Blogs

Over the past few classes we learned about the bipartite brain and how through our brain’s interaction with the outside world we continually modify who we are. Recently, I made a trip to the local library to do some readings online for class. I selected a comfortable chair by a window overlooking a busy intersection. Surfing through serendip I came across the idea of “science as an moving up and down (infer from experience, test by experience) approach to advancing understanding”, and ‘humanities’ as a ‘moving laterally’ (infer from comparing stories, test by comparing stories) approach…” (2). This difference was debated among experts in their respective social and natural sciences in Bryn Mawr College, and the consensus was that in order to better understand ourselves, our environment, and others around us, we need to allow ourselves to explore with both; “moving up and down” and “laterally” in learning to discover and enjoy their benefits in a way that is healthy and beneficial.

Isabelle Winer

Evo-Lit

Paper 4

Finding a Path in the Absence of Truth

With billions of people and millions of cultures all simultaneously inhabiting the world today, a universal truth seems entirely impossible.  Every culture has had its own collective mass of experiences unique to them, which have shaped the manner in which they view and participate in our shared world.  Often times these groups even have truths which conflict with those of other groups, but as we have learned over the past semester those conflicting stories are all true to the people who believe them.  We cannot place them in a hierarchy because ultimately they are simply the functional and evolving stories that are the most practical for each group.  Yet having accepted that no story is better than another leads the global community no closer to figuring out how to handle these conflicting stories.  When peoples’ lives and well-being become threatened by these stories it becomes even more pressing to be able to find a functional and fair manner in which the world can govern itself.  In recent years the predominantly African practice of excising the clitoris has become increasingly debated in the global community.  This traditional practice has come to be called, amongst human rights activists and then later organizations such as the United Nation and the World health organization, female genital mutilation (FGM).  Outside of Africa there is a general feeling of disgust at the practice of FGM, but there has also been the opposing argument that this is simply another case of economically powerful nations imposing their own moral judgments upon a folk lifestyle.  Defenders of female genital mutilation, or female genital cutting, range from many of the African women who have undergone the operation to western academics who believe that we cannot fully understand the practice and therefore cannot judge it.  While this practice may be an integral part of a complex culture in which women are glad to undergo the pain and trauma, in its current form female genital cutting is life threatening to the women who endure it.  It has become critical to find a tiebreaker amongst all the stories.  Education and freedom of information are that tiebreaker.  The women of Africa should be allowed to decide their own future, but they should be informed enough to do so.  Currently, the overwhelming lack of accurate information is contributing to the existence of female genital cutting, and that is where the true problem lies.

Throughout the semester in Neurobiology 202, we learned how the brain is not a standing-alone entity; it serves as the center of the nervous system, summarizing all the inputs from our neurons and provides us with a coherent and relatable story. Every class, we became additionally acquainted with the brain’s workings and how that affects our everyday lives. Towards the end of the semester, when the concepts of how our nervous system works continue to become clearer, one thing persist for me, and that is how smart is the lower section of the nervous system; below the neck? Does the rest of the nervous system need to be connected with the brain in order to perform properly? Although the answer might seem obvious, through research I came upon the developing science of locomotive training, which led me to discover alternatives to the ‘brain-in-charge’ model.

Most people at some time in their lives have experienced the rather curious sensation of déjà vu, the feeling that you are reliving a certain moment of your life. It is a phenomenon that has fascinated the world for centuries. Novelists have written about it, movies and television shows have described it and psychologists and neuroscientists have endeavored to explain it from a scientific perspective. This web paper will endeavor to explain how and why we experience the sensation of familiarity known as déjà vu as well as its connection to one of the most mysterious functions of the human brain: memory. By studying déjà vu we may gain insight into the complex relationship between the unconscious part of the nervous system that processes experiences and the neo-cortex that turns them into the stories we call memories.

Chocolate is a food we are all familiar with and occasionally develop cravings for. Why we develop these cravings (intense desires to eat particular foods [6]) is an interesting area of research. Usually at emotional lows [1] or times of boredom cravings begin to arise. It was found that 40% of women and 15% of men have admitted to developing chocolate cravings [10]. The difference in gender frequency will be further explored. It is obvious, by the availability and vast consumption, that chocolate has some mysterious power; it is very palatable and can elevates one’s mood. How? It is a substance that we all love and yet it consists of over 300 known chemicals [8] and many more that have yet to be discovered.

