Unravelling the brain

A two-day conference on "Facets of consciousness" will be held at CLRI, Chennai, with Dr. B. Ramamurthi, at the helm. K. SRINIVASA RAO, profiles the veteran neuro-surgeon and lists some of the highlights of the meet.

LIFE TO him has indeed been an uphill task. Nevertheless, surmounting odds, he has emerged successful in a field which he pioneered. To most of us here, neuro-surgery is synonymous with Dr. B. Ramamurthi. An amiable and accessible "periya doctor" to his patients, and an institution by himself to his students and the medical fraternity, what instantly strikes one about the veteran surgeon is his simplicity - simplicity that belies his achievements.

In the 1950s, when Ramamurthi returned to India - after specialising in neuro-surgery at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England, he had to overcome innumerable hurdles to start a Department of Neuro-sciences (the first of its kind) at the Government General Hospital with just four beds. He also established the first Head Injury Unit in India.

In December 1951, Ramamurthi, along with Drs. Jacob Chandy, Baldev Singh and S.T. Narasimhan, formed the Neurological Society of India. Soon, he emerged an established neuro-surgeon and established The Institute of Neurology in the General Hospital, Chennai.

He was in government service until his retirement in 1978, as the Head of the Institute and the Principal of the Madras Medical College.

Retirement, however did not sully his spirit. He started his career all over again, by launching the Dr. Achanta Lakshmipathi Neuro-surgical Centre at the V.H.S. Hospital, where he continues his services to neuro-sciences. Having started with only x-rays as aids for surgeries, Ramamurthi was quick to grapple and master the advances in methodologies.

Ramamurthi's "Textbook of Neuro-surgery" with Dr. Prakash N. Tandon, first published in 1980 and revised in 1996, is considered to be a magnum opus.

His autobiography "Uphill all the way" candidly traces the trials and tribulations in his decades-long career.

During a recent lecture at the Presidency College, Ramamurthi threw light on some interesting facets of the brain:

The mind is a part of the function of the brain and has as such no location; though the female brain weighs 100 gm. lesser than the male brain (which is 1,350 gms), their right half is more powerful and hence their decisions are governed by intuition (than reason); brain transplants though technically feasible, after the transplant, the brain cannot receive or transmit messages as the nerve fibres do not connect; there are large areas of ignorance still about the functions of the brain - for instance, how memory is stored and retrieved in the brain; that brain power improves by yogic meditation; that violence is more ingrained in the brain than love and affection.

With an ever-smiling countenance, Ramamurthi has the ability to bring a smile on those surrounding him whether in private conversations, or when he is on his ward rounds - with comments such as: "apart from God, who else is looking after the patient"; "it is no shame to beg for someone else"; "you can always learn from a speaker - either how to present or how not to present a paper"; "to have money and the heart to give it is a divine blessing present only in a few persons".

Ramamurthi is one of the architects in the newly created "National Brain Research Center'. Ever on the look-out for fresh pastures, he continues his pursuit of unravelling the various "Facets of Consciousness".

He is the chairman of the organising committee for a two-day conference to be held at the Triple Helix Auditorium of C.L.R.I, Chennai, on March 9 and 10. This inter-disciplinary conference, will facilitate exchange of ideas from a wide spectrum of thinkers and practitioners in the area of consciousness.

The main objective is to bring together eminent neuro-scientists, mathematical scientists, computer scientists, philosophers and other experts, for detailed discussions of what the future plans should be to lay a scientific foundation for the study of consciousness.

The programme includes lectures in the areas of Neuro-sciences (Dr. B. Ramamurthi, Dr. P. N. Tandon, Dr. R. M. Varma, Dr. V. S. Ramachandran, Dr. S. Kalyanaraman); quantum mechanics (Dr. Robert E. Shaw, Dr. T. S. Radhakrishnan); computer science and artificial intelligence (Dr. Subhash Kak, Dr. Rajiv Sanghal, Dr. P. Gautam, Dr. B. G. Siddharth); philosophy (Dr. D. Frawley, Dr. D. Home, Dr. Radha Burnier); consciousness (Dr. Ravi Gomatam, Dr. M. Srinivasan).

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