schizophrenia in children

Schizophrenia is a serious psychiatric illness that causes strange thinking, strange feelings, and unusual behavior.  It is uncommon in children and hard to recognize in its early phases. The cause of schizophrenia is not known. Current research suggests a combination of brain changes, biochemical causes, and genetic and environmental factors. Early diagnosis and medical treatment are important. Schizophrenia is a life-long disease that can be controlled but not cured.

When childhood schizophrenia begins very early in life, it is quite difficult to notice the symptoms but later on the symptoms may build up gradually. The early signs and symptoms may be so vague that you can't quite decide what's wrong, or you may attribute them to a developmental phase.

This is some of the early sings. Trouble discerning dreams from reality, Seeing things and hearing voices that are not real, Confused thinking, Vivid and bizarre thoughts and ideas, Extreme moodiness, Peculiar behavior, Behaving younger than chronological age, Severe anxiety and fearfulness, Confusing television or movies with reality, Severe problems in making and keeping friends.

Early diagnosis and medical treatment are important. Kids with the symptoms listed above must have a complete evaluation. These children may need individual treatment plans involving other professionals. A combination of medication and individual, family, and specialized therapy is often necessary.  Psychiatric medication can be helpful for many of the symptoms and problems identified.

bipolar disorder

Bipolar disorder is a condition in which people go back and forth between periods of a very good or irritable mood and depression. The "mood swings" between mania and depression can be very quick. Also known as manic-depressive illness, is a brain disorder that causes unusual shifts in mood, energy, activity levels, and the ability to carry out day to day tasks. Symptoms of bipolar disorder are severe.

Bipolar disorder is not easy to spot when it starts. The symptoms may seem like separate problems, not recognized as parts of a larger problem. Some people suffer for years before they are properly diagnosed and treated. Like diabetes or heart disease, bipolar disorder is a long-term illness that must be carefully managed throughout a person's life.

To date, there is no cure for bipolar disorder. But proper treatment helps most people with bipolar disorder gain better control of their mood swings and related symptoms. This is also true for people with the most severe forms of the illness.

stress

Stress is defined as a to environmental demands. When stress was first studied in the 50's, the term was used to denote both the causes and the experienced effects of these pressures.

 Stress in humans results from interactions between persons and their environment that are perceived as straining or exceeding their adaptive capacities. human stress responses reflect differences in personality, as well as differences in physical strength or general health.

The causes of stress can include any event or occurrence that a person considers a threat to his or her coping strategies or resources.

The symptoms of stress can be either physical and psychological. Stress-related physical illnesses, such as heart attack, and chronic headache, result from long-term over stimulation of a part of the nervous system that regulates the heart rate, blood pressure, and digestive system.

sleepwalking

i had never seen someone sleepwalk but when i was young my brother and I used to sleep in the same bedroom. one night i saw him standing on his bed and i talk to him and he did not do anything and when he tried to walk he felt down of bed and he stay there all night. that was the only time i have seen a sleepwalker. 
i read that it occurs mostly in children and its very rare that it happens in adults. they have not well understood what might cause sleep walking. some factors that lead to sleep walking is the consumption of alcohol, drugs or any other medication. people that are sleepwalking, they do not experience of being   dreaming.
there are myths that said that you should never wake a sleepwalker because it may provoke some mental consequences or damage. but there is no danger in waking them up.

sex differences in the hypothalamus

so i was reading that the hypothalamus has different functions but never thought that it has to do with the sex too. 

in men, one section of the anterior area of the hypothalamus controls the sexual behaviors.
in women, some parts of their hypothalamus can generated cyclic patterns of hormone release, in other words In humans, testosterone produces its organizing effects on the hypothalamus by itself.the menstrual cycle. In organic chemistry, a ring of six carbon atoms containing three double bonds is an aromatic compound. An enzyme found in the brain can aromatize testosterone into estradiol. Other androgen that cannot be aromatized into estrogen are less effective in masculinitizing the hypothalamus.

taste

for some reason i always thought that taste and flavor was the same thing but is not. taste is the sense alone and flavor is the combination the senses of taste and smell. the relation between the this two senses is due to that both of the senses axons converge onto many of the same cells in an area called the endopiriform cortex. this convergence allows the taste and smell combine and make us choose what food we like the most. i remember one time i had a cold and a running nose. i could not smell anything and the food did not have the same flavor. also i have seen those same thing in some flu or cold commercials were someone eats an onion instead of  an apple and he didn't taste the flavor of the onion.

