dreams

We always dream, or do we? Some questions are unanswerable, but this video has helped me get an idea of what the answers to my questions can be.  I previously knew that REM, rapid eye movement, happens at a point of your sleep and it is when you dream, but I didn't know your body enters into complete paralysis at this stage. I learned that sleep walkers tend to have a less effective part of the brain that paralyses you in your sleep, causing you to act your dream. REM disorder is caused by the damage of a part of the brain stem named palm, causing dreams to seem more vivid. The parietal lobe is where dreams are created, damage to this part of a brain, being caused by a stroke or something, can cause the lack of dreaming and can only be fixed with time. People are fascinated with dreams and believe that they have a significance. It is said that we seek something in our dreams, we search for answers, maintaining our mental health. They help us process information and ergo have been the source of great accomplishments. Dreams are shaped by stimulating information that has been introduced into our senses, they help us to survive our everyday activities. But then again all this is believed to be true, is it? 

 





























1. Explain in detail what "savant syndrome" means.
syndrome in which people who despite serious mental or physical disability have quite remarkable, and sometimes spectacular, talents.
http://www.psy.dmu.ac.uk/drhiles/Savant%20Syndrome.htm


2. What does genius mean?  Explain the difference between genius and savant.
Web:
someone who has exceptional intellectual ability and originality;brilliance, ussually having anunusual mental ability who is skilled in any field, have exceptional creative ability and natural talent.
wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn
The difference is that a genius is average or above average in any area of their life, buts savants are only good at on specific thing, one are, and have a mental disability, strugling in other areas.
3. What is a stroke and how could it affect your mental functioning?
An acute medical emergency caused by the rupture or blockage of the artery.
http://www.womensheart.org/content/stroke/what_is_a_stroke.asp
It affects mental function by affecting your coordination ability, partial facial paralisis,

poor depth perception, hand-eye coordination and short term memory, poor decision making and unhealthy, the process of thinking logically and reasoning, short attention span, reeding and speaking illiteracy, and makes you do things slower, depending on the part that is affected.

http://www.ehow.com/how-does_4603534_stroke-affect-brain.html 

4. What is a functional MRI and how does it help us understand brain activity?

Another name for it is functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging which is the brain imaging technique that scans by measuring magnetic changes in the flow of blood to cells in the brain.
www.tuition.com.hk/psychology/f.htm 

It helps doctor to diagnose deseases and helps them know which treatment they may use. It also is used to explore the anatomy of the brain, how it functions, the effects of a stroke or trauma on this functions, the developement and its effect of tumors on brains, and guide the planning of surgery, Radiation therapy, or other surgical treatments for the brain.

http://www.radiologyinfo.org/en/info.cfm?pg=fmribrain


5. What is the corpus callosum and what role does it play in your brain's activity?
It is a broad transverse nerve tract connecting the two cerebral hemispheres.
wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn
It allows communication between the two hemispheres, it also works in allocation of tasks to either hemispheres of the brain on the basis on their programming.
http://www.buzzle.com/articles/corpus-callosum-function.html


6. What is epilepsy and how might it affect your brain's abilities?
It is the tendency to have recurrent seizures caused by a sudden burst of excess electrical activity in the brain, causing a temporary disruption in the normal message passing between brain cells. 
http://www.epilepsy.org.uk/info/what-is-epilepsy
It affects the brain’s  because the messages becoming halted or mixed up. It affects the ability of the person to store memory, memory loss, verbal memory which he cant remember words, or he cant remember who he has seen, and trouble focusing attention for a long time.
http://www.articlesbase.com/diseases-and-conditions-articles/how-epilepsy-affects-the-brain-and-leads-to-memory-loss-290902.html


7. What is autism?

moderately rare condition resulting from a complex developmental disability that typically appears during the first three years of life. A neurological disorder that causes communicative, social and cognitive deficits.

http://www.psy.dmu.ac.uk/drhiles/Savant%20Syndrome.htm

8. What is Asperger's Syndrome?

Syndrome in which individuals have normal intelligence and language development, but have impaired social skills, unable to communicate effectively with others, and have poor coordination.

http://kidshealth.org/parent/medical/brain/asperger.html

Alone

Harsh punishments are used on criminals to get information from them, but something I learned about this video was that a technique that is used frequently as a punishment is Sensory Deprivation. It consists on starving people's senses from stimulation, reducing their ability to process information. This also harms the Central Executive, affecting your language, memory, vision and the ability to interact with people. To prove this, scientist did an experiment on 5 individuals for 48 hours. Some of them were constantly stimulated like a student, comedian, runner but another loved to spend time alone and meditate. The three that were placed in a dark room started to hallucinate after several hours, like a man who had been in prison for 18 years in the darkness, he also saw things that were not really there. Most of them started to walk back and forth and started talking funny. This is because the detrites start loosing connections because of the lack of stimulation. At the end, just by hearing the voice of another person frightned some individuals becasue of the long hours of brain understimulation. Processing information was reduced becasue before they did the tests they were asked to do simple things and did them slower after they went out. As for the man that was locked up 18 years, he lost  the ability to follow direccions and cant remember the order in which he did something. I think it suprising how understimulation affects a person's developemnt and how it changes people. I think the idea of being like that for 18 years scares me, a person may go insane! But if i was choosen to do something like that for 48 hours, im sure i would sleep most of the time.