What
we would like you to do is to find a topic from this week's chapter that you
were interested in and search the internet for material on that topic. You
might, for example, find people who are doing research on the topic, you might
find web pages that discuss the topic, you might find a video clip that
demonstrates something related to the topic, etc. What you find and use is
pretty much up to you at this point. Please be sure to use at least 3 quality
resources. If you use videos, please limit it to one video.
Once
you have completed your search and explorations we would like you to:
1a) State what your topic is.
1b) Discuss how the topic relates to the chapter.
1c) Discuss why you are interested in it.
2)
Next, we would like you to take the information you read or viewed related to
your topic, integrate/synthesize it, and then write about the topic in a
knowledgeable manner. By integrating/synthesizing we mean taking what your
read/experienced from the internet search organize the information into the
main themes, issues, info, examples, etc. about your topic and then write about
the topic in your own words using the information you have about the topic.
Synthesizing
information is hard for some people to do - many students write what we refer
to as "serial abstracts." They are tempted to talk about the websites
rather than the topic proper Serial abstract writers will talk all about
website #1, start a new paragraph and talk all about web site #2, start a new
paragraph and talk all about web site #3, and then write some kind of
conclusion about the three websites they used. Serial means one after the
other...again, this is what you DON'T want to do! We want you to talk about the
topic, not the websites!
Also,
if all three sites are on the same one topic it will be easier.
At
first it is a real challenge to get out of the habit of writing "serial
abstracts," but we assure you once you get the hang of it writing about
the topic is much easier to do using the integration method. And besides this
is the way researchers and scientists write their technical reports and
findings - many of you will have to be able to do this for other classes and
for jobs that you may eventually be hired for so now is a good time to learn
this skill.
At
this point don't worry so much about a grade, worry about doing your best to
have fun with the topic and then integrate it into your own words to share what
you found and what you now know.
At
the end of your post, please include working URLs for the three websites. For each URL you have listed indicate why you chose the site
and the extent to which it contributed to your post.
Here
is a good example of an early assignment from a different hybrid class where
the student integrates what they learned (notice too they stated how each
website contributed:
Here
is an example from a different class of a student reporting on the websites
more so than the topic (this is what not to do):
Please let us know if you have any questions,
--Dr. M
Chapter 2 Topical Blog
My topic for my topical blog is the split brain research introduced by Roger Sperry. Our textbook discussing the split brain research on pages 52-57. Beginning in the 19th century, research on people with brain injuries began in order to learn more about the specific areas of the brain such as the right and left hemispheres. The band of nerves, corpus callosum, separating the two hemispheres was also researched to determine the effects if this bundle of nerves was cut. This topic is very intriguing as it helps explain the importance of the human brain functioning.
From the three scholarly sources viewed, there is a lot of connections between the sources and our textbook chapter. Sperry’s research illustrates how the right side of our body processes things in the left hemisphere of our brain while the left side of our body processes thing in the right hemisphere of our brain. However, if our corpus callosum is damaged in any way (split brain), it is very difficult for each of the brain hemispheres to know what the other hemisphere has experienced or learned. This may cause slow functioning by individuals who have a damaged corpus callosum. Sperry’s experiment on the split brain demonstrated that the right and left hemispheres are specialized in different tasks. The right hemisphere contributes to emotional context in our language and helps with directional needs. It also is connected to spatial abilities and music. The left hemisphere specializes in verbal and analytical tasks. Sperry most importantly points out that each hemisphere has its own perceptions and experiences.
This research is very fascinating as it looks at the effects of our brain processing. I think it is interesting that my right hand is controlled by my left brain hemisphere and vice versa. It is also interesting to research concepts such as epileptic seizures and how a “split brain” can help eliminate the effects for people with this illness. The brain is a very crucial part of the human body. How we perceive, memorize, and experience things is due to the functioning of our brain.
The scholarly sources really point out the tasks of the left and right hemisphere and the effects of the disconnection of these hemispheres. With a split brain, it is found that when an individual is presented with an image from one half of their visual field and then presented with the same image in the other half of their visual field the image is not familiar to them. This research shows that the experiences humans process within the left brain hemisphere are not the same as the experiences within the right brain hemisphere. The split brain research also concluded that a disconnection between the two hemispheres does not affect an individual’s personality or intelligence. A split brain changes the order in which an individual processes concepts and the speed in which the concept is processed.
http://www.nobelprize.org/educational/medicine/split-brain/background.html
I chose this website as it explains what a “split brain” means, the background of brain research, and what came out of the split brain experiments. With this website, I was able to explain the “split brain” and what each of the brain hemispheres specialize in.
http://www.holah.karoo.net/sperrystudy.htm
This website was chosen as it described the functions and stimulus in the left and right brain hemispheres and provided a more realistic look at a split brain procedure. This website contributed to my post as I was able to explain the results of a split brain experiment and evaluate the split brain procedure.
http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/split.html
The last URL provided more of an overview of the brain hemispheres and discussed the concept of cerebral dominance. This website contributed to my post has I was able to explain what Sperry took from his split brain experiment.
1a) For this week’s topical blog I decided to do a bit more research on the case of Phineas Gage.
1b) In chapter 2 there is a section on early studies in localization. This section expands on many different ideas of localization of brain function, phrenology, pseudoscience, lobotomy, psychosurgery, etc. While doing this however, it illustrates the very famous case study of Phineas Gage. The book gives a very brief overview on this topic which is only one paragraph long.
1c) I am interested in this topic because I remember learning about this subject in intro to psych, but to me it just seems like they are leaving a lot out on the subject. They talk about how his personality changed after the incident, but they don’t really give any measurable examples and it all seems a bit fictional and exaggerated to me so I am interested in learning the exact facts on the topic.
2) Phineas Gage was the first of five children and was born and raised in Grafton County, New Hampshire. There isn’t much information known about his upbringing and education, but it is known that he was literate and had gained skills working with explosives on the family farms and nearby mines/quarries. Prior to his incident Gage’s employees stated that he was “the most efficient and capable foreman, he was a shrewd, smart businessman, very energetic and persistent in executing all his plans of operation.” On September 13, 1848 at the age of 25, Gage was working for at a railroad company excavating rocks to make way for the railroad track. This job required drilling holes into boulders and filling them with dynamite so that this would cause an explosion. Unfortunately, the tamping iron Gage was using struck a spark and the powder exploded sending the piece of iron straight through his skull. It was said that Gage gave a few convulsive motions of the extremities, but he could speak within a few minutes, he was able to walk with little assistance, and he sat upright on the mile ride back to the lodge.
At the lodge Gage was treated by Dr. Harlow who shaved his scalp, removed coagulated blood, bone fragments, and part of his brain that was protruding. He then searched around for foreign objects, replaced two large detached bone fragments, and closed the wound with adhesive strips leaving it open for drainage to prevent hemorrhaging. Up until about October 7th, Gage was facing a very serious recovery, he went into a semi-comatose state, developed many fungi’s, his family and friends were ready to say their goodbyes and they had his coffin already dug. Right around the 7th however, things started looking up, Gage was able to raise himself up, he began walking, and by mid-November he was feeling better in every aspect. By November 25th, Gage was strong enough to move back in with his parents and throughout the month of December he continued to improve mentally and physically. Despite his miraculous recovery, Gage’s previous employers did not see him fit for his job at the railroad anymore. They noticed a huge change in Gage’s personality, they found him “fitful, irreverent, indulging in gross profanity, little deference for his fellows, impatient, obstinate, capricious and vacillating… a child in his intellectual capacity and manifestations, he has the animal passions of a strong man.” These few words are about all that his said about the changes in his personality. There aren’t any proven facts or measurements, and even his doctor wasn’t exact on the changes in his personality. However, an early claim was still made that, damage to the prefrontal cortex does cause changes in personality.
After being denied acceptance back to his old job, Gage began working as a coach driver first in the New England area for a few years, but then also in Chile for 7 years until he started to regress and had to move home with his mother in San Francisco where he died in 1860.
There have been many reports done following the Phineas Gage case that are very interesting. The first two are reports given by Harlow. In 1948 he basically reported that he didn’t have much information at the time but would communicate more in the future. He did state thought that Gage was “quite recovered in faculties of body and mind there being only inconsiderable disturbance of function.” In 1968, 20 years later, Harlow followed up on his word and reported basically the information I have already explained (prior to the accident he was hardworking and efficient but after there were changes in his personality given by his employers). Another report given by Malcolm Macmillan hypothesizes that even though there was a change in personality initially, through time with the work of being a stage coach driver Gage relearned how to live and was much more functional and socially adapted than previously assumed. This demonstrated hope for a theory of recovery from frontal lobe damage and by adding structure to tasks it can help cope with this type of injury.
All in all through all of the articles I read, the case of Phineas Gage is very historical and has a lot of legit factual information to it which can be used in localization in some ways, but the actual scientific value that goes along with the story is uncertain because of a lack of information on the actual extent of the brain damage/changes in behavior and personality.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phineas_Gage
This website was very helpful in giving me a bit of background information on Phineas as a person. Also it provided further information on the follow up reports done by Harlow and Macmillan.
http://neurophilosophy.wordpress.com/2006/12/04/the-incredible-case-of-phineas-gage/
This website was very useful because it gave a very detailed description of what all occurred on the day of the accident, I was actually able to picture it all as I was reading it. It also provided a lot of information on the actual damage done to different parts of Gage’s brain and skull.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/phineas-gage-neurosciences-most-famous-patient-11390067/
This website was very helpful in giving a more condensed version of the actual story of Phineas Gage. It was also very interesting because it provided a story relating to the remains of Gage’s skull and the iron rod that was found years later and submitted to Harvard’s Museum.
