Narcolepsy

Narcolepsy: It is like a sleeping disorder where you fall asleep instantly
not under your control. The strange sleep about Narcolepsy is that you may have
gotten a good night sleep, but you still may have the attacks to or 15 minutes
after waking up. Impressive stats about Narcolepsy are that you have this sleep
attacks around 60 times a day. In the video we just watched Mohammed has this
serious and hard problem. We could see in this documentary that he was just talking
to the camera about the disease and he fell asleep instantly. He had to be accompanied
by his wife everywhere he wanted to go. This guy also has Cataplexy. It is when
you lose control of your muscles and when you have the attack you go to sleep
and fall down. I could see in the video that he fell to the ground every time
he had the attack. He even fell on a museum and on a London sidewalk. The sad
part of this for Mohammed was that he was so excited in going to the London
Science Museum (it is his favorite place) that he had the attack various times.
It is just hard to have Narcolepsy, you don’t live a normal life, and people
may think other things about you. It is very hard for a person as well to control
the problem, it is just tough and sad to see this occurrence.

The Tale of Dreaming

Sleeping, the best part of my day. When i rest, take a nap, its all the satisfaction i need. Dreaming is the most interesting part in the sleeping category. You dream crazy stuff, but as well some things make sense. Well from the video we just watched i learned the reasoning behind dreaming. I learned many new stuff from this video, it was highly interesting. Most of the time we dream, we cant remember it. When you had a dream, you know that you slept very good. When we dream, we are searching for an answer, because dreams are of high significance. When we dream we are processing information of the past day. We have accomplished great things thanks to dreaming. We dream most of the time when are in REM stage. When we are woken up in REM we have a strange personality. During this stage our emotions are activated, that why we may wake up from our dream and we are crying. Did you know that when we are depressed and we dream, we wake up even more depressed. It makes us even sadder! As you can see there were lots of thing new to me which i learned from this video. I think dreaming is highly interesting. We learn lots of things from dreaming. It shows us how crazy our mind is because there are sometimes we have crazy dreams. I also think like the video staded that we dream for a purpose; to seek an answer or even show us a lesson. I really enjoyed this video, it was highly fascinating, and i learned lots of things.

Sensory Deprivation

Sensory Deprivation is a huge weapon that can affect a country's or some ones life forever. It is used to get information in a dramatic, traumatic, and cruel way. People are placed in a room with no light, just walls and a bed. There is a camera to observe someone actions, as well a microphone so they can have sort of a interaction. I observed that people went nuts in there. they had no brain STIMULATION! I also observed this is used during wars, to posses some information, and it is a very good tactic. I also observed they are not treated that well in my point of view. I see people struggle to come out of this, but the important part is that they gain again everything they lacked for those 72 hours or so. I think this is a cruel way and unjust way to get information. It shows us how important it is to have stimulation. I really feel sorry for those who were placed on that bed for 2 days. It also showed us how it affected people memory, language, and vision. Sensory Deprivation in me view is used is applied in a nice place for the US (Cuba), it has helped them with war issues. In conclusion sensory deprivation shows how important brain stimulation is and how it can affect and drive nuts the people who are being "deprived".

Mental Ability

1. Explain in detail what "savant syndrome" means: it means having low functioning in mental or physical disability but having one great talent better than most or everyone else.  

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

2. What does genius mean?  Explain the difference between genius and savant: A genius is someone who has a high level of ability is all areas. The difference is that savants are not gifted in many areas, only in one specific one. Genius in the other hand is more complete and don’t necessarily have talents in one area in particular. 

http://www.aboutintelligence.co.uk/phenomenon-genius.html  

3. What is a stroke and how could it affect your mental functioning? A stroke is when you have the blockage of blood and oxygen to your brain. It rarely causes someone’s ability to increase. Usually it removes mayor abilities like walking, takings, running, eating, etc. Stroke is also one of the leading causes of death. 

http://www.righthealth.com/topic/What_Is_A_Stroke? p=l&as=goog&ac=404  

4. What is a functional MRI and how does it help us understand brain activity? A FMRI is a noninvasive diagnostic procedure that is used to obtain detailed images of the body internal structure. This created an image of a soft tissue and it allows scientist to better understand the brain. It also helps us to find which part of the brain is used to handle critical functions such as speech. 

http://www.ionpsych.com/2011/02/02/4-things-to-keep-in-mind-when-youre-reading-about-fmri/

5. What is the corpus callosum and what role does it play in your brain's activity? The corpus callosum is a huge bundle of nerve fibers found in mammalian brains. It connects the left and right hemispheres of the brain, and is responsible for most of the communication between the two. It is composed of white matter, that is, militated nerve cells, or axons, whose primary function is to connect grey areas together with neural impulses.  

