... For my creative project I decided on the Knee Jerk Reflex Arc. One of the main reasons I decided to pick this topic is because cell and neuron signaling has been a hard subject for me to truly understand. Being able to study more on the subject and applying it in a creative way has really done wonders for me. First off, why do we test the knee jerk/patellar reflex? One of the main reasons is so doctors can rule out disorders such as muscular dystrophy and/ or Central Nervous System damage. Once a doctor taps your patellar tendon with a reflex hammer it sends your lower leg forward, and drops back down swiftly. If the lower leg does not respond or moves excessively, then there is some form of CNS damage or a disorder. So how does this really work, if your brain does not half to tell your lower leg to jerk up when the tendon is hit? It is basically because of your Afferent and Efferent neurons. Once your patellar tendon is stretched. It is then detected by the muscle spindles in your quadriceps muscle. The muscle spindles stimulate the sensory neurons, which travels to the spinal cord. This is where the sensory neurons synapse with the motor neurons causing the contraction of the quadriceps muscle. Which in return creates the movement of the lower leg to jerk up. Even though the patellar reflex is a monosynaptic reflex, which means it has a direct connection with sensory and motor neurons. No interneurons between them once meet in the CNS. But there is actually...
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...Lecture 12: Neurophysiology 1 Summarize the three basic functions of the nervous system Sensory: detects events and changes in existing conditions, either outside our bodies or inside our bodies Integration, interpretation, information storage, decision making: integrate, interpret and store sensory info to decide whether action should be taken, and to determine what that action should be Motor: sends commands to muscle and glands, instructing them to take appropriate actions: this is called motor activity Draw a diagram that shows the basic divisions of the nervous system In addition to astrocytes, name three other types of neuroglia cells and describe the functions that have been suggested for them Oligodendrocyte: give support to neurons by arranging themselves in rows along nerve fibers. They also produce a phospholipid myelin sheath around axons of neurons in the central nervous system Microglia: small cells with few processes. Seem to be the brain’s macrophages - they phagocytize bacteria and cellular debris, and can migrate into an area of damaged nerves tissue. They play a housekeeping role, and eat up neurons that may have been damaged or killed by disease, trauma, etc. Ependyma: Cuboidal or columnar in shape and may have cilia. Form a continuous epithelial limning for the ventricles of the brain and the central canal of the spinal cord Describe all the possible functions of astrocytes important in the uptake of glucose from the capillaries...
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...Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor had an amazing experience that most people do not get to tell after the fact. Especially because she is a neuroanatomist who knew what was happening and what parts of the brain were being affected. This book is informational on many different levels and to many different types of people. This book can warn people about the signs of when someone is having a stroke. This information could save many lives if someone were to read this book and realize they were having a stroke soon enough to call for help. It can be helpful for the treatment of stroke victims, average people looking to gain insight on life and how to better themselves, and to many professionals who know all of the science behind a stroke, but do not know what it is like to have one. In her earlier chapters, she explained her “experience” of having a stroke. She woke up to a normal morning, except for the fact that she had a sharp pain behind her left eye. Then, after she exercised to try and make the pain go away, she describes the feeling she got as “dissociation” or being detached from reality. On her way to get in the shower, her movements were not fluid. The point where Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor realized that she was having some neurological malfunction was when she turned her bathtub faucet on and the sound of the water was over-amplified. She was having issues with her coordination, equilibrium, and auditory system. In the midst of all of this, she described a feeling of euphoria and deep...