My topic is Dr. Ben Carson, who is famous partially for his phenomenal work on brain surgeries. This relates to our chapter because of the portion that discusses psychosurgery, which is a term addressing various types of brain surgeries. I am interested in this topic because of a book I read last semester written by Dr. Carson. It was an autobiography of his life titled Gifted Hands.
This post will stretch away a bit from cognitive psychology, but the mention of brain surgery in our text peaked my interest and recalled the brief amount I had read on it before. I then became interested in looking further into information on Dr. Carson and the types of brain surgeries he did.
There are still some very interesting parallels though. For example, one of the surgeries Dr. Carson become very fluent and successful at was the hemispherectomy. The details and outcomes of this surgery deal directly with other things discussed in our chapter, such as what each half of the brain is responsible for and what can happen when the two hemispheres are disconnected.
The hemispherectomy is intended to treat epiplepsy and life-hindering seizures. Because the surgery can be dangerous and complicated, doctors will only attempt it when the pros outweigh the cons and quality of life is lowered so much by the seizures the risks of the surgery are worth it. Epilepsy can be caused by various disfunctions that may occur in the brain, such as abnormal wiring, imbalance of neurotransmitters, changes in brain channels, and other possibilities.
Hemispherectomies alter the brains disfunctional wiring that is usually contributing to the seizures. The goal of the surgery is to remove portions of one hemisphere the doctor believes are contributing to the seizure and to disconnect the two halves of the brain from each other. This halts the spread of an electrical seizure from spreading across the brain, and hopefully then helping the patient to no longer suffer from the seizures.
Because there are so many potential complications in the surgery, for many years it would not be attempted since the likelihood of it’s success was so small. Dr. Carson used his talents to work on improving this seizure and eventually became very successful at performing in. He most often worked with children with disorders, but his work still helped increase knowledge in the field and made the surgery less taboo than it had previously been viewed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Carson
This link was helpful because it refreshed my memory on Ben Carson’s life and some of his medical feats. Some of the information I included in this post I was able to recall from memory, but I was able to get some information from here, such as how Dr. Carson is said to have helped in the revival of the hemispherectomy.
http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/epilepsy/epilepsy.htm
This link was chosen because it gave me a description of what epilepsy is. It helped me to make the connection between the science behind the hemispherectomy and how that actually works and can be helpful towards inhibiting what causes epilepsy.
http://www.webmd.com/epilepsy/guide/functional-hemispherectomy
I was able to use this link to gain a more specific understanding of what a hemispherectomy actually is, past the basic knowledge that it’s simply a surgical procedure on the brain. This link contributed to my post through allowing me to explain what a hemispherectomy is and to be able to connect how it was used by Dr. Carson to help treat epilepsy.
1)
This week for my topical blog I wanted to find out more information about psychosurgery but more specifically lobotomy. This topic relates back to chapter two in the book by looking at how in the 1930’s the psychosurgery became something that was looked at as a more popular treatment for obsessive compulsive disorders. Lobotomy is something that I was particularly interested in because I am always wondering more ways as to how we can help treat people who are suffering with a mental disorder and by knowing what others have done in the past we are able to take from that and also look at ways that we can help in the future.
2)
Psychosurgery has been something that has been around for quite some time the first surgery was performed in Switzerland in 1888. Psychosurgery has been defined as a surgical intervention of the sever fibers connecting one part of the brain with another that are disturbing behavior. The first surgery that was performed on humans was performed in 1890’s. It was thought of as the miracle cure for mental illness. Lobotomy was often used in patients who were suffering from a mental illness like obsessive compulsive disorder, and aggressive behaviors. Later it was also adopted schizophrenic patients. Walter Freeman was the first to preform lobotomy and introduce it in the United States.
Lobotomy is a psychosurgical procedure in which the connections the pre frontal cortex and underlying structures are served or the frontal cortical tissue is then destroyed. Walter Freeman was known for Tran’s orbital lobotomy which was a faster way to perform the lobotomy surgery. Freeman would use a shock to make the patient go unconscious as a nurse would then hold a towel over the eye as Freeman would pull back the eyelid. At this time Freeman would insert his ice pick with a hammer ill they reached the frontal lobes of the brain. This whole process would take about three to four minutes to complete the whole surgery. At this time the patients would be given a pair of sunglasses and were able to leave as they were no longer put under anesthesia with the electrical shock. With using the electrical shock Freeman was able to perform his lobotomy at a non-clinical setting. During Freeman’s time doing lobotomy surgeries he completed 29,000 lobotomy’s 19 of them were children under the age of 18 with one being four years old. Walter Freeman retired after one of his patients died while having a brain hemorrhage during surgery. Walter Freeman then died himself on May 31, 1972. Lobotomy in a modified form is still preformed today in rare cases of obsessive compulsive disorders at hospitals around the world.
http://scienceblogs.com/neurophilosophy/2007/07/24/inventing-the-lobotomy/- - I chose this website because it gave me a lot of information on the definition of lobotomy and when it was first performed on humans. It also gave me another fact that I didn’t know about Walter Freeman.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0aNILW6ILk- the YouTube video because it was from PBS and it gave me a visual as to what the surgery was actually looking like as they went thought the shock process and inserting the ice pick into the patients eye to get to the frontal lobe.
http://eds.a.ebscohost.com/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=f4ae505f-2311-499b-92ea-54633a98b95a%40sessionmgr4003&vid=8&hid=4202 this website gave me a lot of history of psychosurgery and where it came from. It also showed some more information on where the first surgery was performed. This webpage also talked about some of the mental illness that lobotomy helped to treat.
The topic that I would like to research more about is the topic of lobotomies and Walter Freeman’s role in performing and popularizing them. I have always had a fascination with lobotomies because to me it sounds almost ludicrous to have thought that a lobotomy would cure people from mental illnesses. Yet some of the smartest people in the psychology world believed it worked. That really makes me think about how we handle things presently and if 50 years from now people will look back and be astounded at things we are doing now, that to them obviously would never work.
Walter Freeman performed his first lobotomy on Ellen Ionesco. The very first lobotomy had been performed by a Portuguese Physician, Egas Moniz a year earlier. To perform the trans-orbital lobotomy he used an Electric Convulsive Shock machine. For younger/middle aged patients he used anywhere from 4-6 shocks. For older patients he only needed to use 1 shock. The shock would effectively cause the patient to become unconscious for several minutes. At that point, the doctor would take an ice pick, pull back the eyelid and hammer the pick into the brain, wiggle it around, and sever the frontal lobes. The procedure only took about 3 or 4 minutes to perform. Other doctors began to intervene and asked for better research before continuing the procedures. However, Freeman’s influence seemed to win out. In 1945 about 150 lobotomies were performed. By 1949, over 5000 were performed. The numbers climbed quickly despite the side effects. Many psychologists/doctors were disgusted with the procedure and couldn’t even handle watching it, however it still caught on quickly.
As more lobotomies were performed more observations were able to be made on the effects of the procedure. It was difficult to be completely accurate with the observations because many of the patients did have severe psychological disorders. However, they did discover that some patients were dull and didn’t really show emotions or their feelings anymore. They didn’t seem interested or energized about anything and their thinking and acting seemed to slow tremendously. They used the term “stimulus-bound” to describe the patients because they would just react to what was happening right in front of them at the time. It seemed that the patients lost the ability to think into the future and make good decisions. They didn’t understand possible consequences to their actions so many became increasingly fat due to eating whenever food was presented to them and sexually promiscuous due to not understanding the possible consequences. Interestingly, one particular patient had been a cook prior to the surgery. After the surgery she was able to remember recipes she had used before the surgery but when given new recipes she wasn’t able to follow it properly and made really obvious mistakes. The conclusion to these problems was that it seems our brains need the space they have in order to hold all of the proper circuitry. When you remove or destroy part of the brain it isn’t able to contain the longer circuits that are required in order to have more abstract, higher order thinking skills.
In 1954, Thorazine was introduced as a drug that had many of the same effects of a lobotomy without going through the actual procedure. This caused Freeman to move to California in order to try and continue his career as a lobotomist. Freeman wanted to widen his patient base and began offering them to housewives that felt depressed. He told them that if they got a lobotomy it would make them much happier. If kids weren’t behaving correctly he would suggest a lobotomy. Freeman lobotomized 19 kids under the age of 18, and one was even administered to a 4 year old. By 1967, Freeman had performed over 2900 lobotomies himself. His last lobotomy caused the patient to die due to a brain hemorrhage. Freeman lost his hospital privileges at that point and retired from the practice. Dr. Watts was Freeman’s sidekick during the operations and he was interviewed later on in his life. He said that while lobotomies allowed them to fairly accurately predict suicidal ideas, emotional tension, and relief of anxiety, they were never able to accurately predict what kind of person the patient would end up being. My personal opinion would be because of the damage they did to the prefrontal cortex which contains your personality. Watt’s admitted to this and even said that “it’s a brain-damaging operation. It changes the personality.”
