Stress

Have you ever found yourself with sweaty hands on a first date or felt your heart pound during a scary movie? Then you know you can feel stress in both your mind and body.

This automatic response developed in our ancient ancestors as a way to protect them from predators and other threats. Faced with danger, the body kicks into gear, flooding the body with hormones that elevate your heart rate, increase your blood pressure, boost your energy and prepare you to deal with the problem. These days, you're not likely to face the threat of being eaten. But you probably do confront multiple challenges every day, such as meeting deadlines, paying bills and juggling childcare that make your body react the same way. As a result, your body's natural alarm system the “fight or flight” response, may be stuck in the on position. And that can have serious side effects on your health.

When stress starts interfering with your ability to live a normal life for an extended period, it becomes even more dangerous. The longer the stress lasts, the worse it is for both your mind and body. You might feel fatigued, unable to concentrate or irritable for no good reason, for example. But chronic stress causes wear and tear on your body, too. Reducing your stress can not only help in the present moment but in the long run as far as your health goes.

Pain Free

Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could live life without pain? To someone us it would seem like it would be the perfect life, but is it what its really all what it’s cracked up to be? Congenital analgesia is the disorder of not being able to feel pain, I think a lot of athletes would love to have this disorder. They wouldn't feel any pain or miss any competitions. But is it healthy? With this disorder some are not able to feel pain but the body is still injured whether we feel it or not.

This picture is an example of a sport injury it is obvious that something is terribly wrong and he much seek medical attention immediately. What about the injuries that aren't visible to the naked eye?

Concussions are serious and cannot be seen, if we couldn't feel the impact of our brain hitting our skull we probably wouldn't be able to tell if someone has suffered from a concussion until the signs showed and it was too late because they stayed in the game receiving blow after blow to the brain leaving the person receiving the concussion with mental disorders. The fact that we would love to go through life pain free, pain can actually help us live even longer. Pain helps us stay away from danger or from doing certain things that may cause injury or death. So when you think about it would you still want to live your life pain free? With only one pro I can think of which is the loss of feeling actual pain sensations there are too many cons to go through life with the congenital analgesia disorder.

Memory

the things you don't like? I think it's absolutely fascinating how we can use our memory to our convenience at times. Sometimes you honestly forget you have homework just because it's not the most exciting thing while you might remember you have a football game to go to during the week because that happens to be one of your favorite sports.
As you sit and read this, do you remember what you ate for dinner a couple days ago or the color of underwear you wore? I don't. But imagine you were able to recall every single memory, like the first time you spoke and your mom's reaction... that would be crazy, wouldn't it?

Now what if one day you wake up and you suddenly can't remember your mom's name? That's pretty scary but unfortunately it's possible. Alzheimer's disease is serious and deadly - the sixth leading cause of death in the United States. Alzheimer's progresses over time and has no cure, it eventually takes over individuals lives as it affects their memory, thinking, and behavior.
The most common early symptom of Alzheimer's is difficulty remembering newly learned information because Alzheimer's changes typically begin in the part of the brain that affects learning. As Alzheimer's advances through the brain it leads to increasingly severe symptoms, including disorientation, mood and behavior changes; deepening confusion about events, time and place; unfounded suspicions about family, friends and professional caregivers; more serious memory loss and behavior changes; and difficulty speaking, swallowing and walking.

I think most people take for granted their ability to learn and remember things but the fact that it can eventually diminish and leave you helpless is beyond awful. Just imagine now not ever being able to remember that football was your favorite sport or that you even ate dinner, disturbing but not as disturbing as not being able to live a normal life ever again. we take our memory for granted, we only store what we think is more important but actually everything is important when it comes to memory.

Living With Half a Brian

As absurd as this may sound, it is possible to have half of your brain removed! I had no idea you could live without a portion of your brain, did you? The operation known as hemispherectomy—where half the brain is removed—sounds too radical to ever consider, much less perform.

Many children that suffer from epilepsy, with an underlying disease such as Rasmussen's encephalitis or Sturge-Weber syndrome suffer from severe, uncontrollable seizures in which a hemisphere becomes damaged. Anatomical hemispherectomies involve the removal of the entire hemisphere, whereas functional hemispherectomies only take out parts of a hemisphere, as well as severing the corpus callosum, the fiber bundle that connects the two halves of the brain. The evacuated cavity is left empty, filling with cerebrospinal fluid in a day or so. Most children that undergo this surgery are well under the age of ten and come out seizure-free from the procedure. The younger the child is when they undergo a hemispherectomy, the less disability they might face later in life. If the left side of the brain is taken out, most people have problems with their speech, but it used to be thought that if you took that side out after age two, you'd never talk again, and that has been proven untrue. Surprisingly research has found that memory and personality develop normally well after the surgery. Some patients even improve academically once their seizures stop. The operation does have its downfall though; You can walk, run—some dance or skip—but you lose use of the hand opposite of the hemisphere that was removed. You have little function in that arm and vision on that side is lost.

