Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Neuroscience

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Neurogenesis

I've noticed that the Neurogenesis wiki page needs some love. Considering how long it looks like it has been abandoned, and that parts of it look like they may have been part of a project for a class, my guess is that it is going to take a serious review of more current literature in order to get it up and running. In fact, there are sections that may be better off being deleted entirely until they are improved. I'm willing to try and spruce up where I can, but I wanted to consult the neuroscience project wiki before I did anything drastic.Serotonick (talk) 02:00, 17 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It certainly does need some love. The biggest issue is that the article currently is almost entirely about adult neurogenesis, and hardly at all about neurogenesis during development. Even for adult neurogenesis the content is by no means encyclopedic. Anyway, expertise on that topic is in short supply around here, and you should feel free to make any improvements that seem appropriate to you. Looie496 (talk) 02:58, 17 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Let me echo Looie's advice to just be bold and feel free to edit it as you see fit. And by the way, welcome! --Tryptofish (talk) 22:34, 17 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

lucid dream issues

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lucid dreaming mask could use input from people with something resembling expert knowledge. Also, the article on Stephen LaBerge needs attention from people who know the field; here seem to be significant problems but those of us who don't know the material well are unclear as to what is substantial and what is puffery. Mangoe (talk) 16:00, 22 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It looks to me like the AfD is on its way to "delete", which is the right outcome given the lack of reputable sources cited. The LaBerge article looks pretty decent to me. His ideas about the value of lucid dreaming are not widely accepted, but his evidence that the phenomenon exists is academically respectable, I think. (I've had a number of lucid dreams myself, so my level of skepticism is probably not as high as some people's.) Looie496 (talk) 16:52, 22 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Nucleus raphe versus nucleus raphes

Dear readers,

A few Latin expressions can be found in neuroanatomical articles, such as nucleus raphe obscurus, nucleus raphe pallidus and nucleus raphe magnus. I changed that in Wikipedia to nucleus raphes obscurus, nucleus raphes pallidus and nucleus raphes magnus. The official list of anatomic names , the Terminologia Anatomica dictates the spelling with raphes and not with raphe when written within a Latin expression. And the reason is quite clear. Raphe means seam. Raphes means 'of the seam' (=genitive). Such an expression like nucleus raphe would mean nucleus seam (=non-sense) and nucleus raphes would mean nucleus of the seam (=meaningful). Another user however questioned these revisions. as the grammatical incorrect form is more common than the official grammmatical correct form. Considering that raphe is incorrect and verboten to use in a Latin expression, as those aforementioned Latin expressions, by the Terminologia Anatomica, it would be better, to change raphe to raphes in these cases. Raphe in raphe nucleus is however not necessarily incorrect, as you could translate that expression as seam nucleus, what is actually fine, but when used within a Latin expression, then you have to use the genitive raphes. I would like to hear your opinion about this matter. Thanks in advance, with kind regards, Wimpus (talk) 15:44, 3 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Let me note that I opened this issue on Wimpus's talk page after Wimpus changed the titles of several articles. My view is that in cases where the bulk of usage in the literature conflicts with authorities or even with logic or grammar, we should follow the literature. In this particular case, a search of Google Scholar shows that since the year 2000, instances of "nucleus raphe" outnumber instances of "nucleus raphes" by more than 20 to 1. Looie496 (talk) 16:21, 3 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

