VORB 1

I. The Split Brain
In severe cases of epilepsy, it's necessary to separate the left and right hemispheres of the brain, making a split brain. To separate the brain, you cut through the corpus callosum, thick neural fibers that connect the left and right hemispheres. By doing this, the sides of the brain can't communicate through the conventional pathways. But there is evidence, including a case of Dr. Michael Gazzaniga's, that suggests that the brain doesn't need to communicate for the human to survive. It seems that when the sides can't communicate, one side takes control of the entire body. For example, Joe, Gazzaniga's patient, couldn't see words/objects to the left of a dot, but if he let his brain take over, he could draw the word/object he supposedly hadn't seen. This shows the brain's capacity for modification, or plasticity.

http://thesituationist.wordpress.com/2008/08/26/the-split-brain-and-the-interior-situation-of-theories-of-the-self/

II. Brain Recognizes Transplanted Hand
After a man receives a hand transplant after losing his own in an accident, the brain recognizes it. What the article calls the somatosensory cortex and whatI recognize to be the plain old sensory cortex is responsible for this recognition, as it registers body sensations such as pain. When the hand was lost, the area of the sensory cortex (a part of the parietal lobes) responsible for that hand spent it's time processing facial information (the area that controls the face and the area that controls the hands are close and large) ; that's another perfect example of brain plasticity. But after 35 years of having no hand and minor phantom pain, the area of the brain that was originally responsible for the hand reverted back to it's old function. While his fingers are not represented quite as well on a cortical level, the hand itself works very well under the circumstances.

http://scienceblogs.com/neurophilosophy/2008/10/brain_immediately_recognizes_transplanted_hand.php

Neurological videos and articles

Videos
I. Endorphins
The brain releases it's own natural morphine called endorphins; these endorphins respond to pain. Our endorphins have identical recognition sites, meaning that our endorphins invoke a similar response as heroine. Our endorphins also effect many other bodily functions are are neurotransmitters, or chemical messages that jump the synapse between the information-receiving part of the neuron, or dendrites.

II. Hormones and the Environment
Hypnoses happens in the cortex with a change in the pattern of brain waves. Brain waves occur through this process: neurons, with dendrites attached (which receive information), send messages to other neurons along axons which are covered by an insulating myelin sheath. When the message reaches a synapse, a neurotransmitter must jump this gap between the neurons. After the neuron receives a certain amount of information (threshold), it has an action potential, sending the message to other neurons. In hypnotism, we can choose which waves we recognize and which we ignore.

Articles
I. Social Relations (Brain Style)
Mirror neurons are a group of neurons in the premotor cortex; they interpret other's actions. Basically, it's where you get your intuitiveness from. It's also why moods are "contagious;" if you see a person laughing or smiling, the mirror neurons in your brain related to laughing or smiling activate, causing you to feel what you perceive they are. The function of these neurons have been linked to autism; they have trouble interpretting the actions of others, making interaction difficult. Their mirror neurons are weaker.

II. Memories are Made of These
Ok. So a group of people were shown clips from various TV shows, pictures of celebrities, etc. Neurologists monitored the neural pathways these clips activated. Later they asked the people to recall some of the video clips; the same neural pathways activated and activated about a second and a half before the person actually recalled it, allowing the neurologists to know which clip/photo they were remembering. This indicates that memory involves the activation of specific neurons in the hippocampus.

Conflict and Altruism

When I think of conflict, I think of politics. Everyone disagrees about politics. For example, there is a girl whom I have AP US with and we have completely opposite political views. She is a nice person and an intelligent person, and I don't feel aggression towards her, I don't want to cause her harm, but we do often find ourselves at different sides of an argument. Of course we both get a wee bit frustrated with each other at times, because who doesn't like to be right? Oh crap. I act frustrated when I talk to her (sometimes), but I'm saying that I don't have any aggression towards her. Damn cognitive dissonance... anyway, in this case, this external conflict comes from challenging each other's values. There is no resolution as of yet, and I doubt there ever will be. We both believe different things and are sticking to them. No conformity here.

