dreams!

Recently we watched a video discussing dreams. This video discussed the stages of sleep such as rem, stage 1, 2, 3 and 4. It all discussed the purpose of nightmares.                                                                                              The brain is capable of storing important memories from our ancestors, a ability known as genetic memory. It is in this strange and profound function of the brain that nightmares arrive. The purpose of nightmares, though is unknown but it is currently accepted that it is in nightmares that we gain the ability to practice dangerous situations, so that perhaps if they ever occurred in real life we would be ready to face them. However some strange issues are addressed, such as why children dream of monsters and wolves instead of normal problems children should face, this is due to the brain being young and unadjusted just yet. As people grow older, they begin to experience more appriate nightmares such as losing their keys, getting F’s on tests and such concerns. It also addresses the ability of dreaming to solve problems.                                                                                                                                                                          It shows an experiment which involves a video game, of skiing. A boy is only sub-par at the game, but after he goes to sleep and dreams about it he’s found that he is much more skilled at it then he was before, therefore showing a normal example of skill increasing due to dreams.   

isolation

Recently in class we watched a video describing the effects of social isolation, and mental isolation, which is basically when someone is left totally alone and complelty with out an activity to entertain themselves, so without mental stimulation. This controversial test is simply to test the effects on the brain, and the theory was that the brain’s abilities would be slowed after prolonged periods of no stimulation. This was due to the study which showed that the brain can lose unused connections in order to run more effectively and spend less energy, by narrowing the pathways.                                                                                                                        Six ordinary people were choosen to particate in this experiment in which they are taken to an underground nuclear bunker where they are depreived of mental stimulation, locked in a dark room with nothing to do for two days a full forty eight hours. They were tested before hand to see their memory, information processing, and succesptiably, which is basically their ability to resist the urge to change their minds from their own view points. After the experiment they were tested again to shocking results: the women were unaffected in succesptiably while the men were much more succesptiable. This helps prove that it was a successful torture tool, due to it being able to cause men to change opions much easier. It also showed that the effects of isolation can be really bad for our brain and mental abilities.   

Definitons

1. Synesthesia stimulation causes reaction of a sense typically associated with another sense

2. grapheme-color synesthesia: perceiving a certain color when seeing a letter word or number

3. ordinal-linguistic personification the involuntary and automatic tendency in certain individuals to attribute animate-like qualities  

4. number-form synesthesia: Numbers months and years have a defined shape.

5. sound-color synesthesia: Color as a response to a certain sound

6. lexical-gustatory synesthesia: Words have taste.

Genius, Savant, and Autism

1: A savant is effectively a genius with a severe mental disability which effectively cancels out his potential for growth. Savant's typically have a remarkable mental ability and a equally remarkable mental disability which makes them somehow unable to function in normal society. http://www.wisconsinmedicalsociety.org/savant_syndrome/
2: A genius is a staggering natural intellect often in math, science, music, creative arts. The most crictal difference between a genius and savant is the mental disability, which often cancels out the potential of the savant, as well as a savant normally can't learn truthfully, their mental ability's potential is cancelled out by the staggering disorders they have. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/genius
3: A stroke is when the brain is deprived of blood and oxygen which causes brain cells to die. It affects the brain in many ways, capable of causing effective rewiring, unleashing inate savant like abilities and permant mental defects such as inability to speak, loss of mental ability, inabiltiy to understand langauges http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/stroke/DS00150
4: It is a process by which using magnetic pulses and observing brain activty that the area's of the brain which activity increase by certain thought processes the brain can effectively be mapped out. This increases our understanding of brain activity by showing us which brain area's are on when we think about certain things in certain ways. http://www.fmri.org/fmri.htm
5: The corpus Callosum is the organ in the brain which connects right and left hemispheres. It allows information to go through both parts of the brain and allows for the information to be fully processed. http://www.macalester.edu/psychology/whathap/ubnrp/split_brain/Corpus%20Callosum.html
6: A condition of the nervous system which causes involutary physical actions such as twitching and seizures. These are caused by misfires of the brain electrical system.Since its caused by brain malfunctions it negatively affects the brain. http://kidshealth.org/teen/diseases_conditions/brain_nervous/epilepsy.html#
7: Autism is a neurological disorder. It causes social impairment, stero typed behavior, loss of sense of reality, and communication difficulties. Although its not uncommon for autistic childern to actually be brillant when fully aware of their surrondings. http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/autism/detail_autism.htm
8: A variet of Autism in which social isolation and ecentric behavior are common. Also it causes impairments in non-verbal and verbal communication causing even more social isolation. It also causes unique often not age apporiate interests and clumminess creating social pariahs. http://www.aspergers.com/aspclin.htm