When people without any knowledge of Latin write a scientific article and use Latin expression as part of their anatomic vocabulary, they do not pay attention to things like gender, declensions et cetera. As most neuroscientists have difficulties with declining these words properly, it woild be better to defviate from their standard usage. If you would do a search on Google books, there are still plenty of authors, using the correct grammatical form. So this officlal gammatically correct form is not that uncommon. With kind regards, Wimpus (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 16:42, 3 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Looie496. Not being a Latinist myself, I have to admit that not only was I unaware of the grammatical problem with "nucleus raphe", I never even have seen "nucleus raphes"... I sympathize with Wimpus, but WP has to reflect current common usage, even if that is incorrect. Perhaps a brief remark or footnote could be placed in concerned articles commenting on the grammatically correct form. In any case, WP is not here to change/correct the world. If you want scientists to adhere to correct Latin grammar, you'll have to educate them (perhaps by contacting scientific journals and convincing them to impose correct usage - but I fear that will be a fight against windmills). --Randykitty (talk) 16:47, 3 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the comments. As you would have noticed, English is not my mother tongue. That means that besides English articles I read about neuroanatomy in other languages like Dutch and German, where it is far more common to use Latin expressions (although knowledge of Latin is declining with a new generation of neuroscientists only familiar with English nomenclature). Besides that, I realy fancy reading older publications/books from famous scientists like Sherrington (English), Brodmann (German and recently received the English translation of Vergleichende Lokalisationslehre...), Wernicke (German), Kraepelin (German and English). For me, reading 'nucleus raphe' seems rather odd. And checking important atlasses/works such as the Termiologia Anatomica, or Nieuwenhuys' Human central nervous system disconfirm this usage of using raphe in its nominative instead of in the gentive case. In Paxinos' The Human Nervous System (my latest edition is unfortunaly the 2nd from 2004), the names are formulated differently like raphe magnus nucleus and raphe obscurus nucleus, thereby creating hybrids that are neither Latin nor English, although the Terminologia Anatomica uses the same approach for the English list in the second column (although these terms are actually not offfial, as has been stated in a few articles). Pluralization of these hybrids becomes complicated. With kind regard, Wimpus (talk) 17:20, 3 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'm going to agree with Looie and Randykitty about this. Just take a look at WP:Verifiability (or, even more dramatically, WP:Verifiability, not truth): Wikipedia's role is to reflect what the sources say, not to correct what the sources say. --Tryptofish (talk) 01:00, 4 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I understand your point of view. In case there would be straight forward nomenclature, that although it has a minor grammatical mistake, everyone would use it the same way, than it is much harder to correct this common usage. But when I look at the wording of the brain regions in the title of the three references in the lemma nucleus raphes pallidus, then I can discover mulitple ways of putting words in a certainn specific seque ce, that shoud efer however in each case to the same brain structure.

1. Nucles raphe pallidus. So with the nominative case instead of the correct genitive case of raphe, i.e. raphes. By the way, the title of the article includes alpha after pars, omitted in the wikipedia reference.

2. Rostral raphe pallidus nucleus. This seems like an English construction, and not a Latin one. But why use pallidus (masculine adjective in Latin) in stead of English pallid. Rostral is however anglicized (instead of rostralis) And raphe is a noun in front of another noun, comparable to a construction as sports car.

3. Raphe pallidus. This seems like a Latin comstruction as it starts with a Latin noun followed by an Latin adjective. But the problem here is that raphe is a feminine noun and pallidus a masculine adjective. That is frankly impossible in Latin. Moreover, the midline of the brainstem is called the raphe, according to the Terminologia Anatomica,raphe medullae oblongatae in Latin and in the second column with the equivalent English expression raphe of medulla oblongata. The adjective pallidus does not refer to the raphe but to a nucleus of the raphe. In case you would mention that you have a red sports, then it is difficult to find out that you are not a shot putter for example (popular in the former Sovjet Union, hence: red), but that you are the owner of a RED sports CAR. Leaving out nucleus is therefore very complicated.

Considering these three references, with each their own way of putting the elements of the expression in a specific order and leaving or not leaving out certain elements, gives the impression that standard nomenclatorial rules are not well established. So sticking to the Terminologia Anatomica in this case would solve this issue (of chaos and non-sensical grammatical constructions). There are multiple redirects to these pages, so people accustomed to raphe pallidus will still find this page. With kind regards, Wimpus (talk) 14:24, 4 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Dear members, Moderator Kafziel ^{Complaint Department: Please take a number} reverted the moves back, but not all changes I have made in the articles itself are reverted back properly. Moreover the articles are not always consistent on nomenclature (see those three examples I mentioned in my previous post). I like to hear what kind of nomenclatorial approach you have in mind. With kind regards, Wimpus (talk) 16:59, 4 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

What I have in mind is "raphe", not "raphes". Period. Anything else is original research. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:46, 4 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

So using the only international official list for anatomic nomenclature as well as numerous other sources, see Google books, as well as Dorland's medical dictionary (see Dorland's) is original research? With kind regards, Wimpus (talk) 21:27, 4 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

In this specific case, and on the English Wikipedia, I think yes, it is. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:31, 4 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

As I have already made clear, I agree with Tryptofish. May I request you to please stop fighting about this? You don't have to accept that you are wrong, but please accept that your position has no support from other editors and cannot win. (Basically the same thing is happening at WT:MED.) Looie496 (talk) 21:52, 4 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, I wish all members good luck. With kind regards, Wimpus (talk) 21: 59, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

I think that User:Wimpus has made some points about the problems with terminology, and I appreciate his/her general will-to-argument. On the other hand, pulling WP:VNT or WP:OR is rather generic – the claim that most literature shows one usage and not another would be OR in any case, as the literature in question does not make any explicit claims about their own use of terminology.

