...Of all the objects in the universe, the human brain is the most complex and mysterious. Some may even say it is the last frontier in the completion of understanding humans. There are more neurons sitting on your shoulder (100 billion) than there are stars in the Milky Way galaxy. Therefore, it is no surprise that we are only at the tip of the iceberg when it comes to neuroscience, despite rapid advances in recent years. Key questions that remain about this three pound mass is how exactly is information coded in neural connections? How do little spikes of voltage represent what we see, what judgments we make, or our desires for a mate? Another aspect of this brain mystery is storing and retrieving memories or the “theory of Brain Plasticity.”...
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...Expectations and the Fear of Not Being Good Enough In a 2007 study of parental expectation, it was shown that 74.4% of foreign born parents expect their children to seek at least a bachelor’s degree (U.S. Department of Education). Particularly in international families, parents tend to have high hopes for their children. This can often be harmful for the children’s development due to the high amounts of pressure to succeed. Children often develop what is called atelophobia, or the fear of not being good enough or imperfect (Atelophobia Organization). Similar to people with OCD, as described in The Brain That Changes Itself, people with atelophobia have comparable troubles: “the more he thinks about his fear, however, the more he worries” (Doidge 165). Intrigued by this information, I shall be exploring the psychology of high expectations and the fear of not being good enough. Specifically, I intend to relate this to my own fears. In my experience dealing with this type of stress, I have found that my anxiety over the possibility of failure is amplified by the fact that I was diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) at the age of 5. By delving into the psychology of atelophobia and examining unique strategies for coping, I hope to implement a change in my own life. My end goal is to be able to lead a healthier life with less self-detriment and stress while coping with ADHD. Born in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Catharina Reinholz Sabó, my great-grandmother...
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...the class. Personally, I am very interested in the aspect of brain plasticity and what aspects of life and psychology play a crucial role in its activity. For this reason, my big question is “What largely impacts brain plasticity?”. However, before I go further into my research about brain plasticity it is important to define what brain plasticity is. Brain plasticity is the brain's ability to alter its structure and function following an experience or changes in the body (Brain Facts). The changes that occur in the brain due to brain plasticity could involve a growing or shrinking in grey matter, neural...
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...Brain plasticity is is the brain's ability to chain throughout life and reorganize itself by forming brain cells called neurons. The brain's plasticity also pertains to the capacity of the nervous system, and more specifically the brain. In regards to the brain’s plasticity and capacity for repair, there are three natural ways of the brain recovering from brain damage. The three natural ways to recover from brain damage include, collateral sprouting, substitution of function, and neurogenesis. King (2015) describes collateral sprouting, substitution of function, and neurogenesis in detailed examples. Collateral sprouting is described as axons of some neurons next to two damaged cells that grow new branches. Substitution of function is...
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...CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION Background of the Study Structural materials can be categorized in many ways in many different ways. One of the most common is by the nature of their failure. Materials, such as steel, after reaching their elastic limit, deform plastically before failing. Such materials, where reasonably large plastic strains are observed, are broadly categorized as ductile. On the other hand, those materials that exhibit little or no plasticity are in contrast termed brittle. In structural design, ductile materials are usually preferred, because failure is rarely sudden and catastrophic. Once the material has yielded, large observable strains will occur before total collapse of a structure. Steel, the most common primary structural building material, generally behaves in a ductile fashion. However, during the World War II, over 200 steel ships suffered serious brittle fracture, often at relatively low stress levels. It was observed that brittle behavior, in normally ductile materials, almost always occurs in regions of elastic stress concentration, where some constraint exists to prevent plastic stress redistribution (McGuire, 1968) Following these experiences, designers realized that brittle fracture in steel could be avoided by sensible detailing. This is also true of reinforced concrete. Concrete itself, is a brittle composite, but with the addition of reinforcements concrete it behaves in a ductile fashion. In an earthquake-prone areas, where designing for ductility...