This link has a heart-filled video of a little boy who undergoes a hemispherectomy that works to his advantage and allows him to lead a normal, seizure-free life.

Brain development

Every parent wants a kid that will follow their directions to a “T”. Pretty much all children go through the same phases in life. Breaking the rules and testing their limits, is all a part of the brain development. Staying out late, not cleaning your room and, speeding. Those are some of the ways children develop their prefrontal cortex.

Children think with their amygdala which is in the temporal region of the brain. This region of the brain thinks with emotions. I’m more than sure all of us at some point have asked ourselves “why do I have to do this or why do I have to do that”? Are you starting to remember asking yourselves these questions? If you do it is because you are starting to develop your prefrontal cortex. The prefrontal cortex is the part of the brain that is for decision making, problem solving, and planning. See adults think mostly with their prefrontal cortex. Which is why adults can reason with other adults and children don’t listen or follow instructions very well. Have you ever seen a kid get up and walk around when they aren’t supposed to or talk when they aren’t supposed to? Well it isn’t their fault they are still developing their prefrontal cortex. They are learning when and when not they are supposed to do certain things. So if you have children of your own or plan on having children don’t be so hard on them when they want to test your waters, they are just practicing their prefrontal cortex mom and dad.

The Chemical in Marijuna

 The chemical known to be found in marijuana is tetrahydrocannabinol.  Even though it is considered to be a drug, it has many benefits. Some of which you might find in the link if you click benefits. Tetrahydrocannabinol is released into the brain and as the brain receive the chemical the brain floods with dopamine giving the person who is in taking THC a feeling of happiness. I think that the correct use of marijuana can be beneficial to everyone who needs it, I understand that it is classified as a drug but it is a lot safer than a lot of prescription drugs. As you will see in the video this man was taking eight pills a day. Those 8 pills a day ruined his kidneys. And he later finds out that Cannabis oil was much more effective and much safer than what his doctors were giving him. If this simple chemical compound is so effective and costs much less that some chemically made up prescription drug, why don’t we use it to cure most of our illnesses without hurting our bodies in some other fashion? It is my opinion that these cures are hidden to either make more money in the medical field if they cure one sickness and create another then that would have to make you go back and see them, which means another payment. If this chemical is regulated it can be very beneficial. These two videos show how many benefit can come from the use of Marijuana.

How Important Are Our Neurons?

How important are neurons and the myelin sheaths that cover parts of the neurons axon? (Neurons and nervous cells) are responsive cells in the nervous system that process and transmit information by electrochemical signaling. They are the core components of the brain, the vertebrate spinal cord, the invertebrate ventral nerve cord, and the peripheral nerves. A number of different types of neurons exist: sensory neurons respond to touch, sound, light and numerous other stimuli affecting cells of the sensory organs that then send signals to the spinal cord and brain. Motor neurons receive signals from the brain and spinal cord and cause muscle contractions and affect glands. Inter-neurons connect neurons to other neurons within the brain and spinal cord. Neurons respond to stimulation, and communicate the presence of stimulation to the central nervous system, which then processes that information and sends responses to other parts of the body for action. Myelin sheaths are wrapped around the axon of the neuron and are important for transmitting information to the brain faster if these are destroyed by Demyelinating diseases of the nervous system it can lead to other diseases such as (metachromatic leukodystrophy, Krabbe's disease). This can be fatal since it can cause muscle weakness, feeding difficulties, episodes of fever without any sign of infection, stiff posture, and slowed mental and physical development. As the disease progresses, muscles continue to weaken, affecting the infant's ability to move, chew, swallow, and breathe. Affected infants also experience vision loss and seizures. So we need neurons to transmit signals to out muscles in order for us to eat on our own and breathe involuntary while we sleep. Neurons are greatly important but so are the Schwann cells and the myelin’s sheaths that cover parts of the neurons axon. Even though the pulse that is passing through the neurons is still transmitted to the brain without the myelin sheath it slows down everything in our response timing which is crucial to our survival. It is sad to say that there is no cure for this disease yet, but relating back to my last blog about animal research. there could be a possibility that we can one day find a cure for this and help those who cannot help themselves.