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What makes us human? Humans possess the capacity for language, empathy, internal dialogue and emotions. However, before we were capable of such characteristics, we first needed to develop consciousness. It is consciousness that establishes our understanding of self and other. Here then, with the emergence of consciousness is the birth of subjectivity within a complex social network. So what then allows us to possess a consciousness? While the neural basis of consciousness remains a mystery, resent research has uncovered two classes of cells that could play major roles in organizing our capacity for social interactions. It seems that spindle neurons and mirror neurons could be responsible for separating us from the rest of the animal kingdom.

The Influence of Music on Neurons Anisha Chirmule Luciano Pavarotti once said “if children are not introduced to music at an early age, I believe something fundamental is actually being taken from them”. People are surrounded by music everyday; it affects mood, concentration, creativity, and even the ability to learn. How can a combination of a few notes have such a profound effect an on individual’s ability to learn? When in infant is born, there are billions of nerves and nerve connections in the brain that are necessary for survival. These neural connections are formed through experiences and strengthened through repetition. An infant is exposed to new situations everyday that affect the nerves in their brain, and once these connections are formed it is very difficult to reverse or rewire them. Listening to music helps to create and strengthen more neural connections because nerves that deal with the auditory system of the brain are being activated in order to hear the music (1). Music is a stimulus that needs to be processed by the brain because we have receptors for sensing and reacting to music. The act of processing this stimulus influences the neural connections in the brain and therefore affects other neural connections which in turn affect the outputs of the body. The Mozart effect is a phenomenon that states when an individual listens to short bursts of music, their intellectual and motor abilities increase and become more efficient (2). It has a profound effect on young children because their minds are still developing at a rapid rate and their neural pathways are easily influenced. The music composed by Mozart has a 60 beat per minute pattern that is repeated throughout his pieces. This pattern activates the action potentials in the right and left hemispheres of the brain and it strengthens the connections between the neurons that connect the two halves. Strengthening of the neural connections leads to more efficient information processing because the brain must concentrate on comprehending multiple stimuli and it therefore becomes capable of multitasking. The ductility of an infant’s brain must be utilized to its fullest potential, because unused nerves are rendered useless.

There’s a certain slant of light

On winter afternoons,

That oppresses, like the weight

Of cathedral tunes.

Heavenly hurt it gives us;

We can find no scar,

I was shell-shocked and disoriented, unaware of what was happening to me. Every time I tried to express myself nothing came out. I was forced to remain silent and could not follow either verbal or written commands. Words sounded to me like jargon… the people around me spoke a foreign tongue. I could neither comprehend nor use language...I lay in bed, staring blankly and feeling helpless. (1)

Our ability as humans to understand the emotions of others allows us ease of socialization and empathizing.  With a mere glance at facial emotions, we are able to determine happiness, sadness, anger, distress, etc… In typically developing children, these abilities come naturally and easily; however, autistic children lack the capability to understand the emotional states of others. It has been determined that “mirror neurons” are responsible for the facility of emotional processing.  However, recent studies have revealed that persons with autism are missing “mirror neurons” and that explains why they have such difficulty with social interactions.  If autism is due to a biological imbalance rather than to a psychological deficit, then is it possible to “cure” autism?  Can the way that autistics view the world be altered?  And is that what they want?  After all, our emotional connections with others bring the burdens of stress, heartbreak, and depression.

Dear Dr. Drew Faust,

            My name is Alex and I am a Bryn Mawr College undergrad. I am currently enrolled in a course called Gender and Science. I wanted to write to you in a broad sense, and talk about the relationship between the scientific world and the gendered world, but more specifically, what it means to be a "woman scientist". Even more importantly, we recognize that there is an inconsistency or inequality among the ration of men to women in the laboratory. In order to analyze this discrepancy I think it is important to analyze what prevents women scientists from being made, rather than how these women scientists are made.

In order to examine if an opiate drug of abuse is actually rewarding to an animal, it is necessary to demonstrate that the drug will be self-administered through intracranial administration. In order to find the structure in the brain that acts as the reward producer, cannulae can be implanted into different areas of the brain and when self-administration is observed, one can assume that they have found the reward center. Post-mortem analysis of the brain tissue will allow the experimenter to determine where the site was. An alternative to self-administration is the place preference paradigm which will also help determine where the reward producing site is.

Humans have the natural instinct to make sure their offspring are safe and healthy, and when a child is not what would be considered 'normal,' a crusade begins to make them so. We want an exact cause, the perfect cure. Many neurological disorders are not as cut and dry as giving a pill and making it all better. Autism is exactly that. Autism is a spectral neurological disorder that effects the development of social interaction, communication, and is often marked by an interest in repetitive activities. Due to its spectral nature, it's difficult to pinpoint an exact cause or assign the 'right' treatment for each individual affected. Different groups of people appoint varying amounts of focus to the multiple theories of causes and treatment methods.

Schizophrenia is a mental illness affecting nearly 2.2 million Americans (5) or 0.5% (3) people world wide. Although this is a relatively low prevalence rate, it is a very debilitating disease which still has no known cure or direct cause. By studying the histories and symptoms of current schizophrenic patients, more can be learned about the disease to help future victims.

Symptoms usually develop between 15-25 years old for men and between 25-35 years old for women (3) and are characterized by both positive and negative symptoms. Positive symptoms include auditory hallucinations, olfactory hallucinations (unpleasant smells), gustatory hallucinations (unpleasant tastes), somatic hallucinations (pain), visual hallucinations, delusions and loosening of associations or “word salad” (3). Negative symptoms are those which affect normal functioning. These include avolition, poverty of speech, or even catatonia (3). Patients who suffer from primarily positive symptoms are said to have acute schizophrenia, while those who suffer from primarily negative symptoms are said to have chronic schizophrenia.

The notion of human perception is a hot-button issue for me in this course and in my waking life. I am not a philosopher, so I lack the existential vocabulary. I am not a biologist, so there goes any solid physical explanation. I am, however, an English major and I could talk your ear off in metaphor, waxing Romantic about how we elevated sentient beings are different from monkeys and rats and pigs but that’s not the point of this course. The point, at least for this paper, was to set out on my futile expedition to glean meaning from scientific articles using words I hardly know how to pronounce, even with my two requisite years of high school biology. Mission accomplished. I have ended up so far from where I started, I feel like a hobbit on the way to Mordor. So you want to talk perception? It ain’t me, babe. I found my way through a monsoon of articles and journals, asking originally asking “does the creative brain operate in a chemically altered state?”