The editors of an encyclopedia necessarily have some autonomy, and thus obligation to justify their decisions: as an editor I think that I should either make some kind of ad hoc-argument (the terms are not quotations from another language, and a terminology is always established pragmatically), or to point out a specifically relevant guideline or policy (WP:CK and WP:MEDMOS#Naming_conventions). If there is a lack of a specific guideline or policy, an existing consensus could be taken to establish one that is more precise, sensible or useful.

Kind regards, 㓟 (talk) 12:40, 6 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Since I was the one who linked VNT and OR, I figure I should reply to that. You make a valid point, and I'll try to remember it, thanks. But I said what I said in the context of the replies by Looie and Randykitty that had come before mine; they had already explained the specifics and I didn't need to repeat what they had said, so I provided some policy and essay links that, in fact, I think are applicable and helpful. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:25, 6 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The relevant policy is WP:COMMONNAME. Looie496 (talk) 14:16, 6 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note: I have now changed back from "raphes" to "raphe" in nucleus raphe magnus and raphe nuclei, and moved nucleus raphes magnus back to nucleus raphe magnus, per the discussion here. The "raphes" forms exist as redirects now. I also added a note on nomenclature to the raphe nuclei article, explaining the naming issue. Looie496 (talk) 14:49, 6 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Big thanks! 㓟 (talk) 17:29, 6 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Help needed at AfC

A subject specialist is needed to review Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Cell Assembly and also consider whether the content should perhaps be merged into Hebbian theory. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 11:45, 15 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I replied there, and it would be good if some more editors would too, because it really does need help (to put it mildly). --Tryptofish (talk) 21:12, 15 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Boltzmann brain

I just reverted an IP edit to this article on the grounds that it was unsourced and probably unsourceable -- i. e., pure OR. The editor has reverted back, saying dont need a reference, it is self explanatory. I think this is a pretty clear case, but since it is my policy never to get into one-vs-one edit wars, I am bringing the matter up here in hopes that somebody else might take a look at it. Looie496 (talk) 17:31, 22 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Of course you're right about this. I reverted the IP, but didn't keep the page on my watchlist (which is way too long anyway :-). Ping me if this becomes a problem and you need help. --Randykitty (talk) 19:06, 22 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Default network

I believe this is most commonly referred to as the "default mode network" or "default mode." Would anyone object if I made Default mode network the main article and redirected Default network to it? (Currently Default mode network redirects to Default network.) Thanks. TimidGuy (talk) 10:48, 24 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

A Google Scholar search indicates that you're right that "default mode network" is more common than "default network", but only by about 3 to 2 -- the difference is larger if you only look at articles published in the last year. So it would be reasonable to make that change, but I don't think the validity of our article depends on it. Looie496 (talk) 15:33, 24 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I think this is a reasonable idea, in that the longer name is actually more descriptive of what the page ends up being about. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:24, 24 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, thanks. Will go ahead and make the change in the next day or so. TimidGuy (talk) 10:56, 25 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Substantia gelatinosa

I noticed that Substantia gelatinosa is a DAB page, that lists two pages within it. However, the two pages actually seem to be about two parts (central and dorsal) of what is pretty much the same thing, that could reasonably be covered on a single page. What do other editors think? --Tryptofish (talk) 19:27, 5 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Just had a look and agree completely. Both articles are very short and could very well be combined. --Randykitty (talk) 21:06, 5 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'm planning to do it. Unfortunately, I've been falling behind in getting things done lately, because I've become very involved in some complicated stuff at some non-neuro pages. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:56, 26 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Neural coding

Hello all. I'm a member of WikiProject:Medicine and I'm in the process of cleaning up old articles to be merged. I have come across this article: neural coding, which has been suggested to be merged for over 3 years. The contents are way over my head, and I'd value some input (or better, action!) as to what should be done: merging these articles or removing the tag. LT90001 (talk) 11:12, 26 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

With embarrassment (see just above), I have to say that it was I who proposed the merge, and I still intend to do it. Please don't remove the tag. I'm pretty clear on the contents and source material, so I'm capable of doing it (although I certainly would be happy for anyone else to help), and I still believe that it ought to get done. I think about it from time to time, and feel a bit guilty about leaving it for so long (oh, well, WP:There is no deadline). I'm just stretched too thin, but I intend to do it when I have enough time. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:00, 26 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Wow! It's good to speak with the source! Is there any way I can help? LT90001 (talk) 22:47, 26 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure what to suggest, other than starting the merges yourself. For at least another week, I'm likely to be so neck-deep in a dispute about some non-neuro pages that I won't be inclined to do much myself, but I do appreciate your offer. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:45, 26 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Missing topics page

I have updated Missing topics about Neurology - Skysmith (talk) 11:07, 29 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Third ventricle

This article could use additional eyes. Looie496 (talk) 22:58, 15 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This one too: Third ventricle hypothesis of depression. --Randykitty (talk) 08:04, 16 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Incoming students

Students—there is a section below where you can ask questions.

