March 2012 Archives

I wanted to expand my knowledge on the various eating disorders of this world, and I happened to find one that I really never knew existed, called pica. Pica is primarily an eating disorder found in children, specifically those diagnosed with autism or mental retardation. Those with pica have cravings for nonfood objects, such as chalk, pebbles, toothpaste, baking soda, needles, soap, paint chips, feces, paper, buttons, fingernails, glue, burnt match heads, wood, hair, and dirt. Could you possibly even imagine eating any of these objects?

This disorder can be very dangerous since eating certain items could promote many health risks, like intestinal obstruction or lead poisoning. To take pica to another extreme, it can come in another form called geophagia. Geophagy is the deliberate consumption of natural Earth materials, particularly soil and clay. This abnormal food ingestion is most prominent in poor countries.

I would really like to know what the driving force is behind eating anything that is nonfood related. I believe the answer to this varies immensely. It could be due to genetics, mental illness, culture, or perhaps religion. No one really knows for sure. In many cases, pica is not actually a disorder if it is practiced in cultural or religious activities. With geophagia, several Earth materials contain valuable minerals, such as those found in clay that yield high health benefits for those in poor counties. Imagine you are living in a tribe in Africa with nutrition deficiency, would you eat some dirt to get more nutrients?

I've got a handful of stories that relate to the idea of egocentrism seeing as I spend a fair lot of time babysitting my young cousin, Henry, who is four years old.

One time in particular I was driving him home after picking him up from his daycare. Henry was strapped into his car chair in the back seat and I had the windows open because it was a particularly nice day. A bee flew into the car and Henry freaked out and shrieked about the bee saying "It's right there! It's right there!" not understanding that I did not see the world through his eyes and that his telling me the bee was "there" didn't explain anything. I tried prompting him to tell me where in the car the bee was, like if it was by one of the seats or by his backpack, and after a long while of this he managed to tell me where it was. It was tough though, because he kept falling back on pointing and saying "It's right there!", which is something that I couldn't relate to, not being in his seat and having his view of the car.

It is said that the average male lies six times a day and the average female lies three times per day- with the most common lie being "I'm fine." How are we supposed to know when someone is lying to us? Television shows such as Maury rely on polygraph tests to see if Mary really cheated on John with his brother, Joe. In a popular movie from 2000, Meet the Parents, Jack Byrnes administers a lie detector test to his daughter's boyfriend, Gaylord Focker (Ben Stiller). Gaylord comments on the inaccuracy of polygraph tests and Jack Byrnes quickly responds, "Well you'd be surprised how accurate the really are. They can tell fairly easily whether someone is lying or not." However, this is not the case. Polygraph tests have high rates of false positives due to the confusion of arousal with guilt. It is believed that the false positive rate is well above 40%- causing the US court to deny the use of lie detector tests as evidence (Psychology 419). With such high rates of inaccuracy why do you think people still use the polygraph test?

Lie detector scene in Meet the Parents:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgyZ7yb2mmI

Psychologist Allison Conner wrote an article about the top ten mistakes people make while dating. To summarize,
1. Game playing: to protect your ego
2. Talking too much about your ex: This information shouldn't be shared too in depth at the beginning of your relationship
3. Fantasizing about the future (mostly women): For example, trying the guy's last name with your first name after the third date.
4. obsessing over details: worrying what others think, your parents, etc.
5. ignoring red flags: If he kicks your dog, has anger problems, etc.
6. Interrogating your date: asking how many kids they want, or when they are thinking about marriage, that's scary for young people
7. Avoiding Intimacy: Self Explanatory
8. Rush in, Rush out: Getting overly involved, then dumping someone after a short period of time
9. Not being honest about your needs: you can't pretend everything is ok forever
10. Sacrificing too much to get the relationship: you shouldn't have to lose your friends and family to date the man/woman of your dreams

The official article is here: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/therapy-in-mind/200910/top-10-dating-mistakes

A video related to the article (the mistakes are a little bit different): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g19gB7vm2Jc

Other facts from http://www.lovepanky.com/love-couch/sweet-love/strange-facts-about-love.

Love does indeed physically make people crazy. It causes Serotonin levels in the brain to drop which can lead people to obsess over their lover. Also, it ramps up production of Cortisol which leads to higher blood pressure and possible loss of sleep. Also, scientists have found that when people look at a new lover, the neural circuits in charge of social judgement are suppressed.

Also, a break up can be just as hurtful as a real physical injury. Finally, Scientists are beginning to believe that blushing and having rosy cheeks actually make them more attractive to men, because it signifies good health.

Correct me if I am wrong, but my interpretation of childhood is a formation of becoming an adult. We teach children how to read, write and behave. In other words, we teach them how to live and survive as adults - life skills. That being said, does violence influence how children handle situations? Does a child know what is right and what is wrong? Can violence lead problems in the future for children? Can violence be eliminated completely from ones childhood?

