Ok. To be honest i have only met one person in my entire life that had schizophrenia, and boy was i in for a big surprise. In the church that i attend i always notices this really quite girl that would sometimes be a sweetheart and then to other sundays she hated the whole word. I remember, one time it started raining and she stepped out side and kneeled down and started worshiping "something". All this was very new to me and had no idea of what was happening to her. Until her mom, decided to tell us her testimony and what it was like living with a daughter that is a danger to others. I only recall bits and pieces, but from what i remember she was exhausted of trying to please her daughter. When she started going to church she was very happy and thought it was a breakthrough in her life. She started having more problems with her, she said that in the middle of the night her daughter Mary* would go outside and just walk for hours, she had also tried taking her own life before. Mary had auditory hallucinations that tell her to do radial actions and do things that can harm others and herself. On time i recall trying to say hi to her, and she would not let me near her. To this day i do not know what ever happened to mary, but her matters still attends church and had this deep hope that she might change for the better.
Schizophrenia is a very delicate disorder and until this day research and psychologist still do not find a solid link into as why it develops in the individuals. Sure the text mentions several ideas on how the person might of developed it, but still not no one can reached a permanent reason. People with the disorder may hear voices other people don't hear. They may believe other people are reading their minds, controlling their thoughts, or plotting to harm them. This can terrify people with the illness and make them withdrawn or extremely agitated. People with schizophrenia may not make sense when they talk. They may sit for hours without moving or talking. Sometimes people with schizophrenia seem perfectly fine until they talk about what they are really thinking.
In the video your about to see, you will witness a person that lost his mind to paranoid schizopherinia and with it lost his whole family and not is confined to live a solitary life away from his children and wife. You will get to hear both sides of the person and how it has affected them immensely.
As long as i can remember my friends and I would always tease each other when our mood shifted from one moment to another, usually when a boyfriend would make us sad or our parents would get on our last nerves, from not getting our way in a certain situation calling each other bipolar was normal and we had no clue what it even was. I even remember calling my friends brother childish and spoiled because he would get into his little tantrums and give a lot of attitude. Until one day my friend got the courage to tell me he was Bipolar. I felt horrible for thinking all this negative things about him, I just didn't have the knowledge to distinguish it from original and abnormal. That is a huge problem, many of use this term because we have sudden mood changes and can't find just the right word for it, other than hormonal or bipolar. The truth is many Americans struggle with this disorder including Camp Rock Star Demi Lovato, we have to get we acquitted with this disorder to avoid any stereotypes. Bipolar (Manic Depressive Disorder) is one of the sub branches of depression and it consists of both depression and mania. "Mania is characterized by
restless activity, excitement, laughter, self-confidence, rambling speech, and loss of inhibitions," as the textbook stated. There are also two types of Bioplar disorder, bipolar disorder type I is accompanied with manic episodes and type II is less severe with mild manic phases also known as hypomania. "Families can more easily accept schizophrenia, to understand that it is an illness. But when a person is sometimes very productive, then becomes unreasonable or irrational, it wreaks more havoc on the family. It seems more like bad behavior, like they won't straighten up," said Micheal Aronson M.D. Treatment for Bipolar Disorder varies depending on the person and intensity, many used to treat this disorder include Lithium ( most commonly used) , Anticonvulsants, antipsychotic drugs, Benzodiazepines, ECT, and antidepressants. To help distinguish Bipolar Disorder for mood swings search for the following:
Remember Bipolar Disorder focused on the severity and duration
Is disrupting life completely?
Are the actions that the person is taking drastic or out of the norm?
