Reflexes Lab

In this lab, we tested each others reflexes through a serious of activities. A reflex arc is a pathway to nerve impulses which do not go to the brain. The first activity was the photopupillary reflex. We tried to see what light did to your pupils after they were closed for 2 minutes. This was an autonomic reflex because we could not really control what they did. The knee jerk reflex automatically cause your leg to jerk out once it was hit lightly. The blink reflex was also autonomic because our eyes closed as a first instinct to prevent the cotton ball from reaching the inside. The plantar reflex was a somatic reflex because our muscled contracted and flexed by themselves and it was not something we could have controlled. The last activity we did was our reaction time to a ruler when dropped. This was a somatic reflex because it stimulated our skeletal muscles. Texting changed my response time but .1 seconds because i was distracted. My time without texting averaged to .14 and my average time while texting was .24.
This was the class average. Females had a faster reaction while texting than males did but males had a faster reaction time than females without texting.

 Your Brain Map: 84 Strategies for Accelerated Learning

Go to the link below to review the parts of the brain.  Answer the questions below by navigating through the simulation.

http://www.opencolleges.edu.au/informed/learning-strategies/

Cerebral Cortex

What do the frontal lobes do?

The frontal lobes control your personality, and works with problem solving, memory, language, judgement, and impulse occurs.

What is the relationship between selective attention and learning?

Selective attention makes your working memory capacity greater as it allows you to prioritize important information.

What is the last part of your brain to develop and what can you do to prevent it from deteriorating? 

Frontal lobe is the last part of your brain to develop. You can do exercises such as not zoning out and transforming information instead of memorizing it to prevent your brain from deteriorating.

What does the neo cortex do?

The neo cortex helps you navigate your body. it controls your senses, awareness, and motor skills.

What is the role of the pre frontal cortex?

The pre frontal cortex controls your personality. It organizes your thoughts and actions to match with your internal goals.

What do we know about the pre frontal cortex’s relationship with multitasking?

The pre frontal cortex works with many functions at the same time and is one of the most important parts of the brain.

Which part of the brain is associated with speech and language development?  Give an interesting fact about this region.

Broca's area is associated with speech and language development. It is associated with learning a second language. It gives the brain a "workout"

Which part of your brain is responsible for thinking the following: “Is it hot in here or is it just me?” Somatosensory cortex

What does your visual cortex do for you?

The visual cortex helps differentiate colors and distinguish complex things.

State three interesting or significant facts about your occipital lobe.

1. It helps you process with long and short term memories.

2. It is the brains visual processing center.

3. it collects visual data and routes it to other parts of your brain.

What would happen if your temporal lobes were damaged?

If they were damaged, you would have absolutely no long term memory.

What is your “fast brain” and what does it do?

It is an area that your brain picks up information very quickly. They are known as the eye fields.

Neuron

State 3 things that you could do that would influence your synapses, and have a positive affect on your life and health.

1. Exercise

2. A healthy diet

3. Socializing

What is the relationship between multi-sensory or multi-modal learning and your dendrites?

When the data stored in your brain converts the new knowledge from something you have memorized to something you have learned, this is known as multi sensory or multi modal learning.

How does “big picture thinking” and mnemonics affect dendrites and/or learning?

big picture thinking is needed to fully comprehend a subject and breaking it down into its relevant parts is useful.

Describe a neurotransmitter that you feel is very important.  Justify your reasoning.

Dopamine is very important because it increases your sense of pleasure and without it you would not be interested in learning new things.

Limbic System

What does the corpus callosum do?

It is a fiber that helps the left and right hemispheres of your brain communicate.

What is the relationship between music and the corpus callosum? 

Music can help to strengthen the conversation between the two hemispheres of your brain but you must practice frequently.

Why is the thalamus important?

The thalamus is responsible for motor control, sensory information, memory, emotion, and consciousness.

Relate and Review 

Summarize what you learned from this tutorial.  Relate what you learned to your everyday life and how you can make it better.  Use at least 5 of the bolded words from the questions.  5-sentence minimum. You may use the back of this if needed.

