Blog About Hunger

This week we had a discussion about how the LH and VMH in your brain affects your hunger and how much or little a person eats. To understand these to subjects, we did an online experiment about stimulating and destroying both the LH and VMH in a rats brain, and then watching them to see how much they ate and then gained weight. When the LH is destroyed in the hypothalamus, you are going to eat less, and when it is stimulated you are going to eat more. When the VMH is destroyed you cannot stop eating, and when it is stimulated you are going to eat way less. It's amazing to me how these two parts in the hypothalamus work together and regulate someone's hunger. I found an article on this subject.....

http://www.cliffsnotes.com/study_guide/Hunger-Motivation.topicArticleId-25438,articleId-25356.html

This article really hit on all the points we went over in class, and sums it all into about a page which I liked. A great study tool!

Article on a Mental Disorder

This is the article I found...

This is article was not so much interesting to me, but it showed me that people are starting to really care for the psychologically disabled more and more now a days. They are starting to put more of an effort into helping these people out with everyday tasks. It is a shame to read about how someone mentally disabled people were living on the streets alone and helpless in the 1990s, now the institutions that houes these people are not so degrading and conventional. These places have more of a "homey" feel to them, which provides more of a happy place for these patients.

Sleeping

In class today, we learned about sleeping and conditions associated with it like narcalepsy and insomnia. One of the subjects was sleep apnea, and when we were discussing it and the symptoms that go along with it, what people were saying described my dad almost exactly when he is sleeping. He would snore really loud for a while, and then he would almost choke and then stop snoring a little bit, but then start snoring really loud once again. He would do this all throughout the night, and you can here him all over the first floor in my house which is so annoying. I thought it was interesting though to learn abouty how this happens as well as learning more about our brain activity and the brain when we are sleeping. It's almost like I can predict what stage of sleep my dad will be in at night.

Week of March 28

On Friday we talked about our ID, Ego, and Superego. The ID is like what we do on an impulse or surprise. The more ID a person has, then obviously the more impulsive that person is going to be. Our Superego is very conservative on the straight and narrow. The more superego we have, the more anxiety and stress we put on ourselves for trying to do everything perfect. The ego basically balances these two things. I would consider myself to be more of the ego type, I not really like the other two at all because I'm not a very impulsive person around others, and I'm usually not someone who worries way too much about something. However, sometimes like before a test or talking to a girl I'll freak out and put a lot of anxiety on myself (superego) to do something like that. And other times when I'm with friends, and we're having a good time we may do something impuslive and out of the ordinary. But, usually I keep things in balance.