Some argue that violence is everywhere; it is in the home, in the schools (bullying), the community, on TV, and in the news (TV and print). According to a Comprehensive National Survey more than 60% of the children surveyed were exposed to violence of some form in the last year. The question is how does that affect a child long term?
Violence in the home is linked to psychological, cognitive and long-term problems. Psychological issues include fear, low self-esteem, withdrawal, depression, problematic relationships, and higher levels of aggression. Cognitive includes poor school performance, lack of conflict-resolution skills, limited problem-solving skills and pro-violence attitudes. Long-term problems include higher levels of depression and increased tolerance for and use of violence in adult relationships.

I think that we would all agree that child who grows up in a home that is "unhealthy" have more often than not grown up to repeat or accept that behavior as adults. Children who grow up in a home where problems are solved with violence and abuse learn by nature that is how to deal with situations. Then, how is watching it on TV any different?

http://youtu.be/ueLYBCM5u2A

This YouTube link speaks to this issue in society. I think it is important to note that even though one grows up in an environment where violence and abuse is present, does not mean that the child will grow up to repeat it. Often, they know how it made them feel and they change their way of thinking and doing. However, I argue at some point someone or something influenced that child to see things differently or change the way things were done in the past.

Personally for me, I grew up in a home where verbal abuse was a normal thing from my mom. Now as an adult, I see that she is like that because it is all she knows. It was how her father spoke to her and what she grew up with. That being said, I knew I did not want to be like that or to live in an environment like that. I've caught myself in relationships where he was like my mother and it took years for me to see the truth that it was an unhealthy relationship (I need to listen to my friends more - they saw it before I did and good thing I did not marry him!!!)

It also too me a long time to see who I was, who I wanted to be and what I needed to change. For me, it was great people in my life and a coach to help me recover from the pain of my past. For each person it is different, for some, they never have that opportunity to see differently. Evidence leads me to believe that it can influence children. Personally for me, I do not want to expose my children to violence if I can help it.

While reading chapter 11, I became very intrigued by all of the information presented about lying, particularly methods of lie detection. I've always been one to watch crime shows such as Law and Order or CSI and that, up to this point, has been the basis for all of my knowledge on lie detection methods. I was very surprised at the varying techniques that could be used to detect lies, not only the polygraph test but also the guilty knowledge test, brain fingerprinting, and integrity tests. I thought it was very interesting that lie detector tests rest on the basis of the Pinocchio response, or a measure of physiological or behavioral responses that can indicate lying. Another interesting point is the variation in questions that can be given to the test-taker. Needless to say, I will think differently about the methods of lie detection used on Law and Order next time a character is convicted of first degree murder.

Questions that I thought of when reading this section though, have to do with our justice system using methods of lie detection. Do our courts rely on the results of a lie detector test, or is that just the way that Hollywood displays it on TV?

statevdressel.pdf

The link above includes information regarding a Minnesota court case. Though Dressel, the man who is accused of harming his daughter, ADMITTED to hurting her post-polygraph test, the court ruled it inadmissible because it had to do with the lie detector test. Is this wrong?

This entry discusses the topic of problem solving. One major obstacle that comes to mind when faced with problem solving is a "mental set." Recently, my roommate was writing a paper for one of his classes and the prompt was substance abuse among college students. He had a great deal of difficulty writing it; specifically when choosing a topic to write about. The difficulty was that he wanted to choose a topic that was creative and unique, but he was drawn towards topics that the professor had brought up in class and had trouble straying from those. After about half an hour of thinking he began to complain until I gave him a few ideas to go with. According to the text, it makes sense that I was able to give him unique ideas because I haven't been a part of the class lectures and wouldn't have a mental set imposed on my thinking. This is a pretty clear representation of the "mental set" problem solving obstacle.

I found an interesting article from Dave Ellis's manual, "Becoming a Master Student" which discusses ways to improve creativity and problem solving. One such remedy for getting stuck on a problem is to brainstorm with peers. Writing down ideas and branching off of them as opposed to simply prodding your own brain generally can bring forth some great material. This gives you the opportunity to pick and choose between topics you like as well as topics that may not work. Another idea is to journal your ideas for future reference. This is a less immediate approach to problem solving, but it could also save you time when a specific subject task arises and you are stuck with no idea what to do about it.

Link: http://www.essortment.com/improve-creativity-problem-solving-63855.html

Kohlberg states that people go through three different steps of morality in ascending order as we mature into adults. We start off at Step 1, Preconventional Morality. We think about whether we will get punished or rewarded for something. Step 2 is Conventional Morality. We think about how our community will view us. Step 3, is Postconventional Morality. What you feel is right and wrong.

If Mark Twain were alive in Kohlberg's day, he would see things a little different. In "The Adventures of Hucklberry Finn", Huck frees a slave from his master. Most of the adults he met, had they all known, would have felt he had sinned. Huck Finn was stealing another mans property (a slave). Huck believed he would go to hell for freeing a slave. He was willing to sacrifice his soul, make the community very angry with him, and get punished for what he felt was doing the right thing.

