...Jennifer Robertson December 10, 2013 Bipolar disorder, also known as manic-depressive illness, is a brain disorder that causes unusual shifts in mood, energy, activity levels, and the ability to carry out day-to-day tasks (NIMH). The symptoms of this brain disorder are normally severe. It’s pretty obvious if a person has this illness. The effects of this illness not only affect the body, but it affects relationships, job and normal day to day performance. Fortunately, bipolar disorders can be treated with medication in order to leave a normal lifestyle. Which parts of the brain are believed to be involved in this disorder, and how do these areas of the brain influence the development and behavior of the individual? The main brain areas involved in bipolar disorder include the frontal and temporal lobes of the forebrain, the prefrontal cortex, the basal ganglia and parts of the limbic system. The cerebral cortex is involved in thought processes and it is possible that abnormalities in this part of the forebrain are responsible for the negative thoughts that are associated with the depressive episodes of bipolar disorder. Briefly describe at least one method which has been used to study this disorder (EEG, fMRI, etc.), and what this method involves. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and positron emission tomography (PET) allow researchers to take pictures of the living brain and can detect bipolar disorder. These tools help scientists study the brain's...
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...Disorders of the brain: Mood disorder Tanya Horton Kaplan University PS 124 Mood Disorder The mental disorder that I have chosen to write about is a rather vague area, being mood disorders, that affects “nearly one in ten people aged 18 and older” (MedlinePlus, 2014). Mood disorders “are known to be at least impart genetic, because they are heritable” (Stangor, 2010,. p. 379). “A mood disorder is diagnosed when sadness or elation is overly intense and persistent, is accompanied by a requisite number of other mood disorder symptoms, and significantly impairs the person's capacity to function” (The Merck Manual for health care professionals, 2013). The parts of the brain that are believed to be involved in this certain disorder are the medial prefrontal cortex also known as MPFC, Amygdala, Hippocampus, and ventromedial parts of the basal ganglia. Drevets, Price, and Furey cited that “patients with mood disorders show abnormalities of morphology or morphometry in many visceromotor network structures (Drevets and Price 2005). Depending on the amount of time an individual has had the abnormalalities, they may develop aggressive moods or psychosis. The Hippocampus “is a limbic system brain structure, important in storing information in long term memory” (Stangor, 2010,. p. 73). The limbic system is also associated with a person’s emotions, which affects the mood of the person. The Amygdala, also part of the limbic system, “is responsible for regulating our perception of, and...
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...Chemical addition is worse than a process addiction because it enters the brain and disrupt the hemispheres and its normal process of changing the way the mechanisms within the brain works and known to change behaviors. Drug abuse affects neuronal health, energy, metabolism and maintenance, inflammatory processes, cell membrane turnover, and the neurotransmission. Illegal drugs cause behavioral impairments and intellectual process which relates to drug addiction (NIDA, 2009b). Generally the lure to these chemicals sustain power. Altering various ways of how the drug may be taken. However, long-term abuse of alcohol and illicit drugs affect the brain and most parts of the body leading to an early death. (Licata & Renshaw, 2010). Opposed to a...
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...Biruk Fitru EEG 130 Assignment 1 One of the major brain disorders is Schizophrenia, a very serious mental disorder that is often mistakenly confused with multiple personality disorder. Although, some of the symptoms of multiple personality disorder are very similar to schizophrenia. Unlike, multiple personality disorder, schizophrenia is a psychotic disorder that could be characterized by a variety of positive and negative symptoms like: disorganized behavior of thoughts and emotions, hallucination, and delusion. Schizophrenia is one of the most common mental illnesses. Although, the word “schizophrenia” is less than 100 years old the very first time this disorder was recognized as a mental illness was in 1887 by Dr. Emily Kraepelin....
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...When asked what sparked my interest in the brain, I always have an answer: my brain. I have ADHD, a brain disorder that makes it hard for me to focus. ADHD has made me struggle through high school more than I would have otherwise. Reading takes three times longer than it does for someone without ADHD. Not interrupting people takes incredible willpower. Throughout high school, I have attempted to make the most of my disorder, but that doesn’t mean I’ve accepted it. Determined to excel despite this secret setback, I have strived to find solutions to overcome my ADHD. These solutions have shown up in unexpected places like in my school’s science project requirement, and I decided to take my projects a step further by competing in my county...
