Developing a neurology training program in Honduras: a joint project of neurologists in Honduras and the World Federation of Neurology.

One of the major barriers to the provision of quality care for patients with neurological disorders in developing countries is a low ratio of neurologists per inhabitants, the World Health Organization recommends one neurologist per 100,000. In 1998 Honduras had one neurologist per 325,000 inhabitants and all the neurologists were trained outside the country. The Education Committee of the World Federation of Neurology (WFN), in collaboration with the Postgraduate Direction of the National Autonomous University of Honduras, the Honduran Neurological Association, and the Honduran Secretary of Health helped establish the country's first Neurology Training Program in 1998. This program was established using a problem- and epidemiological-oriented methodology with oversight by an external WFN review board. By 2006 the program has resulted in a 31% increase in the national neurologist ratio per inhabitant, significantly improved the quality of patient care and promoted research in the neurosciences. The Honduras Neurology Training Program has provided a valuable model for other developing countries with similar needs for neurological care. Based on this Honduras experience, members of the Education Committee of the WFN have established guidelines for neurology training programs in developing countries.

[Abstract painting, a mental esthetic construction without exact correspondence with reality (José Guerrero: manuel and corporal expressions in his paintings)]. / Pintura abstracta, construcción estética mental sin correspondencia exacta con la realidad (José Guerrero: expresion manual y corporal en sus cuadros).

It is desirable that a truthful aesthetic experience should be the consequence of a complete observation detached from all sorts of commercial, social, political or cultural ties. If during this period of admiration of a work of art a personal concentration is reached, the admirer perceives a liberation from all sorts of limiting ties and a rewarding artistic feeling. A similar type of mental freedom must be reached by the artist and prevail during the process of creation which must reach its greatest dimension in abstract paintings because not being illustrations they demand from the spectator a well developed habit to detect its esthetic values, difficult to perceive because they are in the abstract order. The dimensions such as perspective, symmetry, lights and shadows, usually integrated in figurative paintings to create well defined tridimensional spaces are not included in abstractions because this type of geometrical composition is not needed. In contemporary abstraction the design itself has lost its formal meaning and its protagonist role. It is frequently replaced by abrupt gestures as it is the case in the styles named "action painting" (Jackson Pollack) or "abstract expressionism" (Antonio Saura). Other abstract painters close to "minimalism" simply drop the colors on the canvas without any attempt to design but full of aesthetic energy and even single colors uniformly bathe the surface of the linen (Rothko). Other american artists of the sixties (Monis Louis) are also to be admired. They allow that the deposited and sliding colors themselves initiate and finish interesting artistic compositions. They become esential creative agents in the painting without being forced to be figurative nor to follow the creative will of the artist who, is simply acting as the first observer and only intervenes "a posteriori" accepting or rejecting the results. Only the colors and under the single influence of their sliding density create the shapes and artistic ensembles where there are still perceived their slow original movements. The observers of these abstract styles must initiate a process of perception without specific norms and wait until the engaging game of the colors generate emotional rewards in their minds such as amazement or interest that invite them to continue their tuning with the painting. If these artistic attraction is not evoked, the observer must be sadly satisfied with a simple ocular vision of the painting and again wait until the mental perception participates and the aesthetic reward is completed. What the "eyes of the mind" see is not a copy of the painting. A mental copy would not include the artistic meaning that the work of art contains which only emerges during the mental aesthetic encounter between the painting and the observer.

[Music as a symptom]. / La música como síntoma.

The contents of this presentation are the consequence o reading the book Infectious Diseases and Music where the authors Drs. Gomis and Sánchez describe the infections suffered by more than fourty composers or interpreters. Although infections were more prevalent, intense psychological repercussions were also frequent. Reviewing the biographies of Bach, Mozart, Schubert and Beethoven I have selected some specially dramatic paragraphs of letters addressed for relatives and friends describing their intense and permanent physical and psychological disturbances which probably influenced the contents and style of their creations. Depression, anxiety and specially bipolar conditions with frequent and intense maniac phases were common but not exclusive to composers. Other artists and painters or poets also complained of similar disturbances. During their maiac states the artists perceive sounds and visual stimuli as well as their personal experiences with increased intensity and liveliness. Language is more fluid and their creativity and productivity become more powerful.

Cajal y el cerebro plástico / No disponible

No disponible

[Les démoiselles d'Avignon and "e = m.c2"]. / Les démoiselles d'Avignon y "e = m.c2".

Picasso, mentally travelling around the objects, indicated a process of visual disconnection of their naturals forms which ended in the recovery of the beautiful lines of euclidean geometry. In this paintings and especially in Les Démoiselles d'Avignon, the triangles and circles become plastic materials but they do not form perfect euclidean tridimensional spaces where objects must keep constant sizes and proportions. Thus, Picasso discovered or invented cubism. The characteristic void space of the perspectivistic figurative painting, became substituted by a solid space where vertical, horizontal dimensions and depth were represented in an instant. This "simultaneity" implicitly included the use of time as a fourth dimension in cubist paintings. As in Einstein's relativistic theories, in cubism the volume of the observed objects become compressed and bidimensional, and the notion of absolute space-time is ignored. In a way, cubistic paintings were contemporary illustration of Einstein's relativistic principles.