Huck displayed the ability to move beyond the first two conventions and make decisions on the highest. A pattern in Mark Twain's books dealt with children in his stories doing the right thing, and the older people being too corrupt to do so. Mark Twain would agree with the order of Kohlberg's morality and the different types, but would believe we would go from step 1 to step 3, and as adults conform to societal norms falling to step 2, a lower moral thought process.

Have you ever heard a saying and thought to yourself, "What a bunch of baloney"? Well...perhaps some proverbial sayings are more than just well-known--they may even have some inherent truth that could help us live our lives better and more happily. In the opinion of social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, these sayings can even be supported or discredited by empirical data in the world of psychology.

For example, the old adage that "no man is an island" seems true from a psychological standpoint, especially when considering love. True love exists, but passionate love will not last forever, Haidt contends. True love comes from attachment. He even cites psychological studies to liken all feelings of love to the attachment and love we feel for our parents. Being with a romantic partner in the beginning of a relationship, we experience feelings of elation because our minds are stimulated by neurotransmitters in the same way as they would if we had taken a drug like cocaine or heroin. Love becomes addictive, and attachment is formed out of the addictive desire to be around your partner. This is the passionate stage of love.

Unfortunately, Haidt reminds us that no one can stay high on a drug forever. If the relationship continues for an extended period of time, the drug-like state of euphoria gives way to a content companionship. He refers to this love as "compassionate love." Feelings of love evolve over time, and this may explain why many people rush into relationships or marriage...only to have it sadly end in divorce or break-ups.

Love in a successful long-term relationship would look something like this graph from The Happiness Hypothesis:

Anyone that has been in a long-term relationship has probably experienced feelings much like the ones that Haidt describes here. Overall, I may not agree with all of the things he contends, but he certainly provides an interesting, relatively accurate model...at least in terms of my relationship history!

Chapter 10 briefly outlines the role of the father in parenting. According to the textbook, fathers tend to be less attentive and affectionate than mothers toward their children and spend less time with their babies.

Yet the days of the "traditional" family - with dad as breadwinner, mom as homemaker, 2.5 kids and a home in suburbia - are long gone. As more and more women enter the workforce, there is an increasing number of fathers who elect to stay at home. In 2009, there were an estimated 158,000 fathers who were primary caregivers in their household.* Phrases like "stay-at-home-dad" and "Mr. Mom" point to these changing parental roles. Check out the following trailers:

The films, while primarily aiming to provide humor, also recognize that fathers play an important role in child-rearing. But what are they saying about their capabilities? Certainly, the trailer hints at the father's lack of responsibility. (One father jokes that he caught his kid eating a cigarette.) Does the media make the same statements about mothers, or is it just reserved for fathers? What do you think?

* Source: America's Families and Living Arrangements

The other day my roommate accidentally threw her clothes on top of a shirt that I had planned on wearing to a interview that day. I came home and was about to get ready for my interview, when I could not find my shirt. I began looking around then realized it was under all of her clothes on the chair. Since all of her clothes were on top of the shirt, it became very wrinkly. We do not have an iron in our dorm, so I panicked at first. I then realized that I could use my hair straightener to get some of the wrinkles out. I plugged my straightener in and then began to use it to press the wrinkles out of my shirt and it actually worked very well.

By using my hair straightener to iron my shirt, I was able to overcome functional fixedness. I was able to think of a way to use my hair straightener to solve my problem. Researchers suggest one of the best ways to solve a problem is to break the problem down into subproblems. I did this because my initial problem was I was unable to find my shirt. Then I decided to look for it and once I did, I realized that I need to somehow find a way to iron the shirt.

This is really interesting to me. I found an article on the US News website (http://health.usnews.com/usnews/health/healthday/071105/tv-violence-may-spur-aggression-in-boys.htm) that says that TV may spur aggression in boys, but not girls. University of Washington professor of pediatrics, Dr. Dimitri Christakis, said the link between TV violence and violence in boys appears solid. "If parents are really interested in their kids' behavior, they have to be very selective and thoughtful about what their children watch," Christakis said. "That requires a fair amount of education on their part. They can't think, 'It's a cartoon, and it's harmless.' They have to be more thoughtful."

Christakis reviewed data from 8000 US families and focused on the television habits of 184 boys and 146 girls. He found that for each hour a day spent watching violent TV during their preschool years, boys were three times more likely to develop behavioral problems at age 7.

I find this study very interesting because there has always been questions about whether TV really does effect how kids act. Something as little as watching Power Rangers, or even Superman, or Batman, promotes violence. These are really common for all kids and parents should take this into consideration when their young kids sit in front of the TV for their Saturday morning cartoons.

http://www.hulu.com/watch/209651/saturday-night-live-laser-cats-1
This is an example of something that seems innocent and funny, but for kids, they take in a lot of information and it's hard for adults to think like kids at their age. They don't realize that kids can role play this, or this gets kids eager to be more violent.