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...Theory: Forming process are solid state manufacturing processes involving minimum amount of material wastage and faster production. It does have been one of the common methods in formation of product in multi shape and size. In fact some of casting product will undergoes forming process to achieve more precise shape. In metal forming, transformation to desire shape is done at solid state and usually required high forces. If the temperature is below crystallization temperature, it is called ‘cold work’. Large force is applied such that the material flows and takes the desired shape. These processes are normally used for large scale production rates. It is also generally economical and many cases improve the mechanical properties. Some of the metals forming process are rolling, forging, extrusion, drawing, sheet metal forming and bending. In fabrication of metal dustbin, below process forming process are involved. a. Sheet Metal Cutting -Sheet metal cutting can be done by shearing operation. Shearing is the mechanical cutting of material without the formation of chips or the use of burning or melting. When sheets of metal are to be sheared along a straight line, squaring shears are frequently used. As the upper ram descends, a clamping bar or set of clamping fingers presses the sheet of metal against the machine table to hold firmly in formation. A moving blade then comes down across a fixed blade and shears the metal. On larger shears, the moving blade is often set...
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...Donald Hebb decided at an early age he did not want to be a Physicist like his parents. He had other aspirations, he wanted to write and study. At the age of 33, Hebb received a position at the Montreal Neurological Institute as a research fellow (Olson & Hergenhahn, 2009). The research Hebb conducted ultimately contributed greatly to the modern knowledge of the brain. He discovered, when there is an absence of stimulation the resulting product is the brain has more difficulty in its ability to problem solve and even to concentrate (Olson & Hergenhahn, 2009). The absence causes deterioration in the ability to do things quickly and efficiently, causing extreme difficulty. Hebb has even reported a few people who said they had experienced hallucinations from the absence of stimulation (Olson & Hergenhahn, 2009). Hebb’s research was extremely helpful in the studies of airplane pilots and of truck drivers. Many of these workers had reported having hallucinations while on the job. Hebb discovered the hallucinations were due to the fact they were not experiencing enough mental stimulation to keep their brains alert and active. From the age of 43 until he retired at the age of 68, Hebb worked as a psychology professor at McGill, teaching students about his research and his life work (Olson & Hergenhahn, 2009). Hebb was also quite influential in the advancements of interrogation techniques; his research of sensory deprivation techniques was very beneficial in the realm...
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...The cerebral cortex, also referred to as grey matter, is composed of four sections: frontal, parietal, occipital, temporal lobes. However, the most important section of the brain is the frontal lobe, on the account it is responsible for executive functioning, thinking, planning, personality, and attention. This indicates the worries from the victim’s parents about his ability to go to school and his behavior may be validated. Furthermore, the prefrontal cortex has still not developed fully, so therefore he is still at a sensitive period. According to Sharon et. al, a sensitive period is a time in development during which the brain is particularly responsive to experiences in the form of patterns of activity (2010). The victim’s ability to...
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...The major structures that hormones can do are they promote or inhibit the generation of nerve impulses. They can also have the same molecules that are used in both endocrine system and the nervous system. 4. What are functional and structural plasticity? The functional plasticity is the brain’s ability to shift functions from damaged to undamaged brain areas. This means that if a person is damaged from the brain, stroke, or accident victims relearn speaking, walking, reading etc. again. The structural plasticity is the brain’s ability to change its physical structure in response to learning, active practice, or environment influences. (Hockenbury, 63). 5. What is neurogenesis, and what is the evidence for its occurrence in the adult human brain? Neurogenesis is the development of new neurons. The evidence that this occurs in adult human brains started with Peter Eriksson, Fred Gage, and their colleagues. After conducting an experiment on five cancer patients where they give them a drug that is used to determine if cancer cells are spreading. After several hours when the patients had died, they did determine that they each had hundreds of new...
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...courage to try the product. Consequently, children are known to be first learners because their brains undergo critical periods. Moreover, researchers have discovered that this drug, which was also based on the movie "Limitless" can revert the brain of an adult to these periods, by making it more elastic thus giving it ability to learn more rapidly. The pill boosts chemicals that are found in low concentration in the brain of an adult...
