miércoles, 29 de septiembre de 2010

The Teenage Brain video (Response)

The Teenage Brain Response
               After watching the video about The Teenage Brain, I learned many useful information; this because I am a teenage. The first thing I noticed about the video was that most teenagers have problems with their relationship between them and their parents. They are most likely to be rebel during the teenage years, then when they are small or mature. The teenage brain is full of much confusion, because of the changes that the body has during puberty. During puberty, hormones are being produced, and this affects the brain in general, but not in a bad way.
               The second thing I noticed and learned about the brain, through the video, was that the teenager´s brain is not in its full growth in size and in general. The teenager´s brain is changing during these years, and it is making the body change as well. Some effects of this, are feeling disorders, relationships, and the rebel behavior against parents and other people surrounding them.
               In conclusion, the teenage brain is a little bit more complicated to understand, than that a normal adult´s brain. I really think that this video is very useful, and that it helps understand the teenage brain better.

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martes, 21 de septiembre de 2010

Phineas Gage

Phineas Gage was an American railroad constructer foreman; he was a very good and caring person. His is very famous for his survival to an incredible accident in the process of detonating a rock to create a railroad. His job was to detonate big rocks with TNT that blocked the path to create railroads. The process was to dig a hole in the rock and to stick in the TNT, so that it is in the middle of it. After this, he stuck sand into it and compressed it with a tamping rod so that the explosion pressure, would distribute equally.  One day, when he was doing the compressing part of the job, a spark was created with the tamping rod and made the TNT explode, because Gage was with the rod in his hands, the pressure made the tamping rod trespass his eye and frontal part of his head.

After this event happened he was translated to the hospital immediately; he was still alive. The doctor made what he needed to do, and then gave Gage 1 year in the hospital. After that year, he finally got out of the hospital and decided to continue in his same job. As a result of his injuries, he became a grumpy, selfish and mad person. He did not care of people and their problems anymore.  He was expulsed from this job, because of his new personality, so he decided to do other jobs, until he found the only job that was good for him; he was a freak from a freak show.

Because of the Phineas Gage’s accident, we could learn that the frontal part of the brain controls our personality.  Brain localization is a very important discovery because with it, doctors and scientists can learn more about humans and the way they are affected when an accident happens in their brains.
The brain lateralization theory, explains that the left side of the brain, controls the right side of your body, and vice versa.
All pictures:Google Images

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jueves, 9 de septiembre de 2010

Personality mini essay: Nature or Nurture?

Personality is something that all of us have; and each one of us has very different personalities. But, why is our personality different than our siblings, if we grew in the same home? Or why do twins have different personalities? This is why this is a very important topic in the debate. Nature and Nurture both influence personality in many ways. Personalities may vary depending on your parents and their descendants.  People who exhibit similar characteristics will exhibit similar personalities. This is one example of nature affecting personality; another example of nature determining personality is that maybe a grandparent was very friendly and then his son might be an anti-social, but, the grandson has lots of probabilities to have lots of friends because of the grandparent’s genes. Personality is affected by nature, but also by nurture, or environment. One example is me, when I was in elementary I used to be very shy, because all my classmates from first grade to third grade were also very shy. When I entered middle school, I started to hang out with other people who were not shy at all, but, I was still a little bit shy. I repeated the eighth grade and I had all new classmates, but they were all crazy, and since I was surrounded by them, I was no longer shy. “Our personality is all about our environment” (my aunt). I totally agree with my aunts “quote” because if you live with parents that are odd and weird, you will probably be the same; but there are some exceptions, there was one kid I knew last year, he is called Benjamin and is four years old, but, he is very crazy and rebel. The first thing that came to my mind was, “If he is like this, I want to know how his parents are”. Last Saturday I met his dad and mom in a graduation party, and I also met his brother. His mom is very strict, just a little bit more than Benjamin’s dad. His brother is like an angel; he cleans everything and is very tranquil. So, I asked myself, “why is he like this and Benjamin not”, could it be nature or nurture? I personally think that personality is determined by both nature and nurture, but it is mostly influenced by nurture because your personality shapes as you grow and in which environment you grew on. Personality is a very important topic and it is definitely one of the topics discussed in the debate that has the most controversy. Nature or Nurture?
Since the Nature vs. Nurture theory was discovered, a big debate began. The debate discussed various topics. Some of the topics discussed were, homosexuality, personality, creativity, criminal behavior and others. I think all of them are really important and that all of those are caused because of both, Nature and Nurture. Personality is one of the topics that have had lots of controversies, that is why I have chosen it as my topic.
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