First off, thanks to everyone who voted for our “” video in the Society for Neuroscience People’s Choice video contest last week. Unfortunately, we learned over the weekend that we didn’t win, but we truly appreciate all the support! And our efforts to publicize our video weren’t without their own rewards. Last week, my wife Liz (who helped me write the script and also starred in the video) got this wonderful e-mail from a psychiatrist who had seen our video and used it to start a difficult conversation with one of his patients (e-mail reproduced with permission):

Dear Liz,

I thought your video was terrific.  It’s hard to tell a story like that as efficiently as you did.

I attend BEC [UCLA's Behavior, Evolution and Culture seminar series] as often as I can, and have also had to find new routes, so I really appreciated that example.

I thought you might be interested to know that this afternoon, I showed it to a former US Marine suffering from what we think is TBI [traumatic brain injury] from a blast in Iraq, but now complicated by some features of PTSD and some of OCD.  I told him about the possibility that the blast wave disrupted some important pathways (like your old route from Brain Mapping to Haines), but he was still able to get a degree in economics from UCLA.  But his problems gradually increased, perhaps because of problems associated with the new pathways his neurons were growing, and these might be responsible for the symptoms that now keep him from getting a high enough score on the graduate school entrance exam.

He found it quite useful and told me about several other experiences that have given me a better picture of him than I would have had without your video.

This is a victory of a different kind… And while I wouldn’t have minded receiving the $500 People’s Choice prize, in the end, the fact that our video helped this doctor talk with one of his patients in a new way means a lot more. When we were filming and editing the video, we never imagined that it might be useful in a clinical setting, but I’m really glad that it was. And this doctor’s testimony just goes to show how effective visual media can be at engaging people with science!