Hippocampal Damage

the hippocampus is located in the temporal lobe, it has a role in emotions and sexuality, it also contains "place" cells that construct mental maps of position, learning and remembering space. it is also the center of short term memory and it helps with the ability to increase the speed in learning new items

the memories are first processed in the hippocampus for a couple of weeks after that memory move to the ceribral cortex where they stay as long-term memory. people that had damage in the hippocampus had trouble making new memories but the old memories still in them, since the old memories are storage in the cerebral cortex and not in the hippocampus.

also the hippocampus is in charge of remembering spatial layouts and landmarks. in other words if a person with hippocampal damage, will have trouble knowing where they are and therefore get lost.

right and left hemisphere

it is amazing how the brain work and its structure. the brain is basically divide in two, the right and the left hemisphere that they are totally separated but only united by the corpus callosum. each hemisphere has its own characteristics and control different parts, abilities and functions in our body.

the right hemisphere: primary it controls the whole left part of the body, including the vision and hearing abilities. in cognitive functions: time perception, music appreciation, symbols, objects, events, geometric and nonverbal communication. it is the main controller of emotions.

the left hemisphere: it controls the whole right proportion of the body. the left hemisphere also perceives visual and physical sensations from the right half of the body. it also the main controller of language, consciousness, handedness (that is, if one is right or left handed, is directly related to language representation in the brain. the exceptions being those who were forced to become right or who became left handed following a brain injury) and ego-centric speech and the origin of thought

brain size and structure

one of my earlier post was about the brain size and if the size is relevant to intelligence but i found out that the size does not matter at all. in chapter five mention that Albert Einstein after dead he donate his brain in order to do research. they found out that Albert's brain was about avg. size but found out that had more neurons and some with larger axons. maybe the size doesn't matter but what it matter is what is inside the brain. the book mention that the amount of axons and the size of them plus the amount of neurons makes the brain work better and most of the time those are just located in some parts on the brain and those parts are more developed. 

the structure of the brain is more likely the same in mammals the parts of the brain are in the same parts comparing the mammalians brain. the only changes presented are the size of those brain's parts for example the olfactory bulb is larger in dogs than in humans therefore dogs have a greater sense of smell.

alcohol

alcohol is the most common and the most used drug in the whole world throughout history. alcohol has many effects. in a excessive use can cause that we will act different from other times (change of attitudes), dehydration and if used in a long term it will cause kidney and liver problems (kidney stones and cirrhosis). the problem with alcohol is that it can be sell in different versions and depending on those versions will affect different organs. and other problem is its accessibility since its a legal drug it can be purchase in most of the stores.

i found this video quite interesting because i had never hear about fighting alcoholism with alcohol and i think if it the people addicted is drinking less and less well i think it can work.

blood-brain barrier

i was very amazed reading about the blood-brain barrier. this barrier made of blood that protects our nervous system to get attack by viruses. this barrier is one or the best defensiveness mechanism we have in our body. its great that the barrier can allow some important chemicals to go in our brain but also bad that some other can not go through it for example the treatment for brain cancer is difficult because the blood-brain barrier is an impediment for the treatment but besides that is a great defense. but there are some factor that deteriorate the blood-brain barrier like cell phones, some diseases (Alzheimer, Parkinson) also the way we eat or exercise affect the blood-brain barrier    

brain size and intelligence

i was reading that there is no an a low correlation between the size of the brain and the intelligence. between the 1800s and 1900s several societies had many members that donated their brains in order to see if an experiment will show if there were any correlation between the size and intelligence. as a result there were none correlation but maybe it was because of they did not have a lot of methods to study the brain or maybe there were correlating to something else. as today and MRI scans can show a possible correlation between brain size and IQ test. with the MRI we can identify different size changes in the brain, but is only in some areas that the change of size is notable and those areas are the ones with more intelligence.