This a is quite an interesting story, this past Saturday I came to school to get together with a group to wok on an assignment. We left pretty late, so my friend decided to walk me to my car, there was not a single soul in the hallways, and I kept on freaking my friend out with spooky stories. Suddenly it got quite, then out if no where I hear this loud peircing sound, looked back and screamed from the bottom of my lungs! My friend just stood their puzzeled at my actions, and insisted me to stop. As i was running i kept thing, "stop stop stop, its no big deal", but It was as if my brain wasn't getting the message and was reacting to the loud noise not taking into consideration that there was no danger. The loud noise just turned to be the sprinkeler system going off, and yes, i know that it is not scary at all, but I was internally in the attach and escape stage. My friend of course was dying of laughter and said she had never see me run that fast; my sympathetic system was doing its thing! The fasincating thing about all of this that makes me so confindent that our body will do anything to alert us of danger or sometimes may misinterpurt danger, is the fact that, i had already looked back and known it wasn't an asultant, it was just water, but my brain could not interpert the message and reacted on its first instinct.
The startle relex can be seen all the way back to a babies reaction to a loud noise, and is usually the sudden recation gauges of fear and anxiety. According to the book, your current mood or situation modifies your reaction. Since I was already tense before my stratle reflex kicked in, my response was more vigorous. Take for example, the feeling you get when you know someone is near or watching but not sure who it is, you get up to see what it might be, and BAM! you little brother jumps out of nowhere to scare the heck out of you. You have the consious that he is no danger, but you cant seem to have contorol over you reaction. That is your startle relfex in action! The amygala is important for leaning what to fear. Since I had not learned how to react in that particular situation, I responded the only way I knew....RUUUNN!!
There this little portion of our brain that controld how we may react to unexpected events, it is known as the amygdala, which enchances the starle reflex, its axons the extend to the midbrain that relay information to the pons are a big attribute in controlling the stralte reflex.
Imagine a life where sleep is that best friend you love to hate. A life where you are constantly falling asleep in the most random times and places! Well this is what pretty much occurs when narcolepsy is present. I can still recall the times my friends and i would mimic the behavior when listening to a boring story or lecture in class, you know that head wobbling and fake snoring that would take your mind off things. We were so ignorant to the fact that this a struggle many Americans live with. To be honest, this disorder is to wickedly crazy! The capacity for our one body to have no control over our sleep cycle can seem quite frustrating and I will never know what it feels to be in that situations, but here are some facts that might help understand narcolepsy more: According to WedMed, "Narcolepsy is a neurological disorder that affects the control of sleep and wakefulness. People with narcolepsy experience excessive daytime sleepiness and intermittent, uncontrollable episodes of falling asleep during the daytime. These sudden sleep attacks may occur during any type of activity at any time of the day."
The book stated because the body lacks orexin, the chemical that helps us stay awake. But, in order to understand the basics of narcolepsy it is important to understand the difference between "normal sleep" and living with narcolepsy. Sleep happens in cycles. When we fall asleep, we initially enter a light stage of sleep and then progress into increasingly deeper stages. Both light and deep sleep stages are called non-REM (rapid eye movement) sleep. After about 90 minutes, we enter the first stage of REM sleep, which is the dreaming portion of sleep, and throughout the night we alternate between stages of REM and non-REM sleep. For people with narcolepsy, sleep begins almost immediately with REM sleep and fragments of REM occur involuntarily throughout the waking hours. When you consider that during REM sleep our muscles are paralyzed and dreaming occurs, it is not surprising that narcolepsy is associated with paralysis, hallucinations, and other dream-like and dramatically debilitating symptoms (National Sleep Foundation).
Symptoms also include:
1. Gradual or sudden attacks of sleepiness during the day.
2. Occasional cataplexy—an attack of muscle weakness
while the person remains awake. Cataplexy is often
triggered by strong emotions, such as anger or great
excitement. (One man suddenly collapsed during his own
wedding ceremony.)
3. Sleep paralysis—an inability to move while falling asleep
or waking up. Other people may experience sleep
paralysis occasionally, but people with narcolepsy
experience it more frequently.
4. Hypnagogic hallucinations—dreamlike experiences that
the person has trouble distinguishing from reality, often
occurring at the onset of sleep. (Text also found in Book)
Treatment: Thank God! There is a way to control it. Medications that doctors are typically prescribe stimulants are to improve alertness and diminish excessive daytime sleepiness. Antidepressants are also often used to treat cataplexy, hypnagogic hallucinations and sleep paralysis.