Heads up: Education Program:Georgia Institute of Technology/Introduction to Neuroscience (Fall 2013). There's going to be a lot to deal with on neuroscience topics. User:Biosthmors is the online contact for the project, and I've already started pointing some issues out to him. One thing that I definitely think is going to be a problem is the creation of new pages that are redundant with existing pages, but titled slightly differently. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:36, 27 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This is a great idea for a class and I wish all the students the best in their studies and thank them and their instructor for interest in Wikipedia; their contributions have the capacity to provide accessible knowledge for many people. However some articles may contain content already found in some other articles. I've copied the list so any other Wikipedians can feel free to make a change or notes as they see fit. LT90001 (talk) 10:57, 27 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Let me just note that this professor has done Wikipedia projects a couple of times before, and they haven't worked out too badly. I won't say that the resulting articles were wonderful, but most of them weren't disasters. Looie496 (talk) 15:04, 27 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. There were only ~4 abject failures from the class that I can remember in 2012. See User:Biosthmors/Intro Neuro if you're curious. In one case a student requested deletion months later because I presume it was found out they did a poor job and it was connected to their real name. In another case we wasted a lot of volunteer time from User:SandyGeorgia who had to clean up plagiarism (if I remember correctly) and WP:MEDRS violations. Cerebral malaria was a failure and was redirected to malaria. One student wrote an article on a book as if it were factual, which resulted in an unnecessary and preventable AfD: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Brain-disabling psychiatric medical treatment. I had high hopes for the cerebral malaria article as I was working on malaria at the time, but it was a disaster. And the student never engaged. So that's maybe 4 out of over 80. But is it too much to ask for 0 failures this year? And maybe time will tell that more turn up that way from 2012. But an abject failure (which are a net negative for Wikipedia readers) for a student still probably translates into partial credit for a student. And I've also directed the course page to link to this thread, so students (please don't be intimidated! Welcome to Wikipedia, please take your assignment seriously and don't screw it up!) can ask questions below as well. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 15:25, 27 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the ping, Bios ... Ah, yes, the never-ending fascination with obscure tic-related topics like palilalia, coprolalia, echopraxia, echolalia, Latah, and so many more that hit my watchlist. Ok, this term, it would be helpful for me to know in advance which TS, OCD, autism-related articles a class is going to target, so that I can guide them to optimal sources from the outset, and not have to just clean up after the fact. But, I see this class is set up somewhere (Education Program) that does not allow me to watchlist it, so in order to know what articles are included, must I remember to continue to check back there to see what they are going to target this term? Or is there a date by which all of their topics will be set, and I can suggest proper sourcing to individual students? Has the professor done anything in terms of MEDRS education? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:19, 27 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Can you watchlist Education Program talk:Georgia Institute of Technology/Introduction to Neuroscience (Fall 2013)/Timeline? I will meet with the TA on Skype in 2 hrs. and I will emphasize the importance of the course banners to be placed on the talk page. We will also look through this page. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 16:30, 27 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, watchlisted (don't know why the main page can't be watched ... weird new developments in here :) :) Placing banners on talk would be most helpful! I would love to have the opportunity to guide students to correct sourcing before they put in a lot of work (although I still don't know why the profs don't do that). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:47, 27 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

About the watchlisting, that puzzled me too, but I found that there is a button near the upper left of the main class page called "Watch this course" (just under "Enroll") that is equivalent to the normal watchlisting process. (I'll ask Sage about that at the ed noticeboard.) I've now got both pages watchlisted. Most of the edits on the main page are students enrolling, so the timeline page may be more useful for non-student editors. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:32, 27 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The students can expand stubs. If you know know of a topic that falls under the rubric of neuroscience and is short pick it out and place it below. That way we can get better topic selection. We did get olfactory ensheathing glia written last semester when olfactory ensheathing cells existed.

