I decided to look more into Sleep Apnea because of my past experience with someone with this condition. I didn't even know it was a condition or the name of it. The only thing that I knew was that it was very disturbing to me. I was married to someone who snored a LOT! Oh my God!, I had to move him so he could stop, and most of the time I tried to go to sleep first so I could get some rest. I even got to the point where I kicked him and he fell off the bed. I felt really bad later but it was frustrating. Then I started to notice that he would stop breathing for a few seconds, and then it went to almost a minute. It was scary watching that, I had to shake him a little of move him to the side and then he stopped. Now that I did some reading on this topic I understand it better, although, still can be scary to watch someone going through this. As you can see from what I said earlier, sleep apnea is a chronic condition in which you have several pauses in breathing while you are at sleep. These pauses can last for several seconds to even minutes, and they may occur up to 30 times or more an hour. As a result you ended up having a poor night sleep, you feel tired during the day. The most common type of sleep apnea is called Obstructive Sleep Apnea,with this condition, the airway collapses or gets blocked during sleep, and this causes shallow breathing or breathing pauses. Obstructive sleep apnea is more common in people who are overweight, although this can affect anyone, like children who have enlarged tonsil tissues in their throats. The picture below shows how a normal airway looks like and the difference between that and someone with obstructive sleep apnea, it sounds complicated but is not actually if we look at the picture.
I also found a short video that will help get a better idea of this chronic condition, and how there is a treatment available so we can improve the life of people during the day when they need to feel rested.
Sexual orientation is a term used to describe a person's emotional or sexual attraction for another person. If this person is attracted to another one of the same sex, then it is said that this person has a homosexual orientation, and individuals having a sexual attraction for the opposite sex are said to have a heterosexual orientation. Now, individuals who have a sexual orientation for both men and women are said to be bisexuals. Lets not confused sexual orientation with gender identity which is our internal sense of whether we are males or females, or social gender role, which is what our culture defines as feminine or masculine behavior.
Scientists cannot have the exact reasons of what causes an individual to develop a heterosexual, bisexual, gay, or lesbian orientation. There are a lot of research conducted to find the possible genetic, hormonal, social, and cultural developments of sexual orientation, but no findings have emerged that let scientists to conclude that sexual orientation is determined by any particular factor. Although many people experienced little or no sense of choice in sexual orientation, some argued that probably nature and nurture play a role in this.
All major national mental organizations are concerned with therapy for trying to modify individuals sexual orientation. Until today there are no adequate scientific research to show that therapy will somehow change or modify sexual orientation. Furthermore, therapy tend to have a negative response, and instead of modify the behavior, it reinforce it even more.
Here I found a good video that I think it is very informative that look at twin boys and how they can be so different, also this study shows that nurture was not a cause, there is a part 2 that I did not add but you can look it up.
Synesthesia is a condition that people have in which stimulation of one sense is experienced by the perception of another sense. What I mean by combination of senses is that you can smelled something and see colors, or hear a noise and taste something, or hear music and seen colors. A little confusing? it is actually fairly simple. Now, the perception of a person with synesthesia not always perceive a direct trading of two senses. They can also associate colors with letters or numbers, for example saying that the number 7 is green or that the letter Y is yellow. Words will have a unique color based on the component letters. Is not only associating a letter or a number with a color, but they can actually see the color in a letter or even when they thing of letters and numbers.
Synesthesia can be describe as a condition and not as a handicap or a disability, it is just a different way of processing sensory information. A person with this condition will probably feel strange at the beginning when trying to describe the colors of their alphabet or things they taste when listening to music, but they will feel better and will embrace it with time. There are some videos of people with synesthesia that tried to explain their condition, that I found very informative and that will help you understand the concept better. Well, at least videos always help me understand a concept better than reading about it. I hope it helps...
It was somehow confusing to me about different types of memory, some sounded similar and others not so much. That is why I did a little research to learn more about this topic, of course now I am thinking of why I did not seek this information before.
What are the different types of memory? Well, the memory system has been divided into two broad categories, declarative and non declarative. The declarative memory system is the system that has a conscious component and includes memories of facts and events. An even like a vacation, or a fact like the capital of the United States. Non declarative memory, also called implicit memory, is the type of memory that do not have a conscious component, although, that do not mean that is not important. These include skills and habits, like driving a car, or playing the guitar. Declarative memory is knowing what, and non declarative memory is knowing how.
FMRI's and PET scans allows one to see areas of the brain that are active during specific tasks. If a person is put in the FMRI and given a memory test, we can see which areas of the brain are active during that specific task, and that activity could be related to where exactly in the brain the memory is processed and stored.
One classic study in the localization of memory was the result of the surgery performed to Henry Molaison. He was known by the scientific community as H.M. he suffered severe attacks of epilepsy and the only way to treat him was by performing an operation where they would remove the hippocampus to alleviate the seizures, and indeed helped him with that. But there was a major effect from the removal of the hippocampus, it affected his memory, specially after the surgery he was not able to form new memories. Nevertheless, he was able to form new memories from skills and habits.
I tried to post a video of H.M. but I could not find something that I really like, so, instead I will post a video about how our memory works, is a little bit long but worth watching...enjoy
Corpus callosum is the pathway that connects the right and left hemispheres of the brain and is made of more than 200 million nerve fibers. If we cut the brain in half down the middle we then would cut also the corpus callosum. if we can look at the middle part of one of those halves of the brain through a MRI we could see that the corpus callosum looks like a mushroom cap cut by the middle in the center of the brain.
Each hemisphere of the brain specialized in the control of movement and feeling of the opposite side of the body, and each side specializes in processing different types of information like language, eye movement, the coordination of movement, or just to think about complex information, and the corpus callosum is responsible for the connection of all these information.
Now, one point of interest is how the symptoms of epilepsy can be reduced by cutting the corpus callosum. This is usually done in cases in which complex seizures are produced by an epileptogenic focus on one side of the brain causing an electrical storm. This procedure involves an electroencephalogram, MRI, PET scan, and an evaluation by a neurologist, and other specialists before the procedure will take place. Nevertheless, it is important to mention once again that by this procedure the symptoms of epilepsy will diminish, and the patient can lead a more normal life.
Here is a very entertaining video that talks about the severed of the corpus callosum and how it affected a person with epilepsy. .