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...According to Eriksson, Vogel, Lansner, Bergstrom and Nyberg, working memory requires most regions of the brain and is truly dependent on what information is going to be maintained. Many studies have established the Prefrontal Cortex (PFC) as a critical area for working memory, but the breakdown of its organization is unclear. It is certain that the left ventral PFC is for verbal working memory tasks and the right dorsal PFC is for spatial working memory tasks; as concluded by Nee. Nee carried out a meta-analysis of thirty-six experiments and illustrated exactly where these regions are located to eliminate confusion. Other highlighted regions involved in working memory include the superior parietal cortex, for selective attention, and the Medial Temporal Lobe (MTL), needed when working memory capacity is reached. The superior parietal cortex was studied by Awh (2006) and concluded how attention...
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...e i nf o a b s t r a c t Article history: Received 6 November 2012 Received in revised form 14 June 2013 Accepted 15 June 2013 Available online 24 June 2013 Memory systems research has typically described the different types of long-term memory in the brain as either declarative versus non-declarative or implicit versus explicit. These descriptions reflect the difference between declarative, conscious, and explicit memory that is dependent on the medial temporal lobe (MTL) memory system, and all other expressions of learning and memory. The other type of memory is generally defined by an absence: either the lack of dependence on the MTL memory system (nondeclarative) or the lack of conscious awareness of the information acquired (implicit). However, definition by absence is inherently underspecified and leaves open questions of how this type of memory operates, its neural basis, and how it differs from explicit, declarative memory. Drawing on a variety of studies of implicit learning that have attempted to identify the neural correlates of implicit learning using functional neuroimaging and neuropsychology, a theory of implicit memory is presented that describes it as a form of general plasticity within processing networks that adaptively improve function via experience. Under this model, implicit memory will not appear as a single, coherent, alternative memory system but will instead be manifested as a principle of improvement from experience...
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...Duman and Li (2012) describe findings of reduced limbic brain structures in brains of depressed patients in particular a reduction in mass of the hippocampus and PFC. They also described preclinical studies which found participants who were exposed to stress regularly, in the hippocampus and PFC of their brains there was evidence of neuronal atrophy as well as loss of glial cells and neuronal cells seem to contribute to mood disorders such as MDD. Duman and Li (2012) highlighted that brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) is one of the most studied neurotrophic factors and rodent models have found a correlation between various types of stress and a reduction in BDNF in the PFC and hippocampus. Duman and Li (2012) explained these findings had also been observed in the post-mortem studies of depressed human participants and further went on to explain that with antidepressant treatment such as SSRIs and SNRIs, BDNF had been observed to increase in expression in the before mentioned areas. Duman and Li (2012) reiterate...
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...a. Throughout sleep in an average brain, deep sleep is the first thing that we notice in the first half of the of the sleep cycle. After deep sleep occurs, we enter the second half of the sleep cycle and this is where REM sleep begins to occur. After about twenty minutes into stage four of the sleep cycle, you would begin to go back into the initial stages and then back into REM sleep. For abut every hour and a half, the sleep cycle would repeat through these stages. However, there are some changes that do occur. By the time you wake up, you would have spent around twenty-five percent of the night in REM sleep. The younger the person is, the more sleep they gain versus the elderly. Also, those who are younger tend to spend a lot of time resting...
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...Synaptic plasticity is mediated in part by postsynaptic changes that include the amount of receptors that bind neurotransmitter, types of receptors themselves, and the function of the receptors in position (Kessels and Malinow, 2009). Experience-dependent behavioral formation is expressed as the result of the change in receptor structure and function, thereby allowing synaptic strength to be altered in the brain regions controlling certain behavior types. The generation of appropriate behaviors in response to environmental signals requires communication between various brain regions. Communication between the prefrontal cortex (PFC), striatum, hippocampus, and the amygdala is important in appropriate choice of action (Figure 1). The PFC...
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