumably cheaper if you're a med student
or doc, but I didn't bother to check).

Am I the only one who wonders whether this access model is sustainable? How
many people would actually pay such a fee, and just to read about a single
patient, not a major study.

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nitin_flanker
COuld anyone here please explain whether it is a good thing or a bad thing
happened to that guy?