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...Sam Harris on Free Will Convince that free will is an illusion Worse than an illusion- a totally incoherent idea Impossible to describe a universe in which it could be true Two Assumptions: Each of us was free to behave differently than we did in the past Example: I could have chosen chocolate ice-cream but I chose vanilla We are the conscious source of our thoughts and actions The experience of wanting to do something is in fact the proximate cause of action Example: I feel that I want to move and then I move Both assumptions are false We live in a world of cause and effect No way of thinking of cause and effect that allows the affirmation of free wills assumptions Either our wills are determined by a long chain of prior causes And we are not responsible for them Or they are the product of chance And we are not responsible for them Or they are some combination of determinism and chance No combination allows us free will Example: Murderer As sickening as I might find the persons behavior, I have to admit if I were to trade places with him, atom for atom, I would be him. There is no extra part of me that could resist the impulse to victimize innocent people. Nobody picks the life influences which shape the development of their nervous system You are no more responsible for the micro structure of your brain than you are for your height The role of luck appears decisive Imagine the murderer was found to have a tumor in the place...
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...Utilization of Continuous Electroencephalography in the Intensive Care Unit TCP1 – Task 2 – Research Paper Patients are admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) of a hospital for a myriad of disease and injury conditions. Critically ill patients often present with a specific serious health issue that needs to be addressed, however, can often evolve to include secondary problems. Secondary cardiac issues develop from a long list of unrelated heart conditions, and as such, all ICU patients today are placed on bedside electrocardiogram (EKG) monitoring. Years of research, advancements in technology, and international implementation of the service has led to bedside EKG being the standard of care for all ICU patients, regardless of the primary diagnosis. The heart is not the only organ that can often have secondary issues. For decades physicians have tracked and noted secondary neurologic changes in their critically ill patients, but lacked research-based evidence on what caused the neurologic change onset, and how best to monitor and watch for those changes. Over the past two decades, a lot of research has been conducted looking into this specific issue. Research now suggests that the use of continuous electroencephalography (cEEG) for patient populations in the ICU is an effective, affordable, valuable, and prognostic diagnostic tool to evaluate cerebral function, detection of epileptic activity, and to monitor neurologic changes. Electroencephalography (EEG) is...
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...virtual reality source to act as his/her own body movement, not only as the static but also dynamic visual features which is for decision making purposes. A much needed technology in the field of medicine. Throughout the last decade, the researches of the visual perception were going hand in hand with the study of the agreement between sight and motorial acts of a subject. Ask yourself, can a virtual reality experimental technology display emotions like a physical human being can? This technology lacks several essentials such as practical intellect and emotional intellect; complex problems without any solutions. Nowadays the research of perception and bodily movement acts have increased in number of the experimental data in the field of neurophysiology, cognitive neuroscience and psychophysics. This proves that these behavior patterns are closely connected. There are two methods to human’s process information and these methods are ventral and dorsal. This technology has evolved to the point where electronics can be programmed with cognitive response. This may very well excel 20 years from now. At the rate modernized technology is going. Technology that has cognitive response that can replicate the human static and dynamic visual feature for decision making purposes. 20 years from now I believe the human race will seize to exist should technology supersede the virtual reality world. Then we may have a perceptive reality at hand. In conclusion technologies of virtual reality in psychology...
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...Individual Programmatic Assessment University of Phoenix PSYCH / 630 Individual Programmatic Assessment: Bulimia Nervosa Introduction Psychological disorders occur frequently. A common psychological disorder, selected, is bulimia nervosa. Bulimia nervosa has several therapeutic interventions that can help when treating the disorder. Therapeutic interventions can be helpful, but have different measures of effectiveness. The measures of effectiveness consist of validity, efficacy, symptom, behavior management, and recidivism. These measures should be identified, prior to deciding which therapeutic interventions can be most helpful to the individuals, diagnosed with the psychological disorder. Many common symptoms are associated with bulimia nervosa. Rates of symptom reduction or management have been reported with the three treatments. Furthermore, the neurophysiological underpinnings of diseases and disorders have to be identified, along with the contemporary attitudes towards the three treatments chosen. Psychological Disorder: Bulimia Nervosa Bulimia nervosa is known as an eating disorder. This eating disorder brings about the effects of bingeing and purging. People, suffering from bulimia nervosa, frequently eat a lot of food at one time. A short period after eating the food, the person, then, attempts to remove the food from his or her system by vomiting, through medication that creates bowl movements, or by working out. Working out would lead them to throwing...
