Brain

"The greatest evil is physical pain. " - St. Augustine Thanks to new tools and techniques, scientists are beginning to unravel the mystery of pain - why such a terrible thing exists and what can be done to relieve it. Using modern electronic scanning devices, they can watch individual nerve cells, or neurons, in the living brains of people and animals react to painful stimuli. As they gain understanding, they hope to discover ways to prevent, control or end unnecessary or excessive pain.

A Common Pleas Court judge has dismissed a suit filed against city officials by a woman who charged that her son's brain had been illegally removed from his body during an autopsy and sent to a medical school. In an eight-page ruling made public yesterday, Judge Abraham J. Gafni concluded that under Pennsylvania law the city and its officials were immune from the negligence and other claims made by Doris Jackson. Citing a state law that grants municipalities general immunity from lawsuits unless the claims fall into certain specified categories, Gafni concluded that Jackson's claims simply did not pass muster.

John R. Rooney of Parkside was convicted of involuntary manslaughter yesterday for fatally shaking his 2 1/2-year-old daughter in an attempt to stop her from crying while he was watching a football game. Rooney's attorney, Robert Keller, said yesterday that his client was still grieving over his daughter's death. "He said to me this morning that he would trade places with the child if he could. He loved that baby. No matter what the sentence is, it's going to be hell for him to have to live with this.

In the sterile hospital room, with its curtains, machines, cords and plugs, Donta Dawson spent his last lifeless moments cloaked in a white sheet on a cold gurney as his family and loved ones fought in vain to keep him alive. At 2:20 p.m. yesterday, against his family's wishes, doctors pulled the plug on his life support. The only sound in the room was his mother screaming and the clock on the wall ticking. Ten minutes later, the electronic trace of his heart beat went flat.

Philadelphia researchers have detected part of the virus that causes cervical cancer in a surprising place: a congenital brain malformation that causes an intractable form of epilepsy in children. This is the first study to uncover evidence of the microbe - human papillomavirus (HPV) - in the brain. It is also the first to suggest that an infection in the fetal brain leads to the malformation, which has no known genetic or environmental cause. Peter Crino, a neurologist in the Shriners Hospitals Pediatric Research Center at Temple University, conducted the study with colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania.

JEFFREY DEITCH majored in psychology, but eventually became more fascinated by what goes on inside the brain than its emotional reactions. He was intrigued by the "miracle of this extraordinarily well-oiled machine - our brains," said his son, Caleb Deitch. This fascination led him to the main thrust of his scientific work, the study of the crippling disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease, and the search for a cause and cure. "He found his life's professional path and passion," his son said.

The Risks and the Rewards By William J. Broad Simon & Schuster. 336 pp. $26 Reviewed by Dorothy Brown If practicing yoga is a right-brain experience, involving meditation, movement, and a detachment from the everyday, then reading The Science of Yoga is a jolt to the other side of the brain: analytical, historical, scientific, and sobering. But to underscore the proven value of yoga, considered so wifty by so many, New York Times science writer William J. Broad has brought an arsenal of data.

JUST AS the caveman comedy "The Croods" hits theaters, there is breaking Neanderthal news. This just in: Scientists at the Natural History Museum now believe that our cousin the Neanderthal, whose brain was as big as ours, died out because too much of his brain was dedicated to vision and physical ability, and not enough to socialization and thinking. Thus, he was unable to "cope with environmental change and competition. " This is, rather shockingly, the precise story line of the new 3-D animated comedy "The Croods," though with an upbeat spin.

La Salle's Preston Plevretes has been transported to Chester, N.J., where the freshman linebacker will continue his recovery at the Kessler Institute for Rehabilitation. Plevretes suffered a severe brain injury during the Explorers' game at Duquesne on Nov. 5. He underwent surgery to relieve pressure on his brain at Mercy Hospital in Pittsburgh. He had been hospitalized in Pittsburgh since suffering the injury. His activity remains limited to slight movement of the hands and fingers, with some eye movement, a La Salle spokesman said.

First came a big heart, and now, with a little courage, they have arranged for a brain to come home. No, not to Kansas, but rather to Philadelphia's own Franklin Institute Science Museum. It's been a Wizard-of-Oz-like odyssey for "It's All In Your Head: An Exhibit About the Brain," which the Franklin Institute conceived and built in 1991. The exhibit soon went on the road to museums in 21 cities including Boston, Los Angeles, Fort Worth, Denver and Vancouver, British Columbia.