Berkeley Blog: Second Semester Subjects (Bio-Psych)
My second semester has been well underway for a few months now, so I thought I'd take a few moments to discuss my classes.
My major classes this semester (I have a few minor ones too) are: Biological Psychology, Wealth & Poverty, and a Research & Statistics course. Let's start with bio-psych.
Biological Psychology I've actually taken before. In junior college I took a course called physiological psychology, which was a similar course to biological psychology but lower division (i.e. easier). That lower division course was the very first college-level course I took (not counting a brief month in an Econ class a hundred years ago) over 6 years ago (yes...6 years ago...wow). It was also one of the most amazing and inspiring classes I've taken. Psychology majors usually pick a sub-genre in which to focus most of their undergraduate work on. Categories include clinical, counseling, personality, social, biological, and cognitive. In junior college I focused mainly on biology, at Berkeley however, cognition has been been a bigger focus. Even still, I wanted to refresh my biological skills with this upper division course.
And boy is it fast-paced. In the first two months of this course we covered about 80% of the material that was covered in the entire (6 month) lower-division course. Starting with the history of mind, we covered the very beginings of how we came to understand the brain. Over 3000 years ago, Egyptians believed intelligence was kept in the heart. During mummification they completely discarded the brain, and instead preserved the heart. The Greeks too, thought the heart did more than simply pump blood. It wasn't until the Romans started dissecting their dead slaves and failed gladiators did they start to place value on the brain. Even still, it wasn't until the 17th century when the brain was finally linked to human behavior and in the 19th century, the cortex (the outer "wrinkles" of the brain) were first established as the site of higher cognition. And with it, came localization and an understanding of the difference between grey and white matter. During the first world war, and because of major medical advancements, our understanding of the brain dramatically improved. Wounded soldiers and their (now survivable) brain legions could be studied, leading to major breakthroughs in the visual and auditory brain systems. All this history, 3000 years of it, was only the first class.
Other notable topics that I found interesting are as follows. A person can live a normal life even when nearly 80% of their dopamine producing neurons have died. However, Parkinson's disease sets in above that threshold. Brain development continues into the early twenties. This is why it is so important to do as much learning as possible in this "critical period," as there is no neurogenesis after this point. Even though our brain does not grow new neurons, the adult cortex still can still be reshaped and remapped, allowing for some flexibility even in our later years. The early Greeks thought that our emotions and senses where properties of objects. They argued that images from the objects in the world traveled "through the air" and into our eyes. We now know that neurons carry properties that make them receptive to certain stimuli. Our ears are designed only to hear the frequencies of sound that can be made by humans. This is why we are able to mimic pretty much any sound that we can hear, even if it's from animals.
The majority of sensory and motor neurons in the brain handle stimuli from the hands and mouth. The hands, for their unmatched motion and touch precision, and our mouths (mainly the lips and tongue) for language, food and "affection". The eyes too, take a significant amount of cortical representation for finite muscle control from our motor cortex. The primary system that detects stimuli is not the same system that "responds" or "understands" that stimuli. These more "cognitive" areas are found in deeper secondary, tertiary and associated areas of the brain. What this means is that by the time the stimulus reaches these deeper systems for cognition and understanding, the original signal has faded somewhat. Scientists have successfully measured the stimuli of the primary systems , and when compared to the response by the participant, many times the participant underestimates the veracity of the original stimulus. There is a rare disease where a person feels no pain. Life-expectancy is low as these people rarely get past teenage years. Many rip their own teeth and eyes out, blinding themselves, and causing massive blood loss. Pain therefore is actually a necessity for our brains to understand our bodies. We are not born with the knowledge that a certain action will hurt us, not until we feel pain.
During testing of planes catapulted off of aircraft carriers, the first pilots ditched the planes into the ocean. The military soon learned of the vestibular system which controls balance and our ability to notice if we are laying down. The G-force was so great on the vestibular system, that it gave the pilots the sensation that they were laying down, to correct this, they pushed down on the stick and crashed into the ocean. The fix to this issue was elementary, they told pilots not to hold onto the stick during takeoff. (in the video below, notice the hand bar the pilot holds on to during take-off) This same system of balance, when conflicting with your visual system, is responsible for motion sickness and "the spins" when drunk. The brain receives a stationary signal from the balance system (like sitting in a car) but from the visual system, the brain receives a signal of movement (cars moving). This conflict confuses the brain and induces nausea and vomiting because it thinks we've been poisoned. The same effect is seen when drunk. Alcohol mucks up our balance system (the balance system is made up of fluids which alcohol diffuses and infiltrates), giving the brain the signal that we are spinning in circles, but the visual system gives the signal that we are standing still. The brain takes the side of the balance system and tells the eyes to simulate "spinning." And, in this case, vomiting is the right message the brain sends to the rest of the body, because we have indeed been poisoned. And just a few days ago, we learned that the feeling of regret is actually biological, it is the role of the orbitofrontal cortex. And since it's biological, there are some people with a failed regret system. In other words, they never feel regret!
A very interesting class, but very in depth, sometimes to the point of madness!
