Schizophrenia

Out of all the disorders in the DSM schizophrenia has been the most interesting to me. How can someone be normal and then become disconnected from the world? Not just disconnected but in some cases they become super violent. I have never met someone with schizophrenia but I would like to. I want to get to know more about this disorder and whats better than actually hanging with someone that has schizophrenia. I want to see how they act in person and find out what it is that they think. Since schizophrenia is such a serious disorder so serious that the person can cause damage to themselves or others, I am all for that person taking antipsychotics. Antipsychotics can really help a schizophrenic with the hallucinations and delusions. One question I have about schizophrenia is if the substance abuse schizophrenia is any different than non substance abuse schizophrenia? Some people also say that schizophrenia is somewhat demonic. I find it interesting that alot of people with schizophrenia see demons when they hallucinate. Its crazy that several schizophrenics report seeing demons when they hallucinate, I mean maybe this disorder can be demonic? The little girl in this video said a ghost told her to hurt her father and she says that she has to listen to the ghost.

Antidepressants

Whats up with all these doctors prescribing antidepressants to people even when they know that they do more harm than good? Its all about the money that's why! Supposedly there is a chemical imbalance in the brain but yet there is no scientific evidence to prove this! People today just have to say the word sad to their family doctor and boom they can get prescribed an antidepressant. The company that produces Paxil got sued not to long ago for over a billion dollars because their antidepressant was causing thousands of people on Paxil to commit suicide. The worst thing about all these pills is that children are starting to take them more and more! Two year old children are on antidepressants! How the heck can a two year old be depressed? I have read several books by authors like: Irvin Kirsh, Robert Whitaker, Joanna Moncrieff and Ethan Watters in which they all make a point that these pills are a fluke. Pharmaceutical companies are really smart on how they promote their product. I think we need to get back to actually helping patients with their problems and over come them. We need to step away from this medical model which is hurting a lot of people. If you havent seen this video I suggest you do and look at where I am coming from. Its pretty long though.

Emotions

Humans experience alot of different emotions everyday, some more than others. It also depends on situations that we are put into. When someone close to us dies we are in grief but when we are at our favorite bands concert we are excited. Two totally different emotions and theres alot of emotions in between. Its crazy how our brain is programmed to feel all these emotions. Theres times when emotions get the best of people. When it comes to depression a person cant function normally and cope with the daily routine of life. So they are prescribed and antidepressant to cure their illness. They are depressed because there is a chemical imbalance in their brain. There is no scientific evidence of a chemical imbalance in the brain existing. It is in fact the antidepressants that cause this chemical imbalance. In several clinical trials it has shown that placebos are just as effective as antidepressants except without the side effects. The side effects of antidepressants include; nausea, insomnia, anxiety, weight gain, tremors, etc. Some of these side effects go away after the first few weeks but many dont and may even get worse. Note that the patient had none of these symptoms prior to taking antidepressants. Check out this video on research Dr. Irving Kirsh did. I read his book The Emperors New Drug The Myth of the Antidepressant for one of my classes.

Sleep

When I took Intro to Psychology the subject of sleep always interested me. I wanted to know why sometimes I felt like I was falling from a bridge or why I couldnt remember some dreams but I could remember others. That feeling of falling I know happens to pretty much everyone. As soon as we fall boom we twitch all crazy in bed and sometimes wakes us up. There is so much that we do in our sleep, things that we probably dont even know we do. When I was little my mom told me I would sleep walk occasionaly. I dont remember sleep walking a single time but thats normal cause most sleep walkers dont remember this event. I dont sleep walk now at least not that I know of. Another thing that alot of people do is sleep talk. How is it that we are able to talk while we are asleep? I know people that have carried on conversations with people that are sleep talking and when they wake up they dont even know they were talking in their sleep. Ive had some pretty intense dreams some that feel realistic. I still freak out that our minds/brains are going 100 miles an hour while our body is in complete relaxation. If I ever do sleep walk again I hope its not as crazy as these guys.

