Reflection #1: Elissa Aminoff

I found Elissa Aminoff’s lesson extremely interesting and very informational. The topic she discussed was what the brain can teach us about memory. I was excited to learn about this because my grandmother suffered from dementia; the brains capabilities and developments are intriguing. Aminoff discussed Procedural, Perceptual, Explicit, Episodic, and Semantic Memory. She defined the meanings of encoding, storage/consolidation, and retrieval in the brain.

Encoding in the brain is based on how you experience something and how that alters how you remember it. The right hemisphere of your brain contains specific visual processing, while the left hemisphere focuses on more general or semantic processing. Encoding proves that we cannot trust our memory. Increased textual processing, indicated by increased activity, predicted false subsequent false recognition of a contextually related item. Increased contextual processing at the time of encoding lead to false recognition of contextually related items at the time of encoding. Storage and consolidation are found in the brain’s hippocampus, a structure related to memory. Scientists have tested rats by replaying of the temporal and spatial sequence in place cells during sleep. The storage fires to specific locations in the brain. Retrieval is not related to the items remembered, but to the judgement involved. Meaning that the evaluation of memory evidence was evident looking at individual differences. The retrieval in memory is found in the frontal and parietal regions, where hits versus correct rejections take place.

Possibly the most interesting thing I learned from Aminoff was the reason why our memory is not like a recorder. She stated how we want to be able to forget things. If we held onto everything we have ever learned or observed, our brains would become very overwhelmed. Aminoff added how these are not flaws but are by-products of otherwise desirable features of human memory. We have a constructive memory that allows us pre-experience possible future events. We are not a one size fits all, some people may have a photographic memory, but we are not a video recorder. I also enjoyed learning about how home videos and childhood photographs create a memory that we might have forgotten about on our own. By reviewing these moments captured in time, our brain relates our experience with the one recorded. Over time we forget specifics about our past events, but by viewing these events recorded we have a new memory.

 

Reflection #2: Brenda Anderson

Professor Brenda Anderson’s presentation addressed information on art and neuroscience. She spoke about face perception, also known as face blindness, and dyslexia. Starting with face perception, she informed us how form is processed by the ventral system. The small cells process detail and color, white the large cells process contrast and motion. The Inferior Temporal Cortex is the faces sensitive cells. Stating “as long as the face features are all there, we can tell who the person is, even if the face is contorted”. This statement reminded me of how our brains also process reading. Sometimes words are misspelt or incorrectly written, yet our brains can still understand what the sentence is trying to say. To identify faces, we integrate features. If all are present, a selective set of cells identify a face. Anderson also shared how Chuck Close suffers from Episodic Memory when your brain works in sequences.

We learned about dyslexia, and how the artist Robert Rauschenberg had it. Synthetic thinking has “the possibility to nourish an important new genius in learning-disabled children, if their spirit is not broken and creative dreams are allowed to develop”. Many people live with dyslexia and need a little extra help to navigate letters. Anderson gave examples on how to help people with dyslexia when sharing documents. You should stick with standard and simple font, specifically Calibri or Arial; Avoid fonts with unusually shaped letters. Stay with 12pt or larger font, smaller letters is always harder to read. Avoid italics and capital letters, instead use bold and cream or off-white backgrounds; Double spacing is also a major help.

I found the most interesting information from her presentation to be the brains trouble of remembering faces. I wanted to expand my knowledge on this topic so I did some further research on Prosopagnosia. I found that Prosopagnosia is thought to be caused by abnormalities, impairment, or damage of a fold in the brain called the right fusiform gyrus. This area in the brain plays an important role in coordinating the neural systems that affect facial memory and perception. If the individual was not born with face blindness, it could have been caused by stroke, injury to the brain, or some neurodegenerative diseases. It seems to be more common in those with autism than in the general population. It is thought that this may be part of what impairs the social development of people with autism. Face blindness has nothing to do with memory either, it is a specific problem with recognizing faces as opposed to a memory problem of failing to remember the person. Which is very interesting since we just focused on the topic of the brain and memory.

