Dr. Lauren Richmond

We had the pleasure of having Dr. Lauren Richmond who came by and gave a presentation on “Memory and Aging.” A lot of things that she went over were very interesting. For instance, she talked a lot in regards to short-term memory and long-term memory. Where short term memory is about information that can be processed in a short amount of time. Long-term memory is how we can remember the memories created for a long time, we can retrieve those memories consciously and unconsciously. Some tips that Dr. Richmond talked about: writing stuff down and repetition. Writing things down will help you remember when to do things and what things to do. Repetition will increase the chance you will remember something. She briefly discussed how studying for 30 minutes a day is better than studying for 5 hours the night before an exam. I will take these tips as a student and try to implement them in my everyday life to improve individual memory. As we age, the normal part of the aging process is that the memories will decline. 

When memory and aging are not going well it is known as functional and cognitive impairment; examples include dementia and Alzheimers. I was inspired to learn more about these topics. Due to personal experience, I knew about dementia and how it mainly is the functional impairment. Symptoms can include behavior and emotional changes, loss of concentration, repetition of phrases and words, and disorientation that interferes with daily functioning. When it comes to Alzheimer’s Disease, it is a cognitive impairment that is known as more severe dementia. Symptoms include memory loss, poor judgment, getting lost and forgetting people. 

Dr. Hoi-Chung Leung

We had the pleasure of having Dr. Hoi-Chung Leung, who came by and gave a presentation on “Seeing from the Brain.” Concepts like visual processing, visual agnosias, and visual perception were all very interesting. For example, when she discussed visual processing and showed an image of a tree with branches by a lake, we saw a face. We saw this face when there was no face, to begin with, but our minds were able to combine the branches with its environment and the shadow in order to form a face. However, perception is subjective, it all depends on the way one feels about something. There is a pathway for visual processing, it is the retina-geniculate-striate pathway which is the major one about 90% as per Dr. Leung. There is also a secondary pathway that can include our blind spots and more. 

What inspired me was when I got back, I tested for the blind spot in my eye. I would make a dot and stare at the dot as I am moving it away. When I was not able to see the dot anymore, I had found my blind spot. The blind spot is the back of the eye. What I took away from the presentation were the interesting facts. I would look at different visual images and try to figure out what I was seeing. I remember there was this one photo, where you either saw a young lady or an old woman and I was able to see both. I had asked my mom what she saw but she said she can only see the young woman and not the old woman, even after pointing it out.

Dr. Arianna Maffei

We had the pleasure of having Dr. Arianna Maffei, who came by and gave a presentation on “Taste in the Brain.” She talked about the neural mechanisms for taste learning. For instance, she runs a lab where her students experiment on different ages of mice. There are different taste buds that our tongue detects and that can be sugar, salt, citric acid, poison or umami. However, when we also think about taste, there are other things that go along with this like texture, temperature etc. The mice that were experimented on were the differing concentrations of sugar on different ages of mice. I learned that in rats; there are no age-dependent changes in sucrose preference as they grow.

What inspired me was after class I spoke to my mother about our class discussion. I had brought up how we can develop the sense in the womb and how our mother is affected by it. I remembered my mother telling me how much ice cream she would eat when she was pregnant with me. At this age and since I was a kid, I enjoy ice cream a lot. So I asked her if eating ice cream was normal for her and she said yes but not as much as when she was pregnant with me. What I took away from the presentation were the interesting facts. The ice cream is what is known as my “comfort food” and that started a long time ago. During her presentation we learned that early taste experience is what matters, it does not matter in adulthood.

Dr. John Pollock

We had the pleasure of having Dr. John Pollock, who came by and gave a presentation on “Vision, Sleep, Dreams, and Why Stories Matter.” There were so many interesting things that he spoke about but one thing stuck with me. There was the sentence, “The climate, the atmosphere and life are interconnected.” Another way to say that was, “Evolution of the planet and life are intertwined.” Hearing this from Dr. John Pollock reminded me of an artwork I created. Interconnected, is a bronze sculpture piece that represents two people that are interconnected by extremities (image below). However, it is more than that, these figures are out in the open and have a void in them that makes them connected to not only each other but to the atmosphere around them.

Dr. Alice Powers

When Dr. Alice Powers showed us images of the turtle brain, I immediately thought of a shell that a snail has. I pictured it sideways in my head and it inspired me to create a turtle brain that includes two snails.

Elsa Limbach

We had the pleasure of having Elsa Limbach, who came by and showed us art through movement and experiencing the movements with our body. We do not usually think about movement or even characterize our movement. The workshop was given on the interpretation of Anne Green Gilbert on the brain dance. Movement was the main thing, we started thinking about the way we use vocabulary to describe our movement, why each movement is different from another and how one movement is developed and what it means. When comparing it to breathing, it is also a movement in which you can feel throughout your body.

Reconnecting with our bodies, dance and movement. When thinking about this I decided to think about something I always do which requires movement. This movement is when I usually wear a face mask and I pull up the face mask up to my nose, I boop my nose. I realized I always do this after I pull up my mask, but also randomly I do that to my nose when I do not even wear a mask. I do not remember if I used to do this before wearing facemasks, but I do not think so. I just know when I do it, it feels nice to me, which might be funny, but I think it is cute. I also do it to my little sister, which is even cuter.

I have noticed other things when it comes to movement and reconnecting. An example is my habit of doing little dances. This might sound a little quirky but whenever I enter a room I do some sort of a dance move. The thing is I am not even good at dancing, but the little excitement it gives me makes me happy. I noticed I do this especially after I get out of the shower and am entering my room. However, I do share a room with my sister so it ends up a little awkward when she is just sitting down on her bed and looking at me. But she is used to it and me.