Rearing a child

Intersexed people back in the day were mainly reared as girls, as recommended by doctors. The reason for this was because it was easier to reduce the clitoris to a normal size than to make it a penis. Doctors believed that rearing the child as a girl would have no problems accepting their identity once they got older. The problem with rearing the child as a girl is that they can at anytime change and develop male roles. They start developing attractions towards women. If I was faced with this problem I would have no idea what to do. I could rear my child as a girl but then what if later she realizes her situation and ends up hating me. Even rearing them as a boy can back fire on you. There is no easy solution to this and I hope that I will never be in this situation. The easiest thing to probably do is let the child be and enjoy their childhood. Once they start realizing that something is wrong then as a parent you can step in and explain to them. They might realize this at a young age and will not be able to understand everything in detail but once they are able to comprehend the situation they can make their own choices.

Social Pain

Social pain is referred to as a emotional distress. How can emotional distress be a pain? To me pain is something physical like getting cut by a knife or burned by the stove. Yeah after a break up you might be a little down but it isnt painful. Nothing has happened to you physically that causes the pain. I think social pain is all mental. Alot of people let this "social pain" get out of hand and causes them all kinds of problems in their life. People with social pain feel sad and left out and this can all lead to depression in which most cases it does. You can take tylenol to help with social pain but what happens when it doesnt work anymore? You eventually get diagnosed with depression and get put on antidepressants which is not a good thing. When I read about social pain I was like wow this has to be a joke right? I guess because I am a guy I see social pain being a joke. I mean people nowadays let everything even the littlest thing get to them and bring them down. People just have to stop being babys and suck it up! Everyone faces problems and you dont see everyone sad and depressed. There is times when its ok to be emotionally distressed like when you lose a loved one but life does go on. When I lost my grandpa I was in grief for several days but thats natural, now its not natural when you let it get out of control and months later you are still in bed hating the world. I just knew that my grandpa was in a better place and is looking down at me from heaven. It also depends on your self esteem, the higher your self esteem you are less likely to feel this social pain and the lower your self esteem you will be more vulnerable.

Memory

Memory has always been an interesting topic to me. How is it that we can remember events that happend from when we were kids till now? Our brains are capable of holding so much information. I want to write about memory when it comes to studying. There are people that have to study what they are going to be tested on weeks before the exam. Then there are students who study a few nights before the exam and are fine. Me for example all I do is study the day before and the day of and I do good on my exams. This is how I have been doing it since I started school in elementary. I find it weird that all I have to do is just go over the material once or twice and it stays in my memory. I know people that have studied all week for an exam and I study the day before and I get a better test grade than them. Im grateful that I am able to do this but why is it that not everybody can? Several of my classmates tell me that they wish they could have my memory and just be able to memorize everything. Dr. Brian Walsh explains the exact technique that I use to do my studying for an exam. I dont just sit there for hours studying the material non stop, I do it in sections. After I study a certain amount of material I stop and go back and repeat everything I just studied to myself. I figured out what the best way for me to study was and this is it.

Unilateral Neglect

People with damage to either hemisphere tend to ignore the opposite side. For example someone with damage to the left hemisphere neglect the right side of the body or the right side of objects. They even ignore what they hear in the right ear and feel in the right hand. The definition of unilateral neglect is a symptom of brain damage in which a person is unaware of one side of his body and of anything in the external world on the same side. Its kind of hard to ignore one side of our body or anything we see on either side but for people with damage to a hemisphere its quite easy. There are procedures to increase the attention of the neglected side but only last temporarily. Here are several examples of someone with unilateral neglect.





Where is the whole other side of the drawing? We of course would be able to see and draw the whole thing cause we have a whole brain but this is what people with damage to a hemisphere would see. I still cant believe that to people with hemisphere damage they are only able to see one side of everything. I think it would be interesting to meet someone with hemisphere damage one day and just hang out with them and get to know a little bit more about this subject.