 

Reflection #3: John Pollock

Dr. John Pollock presented his topic of ‘Vision, Sleep, Dreams, and Why Stories Matter’. He addressed many interesting topics on how tools affect one’s life. Our ability to use tools has been captured for many years. He started by showing images of animals using objects to assist them, for example a monkey uses a stone to crack open protected food. Our human ancestors used stones in many ways, one being to record history. We viewed three different drawings created years apart all depicting the same animal. These stones that hold this view allows us to expand our knowledge today. Another tool Dr. Pollock mentioned was the “Special ‘Human’ Tool”, also known as fire. He explained how fire, specifically bonfires, created a scene of warmth, safety, and comfort. This tool allowed for longer days, because it provided light, and created the tradition stories around the campfire setting.

Dr. Pollock also addressed how big of an influence climate change has. It first got cold 120,000 years ago, when Mt. Toba blew up. He stated how climate pushes migration. How 42,000 years ago the magnetic field of the earth flipped. Resulting in the ozone decreasing, cosmic rays and UV radiant increasing at the surface, weather pattern changes, and Aurora Borealis evident in layer latitude which could create dry lightning and fires. I found his viewpoints on humans to be intriguing. Dr. Pollock thinks that we are evolved for creating and manipulating tools, storytelling and language. He thinks that we probably evolved an appreciation for art, but we are not really evolved for reading and writing.

One of the most interesting elements that I learned from Dr. Pollock was After Image. After Image is that bright ball of light left on your eye from a flash. I have always experienced this sight yet I never knew the name of it. When speaking on sleep, Dr. Pollock said how the brain is replaying events of the day in ‘fast forward’. Without sleep things cannot happen, your body and mind will not function to their best capabilities. The type of “synaptic activity” kicks out the Mg++ plug, and “changes in the ‘efficacy’ of synapse”, which is part of learning and memory. Melatonin is made to sleep, during sleep the brain ‘flushes. Only during sleep can the cerebral spinal fluid be flushed into the lymph, removing Adenosine as well as other elements. Sleeping holds great power over one’s health, and should be one of the highest priorities in your life.

 

Reflection #4: Arianna Maffei

Dr. Arianna Maffei is a Professor in the Neurobiology and Behavior Department here at Stony Brook University. Dr. Maffei’s presentation was full of rich and in-depth information on the topic of taste in the brain. She started off by discussing how food choices are based on palatability. Meaning that foods that are good for you are palatable, sweet, amino acids, and salty/electrolytes. While foods that are bad for you are aversive, bitter, sour, and mold. The way the brain detects tastes are through the papillae, taste buds and TRC. Taste buds contain taste receptor cells, each of which expresses a specific taste receptor. Dr. Maffei informed us of the tongue map and where each receptor is located. For example, sour could be tasted on the sides, bitter is located in the back, and sweet is detected at the front tip of one’s tongue.

It was very interesting when learning how much more the tongue can sense beyond the classic tastes. Your tongue can sense the temperature, spiciness, cold, fat, texture, carbonation, and astringency of foods. Personally, I think texture is a huge part of liking food. Texture seems to hold me back from liking some types of food, for example seafood. Something about the slimy consistency of crab or oysters turns me away from eating them. Dr. Maffei asks if early experience with food influences our eating habits later in life. Are cortical circuits for taste shaped by taste experiences? The answer to this is one hundred percent yes. Exposure modifies our preferences when were adults. She continues to state how there is a sensitive window for experience-dependent development of sucrose preference.

When learning about taste I automatically thought about the Disney movie Ratatouille. This film is full of food and while although it is an animation I cannot help but want to eat all the food shown. There is a specific scene that I connected this presentation to right away. The main character Remy is tasting food and describing to his brother. His brother is not as interested in all of the individual flavors as Remy is. So Remy takes the time to tell him to close his eyes and process all of the tastes. You can see as different colors and shapes jump across the screen that depict a beautiful sensation. Even though he is eating a simple ingredient, he is taking the time to fully taste and see what he can grasp from it.

If you would like to view the scene, I have linked it to the photo seen above. Just click on the image and it will take you to YouTube.

 

Reflection #5: Dr. Alice Powers

After listening to Dr. Powers presentation, I felt inspired to create a watercolor and ink piece of a Painted turtle. Dr. Powers discussed how her team studies the Painted turtle, Chrysemys Picta. They study these turtles to understand how their brain functions in learning; as well as brain injury that should help understand function in mammals. Dr. Powers researches these turtles to perhaps understand how adult neurogenesis works and how that will help to treat diseases of the brain such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease.