Adopted Children & Schizophrenia

During this week's reading about schizophrenia, the text covered many concepts such as the disorder and the actual diagnosis of schizophrenia, demographic data, and prenatal environmental factors. The section I was most interested in was about the children who are adopted and still develop schizophrenia. It is logical that such a severe and complex mental disorder should have some genetic factors that contribute in being diagnosed with this illness yet researchers still have not found which gene it is to balme. My concern was what if a child is adopted and grew up with warm, loving parents and had lots of friends, in a good home, but still was later diagnosed with this disorder? It makes a little sense that maybe the environment the child grew up in may contribute to decreasing the chances of being diagnosed with schizophrenia. But according to the table in section 15.2, Figure 15.11, it clearly shows that children with schizophrenic mothers who are adopted into nonschizophrenic families still have the same chance as dizygotic twins raised in the same environment to be diagnosed with this mental disorder. I think the nature versus nurture debate may come into play with a situation like this one. Environment may play some role, but an unknown gene has the authority with this complex disorder. I was very intrigued with this information that I needed to know more about it and how is it that a healthy nonschizophrenic environment for adopted children still has no avoidance from this illness. I found an article explaining my questions and more. This in depth article about Schizophrenia explaining several researches about twins, influences from environment, and even shows tables depicting the information found from different studies.

Depression..My Story.

Depression. What causes someone to experience such sadness, helplessness, and unhappiness for periods at a time? Is there a genetic predisposition or does the environment play a role? And what are the treatments for such a mood disorder? So many questions can be asked about this disorder, but one who's experienced it can answer these questions and more.
I was excited to read more about this mood disorder because I can personally relate to this section. I don't want to make this sound like a sob story because it clearly isn't; it was a time in my life that I was not able to avoid and thankfully I was able to get the proper treatment and carry on with my life. This was all an experience in which I learned a lot about myself and I can gladly share my story of defeating this mood disorder.
As mentioned in the text, causes of depression vary from patient to patient. My cause was experiencing a traumatic event which led to the confusion of my sexuality. At the time of the event I had a boyfriend who stood by my side and defended me no matter what. It wasn't until after the event when I started to question myself about my sexuality. I had no idea what was going on with me and why I was having unusual thoughts and doubts about my personal life. I eventually became very depressed and remember thinking to myself that I was never going to be happy again or "normal" as I would call it. I was very sad and cried most days and had little energy to do anything. Weeks later I began to see a psychotherapist in hopes of getting my life back on track. It was my first year in college so I had no dependable friends or family around to lean on. I had spoken to my mom about what I was going through and asked her if she had ever been depressed. She admitted that she has been and that my grandmother also has a history of depression. That is when I knew there had to be a predisposition to this disorder I was experiencing. However, studies show that the environmental factors are bigger precursors to depression rather than genetics itself, which was also proven in my case as well.

Here is a short video in which Dr. Daniel Pine explains the difference between the genetic and the environmental factors that play a role in depression. He also explains, just as the text does, that there is not one gene that can take the blame for this mood disorder but research is being done on finding more ways to cure it.

My therapy lasted a short eight weeks, but during those weeks the psychotherapist performed different cognitive-behavioral techniques to help me conquer my disorder including rational emotive behavioral therapy (REBT). I am glad to say that I was not put on any antidepressants because I first wanted to try my best to see if I can overcome this depression I was going through. I must agree with the text that psychotherapy is the safest and longer lasting treatment than drugs and almost three years after this experience I am glad to say that my thoughts, emotions, and behaviors have changed to make me the person I am today.

I was interested in the electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) as a treatment for depression and was shocked to find that ECT indeed helped to alleviate depressed emotions. I found a video about a woman named Julie who was severely depressed and also had multiple suicide attempts and how no treatment or drugs worked for her, but ECT saved her life.

No amygdala, No fear

What if we had no fear? That we were not scared of anything or anyone. Sounds like an appealing trait to have, but in fact it can be very dangerous to be fearless. Some harmless situations where having no fear would be beneficial include being negatively judged by others, public speaking, and enclosed areas. However, if we had no fear and were in a robbery or in a life and death situation, that is when things can get a little confusing. Normally we would do all that we can to save ourselves and others, but for those people who have damage to their amygdala, show no fear in these types of situations.
I'm sure we all know the responsibilities of the almond shaped structure in our brains known as the amygdala. It's functions include emotional processing and responses, especially in fear and anxiety. If there is damage to the amygdala that person loses all emotional process and response to different stimuli. The amygdala also has an emotional storage or memory that helps us remember what we are afraid of and what makes us happy. So what happens if there is damage to the amygdala? Yes, that person will be fearless and will not remember what their own personal fears are. They will also have problems identifying fear in other people's facial expressions.
While reading the section on 'damage to the human amygdala' the text gave a famous example of a woman known as SM who was indeed fearless of everything. She has a genetic disorder known as Urbach-Wiethe disease which eventually wastes the amygdala with accumulating calcium. This disease has other symptoms and characteristics but we are focusing in on the neurological aspect of it.  Here is an article explaining SM's case of this disease and the various situations she was exposed to in testing her amount of fearlessness. 

Narcolepsy

As I was reading section 9.2, the most prominent sleep disorder that seemed most interesting to me was the section about narcolepsy. I have heard about this disorder but wanted to learn more about the way these people suffering from this disorder live. Narcolepsy is a sleep disorder that does not deprive the person of sleep but is the opposite. A narcoleptic experiences an enormous amount of sleepiness during the day accompanied by other dangerous characteristics or symptoms.  This may sound nice to those people who have problems falling asleep or sleeping through the night, but this disorder is worse, and dangerous than it sounds.
A question that ran through my mind while reading this section was how can people always be sleepy or not have energy to stay awake during the day? Is the sleep they get at night not restful enough? I was glad to find more information about my questions which will be discussed shortly. The dangers that are involved in this sleep disorder include sleep paralysis, hallucinations, and cataplexy. Experiencing sleep paralysis is when the patient is literally paralyzed and cannot move at all. Some narcoleptic patients also claim to have auditory and visual hallucinations which vary from each patient. The symptom of cataplexy is when a patient looses all muscle control or experiences muscle weakness while awake. Imagine trying to go about your day and all of a sudden your muscles give out and you fall asleep. That is what Anthony has to go through every day of his life. This CNN video about a narcoleptic boy named Anthony tells his story and explains the symptoms of his case of narcolepsy and how he must make changes that suit his sleep disorder in order to function in daily routines. Although no medication has been found to cure this disorder, scientist have discovered other ways to control the episodes and the disorder itself.

Genetics & Prenatal Influences on Sexual Orientation

As I was reading the section on sexual orientation I was intrigued to learn more because I know many people I can relate this to, including myself. I'm sure everyone has pondered on how people can have a different sexual orientation than the majority of their peers. Is it a choice to be homosexual? What went on during our embryonic development that causes us to be so different from others? I know questions like these have crossed my mind and I was happy to run into more information that clarified some of these unanswered questions. The text gives several different aspects that could have an impact on sexual orientation, however, the two aspects that stood out to me were genetics and the prenatal influences. Is there really a genetic predisposition to homosexuality? I've always heard that stress during pregnancy is in fact a contributor to homosexuality. How true is that statement?
Studies were performed on twins to find out if there was a correlation between genetics and sexual orientation. Researchers found that if one twin was a homosexual and had an identical or monozygotic twin, there is definitely a higher concordance rate than fraternal or dizygotic twins. That seems to be valid since identical twins share the same genetic makeup and same placenta than fraternal twins. Other studies which surprised me were the findings of the men on the maternal side of the family to have a higher incidence of homosexuality than the paternal side.

I found a simple and sweet video which helps support the research conducted on genetics and homosexuality.

To answer my next question about prenatal influences on sexual orientation, the evidence to support that prenatal stress does have an effect on homosexuality in humans is not substantial. Studies have been done on rats where pregnant rats where placed in a stressful situation for a certain amount of time and indeed a male rat that was born to the stressful mother presented homosexual behavior towards other male rats.

I have provided an abstract from a scholarly article supporting the same evidence found in rats and the negative correlation between prenatal stress and homosexuality in humans.

Pain and the Brain

I've always wondered exactly how medications worked to relieve pain. How can taking a pill reduce the pain on my big toe, my head, or my lower stomach during menses? How does the medication know where the pain is coming from and how does it stop from hurting? In order to understand how medications work, we need to understand how pain works and how it correlates to the brain.
Just like the transportation of other messages up to the brain, pain is also taken through axons in order to alert the brain that there is an unpleasant, harmful stimulus somewhere on or in the body. The parts of the brain associated with pain include the thalamus, somatosensory cortex, hypothalamus, amygdala, and the cingulate cortex. These particular parts convey the sensory and emotional aspects of pain.