This is a very radical disorder and we must learn not to fall into conclusions about the people it affects. This disorder is considered a taboo in other countries and people are often seen as "lazy bums". Lets make this lovely "sleeping beauties" feel understood and aware that they are not alone.
(video consist of three parts feel free to check part one and three if time allows it)
We are have an idea of how happy our first child will change our lives, you know that typical "aww i wonder how he/she is going to look like?" and of course the answers are bias because at the end we want to imprint them with some of our "good" characteristics. But what is if told you that your baby was going to have a birth defect? Would you be as excited as you would be with a healthy one? And what if i told you that you could've prevented you baby from being a male but acting like a girl?
We all have come across those guys that act...well.. feminine, and at often times we wonder if they are gay. I recently made a new friend a month back and I sometimes wonder is he is gay, not that i am stereotyping him, but they are certain characteristics that make me doubt his sexual orientation.
For example, he usually gets excited the way we girls would, you know that high pitched' "Oh my God, ahhhh" phrase and his hand gestures are way to feminine. I was even to confused that i got the courage to ask him, he totally denied it and i felt to awful to have assumed such thing. But after reading the assigned modules, a light bulbed just clicked and understood why, he was so in touch with his feminine side.
According to the book, "drugs that tend to femi-
nize or demasculinize early development include alcohol,
marijuana, haloperidol (an antipsychotic drug), phthalates
(chemicals common in many manufactured products), and
cocaine. Still with this, i didn't really comprehend why he might act a certain way because it stated early development not adolescence. It wasn't until months later where he later confessed that his mother had been using cocaine and alcohol while she was pregnant! But then i was puzzled again, i know, geez. get to the point. My friend was a hard cocaine and mariguana addict since he was 13, we all know that puberty is one of the main phases of or life that is happening, thus causing hormones like testosterone to do what...well you know what its meant to do, masculinize the male. A part of me also thinks, that because of this he might of not obtain the full effect of testosterone in his development I tired finding a video that would explain the phenomenon but there is very little research. instead this video targets the affects of drugs on a baby. We are the voice of the next generation that can't speak for themselves. I never told my friend he was just too "feminine" but its amazing to see how the affects of him also being dependent are seen.
Ok. Lets get real here, we all have the one perfume or cologne that reminds us about the special loved one, that ex boyfriend/girlfriend that was dumb to leave us or we were smart to dumb, or an old friend you wish you still talked to. That little pause that we take when we smell that familiar smell and we have a mini flashback. Isn't is amazing in how our olfactory cells send those signals to our brain and it becomes part of who we are, and takes a special place (no its not our heart) in our memory. I still remember how my high school crush smells like, and every time I come around another person wearing the Abercrombie & Fitch Fierce cologne I get reminded of him (not such a good thing because a lot of guys where it nowadays). But yes, I myself created a special meaning to that certain smell and now i can differentiate it from others. We never put to much important to our olfaction, because it is part of who we are and and the end of its our noses job to smell, and in most instances even taste. Thats why when we were little and got sick our moms would make us drink the awful medicine that made us want to throw up, and we would shut our noses to minimize the taste. I don't know about you, but this topic is sooooo interesting, I mean think about it! The smell of our moms cooking, the smell of rain, and the smell of our favorite fragrance all come together to interact with the social and interpersonal aspect of our selfs. We have these awesome olfactory receptors that have to decode the smell to be process by our brain. We have hundreds of them and they are all work similar to the G protein ( making connections between each other to carry a signal). Then these signals find their way though the olfactory bulbs to its target cell and from there the magic happens where the smell is distinguished because it is transported to the olfactory area in the brain in the cerebral cortex.
What really intrigues me, is the concept that we all have out own unique sense of smell. What might seem pleasant to me might not to you or vise versa. This come to show me that out sense of smell and brain work together to also provide a deeper and more complex reason why we are attracted or not to certain smells. For example I used to have iron deficiency when i was younger and my mom would make me eat beets, now every time i smell them i get disgusted, due to the fact that i associated it with a bad experience:) But here is a personal advice when you are face with an unpleasant smell: smell coffee! it filters you olfactory receptors.
