Multiple Realities

Even now I feel this is a very controversial kind of disorder, because it is almost invisible. In some cases this disorder holds the symptoms of others and because as with most mood disorders that affect mood there isn't a whole lot of information to be able to distinguish one from another. So I went digging a little deeper to see what kind of tests could distinguish it. What I find interesting is that there isn't a whole of differentiation, however if a patient shows or a psychiatrist notices a patient maybe hearing their thoughts aloud, thoughts being inserted or being taken away, or even hearing voices are a big indication. In short it is the paranoia and delusions that make this unique.My question is how often is this misdiagnosed and what are the repercussions of that? Because in reading Biological Psychology, I noticed there are differential diagnosis, there can be mood disorders with psychotic features, substance abuse, brain damage, huntingtons disease, and nutritional abnormalities. What i'm thinking is everything else is checked first because they seem more distinguishable and more common than schizophrenia. I always feel that when it comes to these disorders it is important to recognize not only what is going on in the body but how it affects the family, and how they cope because to us, its a chemical imbalance or a gene that may or may not exist, but this is real and important to the people who have to suffer through it.

It's Okay to Not to be Okay

Unfortunately for me and my family, we have a long history of depression, it is something that I do not usually speak openly about because for  a long time acknowledging it felt like I was failing to be normal. As far as i've tried the only therapy i've done is seeing a therapist, what I never realized was how many options there were for people like me. In my personal opinion I would more likely try a different type of therapy before taking any medication, reason being that I feel that they are not a permanent solution. Any therapy that has to do with the brain is really touch and go because no one is ever really sure of what they're doing and how it will affect individuals.

Alternatively I was surprised to learn that electroconvulsive therapy is still being used as a method to help with depression. I can't imagine someone voluntarily consenting to this unless there isn't any other options.But with advancement  in this therapy it seems to look less and less lethal as time goes on, and with only slight memory loss, and quick results  it would seem like an nice alternative, but like with most therapies its effects are not long lasting and usually have to be followed with antidepressants or psychotherapy anyway.

The "What was That?!" Moment

I can definitely see the perks of living without anxiety , but at the same time reading about the woman with Urbach-Weithe disease I felt bad for her. While she never misses out on an experience out of fear, isn't it good to have at least some time of radar going off that warns you from things that really are dangerous? She literally hates snakes and she can't even feel scared about holding one. Not to mention the fact that the silent communication of people who might be in danger is not recognizable to her by looking at facial expressions. And from researching Urbach-Weithe disease children who are born with it have hoarse or inability to cry, imagine the fear of a mother who has a completely silent child not knowing if anything is wrong or whether the child is okay because they cannot the communicate the way the rest of babies can. On the opposite end of the scale what about the people who have too much anxiety? Just like anything else having too much or too little of something can be dangerous. One disorder I found particularly interesting was panic disorder, in which someone has sudden attacks of fear even when there is no real danger or an immediate cause. Physically it feels like a tightening in the chest, as if the person is suffocating, and everything surrounding feels as if said person is trapped and everything feels a lot more overwhelming and closed in.

Sleeping with Your Eyes Open

Sleep, everyone needs it and some of us don't get enough of it. And yet our body is very determined to let us know when we should be doing it even when there isn't any indication of time of day. I've never wondered how a person who has an inability to see knows when to wake up or go to sleep. In some cases a person would using a different need to set a circadian rhythm  meaning that they'll use meals, noise, or temperature to tell them when to wake up and go to sleep. In other cases however when a person is not sensitive to meal times, or other time indicators they will have a day longer than twenty four hours causing insomnia and sleepiness. There is another mechanism by which some people who are blind can tell when to go to sleep. The suprachiasmatic nucleus or SCN which has its own little system on responding to an overall average of light rather than an instant reaction to when light becomes apparent or ceases.

People who are blind can actually sync their sleeping and waking pattern to a local pattern of sunlight, and interestingly enough the SCN can also aggravate a migraine in a person who is blind because of the light. Meaning that even without being able to see people can still have light sensitive excitation. Its interesting to learn that even when our body feels inhibited there are mechanisms that are still at work to compensate for what we feel we no longer have.

The Boy/Girl Problem

I find it interesting that there are so many aspects to becoming a gender, when you're little everyone is either a boy or girl, you don't know why you just know thats they way it is. And until studying this topic a little more, I never knew how little information I did know about the development of how people become who they are. In the beginning everyone is literally all the same, all the right parts and the right hormones to become either gender. It all just depends on whats more prominent, and what hormones a mother is exposed to while pregnant. Many illegal drugs can actually feminize a fetus during early development and even something as simple as aspirin can have an affect on gender development. So with all these outside influences how are gender and gender roles affected during a persons life. In children socialization is not the only reason certain genders only play with certain toys. Some research has shown that injecting or exposing women to certain hormones while they're pregnant can cause the child to show a certain preference to toys or items they are interested in. However it is a combination of both socialization and hormonal influences that affect behavior and preference.

A Jumble of Senses

What would it be like if we could hear colors, taste sound, see music come to life, literally. Synesthesia gives people the mixing of their senses, and whats really interesting is no two people with this abnormality have it exactly the same. Some will hear a taste, but they each hear a different taste, or see the music but the colors will different for everyone based on the note. While this is considered to suggest genetic predisposition, people aren't born with this because children have to learn what numbers, letters, and having a knowledge of the realization that they're senses aren't going together with the right action. So this mixing of the senses continues to develop over time, but is it really a "mix of the senses."  In actuality these "mixing of the senses" is an illusion, meaning that a person is having the experience because they think that hearing color was the stimulus they had, but that is not actually the stimulus they are getting. One possibility about why this happens is that, some of the axons from one cortical area branch into another cortical area.

What is interesting is that these crossing of senses only happen one directionally and there isn't any thought that goes into it, people just already as a response have synesthetic qualities. Strangely enough although words may sound the same some people with synesthesia will taste or see different thing when word that sounds the same is spelled differently. I can't even image how overwhelming this situation with be when a word might evoke a disgusting taste or smell? How do you handle having a sense connected to a different response?

Forgetfulness or Something More?

 

Alzheimers is a very interesting disease that hits very close to home, because rather than learning it in a text book I see it everyday in my little grandmother. The thing is while being around it my family can of course see the signs and her progressively getting worse, but I guess I never really understood what it meant for her brain and what is happening chemically. It was as if the only important information was that she had it and that there isn't anything anyone could do about it except "slow it down". I never understood what that meant till now,simplified when a person has alzheimers amyloid accumulates both inside and outside the neurons which damages dendritic spines, decreases synaptic input and decreases plasticity. This all causes plaque to build up which cause major parts of the brain to waste away. And if that wasn't enough the amyloid also cause more phosphate groups to attach attach to tau proteins, meaning they can't attach to their usual targets within axons. "Slowing it down" would most likely refer to giving my grandmother medication that stimulate her acetylcholine receptors.



 

But when I look at my grandmother I don't see whats happening to her brain but her behavior and her inability to remember what our family did last easter. I see the look on my family's faces when they have to answer the same question five different times, or when she does the same action over and over again because she is sure she didn't just wash that dish. Or the feeling I get when she looks at me and can't remember if I am me or my aunt. And knowing that its going to get worse, and "slowing it down" won't be an option anymore, its waiting game of how long she can hold onto what little memory she has left.