This last clip is just another example of cartoons, that are rated G, that promote violence and even murder. You may find some of these very surprising.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oceyNYLoUCc

As eluded to in the text, many individuals experience having false memories. People remember, clearly, where they were on September 11th and some old Americans even claim to have memories about the assassination of JFK, the death of Princess Di, and so on.

Some people are particularly receptive to false memory, the text says that "some studies suggest that people who are fantasy prone are more likely to experience memory illusions on this task" (and so are the elderly!) and that "these groups of people are probably more likely to confuse their imaginations with reality."

This makes total sense to me, being that I am a person more prone to fantasy, day dreaming, and imagination. I carried, for the longest time, a memory of the time I lost a tooth while playing hide and seek with my brother as a young child. After telling the story once to my mother she confirmed that such an event had never happened, and after asking both my dad and brother if they had any recollection of it, I realized that I hadn't ever lost a tooth in such a way. As it turns out, I have a handful of false memories, or memoires implanted by the stories of others.

What shocks me most about this section of the chapter would have to be the part on the implantation of false memories in lab settings. Though helpful in aiding us to understand how false memories happen, some of the instances hardly seem ethical. In "Memoires of Things Unseen" it was mentioned that (among harmless false recollections of being lost in a mall as a child) "in one study that convinced one third of subjects that when they were children they had nearly drowned and had to be rescued by a lifeguard (Heaps & Nash, 2001). Another research group convinced about half of their subjects that they had had particularly awful experiences as children, such as being a victim of a vicious animal attack (Porter, Yuille, & Lehman, 1999)".

I understand that researchers were trying to see how far they could push the test, but I don't believe it is healthy to give a participant a memory that may harm them.

When thinking of the biggest decision at this point in my life, it's what I should major in. This decision is so stressful for me because I have no idea what I want to major in, and I am running out of time to decide. At this point in my life, I am leaning towards a business major because I am decent at math and because it's a good major to be in.

I fell into the Salience of Surface Similarities problem solving obstacle at first. When people asked me what I wanted to be when I was younger, I said a doctor. This is really attention-grabbing because of the amount of money you make and how it is such a respectable profession.

The reason that was such a bad option for me was because I have never really been into science and I don't even have enough money to put myself through med school, the reason it appealed to me so much was only because of the money making aspect of it. Even though I have not made a decision about what I want to do with my life, I am getting closer to figuring it out. Mostly because of my counselor, who has helped me so much to get me on the right track.

I think another barrier of problem solving, for me at least, was the fact I wanted to do what my friends do. All my friends are engineers so I really considered becoming an engineer as well, when deep down I knew that it wasn't the right path for me.

Research shows that it's easier to solve a problem if you break it into sub-problems. For example, instead of answering the question what should my major be, I should ask myself 1) what qualities do you look for in a job, 2) what are you good at, 3) what are some of your weaknesses, and 4)where do you want to be in ten years? The answers to these questions could help answer the question about what my major should be.

Intelligence as Sensory Capacity: Out of Sight, Out of Mind.
--Galton proposed a radical hypothesis: Intelligence is the by-product of sensory capacity. He reasoned that most knowledge first comes through the senses, especially vision and hearing. When experimented, his hypothesis is weakly correlated which falsified his claims.

Intelligences as Abstract Thinking
--Binot and Simon established the first intelligence test, a diagnostic tool designed to measure overall thinking ability. They wanted to find a key variable: Higher mental processes or a measure of. These mental processes include reasoning, understanding and judgement. Modern intelligence tests have followed Binet and Simon's lead.

--Most experts agree that intelligence has something that pertains to abstract thinking, the capacity to understand hypothetical concepts, rather than concepts in the here and now.

Intelligence as General versus Specific Abilities

--General intelligence: that accounted for the overall differences in intellect among people. Labeled g.

--Specific abilities: how well we perform on a given mental task depends not only on our general smarts, but also on our particular skills in narrow domains. Labeled s.

Fluid and Crystallized Intelligence

--Developed by Raymond Cattell and John Horn.

--Fluid intelligence: refers to the capacity to learn new ways of solving problems. We rely on our fluid intelligence the first time we try to solve any new problem that we face. Like operating a new vehicle.

--Crystallized intelligence: refers to the accumulated knowledge of the world we acquire overtime. We rely on our crystallized intelligence to recall and answer questions like, what is the capital of Florida?

--The main difference between Fluid and Crystallized intelligence is that Fluid mainly declines with age as Crystallized stay the same or increase with age.

Multiple Intelligences: Different Ways of Being Smart

--Entirely different domains of intellectual skill.

--This part of the chapter examines an even greater divided depth of how to figure out what intelligence is within someone.

--Triarchic Model

Analytical intelligence: the ability to reason logically.