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hr9UslkGx78[/youtube]
[AWD_comments]
My major classes this semester (I have a few minor ones too) are: Biological Psychology, Wealth & Poverty, and a Research & Statistics course. Let's start with bio-psych.
Biological Psychology I've actually taken before. In junior college I took a course called physiological psychology, which was a similar course to biological psychology but lower division (i.e. easier). That lower division course was the very first college-level course I took (not counting a brief month in an Econ class a hundred years ago) over 6 years ago (yes...6 years ago...wow). It was also one of the most amazing and inspiring classes I've taken. Psychology majors usually pick a sub-genre in which to focus most of their undergraduate work on. Categories include clinical, counseling, personality, social, biological, and cognitive. In junior college I focused mainly on biology, at Berkeley however, cognition has been been a bigger focus. Even still, I wanted to refresh my biological skills with this upper division course.
And boy is it fast-paced. In the first two months of this course we covered about 80% of the material that was covered in the entire (6 month) lower-division course. Starting with the history of mind, we covered the very beginings of how we came to understand the brain. Over 3000 years ago, Egyptians believed intelligence was kept in the heart. During mummification they completely discarded the brain, and instead preserved the heart. The Greeks too, thought the heart did more than simply pump blood. It wasn't until the Romans started dissecting their dead slaves and failed gladiators did they start to place value on the brain. Even still, it wasn't until the 17th century when the brain was finally linked to human behavior and in the 19th century, the cortex (the outer "wrinkles" of the brain) were first established as the site of higher cognition. And with it, came localization and an understanding of the difference between grey and white matter. During the first world war, and because of major medical advancements, our understanding of the brain dramatically improved. Wounded soldiers and their (now survivable) brain legions could be studied, leading to major breakthroughs in the visual and auditory brain systems. All this history, 3000 years of it, was only the first class.
Other notable topics that I found interesting are as follows. A person can live a normal life even when nearly 80% of their dopamine producing neurons have died. However, Parkinson's disease sets in above that threshold. Brain development continues into the early twenties. This is why it is so important to do as much learning as possible in this "critical period," as there is no neurogenesis after this point. Even though our brain does not grow new neurons, the adult cortex still can still be reshaped and remapped, allowing for some flexibility even in our later years. The early Greeks thought that our emotions and senses where properties of objects. They argued that images from the objects in the world traveled "through the air" and into our eyes. We now know that neurons carry properties that make them receptive to certain stimuli. Our ears are designed only to hear the frequencies of sound that can be made by humans. This is why we are able to mimic pretty much any sound that we can hear, even if it's from animals.
The majority of sensory and motor neurons in the brain handle stimuli from the hands and mouth. The hands, for their unmatched motion and touch precision, and our mouths (mainly the lips and tongue) for language, food and "affection". The eyes too, take a significant amount of cortical representation for finite muscle control from our motor cortex. The primary system that detects stimuli is not the same system that "responds" or "understands" that stimuli. These more "cognitive" areas are found in deeper secondary, tertiary and associated areas of the brain. What this means is that by the time the stimulus reaches these deeper systems for cognition and understanding, the original signal has faded somewhat. Scientists have successfully measured the stimuli of the primary systems , and when compared to the response by the participant, many times the participant underestimates the veracity of the original stimulus. There is a rare disease where a person feels no pain. Life-expectancy is low as these people rarely get past teenage years. Many rip their own teeth and eyes out, blinding themselves, and causing massive blood loss. Pain therefore is actually a necessity for our brains to understand our bodies. We are not born with the knowledge that a certain action will hurt us, not until we feel pain.
During testing of planes catapulted off of aircraft carriers, the first pilots ditched the planes into the ocean. The military soon learned of the vestibular system which controls balance and our ability to notice if we are laying down. The G-force was so great on the vestibular system, that it gave the pilots the sensation that they were laying down, to correct this, they pushed down on the stick and crashed into the ocean. The fix to this issue was elementary, they told pilots not to hold onto the stick during takeoff. (in the video below, notice the hand bar the pilot holds on to during take-off) This same system of balance, when conflicting with your visual system, is responsible for motion sickness and "the spins" when drunk. The brain receives a stationary signal from the balance system (like sitting in a car) but from the visual system, the brain receives a signal of movement (cars moving). This conflict confuses the brain and induces nausea and vomiting because it thinks we've been poisoned. The same effect is seen when drunk. Alcohol mucks up our balance system (the balance system is made up of fluids which alcohol diffuses and infiltrates), giving the brain the signal that we are spinning in circles, but the visual system gives the signal that we are standing still. The brain takes the side of the balance system and tells the eyes to simulate "spinning." And, in this case, vomiting is the right message the brain sends to the rest of the body, because we have indeed been poisoned. And just a few days ago, we learned that the feeling of regret is actually biological, it is the role of the orbitofrontal cortex. And since it's biological, there are some people with a failed regret system. In other words, they never feel regret!A very interesting class, but very in depth, sometimes to the point of madness!
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hr9UslkGx78[/youtube]
[AWD_comments]
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