Lobotomies have since died out as a popular procedure but they still do happen on occasion even today. Researching this topic gave me more insight on beginning stages of this procedure, how it is performed and the side effects that are associated with it. One thing I found particularly interesting was that again the prefrontal cortex is what is damaged during this procedure. Last week, I spoke about Phineas Gage and how his personality was seriously altered after his prefrontal cortex was damaged. This just reiterates to me how important our prefrontal cortex and frontal lobe are to our higher level thinking skills, personalities, and overall effectiveness of making decisions.
Terminology:
Lobotomy, Walter Freeman, Ellen Ionesco, Egas Moniz, electric convulsive shock, frontal lobe, observation, stimulus-bound, consequences, circuitry, Thorazine, brain hemorrhage, prefrontal cortex, Dr. Watts, personality, Phineas Gage
Lobotomy-PBS documentary on Walter Freeman
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0aNILW6ILk
This link is a video that discusses the early stages of Freeman’s lobotomies and the procedure that they used in order to perform them. It also discusses the statistics of how many lobotomies Freeman performed as well as the growing number that were performed as a result of his influence.
Effects of Lobotomies
http://www.intropsych.com/ch02_human_nervous_system/lobotomy_effects.html
This source gave a lot of good information regarding observations of doctors on how lobotomy patients acted after their procedures. It gave a lot of good insight into what the lobotomy damaged and how effective/ineffective the lobotomy actually was.
One Doctor’s Legacy
http://projects.wsj.com/lobotomyfiles/?ch=two
This source gave me a lot more detail about Freeman and Watts and their role in popularizing lobotomies. It spoke about Freeman’s influence in the VA hospital. It also gave some feedback from Dr. Watts and his later perception of the effect that lobotomies had.
Normally I like to talk about the man or women behind the research, so this week the main person that this chapter talked about was Roger Sperry. I do not know if he was just not that interesting to me, but I chose not to go my topical blog on him. Rather, I was more intrigued by Phineas Gage. I wanted to know more about Phineas Gage while still tying into the blog what all came from the accident that occurred. Like I said in the reading activity earlier in the week, I was interested in how something such as a railroad accident lead psychologist to discover so much about the human brain. This reminds me of a book I read way back in grade school "mistakes that worked". This book was filled with a bunch of mistakes that happened that led to the discovery of so many world inventions. I feel that Phineas' accident was on that kind of monumental scale. So I wanted to start my research on maybe the history of Phineas Gage, and what his life was before the accident, and then what transpired after.
While researching I came across an article that talked about Phineas' early life before the accident, and the day of the accident. Phineas was one of five children. There was not much information on the type of education that he received while growing up. However, the article did state that the Gage family did own a large farm that Phineas liked to explore. Phineas would go to the outer parts of the farm or to the nearest mines, and practice with explosives. Surprisingly enough Phineas worked on the railroad when he was older blowing dynamite to make room for railroads. Phineas was regarded as an intelligent man that was nice, and business oriented. On the day of the accident Phineas was so into the dynamite business that he actually invented his own tapping iron for the work that he did. On the day of his accident one of Phineas' tapping iron struck a rock and the powder was ignited. The tapping iron went right through his eye and out the top of his head. Traditionally tapping blocks had a hock on the end of the iron, but Phineas' new and improved tapping iron did not have these hooks like the traditional counterpart. The article states that Phineas did not die from the infection of the wound because the tapping iron was so hot from the explosion that when the iron passed through his skull it actually cauterized the wound. This was a very fortunate event for both Phineas and the psychological field. The result of the injury is what really pertains to the psychological field. Before the accident Phineas was regarded as an intelligent, caring man. After the accident Phineas would show up late for work, his intelligence was that of a child, and he would regularly use mass amounts of profanity at the job site. All of these things led to Phineas being fired from his job, and then later getting a divorce from his wife. All of this is sad, but at Phineas' sacrifice science learned about the part of the brain that was effected by the tamping iron. The next part of my topical blog that I would like to talk about is what science learned about Phineas' injury, especially the lobotomy worked that followed.
Research led my to Walter Freeman, and his work with lobotomies. Phineas's injury made scientists wonder if the could target other areas of the brain to see what their purpose was. Walter Freeman worked with an Italian doctor named Amarro. When Walter came back to the US he started performing the lobotomies himself. Walters new form of lobotomy was through the use of an icepick which he wedged into the eye socket of his patients. None of his patients were put under with anesthetic, but rather through electrocompulsive therapy. Walter became so good at his lobotomies that he would travel around in his van from mental hospital to mental hospital performing his famous icepick lobotomies. Walters lobotomies were later put into the category of psychosurgery that treated rare cases of compulsive disorder, depression, and severe seizures. Walter performed somewhere north of 3000 procedures. Some of his patients did die from his procedure and that's when Walter was forced to stop doing the procedure. Phineas's injury gave scientists the notion that the frontal lobe was responsible for temperament which led to Walter Freeman's research and ultimately the field of psychosurgery. Once again i would like to point out that the accident of one man led to so many discoveries and the expansion of psychology.
I wanted to know more about the area of the brain that effected Phineas Gage, and the area of the brain that Walter Freeman was doing his lobotomies on. I had heard about the frontal lobe in a couple of other classes that I have taken. The book does have a smaller section on that area of the brain, but I thought if I did more research on the topic that I would have a better understanding of the frontal lobe. Through research I learned that the frontal lobe is in control of the executive functions of the brain. So, in the case of Phineas Gage I now know why he was acting so differently after the accident, because his frontal lobe was so damaged. The frontal lobe is also in control of mood, maturity, control, and impulsivity. This makes since in the case of Phineas because of how he reacted to his co workers and his wife after the accident. Phineas became very inconsiderate to his co workers and would often times yell profanities at them, and also at his wife. in the case of maturity, Phineas, lost a lot of his intelligence, and was reported as having the intelligence of a child. This makes perfect sense because of the frontal lobe damage. I thought that this article was the most informative to me because it helped tie together the other two articles that I researched before. All of the research that I did for this blog was because of the accident that occurred to Phineas, and that's why I like doing the topical blogs on the people behind the research.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phineas_Gage
This site let me know more about Phineas Gage. I got a look into his early life before the accident, and his life after.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Jackson_Freeman_II
This article helped me to understand psychosurgery and the work of Walter Freeman. His lobotomies were an effect of the accident of Phineas Gage and the damage to his frontal lobe.
http://frontal-lobe-injury.com/?gclid=CNfd9v-TpLwCFecRMwodrlkAHA
This article was very informative to me because it helped me understand Phineas Gages' injury along with the work of Walter Freeman.
The topic I chose this week is split-brain. It is mentioned in the textbook that two hemispheres, each responsible for different functions. This topic appears interesting to me because it allows scientists to discover more implications of the brain.
Split brain experiments were done to further understanding the functions of two hemisphere. The results have indicated that the left hemisphere is usually responsible for analytical and verbal tasks, while the right hemisphere processes spatial processing and recognition. With that said,it is clear that when the connection between two hemispheres, called the corpus callosum, is damaged, depending on the severity, it can impair one's functions on different levels. Corpus calloscotomy, also known as the split brain surgery, is a solution for epileptic seizures. However, the side effects of such drastic surgery can range from struggles to carry out daily tasks, to split personality which allows a person to perform independent tasks using the two hemisphere separately. Nowadays, with the improvement of technology, surgeons can severe only a small part of the corpus callosum without severing the whole structure, leaving the patient more functional.
Before nowadays' technology, the interaction between two hemispheres was studied on split-brain patients. One famous case of a patient called JW, who underwent corpus calloscotomy to alleviate his seizures. Simple math problems were presented to both hemisphere at the same time and he was to choose the right answer for each problem. The left hemisphere chose the correct answer 90% of the time, while the right hemisphere chose the correct answer at chance. This indicated that skills of calculation may centralize in the left hemisphere. Today, studies regarding the interaction between two hemispheres are done with devices that measure electric fields surrounding the skull, this measure is less invasive and can be done on non split-brain participants. In one study led by Gazzaniga, information is presented to both left and right eyes, but one at a time, of the participants. The researchers found that letters are processed more effectively when they are shown to the participants' right eyes, which transfer the information directly to the left hemisphere. Clearly, information can be processed best when it only has to travel the shortest distance possible.
It is said that as one region of the brain is damaged, the neighboring regions may adopt the functions in the lost regions. This is called plasticity. Plasticity could be seen in infants and children with hemispherectomies, where one hemisphere is completely removed or disabled. Some children and infants with such drastic surgery are able to function with only one hemisphere, as it adopts the functions of the lost hemisphere. I learned from a source about a patient called Peek, who seemed to have developed language ability in both hemisphere after his corpus callosum is severed. He could obtain information from both hemisphere while reading two pages at the same time. It is said that he was a "living encyclopedia". However, this seems to conflict with another source I viewed, which states that memory functions in split-brain patients are generally lower than normal. If both sources were real, I would assume that while Peek may be able to obtain more information than normal people at one period of time, the information may not last.
http://www.nobelprize.org/educational/medicine/split-brain/background.html
This website provides information regarding the foundation of split-brain experiments and short explanations of how split-brains works.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split-brain
This website provides detailed information regarding split-brains. I gained a lot of insights just by skimming through the information.
