The five most-read stories this week on Scope were:
Memory of everyday events may be compromised by sleep apnea: New research published in the Journal of Neuroscience offers more evidence that sleep apnea can cause difficulty in sufferers remembering where they left their keys and other daily events.
The book that made me go to medical school – and other good reads: In response to young readers' inquiries about which books they should be reading to prepare for a potential future in medicine, second-year medical student Natalia Birgisson offered some suggestions.
Rituals of the body – honoring the loss of bodily wholeness in medicine: As part of Scope's SMS Unplugged series, MD/PhD student Amrapali Maitra discusses her experience observing an amputation and suggests the initiation of rituals to “help physicians recover the awe and the empathy toward bodies we care for.”
Some headway on chronic fatigue syndrome: Brain abnormalities pinpointed: Stanford researchers conducted an imaging study and discovered distinct differences in the brains of healthy people and those with chronic fatigue syndrome, a disorder that was once written off as a psychiatric phenomenon because no one could figure out what else might be behind it.
And still going strong – the most popular post from the past:
What are the consequences of sleep deprivation?: Brandon Peters, MD, an adjunct clinical faculty member at the Stanford Center for Sleep Sciences and Medicine, explains how lack of sleep can negatively affect a person’s well-being in this Huffington Post piece.