Post- Traumatic Stress Disorder

Have you ever been asleep in your bed and you wake up with pain in your chest and anxiety from a past event that traumatized you? Many people suffer from past events within their lives and have haunting nightmares about it even years later. This disorder is call Post- Traumatic Stress Disorder also known as PTSD.

This disorder brings stress and anxieties to many different people in society. Whether the event happened years ago or recent, the symptoms hardly ever stop. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder occurs in some people that have experienced terrifying experiences, such as a life- threatening attack or watching someone being killed as it states in the book. In my opinion is sort of similar to autobiographical syndrome. People remember the past like if it was real and remember every little incident that occurred.

All people that have experienced a horrible or major trauma usually endure Post- Traumatic Stress Disorder. It was stated that most PTSD victims have a smaller than average hippocampus. That is very interesting to me because the hippocampus is smaller compared to average people. How can this be possible? The high cortisol levels damage the hippocampus causing it to be small.

The majority of people that suffer from Post- Traumatic Stress Disorder are people that went to war and fought. It must be hard to be exposed to things that aren’t really normal in society. To watch someone get killed in battle, a friend for an example is traumatizing.  Medication can help PTSD people calm their anxiety, but does it really stop from remembering the times of horror? My grandfather for example fought in WWII and till this day he will not speak of it. He doesn’t take any medication but he will not speak of the experiences he had to face in the war because it was hard for him.

Here is a video demonstrating PTSD more in depth of what it is. 

 

 

Social Pain

When a person comes up to you and hurts your feelings in a certain way, have you ever stop to think where is this pain coming from? Or when a romantic breakup with your significant other hurts you within your stomach tied into a knot or you have pain within your body, what kind of pain is this? Is there even such thing of this cause? People have different varieties of pain within our bodies. Physical pain, emotional pain internally and externally. But in this certain case it’s internal. What is this called exactly your thinking?

Yes, it’s called social pain.

Hurting people’s feelings in some way do resemble physical pain; in such ways not only that it is considered real life pain in another type of way.

According to the book, it states that you can relieve this social pain with the pain- relieving drug acetaminophen, which is also known as Tylenol. This is interesting because the everyday medication issued for other purposes, may fix social pain. I wonder if any type of medication can also be administered for example, Advil, Motrin, Excedrin, and Ibuprofen to relieve the pain.

I find this very fascinating because I’ve never really thought of where the social pain really came from within our bodies. Hurting people’s feelings in the smallest thing, can take effect in social pain. I guess when someone really states they have a broken heart over a break up; we now know more or less what it really is.

Experimenters that did research by monitoring people’s brain activity. Thus, during this task it was found that a significantly increased activity in the cingulate cortex was being activated during this process. All in all, they recorded that the cingulate cortex responds to the emotional aspect of pain.

 

 

Episodic Memory

Imagine yourself at an elderly age sitting in a rocking chair as a grandpa/grandma. Your grandchildren come up to you and ask you where did you meet grandpa/grandma? You sit back and start thinking. You recall that very moment of the time/place you were at in details. This is example of Episodic Memory.

Episodic Memory is a single of personal events. This type of memory involves a remembrance of specific events, experiences and situations. Episodic Memory is also known as autobiographical events. This associates with times, places, who, what, when, where, why, emotions. In all, it’s a collection of past personal experiences that occurs at a particular place and time.

Some more examples of episodic memory are events that happen for the first time such as going to a place for the first time, having a first kiss, first lover. Researchers say that this type of memory plays a role in your self-identity.

In the book, it mentions about H.M. how he had severe impairment of episodic memories. When he had surgery, he could not recall any experience that he had after his surgery.  Although he could describe facts that he learned before his operation, he could relate few personal experiences. This is very strange to me because how the past experiences he remember that made an impression on him.

In this video it describes episodic memory in children and how we as adults don’t really remember previous to the age of two.

In this video it shows the experiment in how the range of age children of 2-6 remembers where each toy was located in two different rooms. For some reason, the children age of 2years old found it more difficult to find the toy in the box. In compared to the children of 6years of age know immediately where it was located. So the question is, why is the process of memory not the same young child compared to a young toddler? As we get older, does the process of memory progresses of episodic memory episodes?

Personally, I believe the episodic memory events are what makes our events special in our lives. Remembering those first time moments of our lives are once in a life time.