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-superhuman-mind/201211/split-brains
This website provides cases of split-brain patients.
1a) State what your topic is.
This week I decided to look more into neurons and the different types of neurons.
1b) Discuss how the topic relates to the chapter.
In the chapter they talked about the central nervous system and the functional unit of that system, the neuron.
1c) Discuss why you are interested in it.
I am interested in understanding how neurons work, because these little things make all of human cognition and emotions and that is just super interesting.
2) This week I tried to look more into neurons. Based on their functions, there are three broad categories of neurons. Sensory neurons are the neurons that are sensitive to the various non-neural stimuli. These are the specialized neurons that take in sensory information from the nose, tongue, eyes, and ears. There are also sensory neurons in the skin, muscles, joints, and organs that check how the body is operating. The second category of neurons is motor neurons. Motor neurons are able to control muscle cells through the body, including the heart and other internal organs. The third category of neurons is Interneurons, and these are the neurons in the brain that provide connections between sensory and motor neurons. Interneurons also communicate between one another to make up most cognitive processes. Neurons communicate with each other via the chemical transmissions, which take place at the synapse. The dendrite of the neuron receives the information, which is either excitatory or inhibitory. Essentially, the sum of these inputs is determined at the cell body, and if the inputs reach a certain voltage, called the action potential, the neuron will fire. Ion channels open up allowing these ions to flow in and out of the cell as the transmission travels down the axon. At the end of the axon is the axon terminal, which is the last point on the sending end of the synapse. As the action potential reaches the axon terminal, vesicles release their chemicals (neurotransmitters) into the synaptic gap. These neurotransmitters are then taken up at the receptor sites at the dendrite of the next neuron. In the brain there are roughly 100 billion neurons and between 100 trillion and a quadrillion synapses. Because of the amazing complexity and parallel processing power of neurons, scientists have created artificial silicon neurons. A neuromorphic chip containing silicon neurons was created at the Kirchhoff Institute for Physics of Heidelberg University and has been proven to be capable of running complex tasks. The implication of these artificial neurons is widespread and may change the majority of computing in the upcoming years. This is a very recent thing and there is not a lot of information about it yet. An interesting task for these artificial neurons would be designing artificial mirror neurons. Mirror neurons are neurons that fire when something happens to somebody else. If someone stubs their toe, you cringe, as these mirror neurons fire in your brain the same as if you stubbed your toe. The reason you don’t feel the pain of actually stubbing your toe, is because the sensory neurons in your toe fire back up to the brain relaying that there is no actual problem, but these empathetic mirror neurons still perceive a problem. It is possible that these mirror neurons developed so that our ancestors may have had internal workings telling them to look out for and take care of one another. They make the learning process incredibly easier too. If our ancestor homo habilis saw a fellow homo habilis eat a mushroom and fall down dead, these mirror neurons would fire, panicking the early hominid and implanting in his brain to never touch those mushrooms. If scientists could create silicon mirror neurons, then they could construct an artificial brain, theoretically capable of empathy. That is either incredible or a little scary.
www.medicalxpress.com/news/2014-01-silicon-neurons-scientists-artificial-nerve.html
This link contains an article about the artificial silicon neurons.
www.webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/theneuron.html
This website gave a basic run through of neurons and the different types.
www.brainfacts.org/brain-basics/neuroanatomy/articles/2008/mirror-neurons/
This link gave an extensive explanation of mirror neurons
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPEdDcs_8ZQ
This link may not have contributed to my blog, but I watched it while researching. It talks about mirror neurons and the neuroplasticity of free will. Super interesting.
1.A. The topic I will discuss for this week’s topical post are the effects of life experiences on brain anatomy and behavior. More specifically I will focus on life experience of stressors impact on brain anatomy and behavior.
1.B. In chapter two, we are presented with material that covers some of the basics of brain anatomy and functioning. The chapter also describes what various researchers have discovered with respect to the brain’s relationship with behavior and emotion. Therefore, a discussion focused on something that can alter brain anatomy/functioning and behavior seems especially germane to the topics covered in chapter two.
1.C. I am interested in this topic because of its implications for how people experience our lives. If our brains are vital component in how/why we think, feel and behave the way we do then whatever can alter the brain seems to be an important threat or benefit to any human. Life stressors such as childhood abuse seem especially troubling for a few reasons. The reason for which I believe childhood abuse is the most concerning is how easy it is to experience. Brain alteration in textbooks is usually presented in the form of railroad spikes flying through one’s head or accidents resulting in a very specific kind of traumatic brain energy. With life stressors such as childhood abuse, simply being treated in one manner, as opposed to another has the potential to alter how we think, feel and behave. While a very dark subject, I feel understanding our environments ability to influence our brain anatomy is extremely important to human’s wellbeing and interesting.
In a video of a presentation on effects of early childhood abuse, the MD presenting explains the process through which stress can alter volume in areas of the brain and what the effects of anatomical changes to the brain are. He even discusses how neural pruning is different in those who have experienced childhood abuse. This appears to be very important, this would mean that in a sense, early childhood experiences can cause you to be ‘wired’ differently. It may be that in the midst of a stressful environment early in life, physiological responses as well as the brain may have evolved to morph the brain’s anatomy. If true this would be evolutionarily advantageous as it would give it the best possible chance to meet the demands of a physically or psychologically threatening environment.
These strengths may be viewed as weakness to some or in more common situations. For example in my second source it claims that experiencing multiple kinds of trauma in childhood can alter the brain such that one has difficulties with affect regulation. However, if one a child is experiencing trauma at the hands of adults, the power differential may necessity immediate and strong reactions if they are to cope with or combat whatever abuse is taking place. If the child finds a supportive environment it would likely be a detriment to their relationships, but nonetheless it may have at one time and value in surviving an abusive environment. This source even claims that if a childhood experiencing this stress does have some positive support in some area of life that they can go on to be highly resilient in when they encounter stress.
My previous sources have also highlighted cognitive and learning deficits encountered by those who have experienced abuse. While this may be true, there is still some hope that children can cope and be successful in learning tasks. In a New York Times article on resiliency and child abuse, the author claims that resilient children are not entirely passive in being resilient. Some of the children who are resilient become skilled at developing “beneficial” relationships with adults. This could be due to the brain’s being wired differently and causing a child to be better at certain skills or make a child feel a need to learn. Abused children may appear to possess many deficits, when thanks to the brain, it may the case that the wrong measuring sticks are being used to evaluate them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6_nindqsTs I searched for a source such as this first because I felt it was important to find evidence that abuse can impact brain anatomy and behavior. It provides a foundation of knowledge about how the brain operates and how its functioning can change in the event of early life stressors which is a necessary point to illustrate as I continue to make the case that the brain is restructuring such that it is creating misunderstood cognitive and behavioral strengths.
http://www.rtc.pdx.edu/PDF/fpW0702.pdf This source was somewhat less about the biological ramifications of abuse and more about social, emotional and behavioral impacts of abuse. This helped me share that there both positive and negative consequences to experiencing childhood abuse. It also allowed me to introduce the notion that given the right environment some weaknesses influenced by brain anatomy may be strengths.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/30/magazine/30abuse.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
This article allowed me to make my final point that the brain may be capable of influencing a child to think more about honing positive skills that many researchers may not be think to evaluate. Overall I wanted this last source to help me illustrate the adaptability and competence the brain can have in some of the more harrowing, unfortunate and demanding environments a human can experience.
For this week's topical blog I decided to look into split brain experiments and corpus callosotomy. These things were touched upon in the chapter that we read this week, but I wanted to learn more about what happens when someones corpus callosum is cut.
A corpus callosotomy is a medical procedure in which the brain is opened up and the corpus callosum is cut. The corpus callosum is the part of the brain that connects the two hemispheres. This procedure is normally done in order to treat severe epilepsy. This way, if a seizure starts in one half of the brain it will not travel to the other half. The first corpus callosotomies were done in the 1940's by Dr. Wangenen.
Roger Sperry continued the work of Dr. Wangenen and studied split brain behavior. Sperry started his split brain research with cats, first cutting the nerves of the eyes and later moving on to cutting the corpus callosum. With the corpus callosum cut, the cats could learn how to spot the difference between a triangle and a square with one eye, and then would need to be taught the exact same thing with the other eye. This led Sperry to believe that the right and left hemispheres act on their own when not connected by the corpus callosum.
Patients who had their corpus callosum cut seemed to have no changes in their behavior or brain functions, so Sperry decided to do split-brain experiments on them. Sperry would present patients with a word that would either be seen by the right eye or the left. The information seen by the right eye would travel to the left side of the brain, and the information seen by the left eye would travel to the right side of the brain. Patients could report seeing the word if it was shown to the right eye, but not the left. This allowed Sperry to infer that language was centered in the left side of the brain. There did, however, seem to be some language capabilities in the left side of the brain on an unconscious level.
Since Sperry's experiments, much has been learned about the effects of corpus callosotomy and the abilities of the left and right side of the brain. People who have had their corpus callosums cut report lower memory function that those who have not, but have better memory skills than people with amnesia. The split halves of brains tend to process information at about the same rate, but can come to different conclusions based on what they percieve. The different halves of the brain control functioning at different times.