Lea Rifkin
Biology 202
Professor Grobstein
Spring 2007
Web Paper 3

The Perception of Pain:
Understanding Fibromyalgia

Similar to beauty, which has been said to be in the eye of the beholder, perhaps ironically pain is in the perception of the victim. Thus, throughout history, the victims, or patients, or clients, or invalids, or individuals experiencing pain have often also encountered difficulty communicating their pain to the medical community.

The case of Fibromyalgia, or Fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS), has been no exception. Although historians have noted that symptoms of Fibromyalgia have been documented as far back as biblical times, when Job complained of restless nights and tender joints, the medical community at that time had no name for his pain (1). The same holds true for Frida Kahlo, who is now thought to have suffered from posttraumatic Fibromyalgia (2). This diagnosis may explain Frida's poor response to the multiple treatments she received both in Mexico and in the United States of America (2).

Characterized by poor attention skills, hyperactivity, and an inability to control impulses, Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) impacts an estimated seven percent of the population (1)(2).  It is thought that ADD occurs due to missing neural connections and a lack of blood vessels in the pre-frontal cortex (2).  There has been research to suggest that the causes of ADD are due to a lack of dopamine receptors and transporters (2).  In recent years, there has been an increase in the number of children diagnosed as ADD (2).  Because of this, there has been an increase in research with the goal of determining the cause of ADD.  With this, several theories have emerged to explain the reasons behind ADD.  This paper is a critical examination of these possible origins.
 Research suggests that there is a genetic component to ADD (1)(2)(3).  Twenty five percent of children with ADD also have close relatives with ADD.  By contrast, this only applies to 5 percent of the general population (3).  One study suggested that up to 80 percent of ADD can be linked to genetic factors (4).  Currently, there is research being conducted to ascertain which genes are responsible for ADD (5).  So far, the genes that have been isolated are associated with dopamine receptors.  Most scientists who research ADD hypothesize that it is not a single gene that causes ADD but multiple ones.  The genetic explanation for ADD is logical because of the high correlation between parents and children with ADD.  That being said, there are probably other factors that can influence this disorder.

The short book Neurobiology of Human Values was edited by J.-P. Changeux, A.R. Damasio, W. Singer and Y. Christen (all of whom are senior and influential neuroscientists) and comprises 12 essays, each composed for The Symposium by several contributors. Organized by the Foundation Ispen in Paris on January 24, 2005, The Symposium was one of the first events seeking to provide an overview of the neurobiology of human values.

Man has been contemplating the basis of his own ethical and aesthetic values for centuries. Many scientists and researchers have avoided this field of investigation; in the name of seeking an objective truth, it has been assumed that the scientific approach should naturally avoid normative truths such as feelings and consciousness. Until very recently, such a mindset has kept such issues in the hands of philosophers, moralists and theologists. It has even been said that the purpose of moral philosophy is to protect us from science. Before having taken this class, I must admit that I was of relatively the same mindset. However, the rise of neuroscience and other similar disciplines has thankfully made it so that a more objective and experimental approach to the issue of human values is available to us.

In her two essays published as a single work entitled Illness as Metaphor and AIDS and Its Metaphors in 1990, cultural critic and intellectual Susan Sontag, a cancer survivor herself, aptly presents the varied and convoluted metaphors surrounding illness. Focusing on tuberculosis, syphilis, cancer, and later AIDS, Sontag wishes to demystify these diseases. Speaking from diverse perspectives, including academic research, nonacademic observation, and personal experience, she strives to dismantle such myths which exert profoundly damaging consequences for those troubled by disease. Moreover, Sontag contends that the latter two illnesses are popularly viewed as an individual and/or even as a societal blight or punishment. In turn, she reduces illness to what it is at its most essential level—nothing more than a disease—in the case of cancer, a malignant tumor caused by the abnormal multiplication of cells, and, in the case of AIDS, the retrovirus HIV which destroys white blood cells and debilitates the immune system.

I am going to finish my thesis. I am going to finish this paper. I am going to pass the MCATs (wonderfully, might I add) when I take them in a week. Why all the self-affirmations? Perhaps this seems like the ramblings of a senior who is ready to move on with life, but I might actually be helping myself to do better on each of the above. What makes this possible is the glory of positive thinking. The idea that we can think positively about accomplishing a task, or just about life in general, and consciously affect our unconscious. We can actually will ourselves to do better, through the power of our I-function.