Practical intelligence: also called tacit intelligence, the ability to solve real world problems, especially those involving other people.

Creative intelligence: also called creativity, our ability to come up with novel and effective answers to questions.

Biological Bases of Intelligence

--Intelligence and reaction time: States that people with higher intelligence are able to react quicker to stimuli than people with a lower intelligence.

--Intelligence and memory: Intelligence also bears an intimate connection to memory capacity. A person with a higher intelligence usually has a much higher memory capacity than a person with lower intelligence.

--The location of intelligence: The prefrontal cortex of the brain is determined to be the main section that intelligence is originated from. That section of the brain is usually the most active when an intelligence test is conducted.

Central theme of Intelligence
--Intelligence is related to efficiency or speed of information processing. Capacity and quickness of thinking is usually what more intelligent people consist of.

After reading this chapter and plotting some main points about finding or determining intelligence. I've concluded that a person with more intelligence can solve problems faster, more efficient, and have higher reliability with getting the right answers. Speed and capacity are two main traits that are advantaged with intellectual people. A person who has a harder time figuring out problems and are slower, are usually determined to have a lower intellect. There are many different types of intelligence tests that try to unify one way to determine intelligence, but it seems as though each time a scientist or researcher tries to create one, it has a few biases and only a specific groups intelligence can be determined with it.

Alzheimer's disease definition: "It is a progressive, degenerative disorder that attacks the brain's nerve cells, or neurons, resulting in loss of memory, thinking and language skills, and behavioral changes." (Alzheimer's Foundation of America)

It is the most common form of dementia, and is usually diagnosed with people ages 65 and older, although it is not a normal form of aging. The origin of the name Alzheimer's disease dates back to 1906 when German physician Alois Alzheimer presented a medical case of a 51 year old woman who suffered a rare brain disorder of that time.

The process of what happens is that the neurons, which produce the brain chemical, or neurotransmitter, acetylcholine, break connections and transmissions with other nerve cells and in the end ultimately leads to death after a certain threshold. The first symptoms are difficulty remembering certain events. As the disease progresses, the forgetfulness becomes more and more apparent.

The disease is as of now incurable and the causes are still not well understood. Current research shows that the disease is associated with plaques and tangles in the brain. There are current treatments available to help slow or deal with the disease, but unfortunately there are no treatments to stop or reverse the progression. Mental stimulation, exercise, and a balanced diet are common treatments.

Caregiving is usually given by a spouse or a close family member. Alzheimer's patients are known to give caregivers great burden. One of the greatest movies that depict this disease is "The Notebook".

The movie "The Vow" starring Channing Tatum (YUM) and Rachel McAdams involves the loss of memory of the main character Paige from a tragic car accident. After the accident she is unable to retrieve any recollection of her marriage to her husband Leo.
Rather than the more common anterograde amnesia, she contracts retrograde amnesia. She is able to form new memories easily and even remembers previous to her meeting her husband but cannot remember him at all.
This disturbs him deeply, as one may expect in this situation. Many films have amnesia within the center of the movie's plot, many times in an unrealistic manner. This film seemed to take a more reasonable approach about it because there was no "aha!" moment or the recovery of the memory as is oftentimes portrayed. The movie does not delve deeply into details of memory but does not lead viewers astray either. Paige did not ever end up remembering the memories that she lost. Neither did the real person, Kim Carpenter, which is what I would take as the reason for the more realistic portrayal of amnesia, since it really happened to her. Overall, it paints a fairly good picture of amnesia while of course adding the typical hollywood drama and romance. Amnesia is more often than not displayed wrongly or to the extreme in film and The Vow is one movie that seemed to have attempted to keep it to a level of believability due to its roots in actuality.

After going through the chapters for this section I was drawn to perception and sensation. I found this chapter rather interesting and wanted to reread and go into greater depth on a few of the subjects found in the chapter that interested me. Inattentional blindness really interested me. It's amazing to me that you could watch a video and count the number of times a basketball is thrown and completely miss a gorilla walk through the picture. I was a victim to this, when I watched the video I didn't even notice the gorilla. I was also interested in change blindness, where you fail to detect obvious changes in your environment. Another section of this chapter that really interested me was the section on how we perceive color. The trichromatic theory says that we base our color perception based on three colors; blue, red, and green. The opponent process theory suggests that we perceive colors in terms of three pairs of opponent cells; red and green, blue or yellow, and black or white. After reading the chapter again I realized I have always been interested in blindness. I have really bad eye sight so I think that's why I'm so interested in what happens what you can't see at all. But I didn't know that you could be motion blind. Motion blindness is when people can't string still images processed by their brains into the perception of ongoing motion. The last thing I will address from this chapter is blindsight. Blindsight is where people who've experienced damage to a specific area of their cortex can still make correct guesses about the visual appearance of things around them. This to me is very interesting because I always thought you were blind or you weren't, there was no in between. This chapter all in all has made me more interested in perception and sensation and I would like to know more.

