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Daryl Bambic

The teenage brain | Science News for Students - 1 views

  • dopamine.
  • Dopamine levels in general peak during adolescence.
  • increased activity in the ventral striatum
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  • prefrontal cortex’s ability to boss the brain increases with age.
  • reward system can outmuscle the master planner.
  • adolescent brain specifically evolved to respond to rewards so teens would leave behind the protection provided by their parents and start exploring their environment — a necessary step toward the independence they will need in adulthood.
    • Daryl Bambic
       
      Evolutionary reward...the teen phase of development is what has pushed us forward with the new discoveries
  • So that’s why you have parents to act as your prefrontal cortex,” Frank jokes. Then, all too often, he says, “you reach adolescence and you don’t listen to your parents anymore.”
  • brain acts as the sculptor and chops away excess synapses. Scientists refer to this process as synaptic pruning.
    • Daryl Bambic
       
      Great image of pruning as sculpting
  • If you have ever thought that the choices teenagers make are all about exploring and pushing limits, you are on to something
  • necessary phase in teen development
  • exploratory period.
  • Even laboratory mice experience a similar phase during their development.
  • Young mice that explore most tend to live longest
  • magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner. The scanner relies on a powerful magnet and radio waves to create detailed images of the brains
  • Teens also can play games that require them to make choices,
  • observing and measuring which parts of the teens’ brains are most active
  • During the risk-taking and rewards-based tests, one region deep inside the brain shows more activity in adolescents than it does in children or adults, Crone says. This region, known as the ventral striatum, is often referred to as the “reward center”
  • Adolescents are particularly sensitive and responsive to influence by friends, desires and emotions, researchers say. It’s one of the hallmarks of this stage in life.
  • eel good” response helps explain why they often give in to impulsive desires.
  • to be shouting louder” between the ages of 13 and 17 than at any other time during human development.
  • prefrontal cortex, it’s the brain’s master planner.
  • brain is locked in a tug-of-war between the logical pull of the prefrontal cortex and the impulsive pull of the ventral striatum.
  • toward years of serious risk-taking
  • prefrontal cortex seems to lag in developing. It turns out this delay serves an important evolutionary function,
  • So it’s important that the master planner not be too rigid or restrictive during adolescence. Instead, it stays open to learning.
  • One of the processes involves axons, or fibers that connect nerve cells. From infancy, these fibers allow one nerve cell to talk to another. Throughout the teen years, fatty tissue starts to insulate the axons from interfering signals — it is a bit like the plastic that coats electrical cables.
  • In axons, the insulating tissue allows information to zip back and forth between brain cells much more quickly. It also helps build networks that link the prefrontal cortex with other brain regions, allowing them to work together more efficiently.
  • The second key process involves synapses. A synapse is like a dock between nerve cells. Nerve cells communicate by transmitting chemical and electrical signals. Those signals move through the synapses.
  • brain starts discarding many of these connections
  • So the brain strengthens the synapses it really needs and eliminates those that either slow things down or aren’t useful.
Raghav Mohan

The Effects of Exercise on the Brain - 0 views

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    Site completely states the main things about the effects of exercise on the brain. It helped me understand the basic things it can do and i was rather amazed. If anyone is confused about what exercise can do for your mental health THIS is the site to go to. It is very reliable since it is dedicated to education (.edu) and the information is constantly updated.
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    *sticky note* exercise balances out the chemicals i our brain which helps our nerve cells. And if you don't know our whole body functions on nerve cells (like a messenger) so without exercise we can never really perform to the fullest.
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    *sticky note* exercise also benefits us in many ways! for example: it avoids MAJOR stress from us. It also keeps us motivated and confident so that if ever a bad situation comes up, we would not go into a dull zone and become depressed.
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    *sticky note* It's good to be happy when exercising. Exercise also helps our reparative cell (we begin to lose nerve tissue nearing our 30's). Exercise helps slow that process down by A LOT. Which helps us live on healthy lived. People you see in the newspaper or online that are 100 years old! They don't just magically get that old by just sitting on there couch eating junk. They EXERCISE everyday to stay fit.
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    *sticky note* It helps generate new neurons which provides many benefits. Study shows that people who began exercising at there teen years and that are now 65-70 are much more active and healthy than any other 65-70 year olds.
Raghav Mohan

Exercising Benefits - 0 views

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    This site is another educational site i discovered during my TFAD assignment. It really digs deep into MANY benefits of exercise. If you are wondering what exercise can do for YOU then this is the site to go to for information. It gives you history, examples, the present. All the basic information.
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    *sticky note* Your muscles activate your brain receptors. So knowing that your brain is more active with your muscles, exercising them would be a huge benefit and aid to a better lifestyle
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    *sticky note* Mental exercise for the brain: on an everyday basis our brain is learning a new skill. This uses a lot of power from our brain which requires us EXERCISING our brain physically and mentally ***Example of an exercise you can do whenever you are on the computer: switch the hand you are using to move your mouse. It must feel pretty awkward but it's alright you are exercising movement AND learning a new skill at the same time.
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    *sticky note* If you think sitting behind your computer or TV screen is going to get you smarter... Think again! It really doesn't in fact it affects us in a bad way. Weakens our eyes, and uses so much energy from our brain. Where on the other hand, just walking can benefit us a ton. It helps our blood circulation and the oxygen/glucose that reaches our brain.
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    *sticky note* Exercise improves our memory, helps us remember our studies, wakes up our brain in the morning. Enhances our brain cells, creates higher brain functions. These are just the *few things that exercising does for us. It is quite amazing
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    *sticky note* Exercising also helps our aging process. Exercise fools our brain into thinking we are younger when we begin exercising on a daily basis which could be great for you. Who wouldn't want to feel 40 when they're really 50? I know i would
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    *sticky note* Physical exercise protects our brain as we age, it creates endurance and a motivated/confident mindset which obviously can aid us in a huge way in the future.
Seb Potvin