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...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 space out a lot and Doctors told his parents that he was never going to be able to communicate or interact socially and he may never develop too much language. Dr. Shankardass used this technology on Justin. Come to find out Justin didn’t have Autism at all but he did have brain seizures which she put him on medicine for. Within 60 days of being on this medicine his vocabulary went from 3...
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...University of Phoenix Material Biological Psychology Worksheet Answer the following questions in short-essay format. Be prepared to discuss your answers. 1. What is biological psychology? Biological psychology, also known as “biopsychology is the scientific study of the biology of behavior” (Pinel, 2009). Biological psychology covers how a person may act if they are suffering from another problem that could possibly be psychological. The human brain has several different sections that if one is not working properly it could cause several changes in a person’s behavior. This subject compares and contrast’s the between humans and non-human brain’s and behaviors. Biopsychology is still a very new compared to several other areas of psychology, but it is developing quickly. 2. What is the historical development of biological psychology? Pinel (2009) stated, “Biological psychology was not developed until the 20th century into a major neuroscientific discipline”. In 1949 D.O.Hebb published a book titled “The Organization of Behavior”, this is what helped open the eyes of many to the idea of biopsychology. Hebb’s theories on how the brain’s activities could be related to several different complex psychological phenomena’s (Pinel, 2009). 3. Name one to three important theorists associated with biological psychology. I believe that one of the most important theorists associated with biological psychology would have...
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...Annotated Bibliography Ko, M. S., Lee, J. A., Kang, S. Y., & Jeon, H. S. (2014). Effect of Adeli suit treatment on gait in a child with cerebral palsy: a single-subject report. Physiotherapy theory and practice, 31(4), 275-282. The authors of this research study are registered physical therapists, and three of the authors, Lee, Kang, and Jeon, have received higher-level degrees. Also, the study is published in the International Journal of Physiotherapy, which prints reputable peer-reviewed research articles. The main purpose of this study is clearly stated at the beginning, which reads, “the purpose of this study is to investigate the long-term effect of Adeli suit treatment in a child with cerebral palsy”. Therefore, the experimenters analyzed...
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...Lec. 14 Notes Neurophysiology III Introduction: Sensory neurons provide our bodies with information from our surrounding environment. Specialized sensory neurons include: 1. Nerve cells-photoreceptors of the eye/hair cells-olfactory cells of the nose. 2. Nerve endings –naked endings and respond to pain or encapsulated in pacinian corpuscle. 3. Epithelial cells-taste cells on the tongue> these are non-neuronal!! Somatic Senses vs. -involve receptors in the skin, muscles, tendons, joints, and visceral organs. Special Senses -The five senses (details about these later). 1. Exteroceptive senses=changes on the body surface from light, pressure etc. 2. Proprioceptive senses = have to do with the body’s position as well as it’s movement Ex. muscle length/tension, equilibrium etc. 3. Visceroceptive/interoceptive senses=changes in the body’s internal environment. Ex. Blood pressure Types of Stimulus: *Photoreceptors> light *Chemoreceptors>chemicals Ex. Changes in pH, metabolite concentrations etc. *Mechanoreceptors>respond when deformed by mechanical forces. Receptors for sound and balance in the ear also involved with these. *Thermoreceptors> warmth/cold *Nociceptors>pain receptors. Specifically, tissue damage provides stimulus. Definitions: Transduction= the receptor in a cell converts some of the stimulus energy into an electrical signal that provides information for the nervous system. Threshold=minimal level of excitement required for a nerve...