The Binding Problem

The binding problem or large-scale integration problem is how various brain areas produce a perception of a single object.This occurs, for example, when sensations of color, shape, boundary, and texture are combined to produce the percept of a person's face. No one knows exactly how the brain does this. Thus the binding problem is one of the major unsolved mysteries in psychology.The example in the book about how the ventriloquist works and how we think the sound is actually coming from the dummy really got me. Its weird because i know that its not coming from the dummy but from the person controlling the dummy and yet when i watch a ventriloquist I still catch myself thinking that the dummy is talking. Not much research has been done on this subject because it is quite hard to determine what is really going on. I saw a video on how one philosopher saw the binding problem and i liked what he said.

 

Prescribing Ritalin to children

ADHD is diagnosed primarily from teacher complaints since children spend most of their time at school. In 2010 1 in 23 children with ADHD were medicated and a recent press realease reports that 1 in 10 children are diagnosed with ADHD so the number of children medicated has more than likely gone up. There is a movement to re-characterize many misdiagnosed ADHD children. Ritalin acts as a stimulant dopamine reuptake inhibitor in much the same way as COCAINE! Children being prescribed Ritalin and other ADHD medications are being given a "speed" based pill. I dont know about you but I would never give my child a medication very much like cocaine. Ritalin is described as a "safe" alternative to amphetamines. Children evaluated on Ritalin were affectless, humorless, apathetic, withdrawn and zombie like. ADHD didnt show up in the DSM until 1980. So were there no ADHD children before that or what? In 1980 150,000 children were on the drug, in 1990 1 million were on the drug and today and estimated 3.5 million take a stimulant for ADHD. The side effects of Ritalin and other ADHD stimulants cause a long list of physical, emotional, and psychiatric harms. Physical problems include drowsiness, appetite loss, insomnia, headaches, abdominal pain, motor abnormalities, facial and vocal tics, jaw clenching, skin problems, liver disorders, weight loss, growth suppression, hypertension, and sudden cardiac death. Emotional problems are depression, mood swings, irritability and anxiety. Psychiatric problems include obsessive compulsive symptoms, mania, parania, psychotic episodes and hallucinations. The pharmaceutical companies know of all these side effects caused by their drugs and they still are being produced but yet we can also blame the parent for still giving their children these stimulants.

The Blood-Brain Barrier

 

 

     The blood brain barrier acts as a filter, preventing many substances from entering the central nervous system. In order to minimize the risk of brain damage the body builds a wall along the sides of the brains blood vessels. The blood brain barrier depends on the endothelial cells that form the walls of the capillaries. The blood brain barrier prevents or slows the passage of some drugs and other chemical compounds, radioactive ions, and disease causing organisms such as viruses from the blood in the central nervous system. It also allows certain substances to enter freely such as oxygen and carbon dioxide. Water crosses through protein channels in the wall of the endothelial cells. Molecules that dissolve in the fats of the membrane also cross freely. Such molecules are vitamins A and D, illegal drugs, antidepressants and other psychiatric drugs. Abnormalities of the blood brain barrier have been implicated in the pathology of mental illnesses such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and depression.

Introduction to Physiological Psychology

    A lot of what we know today about the brain has come from animal research. Before reading the module in the book about the use of animals in research I believed that the animals were being treated well. Now that I know that they are just not being used to test medicine on them but yet are having much more harm being done to them makes me uncomfortable. Everything we know about the brain through animal research came with a price that the animals had to pay. Its no wonder the book says that no animal would volunteer if it had a choice. I think that if there is animal cruelty laws there should at least be some sort of laws on animal research. Either to abolish it completely or minimize the pain inflicted on the animals. As long as animals are being used in research and being harmed there will always be abolitionists protesting. These abolitionists feel strongly about this subject and will do whatever it takes to fight for the rights of animals. There is several examples in the book of what some have already done. Animal research is needed in order to enhance the knowledge of how the human brain works. I believe that the research should continue but in a manner that will cause the least harm to the animals. Check out this interview and how doctors are put on the spot about this topic.