Supreme facepalm of destiny Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 15:30, 27 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

All articles to be created

These titles are all the proper case (lowercase except for the first word) for article titles

Neuroeffector junction
Neurogastroenterology
Vision rehabilitation
Linguistic intelligence
Syndrome of subjective doubles
Endoscopic endonasal surgery
Monotropism
Gain-field encoding
Kohlschütter-Tönz syndrome
Binocular neurons
Osmotherapy
Megalencephaly
Temporoparietal junction
Mirror touch synesthesia
Neurocutaneous melanosis
Dual representation
Volley theory
Cerebral arteriosclerosis
Agraphia
Neuroenhancement
Frontostriatal circuits
Otolithic membrane
Grey column, parent article grey matter
Aqueductal stenosis
Tactile hallucination parent article is Hallucination#Classification
Tensor network theory
Neuroinflammation not sure how this will be different to inflammation?LT90001 (talk) 10:55, 27 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Nerve staining

Need a topic? Unsure about one? Think you're sure, but you want to double check? Ask below

For general Wikipedia questions, ask a question at the WP:Teahouse (click on "Do you have a Question about editing" and ask, otherwise, shoot below)

From an email by Biosthmors: That's our sourcing guideline for biomedical topics. Unfortunately, I don't think your topic is going to be suitable for a new article in the 'pedia. ~~But maybe there's enough secondary sources for a stand-alone article.~~ If you'd like help, please see the course page, where there are details on how to ask for help with topic selection. You should also be receiving an email from Imran about some useful links/info. But I need to write it first!

