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Brain Science, also known as nerve science, has been classified as an adventure. It mostly deals with our behavior, as well as speech, movement, coordination, and basically any part of our life in general is associated with it. As we study the brain more and more over the last twenty years, we begin to discover more and more about it and its hundreds of thousands of complex and involved tasks. Let us start with the basics, the brain from the out side is about 3 pounds of tissue.
It contains two main hemispheres, and is filled with a liquid known as cerebral spinal fluid, or CSF. Our brain has been compared to many different inventions over the past few centuries. As far back as the seventeenth century, our brain was compared to a water pump, thus being called the main "pump" of our body. Then, during the industrial revolution, it was contrasted to the Great Telegraph. And later on to the circuit board of a telephone that was invented by Alexander Bell. And now, it is being associated with the motherboard of a computer.
Over all, our brain can be compared to a racing team; every member of it has a small job, but it is a very important one. Our brain does not function as only one part, every part is constantly being active with all the other parts. Now the inside of our brain is completely different. There are different sections for different areas of sensory activities, and different areas for motor tasks. Our memories and our intense emotions are generally considered to be part of the brain right above the brain stem. The back of our brain, or the occipital region, mostly interprets our vision, or in other words it processes what our eyes have seen into impulses.
The frontal lobe part of our brain deals with most of our thinking, but a lot of our strategies and complex thoughts occur there. There are two ribbon like parts of our brain, both of which go down vertically from superior and inferior portions. The more posterior ribbon is mostly associated with touch and pressure, while the more anterior portion deals with movement. The impulses are sent down the spinal cord to our motor units which in turn change them into our normal movements. Now there are many different types of new and not so new machines that man has made over the last few centuries that allow us to take "pictures" of our brain and it also allows us to locate diseases and trouble areas. The two newer types of devices would be the CAT scan and the PET scan.
The CAT scan is basically a type of x-ray for the brain that shows us where the neural tissue is located in our brain. The PET scan shows us where the more active areas and the less active areas of our brains are. The third type of test is the EEG. This is an older type of test, but recently it has undergo a few upgrades to it so that we are now able to connect a video monitor to it and that will allow all the information to be passed on through wires and then sent to the monitor where we will view the images in color. It used to be hooked up to a few pens, and they would scribble on paper the amount of activity. The smaller the lines, the less active that part of the brain is.
On the monitors, however, activity is rated by color. The warmer colors, such as yellow and red, are the positive or active parts. The colder colors, such as blue and green, show areas of non-activity. Activity mostly starts in the back or posterior portion of our brain, where our eyes first sense the surroundings. Then, about three tenths of a second later, it reaches the top of the brain and then it fades away. The first subject that was studied in the video was Jason.
Jason is a 10 year old male that suffers from almost the purest form of epilepsy, also know as Pm Epilepsy. He suffers from constant seizures and also he has developed not only an extreme hated but a fear of medicine. The reason being is that he has had some terrible side effects from the many different types of drugs and medications that were prescribed to him that now he is reluctant to take them at all. This is unwise for Jason, because he desperately needs to take his medications in order to survive, if not more. His seizures are uncontrollable for the most part, and he him self does not realize the fact that he is having a seizure only until it is over.
During the seizure, his eyes seem to roll back, he has heavy, unsteady breathing, and even he has had uncontrollable facial twitching. One of the most unusually things is that he can remember things said to him during the seizure. During normal brain function, the neurons are switching on and off information at a normal, controlled pace, kinda like lights in a big city; but during a seizure, it is like a giant thunder storm. Everything goes off, the reactions and the amount of exchange that is taking place is amazing.
The neurons however still never touch. One of the main reasons that the seizure might take place is because not enough inhibitors are present. Inhibitors are one of the two types of neurotransmitters that our body has. Inhibitors stop the impulse, and the other type excites the impulse. When Jason was taken to a hospital to be tested out on hate sort of drug he should take for his illness, he was asked to forcefully have seizures so that the doctors can determine the drug. He had sensors hooked up to different areas of his brain, then he was asked to breathe deeply till he had a seizure.
At the end of the experiments, the doctors prescribed Velcrolic Acid, which produces Gabba, which in turn inhibits or stops the firing of electrons. Since he has started taking the medication, he has experienced less and less seizures. Before the Velcrolic Acid, he was having as many as sixty seizures a day, now its down to about eight a day. Also, the overall length of the seizures has dropped dramatically, where before they would last up to a minute and thirty seconds, to where now they average at about five seconds a piece. Doctors now presume that maybe someday he will be able to lead a normal life style, maybe even drive a car, but even for now, he is able to ride a bike and play basketball without having to worry about falling down and hurting himself through a seizure. Dr.
Fred Plum studies people in hospitals and tries to determine what sort of disorder they have by just the way they act, or the way they do not act in that case. He tries to advance his knowledge of the healthy brain by studying the unhealthy brain. He usually looks for inconsistencies, things that may be small, but may also have a huge difference in the way the person is. He took three different subjects; the first was an elderly woman that was laying in a bed. After he had talked with her a bit, asked a few questions, he pointed out that she did not move at all as she spoke, she just lay there motion less. He also noted that as she lay, her head and neck was upright, a task that would require large amounts of energy on any normal human being.
His symptom: Parkinson disease, a movement disorder. The next patient was an elderly male who stated that he has had the symptoms for about 7 days now, he complained of a loss of movement on the right side of his body. The verdict was that he had a light stroke near the back of the brain. The third patient was a middle aged female that complained of her right side feeling weaker.
She drags her right leg, her eyes seemed to wonder about, and he had a stiffness in her arm. Her verdict was unfortunately multiple sclerosis. Dr. Eric Kernel is ca...
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