sleep

When I was younger my parents always reminded me of the importance of sleep and getting enough rest during one night but I always disregarded this notion, thinking that sleep deprivation couldn’t be all that bad.  Growing older however, proved that sleep was highly necessary since I started to notice a loss of attention span in high school and often overslept; feeling extremely groggy in the mornings with no desire whatsoever to get out of bed. A huge contributor to these effects might be because while we are sleeping, we require an inhibitory transmitter, GABA, partly to help keep us asleep and to slow down or lower the activity in certain regions of the brain. Conversely, if we deprive ourselves of at least 8 hours of sleep on a regular basis the results, according to our text book, are an increase in the neurotransmitter GABA being released and accumulating in neurons which leads to an impairment in concentration. The same occurs in astronauts when they have trouble sleeping over prolonged periods of time while on a space mission; according to the text book other symptoms or indications of sleep deprivation also include depression, irritability, decreased alertness, impaired performance, along with dizziness, tremors, and hallucinations in extreme cases. It was not until I researched the effects of sleep deprivation that I found a useful tip that has often helped me throughout my college career; and that is the effect sleep has on memory. I found out that if I studied right before I went to sleep my recollection of the information I studied the previous night was stronger and more detailed than when I would study immediately before class. This occurs because the same patterns that occur during learning also occurred during sleep, except faster! It’s almost like our brain is replaying, or re-reading what we were learning right before we went to sleep and was analyzing it all over again. If you have not already done so, I highly recommend studying for class atleast 2 to 4 hours before going to sleep and immediately sleeping after studying. If what I posted here did not sit clearly with you I’ll leave you with this video that helped me further understand the concept and necessity of sleep.

 when speaking of pain in all its excruciating forms and with all the fear inducing memories associated with some forms of pain, i find it odd that pain sensation begins with the least specialized of all receptors; a bare nerve ending. something i think we all knew is that some pain receptors also respond to acids and heat as is evident when we bite into a jalapeno. the stinging sensation which is derived from jalapenos and other spicy peppers is due to a chemical found in jalapenos themselves called capsaicin. another odd quirk i encountered about capsaicin is that when you have an itch that originated from touching a certain kind of plant you can use the same chemical that caused burning and stinging to ALLEVIATE the sensation! rubbing the skin with capsaicin relieves the itch that cowhage causes, but it has little effect on the itch that histamine causes. (cowhage is a tropical plant with barbed hairs that when touched produces an itching sensation) Yet another use for capsaicin other than to cause a burning sensation when you eat it is to relieve pain. a powerful burning sensation is causes by capsaicin by releasing substance P. however, in the book it states that it releases substance P faster than neurons can re synthesize it, leaving the cells less able to send pain messages. in addition, high doses of capsaicin damage pain receptors. so we can plainly deduce that when Capsaicin is rubbed onto a sore shoulder, or an arthritic joint it produces a temporary burning sensation followed by a longer period of decreased pain. if anything i said causes confusion i'll provide a video shortly after this blog that really helped me understand this concept more in depth:

my thoughts concerning learning and how we associate certain behaviors with other certain actions take me to an episode of the big bang theory where one character "sheldon" uses classical conditioning on a female character "penny" by presenting her with chocolate every time she acts according to sheldon's expectations. While pondering this i wondered to myself if it is instinctual of all mammals to survive and to therefore associate positive and negative behavior with certain external stimuli. it seems that this is the case with humans at least because whenever you experience something bad you usually associate other factors along with that bad experience and when you experience something positive you most likely deem the steps you took to engage in the positive experience worth retaking or value them higher than the ones leading to the bad experience. When speaking of prolonging life or making life-saving habits or even when the situation deals with reaching success, anytime we associate 2 events close together and immediately short after encounter success then we will probably keep doing those things more often in hopes of achieving that same amount of success

brain laterilazation

When reading about Brain Lateralization i am utterly amazed at how a person can survive almost without change to everyday life even after having their corpus callosum severed. As is commonly known amongst neurologists' and psychologists' the corpus callosum sends messages from one hemisphere to the other but when that is no longer available it must resort to external communication. for example when flashing two different words to each side of the eyes a "split-brain" person will draw one word out and point to another word or write it down and once it is in front of them in paper, then at that point they make the association  between the two words. At first i thought there would be a much confusion between the two hemispheres but auditory signals are able to reach both hemispheres well so that helps tie a few things together as far as cognitive functions are concerned. a few concepts in the book seemed a bit murky and when i saw the following video it helped clear things up, hopefully it aids you as well