Reflexes Lab

In this lab, we tested 5 different reflexes; the Photopupillary reflex, the Knee Jerk reflex, the Blink Reflex, the Plantar Reflex, and tested for reaction time. A reflex is an automatic response from the muscles without getting a signal from the brain.
In the Photopupillary Reflex, I covered 1 eye for around 2 minutes and then opened it while having a light shined on it. My pupil automatically adjusted to lessen the amount of light it let in. Here is a video of the reaction.

In the Knee Jerk Reflex, I was hit just below the patella. Here is a video of the reflex. After doing strenuous activity the reflex would no longer appear because the muscle has run out of ATP which reflexes run on.

The Blink Reflex was the automatic closing of my eye with a total awareness that there was a piece of saran wrap in front of my eyes when a cotton ball was thrown towards them. This is a protective response for the eye.

The Plantar Reflex is activated when there is firm contact dragged up the from the heel to the base of the big toe. The reflex is that the toes will move closer together, but that was not what we witnessed on Beaudine. Maybe we just did not do it hard enough.

For the Reaction Time test, I dropped a yardstick right through Grant's and Beaudine's open hand and the distance that it took to grab the stick was then converted into an estimated time based on a chart we were given. We tested this reaction time 3 times for each person averaging .14 seconds for Beaudine and .127 seconds for Grant. We then adjusted the test and had each person texting while attempting to catch the yardstick. This upped their average times significantly with Beaudine's Average being .303 seconds and Grant's being .223 seconds. Texting doubled their response time which could potentially be the difference between life and death in some situations.

Brain Map

1. The frontal lobes control personality, problem-solving, memory, language, judgment, and impulse control.
2. Selective attention allows you to prioritize important info over unimportant info in memory.
3. The frontal lobe and do exercises to slow deterioration.
4. It governs senses, spatial awareness, and motor skills.
5. It organizes thoughts and actions to match with internal goals.
6. There is no such thing as multitasking, the brain is just switching between tasks really fast.
7. The Broca's Area is responsible for language comprehension, speech creation, and interpreting the actions of others.
8. The Somatosensory cortex is responsible for interpreting temperature,
9. The Visual Cortex differentiates colors and distinguishes complex things such as faces.
10. If the Occipital Lobe is damaged it can completely change the way a person sees the world. There are studies that show that the difference between real and imaginary is less in children so they believe in imaginary things easier. Imagining yourself doing an action in a very detailed way makes you better at that action.
11. If the temporal lobes were damaged there would be no long-term memory.
12. The "fast brain" is the Eye Feilds.
13. 3 ways to help the neuron is exercise, eating healthy, and omega fatty acids.
14. The more dendrites that fire in a memory, the better the memory can be referenced.
15. Big picture learning and mnemonics affect dendrites by stimulating more of them at the same time for a memory to make it easier for the brain to reference later.
16. Dopamine is a natural chemical that increases the sensation of pleasure. Without Dopamine, the brain would not know what memories are useless and ready to be deleted.
17. The Corpus Callosum oral language and how language is formed, print, handwriting, and movement of the eye.
18. Studying music helps increase the connection between the 2 hemispheres.
19. The Thalamus controls memory retrieval. If the Thalamus is damaged then finding memories becomes difficult.

This tutorial taught me how important it is to keep certain parts of the brain healthy. For example, if the Occipital Lobe is damaged, it would not matter how well a person could see prior because the mind would not be able to process the info. It also taught me that there is a whole section of the brain that is used just for differentiating colors and faces. It makes me wonder if people who have a hard time remembering others have damage to their visual Cortex or a smaller one. I also did not know that Dopamine also controls how the brain selects memories to delete. It was interesting to hear how studying music can strengthen the Corpus Callosum and how that strengthened connection can help in other areas as well. It was interesting to hear how healthy eating and exercise can help neurons do their jobs better.
Here is the link to the website.

Brain Dissection Analysis

all them pins

Today we dissected a sheep's brain. The brain we had did not have much of a meninges,  a protective layer that surrounds the brain. After removing that, we identified the cerebrum, cerebellum brainstem, anterior and posterior parts of the brain. Red is the brainstem, yellow is the cerebellum, green is the cerebrum, white is the anterior half of the brain and black is the posterior half of the brain. We identified these sections of the brain through the clay brain model we made earlier in the unit.

The function of the Cerebellum is to coordinate voluntary movements such as posture, balance, coordination, and speech, resulting in smooth and balanced muscular activity.

The brainstem regulates heart rate, breathing, sleeping, and eating.

The Cerebrum controls the high thinking such as thought and action.

The function of myelin in a neuron is to protect the neuron.

horizontal cut

Thalamus Yellow -  consciousness, sleep, and sensory interpretation

Optic nerve Green - transfer visual information from the retina to the vision centers of the brain via electrical impulses

Medulla Oblongata Pink - regulate breathing, heart and blood vessel function, digestion, sneezing, and swallowing

Pons Purple - It is a bridge between various parts of the nervous system

Midbrain Blue - a portion of the central nervous system associated with vision, hearing, motor control, sleep/wake, arousal (alertness), and temperature regulation.

Corpus Callosum Red - integrates motor, sensory, and cognitive performances between the cerebral cortex on one side of the brain to the same region on the other side.

Hypothalamus Brown - links the nervous system to the endocrine system via the pituitary gland

In this dissection, I did all of the actual dissection, such as cutting the brain in half both horizontally and vertically. During said dissecting, it was hard to find certain parts of the brain because it was so different to the diagrams we had been learning the parts of the brain from.