This link provided the information about Roger Sperry and his work on split-brain research.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Sperry
This link provided information about the history of corpus callosotomy and the functions of each halves of the brain.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split-brain#Case_studies_of_split-brain_patients
This is a youtube video that shows a patient with his corpus callosum cut. The patient performs experiments that show the capabilities of the different halves of his brain and gives a picture of the types of experiments Sperry would have conducted.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMLzP1VCANo
My topic is neuroanatomy and how it relates to addiction particularly cigarette smoking. The topic relates to the chapter because the “Cognition in Everyday Life” was about people quitting smoking due to damage to the insula. I am interested in this topic because I know so many people that truly want to quit smoking but they struggle so much to do so. After reading chapter two, I was really curious about the neural mechanisms that relate to smoking other than just the insula.
First of all, the insula also known as the insular cortex is located in the cerebral cortex and plays a role in emotional regulation and homeostasis. In drug addicts, it has been shown that the insula is activated when exposed to environmental cues that are responsible for cravings. The role of the insula in addiction has mostly been seen in stroke patients and has mostly been ignored because it does not fit into the accepted model of addiction involving the “reward pathway.”
The “reward pathway” is comprised of the hypothalamus, amygdala, hippocampus, septal nuclei, and anterior cingulate gyrus, the nucleus accumbens, ventral caudate nucleus, ventral tegmental area, and putamen. These areas both receive and send information to and from various areas of the brain. The nucleus accumbens is particularly important in this reward pathway. Stimulation of the nucleus accumbens causes the release of dopamine which causes the subject to have positive emotions and feel good. Researchers have placed electrodes into the nucleus accumbens of rats and these rats are able to stimulate this area of the brain by pressing a level. Rats will self-stimulate this area of the brain above all other areas of the brain where researchers might have placed electrodes and these rats will even self-stimulate rather than eat or drink. When the nucleus accumbens is destroyed, rats will not self-stimulate by pressing the lever to activate the electrode or self-administer drugs by the way of levers. It has been shown that the nucleus accumbens is excited by drugs such alcohol and stimulates which causes the release of dopamine leading to a subjective feel good experience by the user.
Some evidence has been found that the insula is likely involved with the memories of the drug administration as well as the actual drug administration. The insula is not only active when a drug is being administered but also when cues related to a drug are present such as a lighter for a smoker or the house where someone used to get high. Therefore, the insula is believed to be responsible for the conscious urges one experiences when trying to abstain from drug use. The direct mechanism between the reward pathway and the insula is not yet known so it is often ignored in drug abuse research.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/20038846 - I chose this resource because it is a peer reviewed article that discusses how individuals with damage to the insula are able to stop smoking compared to other individuals with damage to other areas of the brain. It discusses how the insula might be responsible for the urges not the rewards of drug abuse.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insular_cortex - I chose this resource because it explained what the insula does and where it is located in a very straightforward and simple way.
http://ibgwww.colorado.edu/cadd/a_drug/essays/essay4.htm - I chose this resource because it discusses the accepted model of the reward pathway. It does not discuss the insula which seems to be fairly representative of research done about addiction.
1a) State what your topic is.
I chose to do more research on Phineas Gage.
1b) Discuss how the topic relates to the chapter.
Phineas Gage was mentioned in the section on localization. The case of Phineas Gage also mentions the frontal lobe and what injuring your frontal lobe can do to your temperament.
1c) Discuss why you are interested in it.
I am interested in this because I think how he came out of it is amazing. When I say that, I mean I am surprised he didn’t die. Having been injured so much and be alive is incredible. I am also interested in it because it had such an impact on Psychology and it was a complete accident.
2) Next, we would like you to take the information you read or viewed related to your topic, integrate/synthesize it, and then write about the topic in a knowledgeable manner.
Phineas Gage is one of the most famous people to have lived after having severe brain damage. He was the first person that let the public learn something from his brain damage. In 1848, when Phineas Gage was 25, he worked for the Rutland and Burlington railroad company. Gage and his coworkers were in charge of drilling holes in the stone and to put explosive in the stone. One day while working, the explosive went off early, which sent the tamping iron, which was about 3 feet and 7 inches long, into Gage’s face, through his skull and brain and out the top of his head. The tamping iron landed about 25 feet away from Gage and amazingly, he regained consciousness within minutes. Not only did he survive, but he also was up and walking in a short time.
After the accident, he was just as intelligent as he was before and there was also no impairment to his memory, movement, or speech. However, he was more irresponsible than before the accident. He also used more profane language and did not show respect for social customs. His friends said that “Gage was no longer Gage.” He could not hold jobs that he had before the accident and wandered for the next few years. The physician who treated Phineas Gage correlated the changes in Gage’s behavior with damage to the frontal region of his brain.
Most of Phineas Gage’s story is true. However, some of the information that you may read could be myths. Gage’s close associates said that he spent time on his parent’s farm while he was getting better. He played with his nieces and nephews while telling them stories. He also had a fondness for animals, especially horses. Phineas Gage also found a way to make money by participating in Barnum’s American Museum, which was a freak show in New York. He was there with the tamping iron that went through his head. Phineas Gage may have had temperamental changes after his accident but it seems to me like he still had moments where he was the same as he was before his accident.
http://www.uakron.edu/gage/story.dot
This source was good to use because it gave me information about the tamping iron and it also mentioned how we have been able to uses Phineas Gage’s incident as a learning experience.
http://science.education.nih.gov/supplements/nih2/addiction/guide/pdfs/master1.6.pdf
This source was the best source that I found. It gave me the most information. This source talked about Phineas Gage’s accident and what changed about him because of it
http://www.apa.org/gradpsych/2012/09/tall-tales.aspx
This source was the most interesting to me. It gave me the information on Phineas Gage and his attitude and morals after the accident. I thought it was interesting because it seems like the information about his temperamental changes could have been exaggerated, at least a little.
1a) State what your topic is.
Neurogenesis
1b) Discuss how the topic relates to the chapter.
Chapter two is all about cognitive neuroscience, one area that researchers have looked into only recently is neurogenesis. The topic was covered briefly in the book.
1c) Discuss why you are interested in it.
Neuroscience and neuropsychology are relatively new areas within psychology due largely to imaging technology that has allowed scientists to see deeper into the mind than ever before. In many of the psychology classes I’ve taken that cover neuroscience I have always heard everyone is born with a set number of neurons and gradually lose them over the lifetime. What interests me about neurogenesis is it aims to regrow or regenerate neurons that have become dormant or died.
2) Neurogenesis in the simplest terms means the birth of neurons, it is the process by which neurons are generated in the brain. Neurogenesis is most active during pre-natal development and until most recently was thought to stop after birth. As I said above many scientists believed neurogenesis stopped after birth, now more research is available that suggests neurogenesis never stops but rather slows down more dramatically. New neurons are frequently born throughout adulthood in two main regions within the brain, the subventricular zone which lines the lateral ventricle and the subgranular zone which is part of the hippocampus. Most of the new neurons die soon after they are born but some become integrated into the surrounding brain tissue.
Neurogenesis in adults is still being researched but it is believed by many scientists that it may play a role in our ability to learn and remember things in adulthood. As many of us already know a healthy and strong brain is key our ability to learn and remember important information, but it is also important for sleeping habits, stress levels and overall physical health. Neurogenesis is substantially reduced in the hippocampus of older animals, some researchers believe this may be linked to age-related declines in hippocampus function. The truth is the new neurons which are being created in the hippocampus can’t keep up with the number of dying neurons so hippocampal function deteriorates. Neurogenesis isn’t the same for everyone; it is controlled by a specific gene in our DNA which codes for the production of a protein that is key in creating new neurons. Lucky for us many of the factors that influence our DNA to produce the gene to activate neurogenesis are under our control. The gene is activated by many factors like physical exercise, caloric restriction, curcumin which is a common spice and the omega-3 fat, which is common in fish. Clearly we have the power to improve and alter our neurogenesis but it is still amazing to me that it is possible.
3.) http://www.news-medical.net/health/Neurogenesis-What-is-Neurogenesis.aspx
-This site was helpful in describing many of the ways we are affected by neurogenesis and how we can control some of the factors that promote it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurogenesis
-I used this site to get a lot of background information on some of the different areas of neurogenesis.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-david-perlmutter-md/neurogenesis-what-it-mean_b_777163.html
-This site was helpful in explaining the different ways to improve your neurogenesis.
1a. My topic this week is computed axial tomography (CT). I chose this because it sounded fun to learn about. I think that having different types of tests that are there to help figure out what is wrong by “slicing” the part that is getting x-rayed.
1b. In chapter 2, the book talks about CT scans and how they are used to look at the body. It is a scan that shows that the body, or part that is being scanned, is sectioned into several pieces so that you can learn about the little pieces that are inside you.
1c. I like this topic because I know people who have had CT scans in the past so learning a little more would be kind of cool. I was interested in what really happens when you get a CT scan. Now after looking into the subject more I know more about the subject and can tell what will happen when I or someone I know gets one.