Here is a great video explaining the physiological process of pain and the phases the pain goes through to get to the brain.

Another interesting fact I found during the reading was that our very own brain has a particular transmitter to relieve pain naturally. Our brains contain a transmitter known as endorphins, which attach to the same receptors as morphine does. The different types of endorphins help relieve different types of  pain naturally. This is a five minute video explaining how drugs were used during combat to reduce stress and pain and later showing how endorphins were founded. The animation of endorphins and drugs in the synapse clarifies the amazing similarity between the two.

Lastly, to answer my questions that I had always pondered on, how do medications work? Now that I know how pain is perceived in the brain and the electrical and chemical processes, I know that the medication must bind to the receptor where pain is being transmitted and blocking the synapse from further pain signals.

Emotional Difference Between Men and Women

As I was reading page 361, I was fascinated by the finding that the right hemisphere is more responsive to emotional stimuli than the left brain. I was also interested in the changes that happen to someone after damage to the right temporal cortex such as unable to identify emotional expressions. Damage to this part of the brain sounds devastating not being able to feel different emotions or to differentiate between emotions. Reading this information made me think out of the box a bit. Everyone knows that women are more emotional than men, so I decided to look into that and see what are some of the differences that support the fact that there is indeed an emotional difference between men and women. Are women's right brains bigger than that of men? Is there a chemical difference between the brains of men and women?  Or do they use different parts of the brain to help establish a variety of emotions? I searched through several different articles  to gather information on the many differences between the gender brains.
Since there is a difference between male and female brains chemically, hormonally, and physiologically, this will determine why men and women think, behave, and feel differently. Men do have a larger brain mass than women considering their difference in body structures. Men also have more grey matter than women and women have more white matter than men. This means that since women's brains are smaller and use more white matter, the cells are much closer together and are able to make faster connections compared to the grey matter used in the larger male brain. This is important in determining facial expressions. Women are better and differentiating the difference between a mad and sad face rather than men having a little more trouble separating the two facial emotions. Another important difference I found was that the limbic system, associated with feeling emotions, is smaller in males and larger in females. This would have a lot to do with the difference in emotions between the genders.
I found an interesting article explaining five differences between male and female emotional brains. Although the article makes reference to buying a house, you are able to get the gist of how the gender brains differ from one another in a variety of aspects of life emotionally.

Effects Without a Corpus Callosum

In this week's reading I was really interested in how people without a corpus callosum would be able to make all of the same connections to the two different hemispheres as people with their corpus callosum.  We all know that the corpus callosum in our brain is composed of nerve fibers in between the left and right hemispheres transferring information to either side. What would happen if there was no connector between the hemispheres? Would they even be able to make connections? How would the left side of the brain communicate with the right side without something in between the two? This was amazing to read that even though people who were born without a corpus callosum were slower and less accurate on tasks, although, they have some advantages as opposed to the split-brain people, or people who had surgery to their corpus callosum. This dangerous procedure has been helpful for those who experience epileptic seizures.
 One example between split-brain patients and people with no corpus callosum is that split-brain patients cannot verbally describe what they feel since speech is mainly on the left hemisphere and the patient is looking in the left visual field but the information is coming from the right hemisphere. They are unable to make the connections with visual and verbal stimuli because the corpus callosum cannot transfer information across to the opposite hemisphere.
Another interesting fact about people born without a corpus callosum is that their brain learns to make other means of communication. For instance, commissures, or connectors, that are in the brain become larger so that those without a corpus callosum can have some type of communication between the two hemispheres. By doing so, this somewhat makes up for the loss of a corpus callosum.

This video of a split-brain patient named Joe, proves clearly that the right and left hemisphere have difficulties communicating with one anther. Dr. Gazzaniga explains why and how this occurs.

Effects of Cannabinoids on Stroke Damage

There are two types of strokes; ischemia and hemorrhage. The more common stroke is the ischemia which is an obstruction of a blood clot in an artery. Hemorrhage stroke is when an artery completely ruptures. There are many problems that come along with having a stroke such as edema, neurons dying, and an impaired sodium-potassium pump.
One of the main issues with ischemia stroke is the excess amount of the transmitter glutamate. Releasing a large amount of glutamate causes brain cells to die. There have been several studies as to how to prevent more damage to the brain after a stroke has occurred.
One study involves a famous plant, cannabis, to be a candidate to help alleviate pain, inflammation, and to stop the flow of glutamate after an ischemia stroke. Since us humans, and animals, indeed have a receptor for the only active compound, out of ten compounds found in cannabis, known as tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) there is a possibility that this plant can help in some way to dissolve the pain or pressure after a stroke. It has been found in laboratory animals that cannabinoids do alter brain activity and can protect against damage. I really do not see a difference on how it can affect humans just as it affects these lab animals.
The article I found about the role of cannabinoids after an ischemia stroke goes more into detail on how exactly the compounds of this plant work together with the brain receptors and the various positive outcomes that may follow.

Addiction

I was personally fascinated with the Addiction section in module 3.3. Why do or how can people become addicted to such drugs or habits? The text explains that each individual builds a tolerance to the dangerous or disadvantageous activity that makes a person crave more and act on their craving. Researchers explain that people create an addiction as a way to deal with stress. The addiction may take over one’s life therefore causing that person to not have a reaction to a positive stimuli as a non-addict would. The drug one takes or the habit one has releases the “feel good” chemical, dopamine, in the brain released by the nucleus accumbens. When a large amount of dopamine is present between different neurons, the excess amount stays in the synaptic cleft which is between the presynaptic neuron and the postsynaptic neuron. The video provided by Dr. Benham indeed gave a great visual of how addictive drugs affect the neurons in the brain.

Along with having a tolerance to certain drugs or activities such as video game playing, there come consequences including withdrawal symptoms when one decides to quit. These symptoms vary widely according to the type of drug used over time and the amount used during that time. It has been said that addiction is built up to avoid these withdrawal symptoms but that cannot explain the reason why people actually do become addicted to drugs. 

I was very interested how people can get cravings in response to different cues. For example when an ex-smoker sees or smells a lit cigarette, they will remember the effects it gave them and crave that feeling of smoking once again. Cues also have a lot to deal with the place the drug was used, and remembering the feeling it gave off when on that drug. 

This fun video I found explains the functions of dopamine and serotonin in the brain and how addiction is developed. 

Glia

I was very interested in the section of the text where it talked about the cells of the nervous system; especially the glial cells. The first thing that caught my attention was that there are many more glial cells than neurons in the brain. The video about glial cells or "genius cells" provided by Professor Benham, was very interesting how he explained the connection between glia cells and intelligence. The glia or neuroglia are what hold the neurons together. In the video, the neuroscientist explained that Einstein did not have more cells or neurons in his brain which made him more intelligent, but he did have more glia or glue holding neurons together than most people.
Another surprising fact that I found interesting was the different types of glial cells and their different functions. The astrocytes synchronize the activity of the axon which helps with sending messages. The microglia functions similarly to the immune system fighting off unwanted viruses and fungi. The oligodendrocytes work with the Schwann cells to create the myelin sheaths that surround the axon. The most interesting type of glia to me was the radial glial cells developing during the embryonic period and then forms into the oligodendrocytes and astrocytes later on in life. All of these types of glia have special functions, but all work together, that are vital to our nervous system.
I was intrigued by the difference between glial cells and neurons. As mentioned above, there are far more glial cells than neurons, however, the glial cells are much smaller than the neurons. The neurons are responsible for receiving messages and the glia protect and support the functions of neurons. It's interesting to read or hear how neurons communicate through electrical impulses but glial cells do not use electrodes to communicate with one another or with neurons.

I found a video where Neuroscientist Dr. Douglas Fields explains how there has not been much research done to figure everything out about the glia in our brain. However, I did like how he explains some differences between neurons and glia and how recent studies do show the connection between the two.

Comparisons of Men and Women

I chose this topic of comparing the intellect of men and women because several things stood out to me that caught my attention. I was surprised to learn that even though men do have a larger brain than women do, about ten percent larger, the intelligence quotient or IQ between them is relatively the same. However, there are way more differences that exist between the sexes such as social cognition, emotional stimuli, and many behavioral and biological differences. What I found most interesting was the actual physiology of the brain, the gray and white matter. The book explains that both male and female brains have about the same amount of neurons or gray matter but they are organized differently.  My question is how much of a difference is there in organization between the brain of men and women? If they can accomplish the same tasks and is structured the same as well, what kind of physiological difference causes the way that these human brains function and categorize things. 

This video kind of gave me a visual as to how the brains of men and women are organized differently. Mark Gungor explains how mens' brains are made up of "boxes" and everything is kept separate and the brain of the women is all connected by "wires". This is how women can remember most things and care about things that men would not care about or remember.