Split- Brain Procedure

 

The split brain procedure is very interesting when it comes to how people undergo an incision that cuts their brain in half. This is also known as Corpus Calloscotomy. The reason so is because the split brain procedure consists of severing the corpus callosum in our brain.  In doing so, we split the right and left hemisphere from connecting. This procedure is done for patients that suffer epileptic seizures within their life.

You’re probably wondering what? Is this even possible? Indeed so. People that suffer from major epileptic seizures throughout their lives, see this procedure as a leeway to get away from the sufferings. Having this procedure done, not only separates the two hemispheres, it makes them control their own behaviors for our body. Initially, the right side of the hemisphere of the brain controls the left side of our body, artistic ways, makes our rational decisions, and reveals the hidden desires of a person.  In compared to the left hemisphere, this controls the right side of the body,  our logic and reflects the person’s rational goals when giving orders. In some rare consequence cases, some patients end up in having a split personality.

Wow, imagine having these two different split personalities in your mind?

Personally, when I took one of my psychology courses I learned about this procedure. It was very fascinating because my professor had mentioned a past scenario that happened to patients when this procedure started to go public back then. One incident that he had read about was one of the first patients that underwent this procedure ended up insane. His personality changed, his actions were different, and he couldn’t control what was happening to his body and mind.

Here is a video that demonstrates information about this type of procedure and a story of this lady.

 

 

Overall, we really underestimate our mind of what it is capable of . We really need our both hemispheres combined in able for them to communicate with each other to control our body. Even though this procedure is good for stopping epileptic seizures for patients, should there be an other way for patients to undergo a different procedure or way without effecting their lives?

 

Phantom Limb

Imagine to have a body part amputated and still feel the sensation that your limb is still there? Can this even be possible? Yes it is possible, the name of this sensation is called phantom limb.

A phantom limb definition is when you have amputated a limb or missing a limb, the sensation is still attached to the body. Plus, it moves appropriately with other body parts in your body. Even organs with your body for example a appendix also can occur with this syndrome.

According to Ramachandran and Hirstein, 1998 stated that after performing studies, the phantom limb would continue on patients lasting days, weeks and even a person whole life existence. Even though the phantom limb sounds harmless, the range of pain that a patient can maintain ranges from tingling to intense pain.

Another question I may ask is, what do physicians mean by intense pain? Don’t you think sense the limb isn’t there, there wouldn’t be any sensation in that specific area? I find this to be very interesting because this explanation of the phantom limb just tells us how amazing, powerful and extravagant the brain/mind can be. Another interesting fact is how the face can relate to the amputated area within your body. For example if your arm was amputated the axons activate the cortical area on your face where your amputated limb is located. Why is that?   your arm is amputated why would you continue to feel the sensations on your face, which is completely located in a different area of your body. Here’s a video describing the phantom limb in a more detail perspective.

 

After seeing this video it describes Peter experiences of Phantom Limb. He still has pain even though his arm isn’t there. Scientists invented the Virtual Reality Computer program, this is supposed to relieve pain for patients that is experiencing phantom limb syndrome. The technique for this invention is distractibility. Even though it’s quite expensive, this can possibly be the factor to change people’s lives today.

Alcoholism

Alcohol and Alcoholism

Alcohol has been in society for many years. Even though alcohol is bad for people, the profit it makes in companies is significantly high.

Even though the symptoms include relaxation, decrease of anxiety; it is not worth the causes of health problems.  You see now a day on the news how adults, adolescents, pre- teens get killed under the influence of alcohol. Not only that, alcohol may be an addiction to some people today. Below this is a video of a woman who has problems with alcohol and how her life changed.

 

Many researchers and psychologists try to figure out if some people are more prone to develop an alcohol problem than others. Can this really be true? The findings within the book stated that children with an alcohol family member example the father, that consumed moderate alcohol had little effect on them. In compared to, the children that had a non- alcoholic family member reported 60% of developing alcoholism problems within the future. So in reality if you have a parent that consumes alcohol it would not take a full effect upon you? This is very interesting.