I will never forget Mr. Lopez, he was by far the sweetest and kind man at the nursing home where i was doing my hours. I was so surprised that someone started a conversation with me, he started telling me tales about his childhood and how he came to America, and if anyone knows me well i absolutely love to hear the older generation share their wisdom. He ask me where i was from and continued to tell me his story. Then, after five minutes he asked me where i was from again, puzzled i told him, "Donna"? I didn't think to much of it because i mean, we sometimes forget that when we meet a new person so i just thought he didn't really catch it the first time. Ten minutes later he asked me again, and I just smiled and said, "Donna Mr. Lopez". Ok, by this time I knew something was up, and asked Rene the COTA why he asked me the same question twice, he said he has amnesia and was not able to store new information. "Oooohh!! no wonder he kept asking me for the same thing over and over again", I said. But he seemed so normal, going about his daily therapy treatment, smiling to the staff, and even starting a normal conversation with a total stranger, me! Mr. Lopez was able to familiarize with the rehab staff, since he saw them everyday, and of course his case wasn't so server as Drew Barrymore in the movie 50 First Dates and Rachel McAdams in The Vow. But he did show signs of disorientation of what day it was, the time, and questioned if he had eaten lunch. Anterograde amnesia is a selective memory deficit, resulting from brain injury, in which the individual is severely impaired in learning new information. Memories for events that occurred before the injury may be largely spared, but events that occurred since the injury may be lost. In practice, this means that an individual with amnesia may have good memory for childhood and for the years before the injury, but may remember little or nothing from the years since. Short-term memory is generally spared, which means that the individual may be able to carry on a conversation; but as soon as he is distracted, the memory of the conversation fades.
Usually people with anterograde amnesia lose declarative memory (the recollection of facts), but they retain non-declarative, or procedural, memory (the learning of skills and habits). For instance, they may be able to remember or learn how to do things, such as talking on the phone or riding a bicycle, but they may not remember what they had eaten for lunch earlier that day. This is because procedural memory does not rely on the hippocampus and medial temporal lobe memory system in the same way as declarative memory This type of amnesia us pretty quite phenomenal, I never imaged carrying a conversation with some one with a short term memory lost, but able to recall detail facts of his childhood. It is something worth exposing yourself to, teaches a professional to be compassionate and patient.
It crazy to believe that six weeks ago i didn't know what Wernicke's Aphasia was. I wish I had some kind of knowledge about it before i did my observation hours this summer, I would've had a better understanding of what Mrs. Gomez (named changed) was going through. I few weeks ago i noticed this sweet old woman going about her daily occupational treatments, she was taking by herself and folding the sheets. I tried to conversant with her but she wouldn't make sense, puzzled, I asked the COTA what was wrong with her. He smirked and said, "what did she tell you"? I said well, "Nothing really, she kept repeating what she was doing". He told me she had Wernicke's Aphasia, he even offered to show me how this disorder took place in a her life. He politely asked Mrs. Gomez what was she holding, she kept repeating the same thing. He asked again, "What do you use this for?" And she just kept on saying," Yes, Yes, thats right". The COTA assured me that she can't describe objects and she likes to divert from the subject to hide her disorder. WERNICKE'S APHASIA: Wernickes aphasia is a language disorder that impacts language comprehension and the production of meaningful language. The disorder is related to damage to the Wernicke's area. Individuals with Wernicke's aphasia have difficulty understanding spoken language, but are able to produce sounds, phrases, and word sequences. While these utterances have the same rhythm as normal speech. They are not language because no information is conveyed.
TREATMENT: The main cause of aphasia must be stabilized or treated. To regain the normal language function, speech therapy must begin right after the injury. Even though there are no surgical or medical procedures available currently to treat this disorder, aphasia resulting from head injury or stroke can improve by implementing speech therapy. However, for most patients, the primary aim is focused on making use of the retained language abilities. Being aware on how to go about this disorder is extremely important because it is then, where we can see the most positive changes. Although, for late adult hood it become a bit more difficult because their capability to retain information and process it diminishes over time.
