Reese is a normal teenager who enjoys sports and, of course, her phone. She loves to text, play video games, and get online. She used to be very active and played basketball every day. Reese is on her phone during school and does not have very good grades anymore due to being on her phone. Her mom took her phone away thinking maybe she will try to bring her grades up. This only made her try harder to get online. This is because of synaptic pruning in the brain, the highly active risk and reward…
A staggering amount of people live in the world; however, no human is identical to another. Human beings are the most complex creatures on the earth. A myriad of researchers, scientists, and psychiatrists have been searching for an answer to the complexity of mankind. Eventually, a multitude of clues led them to a reasonable answer: the brain. With that information, they started experimenting on the human brain. Psychiatrists, along with many others, have researched several treatments for mental…
We are all born with many things we take for granted. Properly developed brains, facial features in their correct places, and a life span longer than a few hours. Some children who are born with holoprosencephaly, or HPE, aren't quite as lucky. Victims of this disease suffer with various abnormalities to the face and brain, sometimes resulting in death. Their symptoms can range from almost normal facial features and brain development, to something most of us thought only occurred in fictional…
Roger Sperry-(1913-1944), was a psychobiologist he discovered that human beings had two separate minds. By this he was able to detect that different parts of the brain have their own role and specializes in different functions throughout the brain. Sperry studies lead him to prove that the brain works differently on either side and co-dependently work apart from eachother. In other words the left hemisphere and the right hemisphere of the brain are on separate teams each side of the brain works…
important information, calculating the best action, and presenting it to you. The hang-ups primarily come when we are forced to question ourselves (Gladwell, 2005). Thin-slicing is built off of previously observed patterns, but life doesn’t always prescribe to our preconceived ideas of how a situation should play out. This creates what’s known as the Warren-Harding Error. The Warren-Harding Error is named after the president, who “most historians agree, [was] one of the worst presidents in…
The human visual system allows us to make sense of our environment. This system requires communication between the main organ (the eye) and the core organ (the brain) to understand external stimuli. The eye is extremely complex and requires various components for it to complete its function. The eye has 3 main layers the sclera, which maintains and supports the shape of the eye; the choroid, which provides oxygen and nourishment to the eye and includes the pupil, iris, lens; and the retina,…
A person’s adolescent years are a life changing and marking time. For years, people have believed that the time of rebellion that adolescents go through is part of a mystery that all young people experience. That significant period in an adolescent’s life is called the period of storm and stress. Adolescent storm and stress is not only inevitable, but it is a time where people have to be the most understandable with their young adults. Preventing the brain from developing is something that is…
The article “What is the amygdala” by Swanson and Petrovich asks whether the concept of structurally and functionally defined amygdala is truly valid or whether the concept is imposing illogical categorization on diverse structures that belongs to different functional systems. The authors discuss evidence that support latter is the case. Evidence from immunochemistry for GABA and in situ hybridization for glutamic acid decarboxylase suggest that the extrinsic projections of the central amygdalar…
As with the male counterpart, the ovaries are derived from the genital ridge later descending to their final position in the pelvis. In adults, the ovaries have an ovoid shape and are usually 3-5cm long. They are a layered structure with an outer layer germinal epithelium, tunica albuginea, cortex and medulla that is innermost (fig. 1). Although now challenged by recent discoveries (1), the germinal epithelium; a continuation of the peritoneum, is inaptly named due the mistaken belief that germ…
In the past, swallowing was considered to be controlled by the pons and medulla of the brain stem. However, recent fMRI and PET scan studies during swallowing have revealed numerous cortical areas also are involved in the regulation of swallowing, including the thalamus, sensorimotor cortex, supplemental motor cortex, insula, basal ganglia, putamen, globus pallidus, and anterior cingulate gyrus. In addition, several cranial nerves are involved in swallowing, including the trigeminal, facial,…