Dementia is a loss of brain function that occurs with certain diseases. Alzheimer's disease (AD), is one form of dementia that affects memory, thinking, judgement, perception and emotional behavior and progressively worsens over time. Most people experience normal forgetfulness due to aging and mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is the next stage before the development of AD. Symptoms of MCI include difficulty performing more than one task at a time, difficulty solving problems, and forgetting recent conversations. Imagine losing the ability to work on homework and carry on a conversation with a friend or forgetting that conversation only five minutes later. Eventually, the progression of the disease results in loss of language skills getting lost in familiar routines (like getting dressed in the morning or baking cookies), and inability to learn new routines (like a route you need to drive to get to a new job).

People with AD often feel like their brain is a jumble of puzzle pieces

Common causes of dementia include a brain tumor or stroke that twist or even destroy nerve cells. The loss of nerve cells means the brain has a harder time communicating to the rest of the body. Unfortunately, because of the complexity of the nervous system, there is no cure for AD at this time. On the other hand, the goals for treatment include slowing the progression of the disease through use of medication, managing sleep problems, and changing the home environment to make daily activities easier to perform. Although these are all important, support from family members and dedication of caregivers are probably even more essential to maintain the behavior and personality of the AD patient.

Even though there is no proven way to prevent AD as it is commonly passed down from parent to child, there are a few practices that can be incorporated into a daily routine to delay its onset. For instance, comsuming a low-fat diet, eating fish rich in omega-3 fatty acids, reducing intake of butter, increasing intake of antioxidants like vitamins E and C, maintaining a normal blood pressre, and staying mentally and socially active throughout life have been shown to help. Interestingly enough, females and those with a history of head trauma are more at risk to develop AD.

An interesting breakthrough in AD treatment involves the use of an FDA-approved drug that rapidly clears Amyloid from the brain and reverses cognitive and memory defects:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdYdYeNAYpU

source:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0001767/

Fifty First Dates is one of my all time favorite Adam Sandler movies. In this movie, the main actress (Drew Barrymore), was involved in a bad car accident where she isn't able to make new long term memories. Adam Sandler falls in love with her and works every day to try to get her to fall in love with him, but it's a challenge since each morning she wakes up and has no idea who he is. He work on it by making videos for her and constantly visiting her hoping she'll start to remember.

This may not be the most accurate portrayal of how memory loss happens. I'm sure it depends on the nature of the accident. In this case, Drew Barrymore remembers everything up to the crash, but nothing after the fact. I think if we were to look at how it happens naturally (with diseases such as Alzheimers), we would see that it is a much more gradual experience, and people start to forget more and more things as time goes on. One aspect from the movie that doesn't seem to make much sense is the regularity of when she forgets everything. In the movie, she forgets everything as she sleeps, so you can predict whether or not she's going to remember you. In real life, it's much more complicated than that, and people forget things over longer and shorter periods of time (partially depending on how important the matter was to the individual).

This is just a simple illustration of how Drew Barrymore felt in the movie when she woke up with a strange man (Adam Sandler) in her bed in the morning. Obviously her reaction was a bit more dramatic as the circumstances were a slightly different

Alzheimer's disease is a disorder in which the person suffering has mild to severe dementia. It is also the most common form of dementia and unfortunately has no cure. The symptoms that are accompanied with the dreadful disease include problems with memory, judgment, and thinking, which makes it hard to work or take part in day-to-day life. As the stages of Alzheimer's progress, memory loss and other signs of Alzheimer's become more apparent. This is a very common disease in people over the age of 65 affecting nearly every one out of ten people. There has been vast amounts of research done to help improve and even cure the lifestyle that these people are suffering through but nothing has successfully cured it. There is no proven understanding as to what causes Alzheimer's however research has shown that plaques, deposits of protein that accumulate between the nerve cells, and tangles, deposits of protein that accumulate within the nerve cell, build up and block the nerve cells' ability to communicate while also making it difficult for them to survive.

You can see a fine difference between the two types of cells and how the Alzheimer's nerve cell looks like it is dying and discolored. There are few treatments for Alzheimer's and they can do nothing more than slow down the progression of mental deterioration in a victim of Alzheimer's. Most of the drugs have harmful side effects as well and the quality of life is very difficult to preserve for people with Alzheimer's. One way of reducing your risk for Alzheimer's is by eating right, exercising, staying mentally and socially active, and keeping stress in check. By leading a brain-healthy lifestyle, you may even be able to prevent the symptoms of Alzheimer's disease entirely and slow down, or even reverse, the deterioration of aging. The following link is an example of an Alzheimer's patient and portrays the symptoms of an Alzheimer's patient.
What are you doing to prevent being like this?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzFNTtHyTzo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Wv9jrk-gXc
The other video graphically illustrates what was previously explained.

