Gotta admit, i was a little nervous about reading 40 some pages about brain activity. However, the multiple parts of the brain was pretty cool. I think it was the buzz-killing first couple of pages that tried to describe the activity of neurons and synapses that turned me off. Thank goodness for Prof. Gewirtz who explained that section thoroughly because i would not have learned a thing from the text. Anyways, let's get down to the nitty-gritty.
What stood out to my, and what i enjoyed reading the most from this chapter, was how our nervous system was categorized. There is so much here! The Central Nervous System was viewed by me as sort of the structure, the facts we had to know, the 2-D knowledge parts that have only one definition. The hippocampus does this, the frontal lobes govern that, and so forth. However the Peripheral Nervous System has depth! It describes actions. For example, the Somatic is voluntary movement, things we can't control that are reflexes to stimuli. Of course this is all explained by the CNS but what's super cool is how the two work together. The Four F's of Auntonomic PNS make us sound so inhuman, like machines wired to commit to a routine via the sympathetic and parasymptathetic systems. This is something that i'm almost positive will come back in later chapters.
Now, i don't want to leave synapses completely out of this blog because how drugs affect our nervous system really intrigued me. Of course it's common knowledge that drugs are either stimulants or depressants, but i didn't know exactly how or what they affected. Its the synapses, uhderr! They either heighten or inhibit neurotransmitter release, block receptors in the axon or channel, and so on and so forth.
I never thought the brain was so divided as it is. It's sort of odd to think about us thinking about our brain... Anyways, If the lobes are just one homogeneous material of ooshy, gooshy pink stuff, than why is it divided? I'll just have to live with it. What i don't fully understand is why we get dizzy. It must have nothing to do with our brain, because when we spin around, our head, or at least the rear of the brain, stays pretty centered. The occipital lobes and cerebellum would hardly move, but is it in the eyes that translate the blurry image...but then we'll close our eyes and still feel dizzy while we spin. i'm so confused.
All that jazz about MRI's and PET and whatever else there was, totally lost me. And that's where i pretty much zoned out for the rest of the time, good riddance chapter 3. Nah, just kidding. That sub sect. on heratability was interesting. It almost seems like "luck of the draw", biology. It's being made more and more apparent that Psych is very much a science rather than a socio-study (if that's a word).
Hopefully this first exam won't totally ruin my grade, i feel enlightenened after reflecting on all this passed-learned content besides my failure to correctly capitalize all my I's. This chapter has definitely been eye-opening for me. Till next week, adieu!
Look at you already completing your chapter 3 post! ;) And... don't forget the hallucinogens.
ReplyDeleteWe get dizzy because our sense of balance is regulated by tubes in the inner ear and when you spin around you confuse the sensors picking up information from your inner ears and your sensory systems try to process conflicting information.
Try not to zone out, even if you're joking! Neuronal communication is the basis for our ability to think, learn, and remember. And we know what we know largely through use of PET scans and MRIs!
Marco I like your style of writing. I want to get clear though. Is the somatic nervous system really voluntary actions, which are things you think before you do, or involuntary actions, things you don't think about but do?
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