I think the whole concept of brain plasticity is quite phenomenal! I mean think about, but reeeeeeallly think about it. Our brains are adapting to our environment and trying to cope with the never ending changes we manage to expose it to. If you don't think thats brilliant, then let me change your mind. (ha! plasticity in action)
This topic got my undivided attention because i absolutely love playing my guitar! i remember picking one up for the first time and not knowing what the heck i was doing was extremely frustrating. My fingers would be in terrible pain and they didn't respond quickly as i would've wanted them to. My instructor would tell me practice, practice, practice! I mean suuuureee he knew how to play it but i didn't comprehend the meaning of his "wise" words until i actually put it into action! Little by little i noticed i was able to move my finger a little quicker and actually make a chord! Was practicing really the secret???
YES!!!!! Our brains our so awesome!! I've been playing the guitar for 3 years now, am no pro, but i can play without looking and its as if my fingers have adapted to playing automatically to each chord!
Without plasticity, the brain would remain static, frozen at a particular point in time. Brain plasticity allows the brain to do everything from learn how to speak to refining physical movements such as those associated with playing a musical instrument. Every time the brainencounters information, it reworks itself to accommodate it, and creates a map of the information it contains so that it can readily retrieve information when it is needed. People always need to be able to store and interpret new information, which makes plasticity critical to function at all ages (WiseGeek).
But wait, this gets even better! What if they told you half of your brain needed to be taken out? Do you think that you can function efficiently with only one half your brain? This little girl did. WATCH!
The brain is by far the most brilliant part of our body that makes us...well...US!
Neurotrophins work to help preserve these axons that need to communicate in order to carry out their function. Of course therapy is needed to, positively increase the process of plasticity.
This comes to show us, that we have the potential to make our brains a powerhouse! So next time you hear that phrase we all have come to know "Practice makes perfect"...believe it!
The pituitary gland is one of the most essential gland the body needs to promptly function in order to positively affect the body. It is divided into the anterior and posterior gland, which are responsible, for hormone secretion that travel through the blood stream.
The pituitary gland is a pea-sized gland located at the base of the skull between the optic nerves. The pituitary is sometimes referred to as the "master gland" as it controls hormone functions such as our temperature, thyroid activity, growth during childhood, urine production, testosterone production in males and ovulation and estrogen production in females. In effect the gland functions as our thermostat that controls all other glands that are responsible for hormone secretion. The gland is a critical part of our ability to respond
to the environment most often without our knowledge.
Since we are now learning that it is responsible for secreting certain hormones such as: Adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH)
Thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH), Prolactin, Somatotropin, also known as growth hormone (GH)
Gonadotropins, Follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH), Luteinizing hormone (LH) by the anterior gland and oxytocin and vasopressin by the posterior gland.
It is incredible to be that such a little gland in our body is capable do so much for us! I began to wonder what it there was a malfunction, how can it affect how our body response? The causes are so many to note but here are some that may help us obtain awareness.
Thyroid stimulating hormone deficiency may cause…
reduced memory
slowed metabolism
reduced energy
altered mood
failure to thrive
slowed growth
muscle aches
cold intolerance
decreased appetite
dry hair or skin
numbness or tingling in extremities
Adrenocortical stimulating hormone deficiency may cause…
weakness
fatigue
altered mood
electrolyte abnormalities
weight loss
low or fluctuating blood pressure
increased body fat
decreased bone mass
reduced exercise capacity
Growth hormone deficiency may cause:
decreased lean body and muscle mass, particularly in the shouldersincreased fat mass, especially around the waist and trunk
high “bad” cholesterol levels (higher ldl and lower hdl) which may increase risk of stroke and heart diseasedecreased bone density, which may cause osteoporosis
fatigue, regardless of the amount of sleep.decreased interest in socialization
a sense of isolation and depression
Sex hormone deficiency may cause…
decreased energy
decreased muscle mass
in males, it may cause…
decreased sex drive
shrunken testes
loss of beard growth
decreased sperm production
in females, it may cause…
infertility
amenorrhea (lack of menstruation)
loss of female characteristics
Although we live regular lives and try to cope with the daily routines that come with it. There is astonishing things happening in our brain to make us to what we do and function the way we are suppose to! The pituitary gland is a regulator of our body and diminishing its importance would be a great mistake of our part.