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...The Role of Chance in Science “Chance” in science is a relatively common occurrence. Similar to life, scientists cannot ever be certain on results or outcomes that their experiments may bring. Scientists could be attempting to find specific results and part of the experimental process could actually lead to more answers. The article, “Discovery, Chance and the Scientific Method”, by Fran Slowiczek and Pamela Peters provides several examples that prove the same point. For example, if Luigi Galvani had not have noticed the frog legs jerking when the metals touched, the study of “neurophysiology and clinical neurology” wouldn’t have come to be known in 1791. Even though he did not identify the importance of the two metals, the observations he made eventually led to other discoveries like circuitry. Slowiczek and Peters wrote, “to have meaning, every observation or discovery must fit into a pre-existing pattern of ideas in the observer’s mind. Just as a word means little out of context, a new observation or discovery needs a proper context in which to fit in order to be most meaningful.” So an experiment or experimental mindset is needed to watch for possible “leads.” If you are not thinking about possibilities that occur from different steps in any experiment, you are not likely to make those “chance discoveries.” Your odds of a “chance discovery” also increase when you are well educated on what to look for or something that might be suspicious during an experiment...
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...and six younger siblings. When he was four or five – he wasn't sure – the family moved to Vienna, where he lived most of his life. A brilliant child, always at the head of his class, he went to medical school, one of the few viable options for a bright Jewish boy in Vienna those days. There, he became involved in research under the direction of a physiology professor named Ernst Brücke. Brücke believed in what was then a popular, if radical, notion, which we now call reductionism: "No other forces than the common physicalchemical ones are active within the organism." Freud would spend many years trying to "reduce" personality to neurology, a cause he later gave up on. Freud was very good at his research, concentrating on neurophysiology, even inventing a special cell-staining technique. But only a limited number of positions were available, and there were others ahead of him. Brücke helped him to get a grant to study, first with the great psychiatrist Charcot in Paris, then with his rival Bernheim in Nancy. Both these gentlemen were investigating the use of hypnosis with hysterics. After spending a short time as a resident in neurology and director of a children's ward in Berlin, he came back to Vienna, married his fiancée of many years Martha Bernays, and set up a practice in neuropsychiatry, with the help of Joseph Breuer. Freud's books and lectures brought him both fame and ostracism from the mainstream of the medical community. He drew around him a number...
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...physiology clinic. King Khaled university hospital. Riyadh .Saudi Arabia. Level of learner: internship doctors Number of learners: 2 Number of medical staff in the clinic: 1 consultant, 1 nurse, 2 internship doctors. Procedure to be performed: upper limb nerve conduction study (NCS). A non-invasive procedures Time scheduled for each patient: 45 minutes Total number of patient: 5. Clinic time: Wednesday morning 8 am -12pm Duration of placement: 1 month Learning situation (max 500 words) Purpose: At the end of the clinical session, the learner should be able to: 1- Perform a focused patient-centered history and focused physical examination for diverse patient referred to the clinical neurophysiology clinic 2- Perform upper limb nerve conduction studies in patients referred to clinical neurophysiology clinic. 3- Perform analysis ,interpret and report findings of nerve conduction study. 4- Demonstrate...
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...Introduction When one thinks of someone being in love, the thoughts that come to mind may be feeling as if you’re on “cloud nine” or being “head over heels” for someone. Love indeed is much more than what we see on the outside. According to Schneiderman and associates (2011), “ The ability to form enduring and meaningful relationship is a key social capacity of human beings” (p. 1314). Not only is love an impact in romantic relationships, but also in parenting and close friendships. Schneiderman and associates (2011) state, “It is thus of interest to examine changes in autonomic nervous systems reactivity during the initial stages of a romantic relationship in relation to the individual well- being and emotional distress” (p. 1314). These inquiries explore two studies conducted on how love can have a strong impact on people in romantic relationships and individuals that are single. I chose this topic because I am a psychology major and have suffered heartbreak before. I find it interesting that being in love really does affect people in many ways. I suppose this research will help people better understand the affects of love. Article Summaries Schneiderman, I., Zilberstein-Kra, Y., Leckman, J. F., & Feldman, R. (2011). Love alters autonomic reactivity to emotions. Emotion, 11(6), 1314-1321. doi:10.1037/a0024090 Schniderman and associates (2011) studied the autonomic reactivity by the Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia (RSA) with two neutral films, negative films and positive...
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