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...psychological life ... have as their biological bases the activity of neuronal systems in the brain’ (p.259). Does this mean that psychological life can be reduced to neuronal activity? Illustrate your answer with examples from Chapter 4, ‘Biological psychology’, from Book 1, mapping psychology The case study of Phineas Gage referred as being within the subject of Biological Psychology. As we human beings are a “biological species”, we need to be able to understand our biological make-up, to further study the Physiological field, only once we can fully understand the different part of our bodies, including the brain can we then apply Psychological research methods to study & develop understanding . Science constantly evolves to study and gain understanding, which then can lead to data interpretation methods like Psychological .The Theorist Crick,-: His belief and scientific approach called “Reductionism” (Mapping Psychology, Pg 230) Suggests that “Potentially all psychological events and experiences can fully and only explained in terms of the activity within the components of the brain”. Other Scientists do however argue that there should be a much broader view taken, and other views et should be considered.(Bolton and Hill, 1996, Stevens, 1996: Toates, 2001) These other theorists, and studies are suggested (Mapping Psychology, Pg 230) as having equally possible explanations of how our brains components affect our actions and how we are. Phineas Gage, the study and interpretation...
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...Schizophrenia is a serious brain disorder. It is a disease that makes it extremely difficult for a person to tell the difference between real and unreal experiences, to think logically, to have normal emotional responses to others, and to behave normally in social situations. People with schizophrenia may also have difficulty in talking, remembering and behaving appropriately. Schizophrenia is one of the most common mental illnesses. Schizophrenia is a neurological disorder that affects the cognitive functions of an individual. The cause of this illness to this day is still unknown, but there are several theories of how an individual may get schizophrenia. Because there are so many symptoms of the disease and because the symptoms can vary quite significantly among several individuals and even within the same individual over time, the diagnosis of schizophrenia can be quite difficult. Schizophrenia is sometimes seen as a functional disorder with professionals often referring to it as a sociological phenomenon, meaning patients with schizophrenia are normal people driven insane by the insane world (Gelder, et al., 1989). However, with many years and numerous advances in genetics/brain imaging, molecular biology and neuroscience over the years, evidence has been found for the biological bases underlying schizophrenia. There have been quite a few theories of possible causes. Firstly, a lot of family studies indicate that a proneness to the disorder schizophrenia might be inherited...
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...Provide Important Clues for OCD Disorder Great strides have taken place in the research area of obsessive-compulsive disorder over the past three years, and there is hope that better treatments for humans suffering from this disorder may soon be in place, and it is mice that are providing important clues to what may cause OCD. The key issue behind OCD research is to find treatment and relief for those humans suffering from this debilitating psychiatric condition which affects about two percent of the world’s population. OCD is one of the most common psychiatric disorders in the world. It is marked by persistent intrusive thoughts (the obsession), repetitive actions (the compulsion) and anxiety. Examples include fear of contamination, or that something terrible will happen to a loved one. They also suffer from repetitive rituals (compulsions), which are often designed to neutralise these thoughts. Examples include hand-washing and checking and rechecking things. These symptoms cause distress and can occupy hours during the day, interfering with a person’s quality of life and their ability to work. The severity of OCD varies widely from person to person, and while the neurobiological basis of the disease is unknown, there are indications in past research that genetics plays a role. One of the key studies conducted in the last three years was done by the Duke University Medicine Center who had been conducting basic research on how individual brain cells communicate. While they...
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...is a devastating and progressive neurological disorder that results primarily from degeneration of nerve cells deep in the center of the brain that waste away (PubMed Health, 2011). According to National Institute of Neurological Disorder and Stroke (2010) more than 15,000 Americans suffer from this debilitating disease. Nearly all people who develop Huntington’s disease will die within 10 to 30 years from onset. This disease does not show bias to any sex, ethnicity or race. The pathophysiology of Huntington’s disease is inherited as an autosomal dominant trait with high penetrance (Jarvis, 2008, p.360). The symptoms of Huntington’s disease are abnormal uncontrollable movements and personality changes (Jarvis, 2008, p.360). As the disease progresses so does the severity of the symptoms. It is a genetic disease that is passed on from generation to generation. A person can be genetically tested to determine if you have the gene for this disease. To date there is not a cure for this rare debilitating disease (Medline Plus, 2009). Definition of Disorder Huntington’s disease was named after an American doctor George Huntington in 1872. Before it was named by Doctor Huntington it was called “chorea” which means choreography in Greek. It was named so because people affected by this disease would twist, turn and jerk in uncontrollable movements that others perceived as dancing moves (National Institute of Neurological Disorder and Stroke, 2010). There are two forms of Huntington’s...
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...Schizophrenia Disrupts Brain Development Monica Jones Behavioral Science and Research Method Southern University and A&M College Lionel Jolla, MSW, LMSW – Professor November 18, 2015 Abstract I embarked on this project because I am interested in how schizophrenia affects the brain and what researchers have discovered as far as medicine for this condition. I am looking for a phenomenon that explains why this disorder is destroying brain volume and how this process can be stopped. Schizophrenia is a baffling disorder that reduces brain volume. When and how does schizophrenia begin is one of my concerns. It is hard to figure out when, why and how schizophrenia begins because it can occur as early as the neonate stage of life and as late as the geriatric stage in life. When schizophrenia starts to decrease brain volume, is the brain fully developed is another one of my concerns. Brain volume decreases in schizophrenia patients naturally, but the antipsychotic medication is a contributing factor also. The antipsychotic medication has been known to have adverse side effects on the brain volume. Have researchers found a medication that has a less severe effect on schizophrenia patient’s brain volume, is another question I am interested in finding the answer too. Schizophrenia is an unexplainable disorder that offers no specific answer to how it occurs. In this study I am hoping to find that specific answer to this brain crippling disorder. MRI scans have been the...