Ever since i can remember I have been fascinated with the way the CNS works together to make us react to different environments, situations, and even emotions in our life. As a was reading, i can across the subject that i have been very found of, the destruction of neurons. How can the body have have billions and billions of cells and that have the potential to reproduce EXPECT the neurons, once they are gone they are gone forever. I recently made a friend, who had abused drugs such as cocaine, crack, and extasy all his teenage years. I was very intrigued to ask him if he was aware he has destroyed some of his neurons. When the time was right, he unshamely said he had, and had been through several overdoses. But before we go any further, we have to become familiar with the affect these drugs have an impact on out nervous system. You might be surprised to know that it is not just a psychological effect but also physiological. Cocaine/ Crack- that drug teens kill to try and die in the attempt sometimes. that little white powder you line up and sniff up your nose, and wait minutes to feel is "alluring" affect. But this drug goes deep into the brain and can cause severe and even permanent damage. Behaviors such as mood, motivation, and motor function are target areas for cocaine. Cocaine doesn't just kill random brain cells either, it wipes out the brain cells in your brains pleasure center, brain cells that make you feel good and trigger positive emotions. Cocaine acts by preventing the dopamine from being recycled, causing excessive amounts of the neurotransmitter to build up, amplifying the message to and response of the receiving neuron, and ultimately disrupting normal communication.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OS2C4NemJI Neurons are responsible for supplying the brain with important chemicals called neurotransmitters that pass electrical impulses through the body. One of the neurotransmitters affected by crack is called dopamine, an important chemical that controls feelings of pleasure and well-being. Crack abuse damages the brain’s ability to transfer dopamine. At first, crack users will feel intense feelings of pleasure and euphoria because the crack causes the brain to release all the dopamine at once. Over time, however, crack can actually damage the ability to transmit dopamine, which damages the ability to feel pleasure at all.
Ecstasy also known as the "club drug". Ecstasy works by prompting the brain to initiate this ‘fight or flight’ response and the user feels refreshed by a burst of energy. Ecstasy’s hallucinogenic properties distort the user’s experience of reality by triggering hallucinations of both sight and sound.
Although we are well aware that these drugs are out there, we have to take into consideration the affect they have in our CNS. Neurons depend on a healthy environment to function properly. I will not base my insight on drugs being the only reason neurons are destroyed, but millions of people struggle with drug addiction and billion and billions of neurons are being destroyed. :) s
I have always been intrigued with ancestral traits being passed down to us by past generations and also been overwhelmed on how some are lost along the way. According to the book evolutionary explanation one of the main comments of why we are who we are. I have always though "goose bumps" were a normal thing we all happen to get when we are cold or frighten. But this trait was actually passed down by mammals that used this technique to look intimidating. In my own personal opinion, this might be true but does not have any substantial evidence to prove that it is 100% accurate. And this is were i make by point on how some traits have be lost. Although, we do carry some genetic traits that make us who we are, i believe there is a line of traits that have been lost along the way of this ever changing world. Everyday we adapting to new circumstances and environments, I think that there is a good chance the some of the traits that we are "so called" to carry have been diminished making them disappear from our line of genetics completely, making it useless to us. Therefore, if they are useless, why do we still have them? It seems meaningless to me to carry traits in our genes that have to benefit to our lives what so ever, it interesting to wonder when will the line of certain useless traits ever stop. This video is pretty interesting to see how traits get passed down by natural selection. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAQzQqbC1Vo
