Videos & Outside readings

http://www.blogger.com/www.learner.org/resources/series150.html The Mind

What I found: The brain's natural Morphine, or pain reliever, is Endorphins. Those soldiers during the Vietnam War used heroin because they were under a lot of stress during battle. This relieved them of emotional pain as well as physical pain when they got injuries and there were no hospitals near by. Sometimes when you get cuts and bruises you don't notice them instantly because endorphins is also released out at the same time to ease the pain. A while later you will notice the pain after the endorphins calm down. I also get cuts and bruises that I don't notice until later a sharp pain kicks in. One example of this is when I cut my knee on a glass table I didn't feel the pain. A moment later I noticed the blood trickling down, that's when I began to cry/scream/bawl (I was 9.) Maybe the image of blood made me think of pain or the pain itself, I'm not sure. Morphine can replace endorphins and vice versa. Therefore, people who use heroin will stop their process of making endorphins in the brain, so if they stop using heroin they will feel pain.

Understanding the Brain Through Epilepsy

The boy's brain neurons switch on and off uncontrollably, resulting in seizures, or spasms of muscles. Patients with seizures often forget what they recently did when asked. I saw the doctors performing a brain surgery (which is pretty gross...). They can remove a part of the brain that causes Ashley's seizures, cool :).

Brain to Muscle Link in the Monkey http://www.blogger.com/scienceblogs.com/purepedantry/2008/10/brain_to_muscle_link_in_the_mo.php

Even without access to the wrist, the monkey still responds to the game that involves his wrist by using brain neurons. One neuron can connect to other specific parts and muscles of the monkey's body to make them work. Therefore, the monkey can use that one neuron to move his wrist without actually using his wrist. Other neurons overtime can copy that action and move his wrist also, not just that one neuron. This could be useful for making synthetic limbs when one person damages a neuron, the doctor can replace that neuron with another neuron that does the same job.

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=the-mirror-neuron-revolut (idk how to hyperlink)

The Mirror Neuron Revolution: Explaining What Makes Humans Social

Mirror neurons are located in the premotor cortex and inferior parietal cortex in the brain. They both activate when an action takes place. Mirror neurons can mimic action of another person or recognizing our own. For example, someone smiles at you, you smile back. People with autism process other people's emotions much slower. Therefore, they have a hard time to be sociable. Social people are the ones who respond to another's feelings and emotions (otherwise they're antisocial.) Mirror neurons are also important in language because we mimic our mother's sound and voice and try to repeat back the words we hear. This is why children need to stay in school so that they can learn positive things from their elders. Also, Lehrer shows that we can mimic other people's actions through movies and music, so bad movies and bad music can influence gang activities and violence in youth.