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-the-corpus-callosum.htm

6. What is epilepsy and how might it affect your brain's abilities? Epilepsy is a condition, which affects the nervous system. It is also known as a seizure disorder. The seizures may be related to brain injury or its hereditary (most unknown). Epilepsy may cause memory loss, as well affecting language. 

http://www.epilepsy.com/

7. What is autism? Autism is a term used for a number of developmental disabilities called Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). ASD is a life-long neurobiological disorder that affects how the person perceives and interprets their world, particularly the social environment. The symptoms of ASD vary and can range from mild to severe, but most children on the spectrum show difficulties with: Social Interaction, verbal and non verbal communication, repetitive behaviors or limited interests. 

http://www.autismwest.org.au/index.php/about-autism/2-what-is-autism.html

8. What is Asperger's Syndrome? Is an autism spectrum disorder that is characterized by significant difficulties in social interaction, along with restricted and repetitive patterns of behavior and interests? It differs from other autism spectrum disorders by its relative preservation of linguistic and cognitive development. 

http://www.parentingaspergerscommunity.com/public/department67.cfm  

Synesthesia

1. Synesthesia: is when normal but separate senses are not separate. Meaning that senses like site, sound, touch, tase, are mingled and crosswired. For example you might taste a sound,you might touch a sound, or even taste pointy chicken as a pointy object. 

 http://www.medterms.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=8445
2. grapheme-color synesthesia: it is a type of synesthesia whre the individual capacity to percept a number and letters are asociated with the experience of colors. This type is involutary, memorable, and consistent. It is one of the most common types as well as one of the most studied.

http://steverudolfi.com/blog/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1:synesthesia-definition&catid=11:synesthesia&Itemid=4

3. ordinal-linguistic personification:is a form of synesthesia in which ordered sequences, such as ordinal numbers, days, months and letters are associated with personalities. This type has been emphasised to find a cure just barely despite being documented in the 1980's. 

 

http://www.google.hn/search?hl=es-419&biw=1276&bih=839&defl=en&q=define:Ordinal+linguistic+personification&sa=X&ei=YuxrTdfrKYOB8gaI1KTZCw&ved=0CBgQkAE

4. number-form synesthesia: numbers, days of week, and months of year are seen in precise location in space. 

http://thejapanesepage.com/node/1239

5. sound-color synesthesia: where certain sounds trigger the viewing of color or simple shapes

http://undacovabear.wordpress.com/2009/02/08/sound-colour-synesthesia/

6. lexical-gustatory synesthesia: words causing specific taste sensation is mouth.

http://home.comcast.net/~sean.day/WardSimner2003.pdf

Accidental Genius

There was one thing I didn’t know prior to this video, which I now know. It is the definition of a savant. A savant is somebody that has special ability, but mentally impaired. Gifted Savant is someone who can do a specific thing very well; and last but not least a prodigious savant, which is a prodigy (the best) at something. 

This video was highly interesting. The story of George in particular. He knows the day of any date that is very interesting. No story shocks me more than the one of Tommy McHew. He was a normal man, and married as well. After he had a brain injury he became highly obsessed with writing and drawing. He ended up loosing his wife because he was so obsessed with one thing that her wife hated. I also find pretty interesting how scarce savant are, and especially prodigious savants (100 total). 

I think this is an interesting topic. Because savants have the ability to do extraordinary things. Instead of being amassed at what they can do. Their intelligence should be exploited and used to find secrets the world has right now. Like cancer, diabetes, etc. 

Made Genius

One of the things I learned from this video is that thinking occurs in the Cortex Corpus Colossal, and its more advanced in women. Also that with constant repetition of one thing it goes into long term memory. This is chunking goes into place; where you break down information. 

There I many things I found interesting in this video. The story of Susan is astonishing. In a place were women were not supposed to play chess, she found it highly interesting and having her father as a mentor was excellent. When she was a kid she used to beat elite men at chess. Basically here whole childhood consisted of CHESS. She can play 5 games simultaneously in her head. After all her hard work when she was 15 she became the top ranked women chess player in the world. Hard work does pay off! 

What do I think about this? Very simple, you just need to practice to accomplish her goal. Early stimulation as a child helped her develop the chess skill. I also think that there has to be a balance. Meaning she can be good at chess, but not loose the touch on other important skills.