Brain Views: Essays on the Brain

About the Book

Brain Views are essays written by Harold W. Nash, EdD, Professor Emeritus, Oswego (NY) State University for the Oswego Palladium-Times from June 2000 through June 2005. Initially the columns were written to help promote his 1999 book, Our Aging Brain: Changing and Growing. The columns soon evolved to meet the needs of, and answer questions for, readers and respondents.

The topics range from anatomy, function, phobias, sex, male, female, disabilities, growth, change, recent research, humor, child abuse, addictions, prayer, faith, remembering, visualizing, genes, aging, nutrition, brain teasers, music, group presentations, lefthanders, free radicals, the year 2000, to the tsunami.

Reactions to the columns came from high school students to people in their eighties and nineties. Others who have commented are nurses, doctors, fathers, mothers, priests, teachers and people whose interest in our brain ranges from casual to fairly serious. Also, those who have spoken to the author are sons, daughters, people who have been abused, parents of autistic children, addicts, relatives of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's sufferers, as well as senior citizens who are curious about their own aging process.

A thirty-eight item Vocabulary section is included to provide some information and definitions and more depth for more serious readers.

Six diagrams of our brain are provided to help the reader locate the parts of our brain mentioned in the essays/columns.

The sixty-seven item Bibliography provides the reader access to the texts and novels from which I drew information and ideas for the essays. Should the reader wish to move beyond the columns for more personal depth, the bibliography could be helpful to him or her.

A Synthesis section is provided to assist the reader in making decisions about one's lifestyle.

About the Author

Harold W. Nash, EdD, is Professor Emeritus, State University at Oswego, New York. His retirement was in 1988. A previous book is Our Aging Brain: Changing and Growing.

Other teaching experiences were at Austin Peay State College (Clarksville Tennessee), Vanderbilt University (Nashville, Tennessee), State University at Brockport (New York), Alamance Community College (Burlington, North Carolina), and Greece Central School System (Rochester, New York). A sabbatical leave at the University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill) allowed him to study autism.

Membership in the Episcopal Church has been since 1955, when he has his wife, Lorraine B. Porter Nash, were married. They have two sons- Martin, in Charleston, West Virginia, and Timothy, in Graham, North Carolina. Their two daughters-in-law are Edythe (Martin) and Cheri (Timothy). Grandchildren are Ryan, Jayson, Allison and Ian.

Service on active duty with the US Marine Corps Reserve was 1950-52.

Graduation from the State University at Brockport (New York) was in 1954. The author played Varsity Soccer in 1949, 1952 and in 1953, he was a Tri-Captain.

From 1953 though 1962 he was a counsellor, Program Director and Co-Camp Director at Brockport College's Totem Camp in the Adirondack Mountains.

Prior to graduating from West High School in Rochester, NY in 1948, he was a member of the Cross Country, Soccer and Wrestling teams.

Brain Views is from newspaper columns about our brain written between June 2000 and June 2005.