Alzheimer's disease is a disease that attacks the brain. Autopsy studies have shown Alzheimer's disease is characterized by a build-up of proteins in the brain. The build-up manifests in Plaques: deposits of the protein that accumulate in the spaces between nerve cells and tangles: deposits of the protein that accumulate inside the nerve cells. They are said to block the nerve cells ability to communicate with each other making it difficult for the cells to survive.
Many people find the changes in behavior caused by Alzheimer's to be the most challenging and distressing effect of the disease. In early stages, people may experience behavior and personality changes such as: irritability, anxiety, and depression. In later stages: anger, agitation, aggression, physical and verbal outbursts, restlessness, hallucinations, delusions, and sleep disturbances.
Currently there is no cure and little prevention. Drug and non drug treatments may help with both cognitive and behavioral symptoms. FDA approved medications are cholinestrerase inhibitors and memantine. They cannot stop the damage of Alzheimer's but they may lessen or stabilize symptoms for a limited time by affecting certain chemicals involved in carrying messages among the brains nerve cells. Exercise, good nutrition, activities, and social interaction are important. A calm, structured environment also may help the person with Alzheimer's disease to continue functioning as independently as possible.
Below is a video on the current facts and stats of Alzheimer's disease:

Alzheimer's disease is a disease that attacks the brain. Autopsy studies have shown Alzheimer's disease is characterized by a build-up of proteins in the brain. The build-up manifests in Plaques: deposits of the protein that accumulate in the spaces between nerve cells and tangles: deposits of the protein that accumulate inside the nerve cells. They are said to block the nerve cells ability to communicate with each other making it difficult for the cells to survive.
Many people find the changes in behavior caused by Alzheimer's to be the most challenging and distressing effect of the disease. In early stages, people may experience behavior and personality changes such as: irritability, anxiety, and depression. In later stages: anger, agitation, aggression, physical and verbal outbursts, restlessness, hallucinations, delusions, and sleep disturbances.
Currently there is no cure and little prevention. Drug and non drug treatments may help with both cognitive and behavioral symptoms. FDA approved medications are cholinestrerase inhibitors and memantine. They cannot stop the damage of Alzheimer's but they may lessen or stabilize symptoms for a limited time by affecting certain chemicals involved in carrying messages among the brains nerve cells. Exercise, good nutrition, activities, and social interaction are important. A calm, structured environment also may help the person with Alzheimer's disease to continue functioning as independently as possible.
Below is a video on the current facts and stats of Alzheimer's disease:

For this blog, I wrote about a memory of me and my sisters and my mom going to a pumpkin patch around Halloween about 12 years ago. Here is how I remember it:

It was a beautiful fall day, the sun was shining and the sky was clear. I remember goofing around with my sisters and having a great time. I remember grabbing some good food for lunch. Mostly, I remember picking out the biggest pumpkin I could find. One that was definitely bigger than either of my sisters.

However, when I talked to my family members, they seemed to remember a few things differently. My mom remembers us being very naughty, doing things like running away from her and hiding. One of my sisters remembers eating horrible food (she got sick later that night), and my other sister swears she definitely picked out the biggest pumpkin.

I think the biggest factor in why people have different memories of the same event is that everyone had different experiences or perspectives on that event. For example, I remember me and my sisters having a blast because to young kids, running and hiding from their parents is so much fun. However to my mom, we were being extremely naughty by doing this, so she remembers us as being trouble. This also works for my sister remembering the food as bad, whereas I remembered it as good. Since she got sick later that night, of course she thought the food was bad, and likely experienced taste aversion to the food after that.

Did you know that Alzheimer's disease is a form of the more general Dementia? Or, in other words, a loss of brain function? Alzheimer's is a specific form of Dementia that affects memory, behavior, and thinking that gets worse over time. This disease usually affects elder people and what's baffling is that the older you become, the chances of you developing the disease increase dramatically, (the odds of having the disease if you are 85 or older is 50 percent!) There is no cure for Alzheimers and currently we can only slow the rate at which symptoms become worse with a limited amount of drugs. The sad thing, however, is that many of the families and doctors of Alzheimer's patients rarely see any improvements from treatment drugs. There are also no proven ways to prevent the disease. Experts say that maintaing a healthy blood pressure, consuming a low-fat diet, and even eating fish three times a week can potentially help. For now all we can do is be hopeful and supportive of friends or families that are overcome by this tragic disease.
Here is a look at how difficult this disease is to cope with.

Everyone knows that birds sing songs to communicate with each other. Different songs are used to warn other of predators, attract mates, and find food. But how far do these songs really go? How complex are birds' languages? Well, as some scientists have found out, they're more complex than people think.

Parrots especially have been studied for their extreme vocal abilities, able to mimic nearly every sound they hear. But they don't just mimic. They also have a language and words of their own. Parrots have been recorded using specific sounds to get other parrots' attention. As it turns out, these sounds are the parrots' names. That's right, parrots have specific, individual names. A study by Cornell University on wild parrots in Venezuela showed that the parent parrot (try saying that five times fast) actually names their children. Parrots name their children just like humans name theirs.