This tutorial was very interesting because i never knew the brain was so in depth. The cortex that i found most interesting was the sensory cortex since it focuses specifically on your 5 senses. I was also surprised to learn that the frontal lobe was the last part go your brain to develop. Also, i didn't know that there were exercises to help you stop the lobe from deteriorating. The part i struggled most with was neurons because it was so complex and hard to understand. I learned that exercise and a healthy diet influences your synapses in a positive and healthy way. Lastly, I also found that the corpus callosum in the limbic system was very fascinating because it helps the left and right hemispheres work with each other.

Brain Dissection

The brain stem is broken down into 3 structures, it keeps breathing circulation going and contains filtered information. The cerebrum is in charge of integration and is made up of neurons. The cerebellum is in charge of motor control, coordination, and sorting data. Myelin in a neuron functions to increase the speed at which impulses propagate along the myelinated fiber. The medulla oblongata is a continuation of the spinal cord within the skull and is the control center for the heart and lungs. Pons are the origin on nerves and a bridge between the cerebellum and cerebrum. The midbrain is associated with vision, hearing, motor control, and temperature regulation. The thalamus works to correlate consciousness, sleep, sensory, and interpretation. The optic nerve transfers visual information from the retina to the vision centers of the brain. The hypothalamus links the nervous system to the endocrine system through the pituitary gland. The corpus callosum are fibers connections the two hemispheres of the brain and helps them work together.

Sheep Eye Disection

 In this picture, you can see the eyelid, cornea, sclera, and lots of fatty tissue!

 If you look closely, the optic nerve is visible

 The retina detached when we cut open the sclera but it is still slightly visible. The white ball is the lens and the black and blue fluid is the choroid.

 This is the vitreous humor and when we removed this, we saw the lens. The pupil was transparent and the iris was visible.

 lots of fatty tissue!

Clay Brain

In this lab, we made a clay model of the brain. We did the anterior of the right hemisphere of the brain and the inside of the left hemisphere. We used different colors and tabs to identify the different structures. 

The Woman with a hole in her brain

I found this article interesting because i have never heard of anything like this before. It is so fascinating that it took her 24 years to find out that she was missing part of her brain. To have your cerebellum missing and still going through life like normal is absolutely insane. The cerebellum plays such a large part in the way you move and talk that it is almost unbelievable to live without one. I learned that the brain is a very complex structure that can interest anyone very easily.
The corpus callosum is a bundle of nerve tissue that connects the left and right hemisphere. This allows different parts of the brain to communicate with each other. It is possible to survive without this tissue. As a matter of fact, some people are born with a defect that include a lack of this tissue. By disrupting the contact between the right and left hemispheres, a seizure can be isolated and caught from spreading.

Unit 7 Reflection

In this unit, we learned about all of the muscles in our body. We first learned different terms and joint movements. These were interesting and a little easy for me to remember because i learned all of these terms last year when i took Sports Medicine. Next we learned about the muscular system. We learned that there are many properties of muscle tissues. An example of one is excitability which was the ability to receive and respond to stimuli. We also learned about the different classification of muscles and how to distinguish which muscles are which. Something that i struggled a lot with was labeling the muscles on the body. There were so many of them that sounded alike so it was a little bit confusing. One of the last things we did in this unit was learn about different performance enhancements. This was my favorite thing that we learned in this unit because it was cool to see the effects that different enhancements had on your body. For example, I learned that caffeine has many risks to it which is bad for me because i drink it almost everyday. Caffeine can cause cramping, dehydration, and can suppress your appetite. Now that I know this, I will try to drink it less often. Some labs and activities we did in this unit was the chicken muscle dissection and the performance enhancement advertisement. The chicken dissection was really fun but a little confusing because it was hard to identify all the muscles. The advertisement was fun because i enjoyed the lecture and it was cool to learn about what anabolic steroids can do to you. I learned from this activity that for males, it can cause reduced sperm count and it can stop their growth. For females, this can cause male like facial hair and also stop.