2. Firstly when you hear computed axial tomography, what does that mean? To most people, they would give you an odd look and maybe say “what?” Now a CT scan is an imaging technique which allows a variety of x-ray images to be taken and combined into a cross-sectional view of the human body, including the brain. So why would you need a CT scan? Either there is trauma to the area, or the doctors need a close up look at parts of your body. So they can see all the in all the internal structures that are needed to be seen.
CT scans are a painless process. These are an outpatient type of procedure, which can be taken. Now CT scans are not the quickest of procedures to have done to you. The information for them has to be processed by a computer then experts have to look at the results to be able to tell you what is going on in the body. The great thing about waiting for the results is you know that there is a good chance that the people that are looking at your scans are going to be able to help you with whatever you need to know.
Do these scans have risks to them? Yes, with tests there are some factors that could go wrong. Some minor things that could happen are hives, or a rash that will go away very soon after the iodine solution has moved through your system. There are things that could help with that as well though, to help you through the symptoms. Though there are some affects that could be fatal, although they are very rare to have they can still happen. You could have kidney failure happen due to radiation poisoning. Then you could also go into anaphylactic shock. Although those symptoms are very unlikely to happen, they can and you have to be aware of it.
To prepare for this test you should avoid food because it could affect the test. The iodine solution is then given to you so that the test will work. There are three ways that you can get the solution. The first is intravenously, that is through the vein with a needle, so I’d have to pass on that… Next is an enema, not my favorite but I’d take it over the needle, but I think the last type is what I would go for. The final way is to take it by mouth, and that would be the best way for me to me to go with, but that is just me. Then for the test you are placed on a table and moved through a donut shaped machine for the test. Then you wait for the results to see what is wrong with your body.
http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/ct-scan/pages/introduction.aspx
This was a good place to learn a lot of good information about the topic.
http://www.medicinenet.com/cat_scan/patient-comments-208.htm
This was nice to see at the end that there were people giving examples on what experiences that they had.
http://www.becomehealthynow.com/article/diagradiology/639/
This was very direct and to the point of what was going on in the article.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrWfk6ih_nI
A video to explain a little more about what happens.
1a. My topic is smoking addiction in relation to brain structures.
1b. There was an article in the chapter that talked about how smoking addiction was related to a specific brain structure, the insula, which is involved in learned behaviors and emotion. The chapter in general introduces us to the concept that different cognitive processes can be localized in specific areas of the brain or distributed throughout different areas of the brain at the same time. Addiction is very much a cognitive process that involves both conscious and subconscious processes in the brain. I wanted to delve a little deeper into this topic and discover the underlying processes behind addiction.
1c. This is an interesting topic to me because I’m a smoker and have tried to quit on many occasions. Anyone who has tried to kick an addiction knows just how tough it is. I always chalked up my failed attempts to a lack of willpower, but it is very interesting to find out what exactly addiction is and how it affects your brain.
2. Addiction is a disease in which a person becomes dependent on a certain substance or activity. An addiction, whether it is a nicotine, heroin, or gambling addiction, is a cognitive process that changes the brain through the pleasure principle. Studies have shown that addictive substances, or highly stimulating activities, cause large amounts of the neurotransmitter dopamine to flood the brains pleasure center, the nucleus accumbens. The amount of dopamine released is proportional to how addictive the certain substance or activity is. After a varying amount of time your brain becomes dependent on the substance or activity to produce the dopamine necessary to keep the brain stimulated. Addiction is not as simple as biological mechanisms at work, it also deals with learning and memory. People learn to associate different places and objects with their addiction and these often provide the addict the urge to indulge in their addiction. For example a smoker who sees another person lighting up may get an increased urge to smoke, thus facilitating the addiction. Recent research has shown that in smoking addiction there is a particular brain region called the insula that may be directly related to the use of nicotine products. The insula is a structure within the cerebral cortex between the frontal and temporal lobes and has a role in controlling our learned behaviors and emotions. Damage or lesions to this area in smoking addicted patients causes the addict to suddenly quit smoking in many cases. In one study researchers found that 13 out of 19 patients with insula damage quit smoking and had no urge to smoke. Addiction studies reinforce the fact that processes in the brain can be localized in certain key areas and can also be distributed through many areas of the brain, often simultaneously.
http://www.health.harvard.edu/newsletters/Harvard_Mental_Health_Letter/2011/July/how-addiction-hijacks-the-brain
I picked this site because it laid out facts not just about smoking addiction but addiction in general. To understand a specific addiction you need to understand addiction in general and this site is very informative about the processes underlying addiction.
http://www.news-medical.net/news/2007/01/29/21552.aspx
I picked this site because it delved specifically into the study on smoking addiction in relation to the insula, which is what the book talked about as well. It laid out specific information from the study and elaborated further on what the insula is and how it is related to addiction
http://www.healthline.com/health-blogs/freedom-smoking/which-part-brain-controls-nicotine-addiction
I picked this site because it reinforced information from my two previous sites. It talked about the mechanisms underlying addiction and elaborated in ever greater detail the a study relating to the insula’s involvement in addiction.
1. The topic I chose is Phineas Gage. He was discussed in the chapter briefly about having a railroad iron rod go through his frontal lobe when dynamite exploded. I am interested in researching this because it is interesting and shows that even with brain damage, a person can still function, and also how a person’s personal characteristics can change when there has been some type of trauma to the body.
2. Phineas Gage was a twenty-five year old railroad construction foreman. He was a survivor of an accident where dynamite went off and put an iron rod right through his head and landed a ways away from him. The tamping iron entered into the left side of his face behind his eye and out the top of his head. The iron weighted 13 ¼ pounds and landed 80 feet away from where it struck him. The crazy thing is that a few minutes after this accident Gage was able to talk and walk with assistance. He stayed conscious enough and told the doctor when they got there “Here is business enough for you.” He was basically in a coma from that September 23rd to October 3rd, after about a month he was able to walk up and down the stairs. Both of his frontal lobes were damaged. He was in the neurological hall of fame.
Gage had some behavior changes after his accident. He was fitful and irrelevant. This was said to be the opposite of how he acted before his accident, and that he was a caring hard working person before. His friends said that he was no longer himself, and that he was unable to act appropriate in social situations.
His vision in his left eye slowly got worse, and the left side of his face was partially paralyzed. Gage lived for just under 12 more years and worked with caring for horses, because he was unable to return to the railroad. He started to get convulsions that increase in getting worse. He died from his brain being in a consistent seizure.
This case was the first known case to show a correlation between brain trauma and a person’s personality change.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phineas_Gage
I chose this website, because it was full of information about Gage and his accident as well as through his recovery.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/phineas-gage-neurosciences-most-famous-patient-11390067/
Talked about what he said to the doctor when he arrived at the hospital. Also talked about his friends saying he was no longer himself. His case was the first to suggest a link between brain trauma and personality change.
http://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2010/nov/05/phineas-gage-head-personality
Hall of fame. Also talked about how he was walking within minutes of the accident. How his behavior changed.
1. I chose to do research on FMRIs. A FMRI is a tool that is used in neuroscience to make images of the brain that show the function of different areas. This had been a great technological advancement for the field and has opened doors to a vast amount of research and uncovered knowledge. I chose to research FMRIs because I have had them done before and wanted to know more about how they worked and what they showed. I also learned about them in biopsychology and wanted to get a deeper knowledge to add on to my existing knowledge.
2. To understand FMRIs you must first understand the basics of MRIs. A MRI creates an image of the brain's structure which a FMRI is then placed on top of to give orientation to the functions that are recorded. MRIs are created by taking advantage of the fact that hydrogen neurons of different structures have different magnetic resonances. When in the magnetic field of the MRI machine the hydrogen neurons which are usually scattered in no particular order line up in a straight line and then are presented with a magnetic pulse. The pulse sends the neurons back to there orientation and causes them to let off a signal which creates the structural image of the brain.
FMRIs go on top of a MRI and are used to show how those structures function. This technology utilizes the fact that oxygen rich blood travels to areas of the brain relative to the areas that are functioning the most. More oxygen rich blood is found in the areas of the brain that are functioning more. The different levels of oxygenated blood produce a different color on the FMRI depiction. These signals are known as blood-oxygen-dependent symbols , otherwise known as BOLD signals. A FMRI is a comparison between two different conditions of the brain. Usually the first condition is either a healthy brain image or an image of the same patient while simply laying there to get a baseline of brain function. Then the participant is many times asked to perform a certain activity while another scan is taken to show what areas of the brain are functioning while that task is being performed. FMRIs are also used for planning surgeries, typically with brain tumors, analyzing emotions, as well as brain mapping.
An advantage to using a FMRI is that it is a noninvasive method that does not use radiation. The lack of radiation use makes this method much safer than other methods that are used such as CT scans. The technology creates objective ways to study the brain. Disadvantages of this method include the high cost and the fact that it is not a direct measure because it does not show individual neuron activity. It is a common criticism that FMRIs takes focus away from distributed functioning in the brain and claim that it is no more useful than phrenology.
http://fmri.ucsd.edu/Research/whatisfmri.html\
This website explained how MRIs and FMRIs are used together. It also explained how FMRI's work and a basic framework of what they show.
http://science.howstuffworks.com/fmri1.htm
This website gives the history of the FMRI and its collaboration with MRIs. It goes into detail about what FMRIs can be used for and how they are used. It also gave advantages and disadvantages of using FMRIs.
http://www.ndcn.ox.ac.uk/departments/FMRIB/research/introduction-to-fmri
This website was the base website and the links at the bottom of the page to the different sections were used. A basic overview of what a FMRI is, what it measures, how it is used, and how to read and FMRI are all sections that I read and used.