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...long term. The effects on the tissues of the body comes more with some of the disorders that effect the tissues of the body that can also cause epilepsy, the main tissues that are affected by these disorders is brain tissue. One example of a disorder that effects brain tissue is Alzheimer's, this disease actually physically changes the brain in its entirety. The tissues of the brain start to break down due to nerve cell damage causing the size of the brain to shrink dramatically affecting almost all of its function. The deeper into the brain with this condition the more there are signs of tissue damage, the cortex shrivels up, the hippocampus shrinks which is the area of the brain that plays a key role in the formation of memories, and ventricles grow larger....
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...Aditi Shankardass Dr. Shankardass studies the brain. She says 1 and 6 children have a developmental disorder. This is a growing problem in the United States. The most important factor is that many of these children are diagnosed only by symptoms and not by analyzing the brain. Dr. Shankardass says, “It seemed so intuitive to me to diagnose and treat a brain disorder accurately it would be necessary to look at the brain directly.” Dr. Shankardass also says, “Looking at behavior alone can miss a vital piece of the puzzle and provide an incomplete or a misleading picture of the child’s problems.” She came across a team at Harvard that took this evidence and came up with a groundbreaking technology. They use an EEG or electric activity in real time allowing them to watch the brain as it performs various functions and detect slight abnormality in any of their functions. Then they use a program called brain electrical activity mapping which triangulates the source of that abnormality in the brain. Then another program is used called statistic probability mapping which performs mathematical calculations to determine if any of these abnormalities are significant allowing them to provide a much more accurate neurological diagnosis. Dr. Shankardass became the head of neurophysiology for the clinical arm of the team and used this technology for helping children with brain disorders. She had a 7yr. old boy named Justin that came to her clinic with severe Autism. Justin’s mind would...
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...Processing Paper Our bodies are an amazing machine that interpret the world we live in using different processing systems. The visual information process is a system used to perceive our environment and send this information to our brain, the processing center of the body. One of the most important and often the initial sense used in perceiving our environment is vision. Vision may be the leading prominent sense we use in perception. Visual Information Processing Visual information processing has a big neural investment in the cortical region of the brain. This is an inherited investment, that has evolved to dedicating fifty percent of the brain to visual processing and has increased the ability to recognize what is seen. (Anderson, 2010) Visual information processing gives us the ability to accurately and instantaneously processes what we see interpret it and store it for later recall. (Diamant, 2008) It helps us in surviving and making decisions based on prior experiences. It assists in the interaction with the environment and decision making in situations. The brain processes then and interprets the visual data in the visual cortex; it is the cognitive skill that receives information from our eyes and cooperatively works with the brain to process what we see into something we understand. In early visual information processing “light passes through the lens and vitreous humor and falls on the retina at the back of the eye.” (Anderson, 2010, p. 34) The retina contains...
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...March 4, 2014 Epilepsy is a series of brain disorders that cause repeated and unpredictable seizures that range from severe, life threatening, disabling or benign (In epilepsy "National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke 2013). The normal pattern of neurology activity becomes disturbed due to brain illness, damage to the brain; abnormal growth and other unknown causes. Some examples that can cause epilepsy are strokes and brain tumors. Most often the onset for this disease is early childhood or early adulthood. The brain is located in the cranial cavity and is surrounded by the meninges, Dura mater, arachnoids, cerebrospinal fluid and ventricles. The brain has four main divisions such as the Cerebrum which is the largest part of the brain that’s divided into the right and left cerebrals. These Cerebrals are the broken down into five lobes which are the frontal, parietal, temporal, occipital lobe and the insula. This is where thoughts, memory and reasoning occur. The diencephalon or interbrain is located between the cerebral hemispheres and the brain stem home of the thalamus and the hypothalamus. The thalamus forms the lateral walls of the third ventricle. The thalamus sorts out sensory impulse. The hypothalamus located midline and inferior to the thalamus and form the floor of the third ventricle. The purpose of the hypothalamus is to maintain homeostasis, controls autonomic nervous system and pituitary gland. The brain stem is located in the anterior region below...
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...different things about the brain and how people's lives can be very affected by different disorders. We have discussed serious mental disorders that people are unwillingly faced with. From people having a simple anxiety disorder to someone suffering with schizophrenia, the brain has the ability to do incredible, yet devastating things. Throughout my experience in the class, it has influenced the ways that I see many different things. I am very lucky not to have a life changing psychological disorder. This has also influenced my possible career path. I feel as if it would be great to work with people that have these serious disorder on hope to help them. Although...
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