But it's not just parrots that have intricate workings to their songs. Bengal finches actually have grammar and syntax to their songs, and they get pissy if it's wrong. Researchers at Kyoto University recorded some of these finches' songs and mixed them up. When they played them back to the finches, they threw a fit. They played the song to a different group of finches, who also reacted in the same way. It turns out that these birds have some strict grammar rules and don't like it when they're messed up.

What causes it:
- The disease occurs at alarming rates as people age. The risk for Alzheimer's disease is 13 percent for those over 65 years of age, but 42 percent for those over 85 years of age. - The cognitive impairments of Alzheimer's disease are both memory and language related.

What has been done to treat it:
- There exists medications that alleviate some of the symptoms of alzheimer's, like the drug Aricept which boost acetylcholine levels in the brain. Neurons that connect directly to muscle cells also release acetylcholine, allowing them to trigger movement. There are also experimental procedures such as gene therapies that enhance the production of neurotrophic factors, which enable acetylcholine neurons to survive and thrive. Sadly, there exists no treatment to date that halts or reverses the course of Alzheimer's disease.

What can be done prevent it:
- A research was made to see if anything can be done to reduce the risk of Alzheimer's disease. The research demonstrated that being physically active reduces the risk of cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's disease. Also, people who are highly educated and intellectually active are at decreased risk of Alzheimer's disease.

The experiences of those with the disease:
- The memory loss begins with recent events, with memories of the distant past being the last to go. Those who have the disease may experience a few of the following events. People with the Alzheimer's disease forget their grandchildren's names before forgetting their children's names. They may also experience disorientation and are frequently at a loss as to where they are, what year it is, or who the current president is.

Personal Opinion:
In my life there only exists one person whom i know to be 79 years old, which is my grandpa. At this age he is still working wherever he possibly can which makes him physically active making the disease preventable. I have never heard of him having memory loss or anything related to that issue. My grandpa is about to be 80 years old and I don't see any signs of him having this type of disease and I'm thankful for that.

Many of us have seen, heard, or know someone with Alzheimer's disease. It is a disease that greatly affects both the person and friends and family. Alzheimer's is a disease that as time goes by gets worse. It affects many areas of the brain including memory and . As the disease spreads out symptoms get worse to the point were the person had to rely on other people for everyday activities. The following is a picture of how it spreads overtime.

Currently it is not curable however there are treatments that can slow down its progression making life easier. This disease mainly affects people in their 60s however, there are a few that get it in their 40s or 50s. The reason this disease affects many is because of memory loss. People with Alzheimer's may completely forget someone they've known their entire life such as siblings, parents, and friends. One can be more prone to getting it if they have a family member that has it as. Although genetics can be one reason for contracting this disease, physical environment is also important. Having a healthy diet and having both social and physical activity can help. I hope that one day we can find a way to prevent completely because once it starts it doesn't stop. Memories once held dear can disappear and be forever lost.

A more detailed description of this disease can be found in this link:
http://www.nia.nih.gov/alzheimers/publication/alzheimers-disease-fact-sheet

Most people might think that false memories are harmless, but in reality, they can be potentially life threatening. Before DNA testing technologies were available, many people were falsely imprisoned because of an eyewitness that was a victim of a false memory. Also, many people are put away because of a false memory that was "recovered" by a therapist. Many of these memories consist of sexual and childhood abuse. But why would a therapist want a patient to create these memories? Why would they suggest such things if there is not one shred of evidence suggesting it in the first place? It's as if they want their patients to have painful pasts. It's as if they think that every person seeking psychiatric help was abused at one point or another. This is of course untrue: most people that are abused rarely seek help, and those people who do seek help do so because of problems that they know are there. Therapists are meant to help people, not to implant false memories that will then cause them to develop mental problems, keeping them coming back to therapy for many years after. Of course, sometimes they can be harmless. False memories affect a great percentage of people daily and they do not ever realize it. But the one thing people need to realize is that anyone can fall victim to this phenomena.

The false memories section of the chapter was the most interesting, yet most alarming part for me. The thought of someone having the ability to alter my memories and/or create new ones, while convincing me that the memory actually is real. Suggestibility is what really bothered me, especially with the case we read for Discussion Section this week. A man was hanged for a confessing a memory he did not have. It truly angered me. The flashbulb memories was something that really resonated as well. As soon as the question about the terrorist attacks on 9/11 was posed, I immediately recalled what I was doing when I learned of the attacks. Yet, after reading what the psychologists said, it made me second guess my memory, even though I am sure that I remember it accurately. However, that is exactly what the subjects studied thought as well. Basically, this chapter made me second guess everything I remember, which is kind of a terrifying feeling. No matter the amount of "Most of the time our memories work well"s that were present within the chapter, I am now probably going to mistrust most things related to recollection and memory.