Altruism is an act of unprovoked or unplanned kindness towards another; altruism is selfless. I am a very motherly type of person, meaning I try to take care of people. For example, my friend Courtney had just gotten back to our lunch table and realized that she had forgotten a fork, so I went and got her one. It's not a big deal, it's not like I'm saving lives or anything. But it was minorly helpful. Anyone that improves the welfare of others without regard to their personal benefit or recognition displays altruism. Altruism may best be described as those little acts of kindness that make a person's day, though there are extremely large acts of altruism, like risking your own life to save another's.

Video, Article, and Experiment

I. Video
In the video on agression, I learned that the hypothalamus controls anger. Depending on howthe hypothalamus is stimulated with electrodes, an animal can become angry and then calm in an instant. Mark Lerabis (or something like that), a man who assaulted his girlfriend's young daughter, proved this is true in humans as well. He actually had a tumor on his brain which put pressure on his amigdala and hypothalamus, triggering severe anger. After this tumor was removed, he was able to control his anger extremely well.

II. Article
I read the article on digital intimacy. It starts by talking about facebook and how it updates you on every little thing your friends change on his/her profile. Many people find it ridiculous and mundane... until they try it. In a new phenomenon called ambient awareness, people feel close to thier friends when they know what's going on every second of their lives. You come to know a person very well by studying their every day activity. A simile in the article explains it very well: "The little snippets coalesce into a surprisingly sophisticated portrait of your friends’ and family members’ lives, like thousands of dots making a pointillist painting."

III. Experiment
I participated in a study comparing a person's preference for masculinity-femininity in faces of different age and sex. Most people preferred feminine women 83% of the time and more feminine men 62% of the time. I had similar results, especially for men, for I preferred feminine women 94% of the time and I preferred feminine men 63% of the time.

Violating a Social Norm

For my social norm violation, I brushed my teeth at a drinking fountain. Spit in it and everything. Before I did it, I felt kind of excited; I had an excuse to act like the weirdo I am. Afterwords, however, I kind of felt like a wanker. I got sort of worried about what people thought because chances are they'll never know that I was doing an experiment. I did get some funny reactions though. Of course I got many strange looks and double-takes, but some people talked to me. Courtney, who knew I was doing my experiment on Friday, didn't even recognize that it was my experiment. She said "You're weird" and walked away. My friend Stephanie had an interesting reaction. She said "That's so unique. I like that." Later she said she had no idea what I was doing and didn't know what to say. A stupid freshman boy I didn't know asked me "Are you seriously brushing your teeth?" and I nodded. He then said "Woooooooooooow" and walked away. My favorite reaction came from a girl who was looking over her shoulder as she walked and then ran into a guy and almost fell over. Hee hee.

Stanford Prison Experiment

I) The Stanford Prison Experiment was similar to the events at Abu Ghraib because of the poor conditions faced by the residents of the prisons. The guards had to work long shifts and deal with high-stress situations for which they had no formal training. The prisoners were humiliated and dehumanized as well as taunted. Some people would make the fundamental attribution error and blame the events solely on the gurads' personalities, but the situation is responsible. Even the ones who knew it was wrong conformed. The major difference that I see between the two is that the torture at Abu Ghraib was more severe. This is to be expected, as the Stanford Experiment had a controlled environment (... sort of). Another difference is the amount of pleasure the guards got out of torturing their prisoners. Though a third of the guards at Stanford got pleasure out of their authority, the guards at Abu Ghraib seemed to get pleasure out of the torture itself. The images of smiling guards with bloody, naked prisoners speak for themselves.

J) The guards were upset that the experiment was over because they got a rush off of their power. They enjoyed having so much control over another human being and once you have that kind of authority, it's hard to give it up. Also, the guards had a strong group identity and experienced ingroup biased. Had it not been for thinking defetcs like groupthink, someone may have spoken up and stopped the experiment before it really started.