BBC News - Stanford prison experiment continues to shock - 0 views

  • Forty years ago a group of students hoping to make a bit of holiday money turned up at a basement in Stanford University, California, for what was to become one of the most notorious experiments in the study of human psychology.
    • Seb Potvin
       
      The experiment took place in California and college students participated to make extra money
  • The Stanford prison experiment was supposed to last two weeks but was ended abruptly just six days later
    • Seb Potvin
       
      The experiment was done in six days because of mental breakdown and dropouts
    • Seb Potvin
       
      Prisoners no-longer wanted to partake in this experiment
  • Despite their uniforms and mirrored sunglasses, the guards struggled to get into character and at first Prof Zimbardo's team thought they might have to abandon the project.
    • Seb Potvin
       
      It took guards and prisoners she time to fully get into their roles and because of that, Zimardo was worried the experiment would be done before it even started
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  • At the same time the prisoners, referred to only by their numbers and treated harshly, rebelled and blockaded themselves inside their cells.
    • Seb Potvin
       
      Prisoners where harshly treated, punished, embarrassed and is one of the main reason why the experiment concluded after 6 days
    • Seb Potvin
       
      Prisoners gave up because they found conditions to be bad and found no point in this experiment.
  • "Suddenly, the whole dynamic changed as they believed they were dealing with dangerous prisoners, and at that point it was no longer an experiment,"
    • Seb Potvin
       
      Guards took their roles too strictly and  Zimbardo even said at the end that these people where not like that in their outside lives, and that their roles changed them for the course of the experiment.
  • "What was demanded of me physically was way too much and I also felt that there was really nobody rational at the wheel of this thing so I started refusing food."
    • Seb Potvin
       
      Prisoners no-longer ate out of hatred towards the guards and to hopefully get out.
    • Seb Potvin
       
      This site is credible because it is a news website viewed by millions so their information is constantly being reviewed.
Seb Potvin

The Stanford Prison Experiment: A Simulation Study of the Psychology of Imprisonment - 0 views

  • rebellion which broke out on the morning of the second day. The prisoners removed their stocking caps, ripped off their numbers, and barricaded themselves inside the cells by putting their beds against the door.
    • Seb Potvin
       
      Prisoners rebelled to try and show the injustice of the guards and the mistreatment towards them
Daryl Bambic

Is Anybody in There? Searching for Consciousness in an Injured Brain | Wired Science | ... - 2 views

  • eft to languish in nursing homes where no one bothers with physical therapy or even to check for glimmers of regained consciousness
  • many patients with no outward signs of awareness retain some degree of consciousness
  • In Wallis’ case, brain scans revealed evidence that his brain had rewired itself to some extent to compensate for the injury
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    • Daryl Bambic
       
      Brains re-wiring themselves is called brain plasticity.  
  • y rare, a 2009 study by Belgian researchers found that 41 percent of hospital and rehab patients with a vegetative state diagnosis were actually minimally conscious
  • ike a flickering light, and you’re going to miss it unless you systematically look for it,” Fins said.
  • n a few cases, this technology has enabled rudimentary communication with patients trapped inside an unresponsive body. In the future, some scientists believe, it may be possible to directly decode these patients’ thoughts.
    • Daryl Bambic
       
      For an explanation of how this decoding might work, go to the end of the article.
  • Getting these methods right is crucial, as pressure mounts to use them in medical decisions, including whether or not to terminate life support, and in the legal battles that sometimes ensue. There are a number of ongoing legal cases in Canada that involve vegetative or minimally conscious patients and end of life decisions, says Adrian Owen, a neuroscientist at the University of Western Ontario. “I’m absolutely sure fMRI is going to play a role in one or more of these cases in the next 12 months.”
    • Daryl Bambic
       
      The role of technology in ethical decision making.
  • technology that created these disorders in the first place.
  • ut a badly damaged brain is not necessarily unconscious. The recent research tells us quite clearly that human consciousness is not binary. It can exist in degrees, fade in and out, even when the body is unresponsive.
    • Daryl Bambic
       
      Consciousness is not binary but a question of degrees.
  • wen also described a new way to assess mental function in unresponsive patients. It involves scanning someone’s brain as they watch an 8 minute clip of an Alfred Hitchcock film. When healthy people do this, various parts of the brain synchronize their activity at certain times in the clip. Owen argues that if brain injury patients exhibit similar patterns, it could be a telltale sign of residual cognitive function.
  • imple yes-no communication probably isn’t enough to allow patients to participate in decisions about their care.
  • Gallant’s lab has shown that it’s possible to reconstruct still images and video clips from the patterns of activity elicited in the brain of the person viewing them. If Gallant can see what your visual cortex is doing, he can tell you, more or less, what you’re looking at.
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