Chapter 2 articles and videos

An Affair of the Head
The chemical messengers, neurotransmitters influence us in multiple ways. Dopamine and norepinephrine are two main neurotransmitters that have the effect on love. Love almost becomes like a drug when these natural stimulants occur in the body. It's interesting to know that when one is in love the same regions of the brain are effected when one does cocaine. Fischer conducted a study where she ran a MRI while the subjects were shown a picture of their "love." When they saw this Fischer found that the neurotransmitter, dopamine was sent from the dendrites through the axon onto the terminal branches of axon. Test subjects were observed and there was sensations of pleasure seen through the test subjects brains. Serotonin is also shown in these studies of the brain on love. Serotonin affects mood, arousal, obsession, and depression. When love leaves the brain or when these neurotransmitters do, people can become very depressed, which can lead to alcohol abuse and drugs. This is how love effects the brain and how neurotransmitters are related to this also.

The Action Potential Through the Medium of Dance
This was a great example of neural communication. First, the dendrites were almost swaying if that makes sense. Then, along came a kid in a highlighter green shirt and he represented the neurotransmitter. The neurotransmitter connected to the dendrites and when the dendrites received the information the girl in the green was represented at the Excitatory Post- Synaptic Potential. It was obvious that the kids that were representing the dendrites being in an excited state. Next, I wasn't quite sure what summation was, but found that its the arousal of impulses by a rapid succession of stimuli which was shown by the girls in the navy sweatshirts. After this, the neurotransmitter (girl in red) finally is let through and the action potential is reached. The girl made her way down the axon while the myelin sheath helped the speed of this. Next Ca was released and this was shown by the kid throwing milk in the middle. After this, they were forced out to the terminal branches of axon into other cells. This video was extremely interesting and helpful especially for visual learners.

The Brain #2-The Effects of Hormones and Environment on Brain Development
How do female and males brain development differ? Statistics show that there are differences between female and male senses. It is known that 10% of males are left handed, while 4% of women are. Left hander's have a higher percentage of architects, artists, and people with dyslexia autism and stuttering. What is the effect of the sex hormones? Psychologists wanted to know if an extra dose of testosterone will slow development in left hemisphere, shifting development to the right hemisphere in males. What they do know is that the power of sex hormones shape brain and body. Mariam Diamond conducted a study on rats to find the structural differences between sex hormones and the brain's two hemispheres. She found that in a female rat the hemisphere's thickness is symmetrical, while Male's right hemisphere is thicker. She manipulated the rats by taking the ovaries out of the female rats when they were first born looked at the hemisphere differences. There was pattern switches and instead of the left hemisphere being symmetrical, the right hemisphere was thicker. She did the same thing to male rats by removing their testes, and she found that the left hemisphere was thicker. This shows the huge effect hormones have on the brain development. Mariam Diamond also did an experiment very alike to this, but used environment as the factor to effect brain development. She also found changes from this, which tells us that environment does have an effect on brain development. Rat and human brains are very similar so this study should be the same or very similar with humans.

The Mind #5-Endorphins: The Brain's Natural Morphine
Soldiers in Vietnam war let the stress of combat get to them, therefore they used many drugs not knowing their harm. From this, the U.S Government provided grants to study drug addiction and all of the mechanisms involved with drug use. The soldiers were using heroine and no one knew what it was or what it did do people. The question not known was how do drugs turn different nerve cells on or off? Hans Kosterlitz felt that there was natural morphine in the brain, so he looked for this. In 1972 the first natural morphine was found in the brain. Hans found that the substance produced naturally in the brain effected the strips of muscle just as the drug heroine had. There is over a dozen "like material" morphine doing all sorts of things in the brain. It regulates pain, temperature regulation, blood pressure, etc. It is also important in depression and other diseases or disorders. From learning this morphine is the most important and critical neurotransmitters present in brain.