My current topic is stem cell and gene therapies for treating epilepsy. You mentioned this this would most likely not be suitable for a new article in 'pedia, but there might be enough secondary sources for a stand-alone article. Can you explain what a stand-alone article is in relation to a wikipedia article and if this would be sufficient for the wikipedia assignment? AlexLee90 (talk) 21:27, 29 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The short answer is I don't think it's a good topic for an individual/stand-alone Wikipedia article. I wouldn't want anyone to try to write that article. Details about why I don't think that's a good idea are below. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 22:25, 29 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hello Alex Lee, thanks for asking here, so everyone can see it. What I'm saying is this: for biomedical information (like which therapies are used, which ones are under investigation, etc.) we use the guideline with the Wikipedia shortcut of WP:MEDRS. Read what's inside the nutshell there. The topic of stem cell and gene therapies for treating epilepsy is interesting and cutting edge, but if you'll notice at medical articles, such as DVT, malaria, or dengue fever we have research sections, such as Malaria#Research, Dengue_fever#Research, or DVT#Research_directions (per Wikipedia:MEDMOS#Diseases_or_disorders_or_syndromes). But none of those three sections are long enough to WP:SPLIT off into a separate article. (The exception here is malaria vaccine, which is a big deal.) So if you read those three sections, you'll get a feel for what an encyclopedic medical article here should be like. It's very top level. We're an encyclopedia, which is a teritary source. We summarize bodies of knowledge. What you're proposing is more of a paper that might be published in a neuroscience journal, but would quickly go out-of-date. That's not what an encyclopedia is for. User:Colin has done work on epilepsy topics before. He might know of some protein or some something that relates to epilepsy that you might be able to write an article about. Futhermore, I don't know if the treatments you're describing are really in clincial use. If they are, then they would go at Epilepsy#Management before one would start a new article. Or, if they were investigational, then they would go in a (now non-existent) Epilepsy#Research section (if you have secondary sources for them, like review articles). Does Professor Potter allow you to work on 2 different articles to meet the 15,000 byte expansion limit? I hope that helps explain things a bit when it comes to how we write disease articles here on Wikipedia. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 22:06, 29 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) Hi Alex. I'm not sure what Biosthmors meant, and I cannot speak for him, but here is my take on your question. Please take a look at Epilepsy#Other and Stem cell therapy#Potential treatments. Those are places in existing articles where the kinds of information you are starting to write about would fit in quite well. In contrast, I think it may be difficult to make a case for a standalone page devoted specifically to "Stem cell and gene therapies for treating epilepsy". Therefore, it may make better sense for you to expand those sections of those two pages, instead of creating a new page. Also, WP:MEDMOS puts some restrictions on what Wikipedia can and cannot say to our readers about potential medical treatments, and the most important point here is that we must not mislead our readers into thinking an experimental treatment is clinically useful if it is still in the early testing stages. I hope that helps. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:14, 29 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Which part was unclear? Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 22:22, 29 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Where you said that there are enough sources for a standalone page, when you seemed to be arguing against having a standalone page. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:49, 30 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, thanks. Struck it. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 17:03, 30 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps you could start a pathophysiology of epilepsy article off the the content inside Epilepsy#Pathophysiology by expanding it, and then summarizing the article you write inside the Epilepsy#Pathophysiology section per WP:SS and then linking to the main article with {{Main article}}. Maybe Dr. Potter could give you credit for working on both articles. As you can see at DVT#Pathophysiology, there are a variety of sources I was able to use, and I could make it longer. Also, if you cite things like I describe at WP:BIOSCITE, which describes the standard style we use here, with the {{cite journal}} format (see also WP:MEDHOW for another method), it will increase your byte count if you use as many different sources as you can. And if you cite each sentence (especially if you cite each sentence with a new source). Best. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 22:22, 29 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your response and recommendations. I will attempt to expound on the pathophysiology on Epilepsy section. Would it be acceptable to rewrite the pathophysiology section for the most part while incorporating some of the information that is already in the article? I noticed there were only 3 citations and the content was more of an overview. Also, is there a way to check the size of the content I am adding to the article? 24.197.149.234 (talk) 00:41, 30 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I would rewrite the section and re-source the section, start a new article (you should be able to get credit for all of this) and then also tidy up the parent section of the epilepsy article to summarize your article there per WP:SS. I would think Professor Potter would give you the entire credit for the byte count of the new patho article if you write it in your own words with new sources. You can do this in your sandbox then click "View history" to get a byte count. Best. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 09:25, 30 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Brian, I recently had an interview with my field expert and consulted with Dr. Potter as well. Would it be okay for me to write an article on gene therapy for treating epilepsy where I talk about the clinical applications of gene therapy, the vectors which would be pertinent to epilepsy. and finally talk about gene therapy research currently where it is clear the studies being described are in preclinical phases? — Preceding unsigned comment added by AlexLee90 (talk • contribs) 18:30, 7 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hello AlexLee90. In the future you might get replies from anyone if you don't ask just one person (me). You can treat Wikipedia talk pages this way. You ideally ask out into the "ether" with questions like this. =) To answer your question, and to do so in a general sense because I do not know the literature, Wikipedia is primarily written based upon wp:secondary sources. wp:primary sources are supposed to be used sparingly and with care. So if you have an interesting study with results you'd like to cite, but it hasn't been cited by any other papers, then there are 0 secondary sources for that material and it is probably best if Wikipedia didn't use it. If you have 5 papers that cite that paper and you can restate everything about that study in just one paragraph (by simply citing the 5 papers that cite it) then you might be left with a paragraph of material. That paragraph is considered much more "encyclopedic" than trying to pull out a paragraph yourself from a paper that has been cited 0 times. However, for the purposes of the encyclopedia, you might just summarize a secondary source down to one sentence and then cite one secondary source and the primary source, if you'd like. That's a nice strategy. Applying this new knowledge and also the fact that biomedical information should be based off of WP:MEDRS and we are not a WP:CRYSTALBALL thus Wikipedia:Medmos#Diseases_or_disorders_or_syndromes states "Research directions: Include only if addressed by significant sources. See Trivia, and avoid useless statements like 'More research is needed'. Wikipedia is not a directory of clinical trials or researchers." What do you think about your literature and proposal now that you can see the gist of how to write an encyclopedia about this sort of stuff now? Best regards. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 14:59, 19 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

My name is Jenna Fair. I have two questions. The first being a logistical question. When I first created the title for my wiki page in my sandbox, I didn't know that the convention was to only capitalize the first word. Now that I know what to correct, I can't figure out how to correctly change it to lowercase letters while still being able to access my page. If anyone could help me with that, that'd be great. Additionally, I noticed that someone thought that "Lower limb neuromechanics" didn't warrant its own page, but would rather be part of another page. Would it be more appropriate to address the topic of neuromechanics as an entity (i.e., wiki page title "Neuromechanics")? There are currently pages devoted to neuromechanics of XXX which is why I thought it was appropriate, but the information I have gathered so far could be applied to neuromechanics in a general sense, and there is no page devoted to the newly-growing topic. I appreciate any feedback you have! Jenna Fair (talk) 03:13, 7 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

RfC at Foreign Accent Syndrome

There is currently an open RfC at Foreign Accent Syndrome, looking for comments about what to do about the growing list of cases that has been included in the article. If there are any interested editors, we would like to invite your comments and suggestions on this matter. 0x0077BE (talk) 20:25, 17 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]