I choose the topic of Psychosurgery. This topic relates to Chapter 2: cognitive neuroscience because it is learning about how the brain works. Antonio Moice has research that a monkey is calmer when parts of the frontal lobe are destroyed. Walter Freemand also took part in trying to keep his patients calm. Freemand would perform a lobotomy with an ice pick to destroy part of the frontal lobe, through the eye socket. This was done to take away any aggressive attitudes. This topic has always been an interest to me. I think I just want more understanding of why they did what they did. I think it is a really gory thing that they have done to try and fix something. I would just like to look more into it and see what their reasoning is for it.
Walter Freemand and James Watts performed the first lobotomy in the United States on September 14, 1936. Freemand called these surgeries trans orbital lobotomy. The patients of these surgeries were given electroconvulsive shock therapy causing them to go unconscious. They would then stick an ice pick above the eye into brain and sever the connections to the prefrontal cortex in the frontal lobe.
The success of this type of treatment has mixed outcomes. They had public results that said sixty three percent were improved, twenty three percent were unchanged, and fourteen percent were worse after the surgery. From the ice pick procedure fifteen percent of people ended up dying. Walter had to end his career after the death of his last patient Helen Mortensen who died from a cerebral hemorrhage. This caused Walter to be banned from performing surgery. Walter then moved to California to continue his practice. He passed away May 31, 1972
http://www.npr.org/2005/11/16/5014080/my-lobotomy-howard-dullys-journey
I picked this website because it was a first hand story of someone who had a lobotomy from Walter Freemand. He describes the history about a lobotomy and what he went through finding out he had, had one. It also tells of the effects it had on his family and conversations with Walter’s family.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0aNILW6ILk
This video gives details about Walter’s work and his life. It tells about his surgeries and how he performed them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Jackson_Freeman_II
I picked Wikipedia because it gave a lot of information on Walter Freeman. It told me about his operations and his life beginning to end with his home life, and work career.
In this week’s chapter, the book briefly discussed split brain patients. The book detailed how they become split brained, why they usually become split brained and some of the aspects or side effects of this procedure. I first became interested in split brain patients when it was discussed a few semesters ago in my intro to psychology, but again it was only discussed briefly. So naturally, I jumped at the opportunity to find out more about it and earn some class credit while doing so.
The first thing I investigated was some history. Split brain research started in the 1950s when neuropsychologist Michael Gazzaniga started his work with Roger Sperry. Like most split brain patients, Sperry had his corpus callosum severed due to incredibly violent seizures. A procedure called a corpus callosotomy is when a surgeon severs all or part of the corpus callosum (a bundle of axons that connect the two hemispheres of the brain). By performing this procedure, when a seizure occurs, it is limited to one half of the brain and can no longer pass between the hemispheres via the corpus callosum.
However, there are many side effects that go along with a procedure like this. The interesting thing about split brain patients though, is that often the side effects are so mild that you may not even realize that you’re speaking to a split brain patient unless you’re in a laboratory setting. Because the brain in lateralized (most of the controls for speech and imagery reside in one side of the brain only), if you present a picture or a word to a patient and allow their right eye to see, therefore sending the information to their left brain where language is lateralized, they will have no problem identifying the object or word. However, if you were to present two pictures at the same time quickly and allow only one eye to intake each stimulus you would find something totally different. In this case, as shown in the video of Joe, he is easily able to tell you what image is presented on the right of him, however he is unable to identify the image shown on the left. Even more curiously, if you allow him to draw the picture with the left hand, he will produce the image that was shown only to his left eye. Yet, when prompted on why he drew that image, he is unable to explain, therefore acting as though he has two brains.
In some cases, an event known as functional plasticity may occur that can help curb some of these negative affects that many split brain patients deal with. Functional plasticity is when another area of the brain adopts some of the functioning capability and processing that a different area once had. For example, a right area of the brain may pick some of the left brains language capabilities, but that does not mean that it over takes all of it, nor does it perform the function as quickly or effectively as the left brain. This unfortunately is extremely rare in adults who have full or partial callosotomies, but is relatively common in infants.
http://thebrain.mcgill.ca/flash/capsules/experience_bleu06.html
This link described the experiments that Gazzaniga performed with Roger Sperry and also provided much of the history information in my blog this week.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split-brain
This link provided much of the general information about the procedure, as well as the side effects. It also contributed to my knowledge about functional plasticity and much of the lateralization of the brain.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMLzP1VCANo
This video showed an actual split brain patient demonstrating the effects described in my blog this week, as well illustrated how extremely normal he is in everyday conversation at the beginning while he’s explaining this condition. These experiments always lose some of their weight if you can’t see them in action, so it’s really interesting to see how it actually happens.
In this week’s chapter, the book briefly discussed split brain patients. The book detailed how they become split brained, why they usually become split brained and some of the aspects or side effects of this procedure. I first became interested in split brain patients when it was discussed a few semesters ago in my intro to psychology, but again it was only discussed briefly. So naturally, I jumped at the opportunity to find out more about it and earn some class credit while doing so.
The first thing I investigated was some history. Split brain research started in the 1950s when neuropsychologist Michael Gazzaniga started his work with Roger Sperry. Like most split brain patients, Sperry had his corpus callosum severed due to incredibly violent seizures. A procedure called a corpus callosotomy is when a surgeon severs all or part of the corpus callosum (a bundle of axons that connect the two hemispheres of the brain). By performing this procedure, when a seizure occurs, it is limited to one half of the brain and can no longer pass between the hemispheres via the corpus callosum.
However, there are many side effects that go along with a procedure like this. The interesting thing about split brain patients though, is that often the side effects are so mild that you may not even realize that you’re speaking to a split brain patient unless you’re in a laboratory setting. Because the brain in lateralized (most of the controls for speech and imagery reside in one side of the brain only), if you present a picture or a word to a patient and allow their right eye to see, therefore sending the information to their left brain where language is lateralized, they will have no problem identifying the object or word. However, if you were to present two pictures at the same time quickly and allow only one eye to intake each stimulus you would find something totally different. In this case, as shown in the video of Joe, he is easily able to tell you what image is presented on the right of him, however he is unable to identify the image shown on the left. Even more curiously, if you allow him to draw the picture with the left hand, he will produce the image that was shown only to his left eye. Yet, when prompted on why he drew that image, he is unable to explain, therefore acting as though he has two brains.
In some cases, an event known as functional plasticity may occur that can help curb some of these negative affects that many split brain patients deal with. Functional plasticity is when another area of the brain adopts some of the functioning capability and processing that a different area once had. For example, a right area of the brain may pick some of the left brains language capabilities, but that does not mean that it over takes all of it, nor does it perform the function as quickly or effectively as the left brain. This unfortunately is extremely rare in adults who have full or partial callosotomies, but is relatively common in infants.
http://thebrain.mcgill.ca/flash/capsules/experience_bleu06.html
This link described the experiments that Gazzaniga performed with Roger Sperry and also provided much of the history information in my blog this week.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split-brain
This link provided much of the general information about the procedure, as well as the side effects. It also contributed to my knowledge about functional plasticity and much of the lateralization of the brain.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMLzP1VCANo
This video showed an actual split brain patient demonstrating the effects described in my blog this week, as well illustrated how extremely normal he is in everyday conversation at the beginning while he’s explaining this condition. These experiments always lose some of their weight if you can’t see them in action, so it’s really interesting to see how it actually happens.
The topic I had chosen to research more on was about the differences in the right and left hemispheres of our brain. This topic relates to the chapter because in the chapter there was a section on how the left and right brain works either normally or when damaged. I have been fairly interested in this topic because from previous psychology classes I have been interested in why many times we are just told that the hemispheres in the brain do a certain task. When then learning and going more in depth with the subject of what the hemispheres do we are then told that the hemispheres actually work together to complete a task.
It has been largely publicized that the left brain is for language, while the right side is involved more in our creativity. Despite the popularity of this idea, there has been new research that would indicate that maybe there isn’t a clear cut side of the brain that is more powerful. Instead, researchers think that it would be better to describe brain function in a top brain/bottom brain difference. Even then, there is no clear cut answer and there are many dimensions to the brain and its functions.
Things that are typically associated with one side of the brain or the other, are not as one-dimensional as we would like to believe. Subjects like math, there are processes that take place in both hemispheres, particularly the intraparietal sulcus. Damage to either hemisphere can create problems with math skills. We can’t rely on one side of the brain or the other when it comes to many tasks, as the skills needed to carry out different subjects are processes that need to happen in both hemispheres. Language, is a process generally known to be in the left hemisphere and some scientists agree with this assessment, but only for the verbal aspect of language. The right side also is capable of comprehension. There are aspects of different processes that occur more so in one hemisphere or the other, but it’s not 100% associated with one hemisphere over the other.
