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?