The topics that I also found very interesting are the two different types of alcoholism within a variety of people. The type I or also known as type A, develop problems when a person is after the age 25 years old. Addition to that, they really don’t have to have a relative with alcohol abuse within their family. So this type of person can develop this problem on their own and not be influence by others or have a relative. All it takes is for a person to consume an alcohol beverage and there it goes. Type II or also known as type B, develop their problems before the age of 25 years old.  But with this type of person they have a relative that has alcohol problems. This in my opinion is what I don’t understand. Under age children or adolescence still find a way to consume alcohol even though it’s illegal. So who is really responsible for the consumed alcohol of these underage drinkers? During our elementary years of school, I know my school had a presentation on alcohol and drugs when I was younger. Does this really take an effect on children?

I know some other countries have different age limits of drinking. But why is that?  If we believe the legal of age of drinking is 21 years and older, is the proper age then what makes other countries different? Here are some questions you can answer in your opinion in your comments.

Blood- Brain Barrier



The body itself continues to amaze me in many different ways. In particularly our immune system that works hard to maintain our chemical balance each day for us to function. The brain in particular, which as many magnificent components upon, I choose to go more in depth of a type of barrier that saves our life’s each day.

The Blood- Brain Barrier depends on endothelial cells. Thus, having to depend on these types of cells, they form a type of wall of capillaries along our brain. This wall holds together so tightly that majority of factors cannot surpass it. The wall separates the blood, cerebral spinal fluid and the central nervous system in our bodies. One advantage of this wall is that it blocks off viruses, bacteria, and harmful chemicals. Who wouldn’t want this type of function within our bodies to help us? It is a natural resource among humans. The Blood- Brain Barrier is super important to our health. One disadvantage stated within our book is that since the wall is so tightly compacted within the barrier it can also keep out the nutrients we need for our brain. For example, if we have a disease pertaining to our brain and we need a certain medication administrated; the wall is so tightly compacted we wouldn’t be able to do so. This video below will demonstrate more in detail what the Blood- Brain Barrier is really about.

 

As stated within the video the experimenter Paul Ehrlich from the 19^th century, studied an experiment dealing with dye. This studied penetrated the organs except for one.. Can you guess?? The brain. Why? Because the brain didn’t let the dye surpass the barrier. How awesome is that.

 This picture demonstrates the Blood- Brain Barrier among the brain.

 

In your opinion, how do you feel about the blood- brain barrier? What do you think what would happen if this barrier didn’t exist?

Animal use in research

When it comes to animal research dealing with
experiments it has many pros and cons.

After seeing the views of abolitionists of animal
research use, you have a better understanding of their perspective. The Con’s
about animal experimentation is that animals do not have a right to choose. That
is one of the major issues abolitionists stress today. Reading about the
cruelty they do among the doctors, is baffling. But abolitionists terrorizing
the experimenter’s homes/ families are over doing it.  Let’s just say that they abolish animal
research in experiments, what would be the alternative?  But how much is too much in using animal
research in experiments?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoYN3O2fdp4

In this you tube video; it demonstrates how animals
go through but in a human being perspective. You can see how the woman is pulled
with a collar to go forcefully down the stairs. How many people use dog collars
for animals to force them places they don’t want to go? There  is not a real difference in animal compared to
a human. This video got my attention because this is something different and
you don’t really see people demonstrating these types of acts in public.

In reality, if it wasn’t for animal testing for
certain diseases, human beings wouldn’t know about cures or etc.  The Pro’s about using animals as participants
in research is beneficial to the point of curing diseases. We, as human beings,
have hundreds of types of diseases that someone partakes each day. If we can
solve future diseases from occurring and saving lives each day, why not do so. In
one of the videos discussed it mentioned how a pig has a similar heart to a
human being. If there was a cure to treating heart disease for a loved one and
there had to be experimentation acting upon it; would you second guess? Minimalists
are somewhat agreeable terms in animal research but to a certain extent. Even
though they want to pursue animal research they want to limit the discomfort
distributed upon the animal. Reading more on this perspective, I see myself
agreeing upon them.

In this you tube video it demonstrates how using
animals in experiments but no harmful done. This doctor demonstrates how using
animals is ok do a certain degree, but knows his limits when using animals in
lab experiments. This is an excellent video on a scientist’s perspective.

Overall, the situation to go against or for animal
research is difficult. But, there has to be some way or alternative in
determining and finding cures if possible. It’s more like dam if you do, dam if
you don’t situation.