Why we have two hemispheres is a mystery, because two hemispheres are pretty much the same physically. However, it is the very small differences that are thought to be make the deciding factor in the difference. Some scientists believe that brain function are not so much about mapping onto one hemisphere or the other, but about sets of dynamically configured neural networks. Studies of language has shown that the left brain is associated more with the top-down connections, in which we try to predict which word will come next. The right brain is associated more with feed forward processing, which isn’t so much about predicting words but in remembering words. Research indicates that with these small changes in networks creates the differences in how and why we read, comprehend and remember language. A study that was conducted also indicates that both hemispheres are very important in our experience of reading because while the left side of the brain is the more abstract side, the right side creates the sensory experience that makes reading enjoyable.
When it comes to whether people's hemispheres can truly be about the right brain dealing with our creativity, and our left side deals with language may not be the case. There are differences individually in how we learn and think, but this can be attributed to how that individual person’s brain is organized and how neural networks are connected. There has been studies that show we are using both sides of our brains at all times. Genetics can lead to parts of the brain being in a different place, and some individuals like left handed people. As we age we also have lateralization changes. Research indicates that the lateralization patterns seen in younger patients become bilateral patterns in older adults. While popular culture would have us believe that it is easy to tell what brain hemisphere is seen in our personality, it would appear that it is not quite so simple.
http://www.livescience.com/32935-whats-the-difference-between-the-right-brain-and-left-brain.html- This article provided a lot of information on what our hemispheres focus when interpreting our surroundings.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82tlVcq6E7A This video gave an example of how the brain the hemispheres of the brain differ, but even after the corpus collosum is cut there is still some interpretation that the brains show to be similar.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2013/12/02/248089436/the-truth-about-the-left-brain-right-brain-relationship- This article mentions that the two hemispheres do not have distinct jobs/tasks they share some of the work with eachother to solve something.
1. The topic I chose to research more on this week was Walter Freeman and the subject of lobotomies. This topic relates to psychosurgery and was mentioned in chapter two of our textbook. I chose this subject because it is one that has been mentioned frequently, even outside of my classes in mainstream media. I also chose it because the topic carries with it a level of infamy but also importance in the history of psychology.
2. Walter Freeman was a neurologist and the primary spokesman of the transorbital lobotomy in the late 1930's and throughout his career. Freeman performed the first lobotomy in the United States in 1936. This first lobotomy was a traditional one, which involved drilling holes into the scalp through which one could access the frontal lobe. It wasn't until later in 1945 that Freeman was inspired by the work of an Italian psychiatrist named Amarro Fiamberti and devised a new method, which Freeman referred to as the transorbital lobotomy. The transorbital lobotomy was a procedure in which an icepick-like tool called an orbitoclast was inserted under the patient's eyelid and then hammered with a mallet to reach the frontal lobe. After piercing, the orbitoclast was rotated precicely to sever select sections of the frontal lobe. This was done through both eyes, severing both the left and right parts of the frontal lobe through their respective eye sockets. The purpose of this procedure was to reduce agressive impulses and other bad behavior in patients, which schizophenics being of particular interest. Freeman and his procedure recieved much criticism although he would always support it when challenged. His method of performing the surgery shocked his colleagues as he wouldn't wear a face mask or gloves while performing the procedure, insisting that due to the nature of the procedure they were unneccesary as long as the orbitoclasts were sterile. The lobotomy itself also recieved its fair share of criticism, with some saying that it hurt as many patients as it ended up helping. Whether one agrees that the lobotomy is a good method of treating patients with severe disorders, the fact remains that the procedure has had an important impact on the field of psychology.
Terms: Walter Freeman, transorbital lobotomy, frontal lobe, orbitoclast, schizophenia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Jackson_Freeman_II
I used this because it seemed like a good, overarching source of information about both Freeman and the procedure, which linked well with my second source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobotomy
This provided more information on the procedure itself and others that contributed to its development and popularity
http://projects.wsj.com/lobotomyfiles/?ch=two
This source was my favorite, as it was an in-depth review of both Freeman and his use of the procedure throughout his career
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70JA1sqDdVM
I watched this as well because it was mentioned in the previous source and also because it provides a better understanding of what the procedure looked like when in progress. It was interesting but also a little unsettling.
Chapter 2 Topical Blog
The topic from chapter 2 that I would like to do more research on is psychosurgery. There is one certain type of psychosurgery that is discussed in chapter 2. Chapter 2 has a lot of good information on lobotomies. This topic is really interesting to me because I cannot imagine this type of procedure being performed on anyone. When a lobotomy is performed, the surgeon enters the skull through the eye sockets. They put a rod through the person’s eye sockets and disable parts of the frontal lobe. In the book it says that they used this procedure to essentially change a person’s personality. I know that this procedure isn’t as widely used, but it was at one point. And in some extreme cases, it is still used today. I’d be interested to find out how the procedure started. I would also be interested in learning the ethics behind the procedure, and in what cases it is used today.
The first thing I researched was the past of lobotomies and why they came to be. It is stated in one of my online articles that in the early 20th century, there was a growing number of patients in mental hospitals. The doctors needed a way to sort of “cure” those who were sick. At this time, electric shock therapy was also a popular method. It seems that a lot of the procedures they used back then started off as experiments. When lobotomies were first used, the experiments were done on chimpanzees. I can see this being more ethical than starting with humans. The man who started this research was named Egas Moniz. He began by removing the frontal lobes in two chimpanzees. He concluded that they were so pacified, the seemed to have joined the “happiness cult”. When one of his colleagues suggested that the procedure be done on humans, he was in disbelief. He knew that a procedure of this magnitude would be wrong to perform on humans.
The procedure was performed on the first human subject in 1930. It seemed that none of his intelligence was affected by the procedure. He experienced the same changes as the apes. I also found an article about a lobotomy that was performed on a Kansas housewife. It was said that her emotions were very highly strung, and they were worried that it was causing her to be in a negative mental state. Instead of drilling holes into her skull, he used a tool that was called an “ice-pick”. He used this tool to get to the brain through the eye sockets. They would insert the ice-pick through the eye sockets and essentially “scramble” the brain. I don’t think that this was a good procedure to be performing. And I really don’t think that it was okay to perform on housewives who were emotional. I can see why they would perform on patients with severe mental disorders such as schizophrenia or depression. But I don’t think that it should be performed on people just for acting up. I wonder if they had any sort of therapists or counselors back then. There had to have been other ways to solve some issues like that. But maybe that’s why science has come so far and we don’t have to use the lobotomy procedure anymore.
I read on one of my websites that lobotomies are still used today in very severe cases of OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder). The procedure is only used in cases where the disease is not treatable with medication or therapy. The website also states that if the patient requests a lobotomy, they will most likely be turned down by the surgeon. Lobotomies are also used today to treat severe cases of epilepsy. Of course, it is more humane today, and they aren’t using pick-like tools inserted through the eye sockets. They use utensils to drill through the skull and remove only the parts needed. So the procedure is still used, but barely ever.
So in doing this research online I have found a lot of helpful information about lobotomies. The first lobotomies were performed on chimpanzees. The findings lead some psychosurgeons to want to perform the procedure on humans. When they started doing this, they performed it on mental patients and people with emotional disorders. I don’t really agree with this, but back then, they thought it was a good thing to do to help the patients be saner. The information that surprised me the most from my research was that lobotomies are still used today. I kind of already knew that they were from my readings, but I didn’t realize the extent. One of my websites said they were strictly used for severe cases of OCD. And another website said that they were used for epilepsy cases. This was surprising to me because, in my opinion, I don’t think they should be used at all. But science is forever changing, so maybe someday we won’t ever have to use them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobotomy
I used this first website because it had a lot of good information on the history of lobotomies and how they came to be. It has many good facts, dates, and names. It tells of the first lobotomies on primates and it tells of the first human lobotomy.
http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2011/03/21/the-surprising-history-of-the-lobotomy/
I used this website because it had a really cool story about a woman who had a frontal lobotomy done. This is when they first starting using the “ice-pick” procedure. She was letting her emotions get out of control and they feared that it would cause her to be mentally ill. That is the reason they did the procedure on her.
http://www.psychologistworld.com/biological/lobotomy.php
This website had some good information on lobotomies that are still used today.
The one thing that really caught my attention in this chapter was Phineas Gage. How can a rod go through the head of a guy and he survive, and live a somewhat normal life. I found this to be interesting because it really shows how plastic the brain is. I found it to be interesting that after the accident he walked over to a cart and road to the doctor and while doing so he wanted to take his note book with him so that he could continue to do his foreman work. The doctor looked at him and what gathered he really couldn’t understand how he was still alive. At one point Phineas bent over and about a cup of brain matter fell out. Some people said that after the accident his attitude change he became irritated easily. Dr Harlow the doctor that treated Gage didn’t think that he would make it a day let alone 12 more years. Soon Gage disappeared and later showed up in Chile where he ran a drove a stage coach until his death. It seemed as time went on the symptoms of Gages accident had diminished and he was almost normal. This is one thing that I really think is interesting how after Gage had a 3ft iron rod go through his head he was able to live a somewhat normal life. The brain is such an organ that over time it was able to adapt to life. It made up for the parts that had be damaged or taken out.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrULrWRlGBA
i liked this video just cause it got to the point and told the story of Phineas
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phineas_Gage
what better page then wikipedia to get info
https://www.uakron.edu/gage/