A Woman Perpetually Falling

"Even when she has fallen, she feels she is still falling, perpetually, into an infinite abyss." I can't imagine how living like this would be. to be constantly having this feeling, even while sitting down would be awful.

"People with her disorder often fall to pieces psychologically, and many have committed suicide." I don't know how i would react if i had this disorder and was told that last sentence. It must be devastating living like that.

"We have senses we don't know we have-until we lose them." This is interesting to think about. We take balance for granted, and I'm sure there's many other things we take for granted too, like breathing.

Relate & Review: This reading was very interesting. A woman was a feeling of falling down, whether she was standing, sitting, or even laying down. Her vestibule apparatus had stopped working and also making her very tired and dizzy. It puts into perspective all of the things healthy people take for granted sometimes.

The Clay Brain

We used different colors of clay to show the different parts of the brain. We had two different views, left hemisphere along sagittal plane and lateral view if the right cerebral hemisphere. We numbered each part so that we could clearly label it.

The Woman With A Hole In Her Brain

This article was very interesting. It was discovered in China that a woman has been living with her entire cerebellum missing. In all other cases like this the person has died when they were a child. However, this woman has only been affect through minor skills such as slurred speech and dizziness. The doctors aren't really sure how to explain it.

The frontal lobe, located at the front of the brain, is one of the four major lobes of the cerebral cortex in the mammalian brain. The frontal lobe plays a large role in voluntary movement. It houses the primary motor cortex which regulates activities like walking. The function of the frontal lobe involves the ability to project future consequences resulting from current actions, the choice between good and bad actions (conscience), the override and suppression of socially unacceptable responses, and the determination of similarities and differences between things or events. Strokes are common causes of frontal lobe damage in older adults. You can still live with frontal lobe damage, but may notice symptoms similar to Alzheimer's disease or Parkinson's disease.

Unit 5 Reflection

This unit was about the digestive system and our metabolism. We leaned in detail what happens to our food after we swallow it and how we use our hormones to control this process. As always, we discussed how the structure of our organs in the digestive system affect the function that they complete. Learning about the metabolism was very interesting. We extract energy from food in three stages. The first, large molecules are broken down into smaller ones. The second stage is where smaller molecules are turned into Acetyl CoA. In the third stage the Acetyl CoA travels along the Krebs cycle and turns into ATP. We also learned how our metabolism can be affected, such as Diabetes. Essentially, diabetes is when a lack of insulin is produced, resulting in high blood glucose levels. There are two different types of diabetes. Type 1 diabetes is usually developed at birth or in early childhood and requires the person to inject him or herself with insulin. Type 2 diabetes is typically found in adults and often begins as insulin resistance. Diet and exercise along with medication can usually bring blood glucose levels back down. The endocrine system is all about how different hormones can trigger or regulate different parts of our body. We have all sorts of glands that store and release when needed different hormones. Steroid hormones are lipid soluble and diffuse through cell membranes, where as non-steroid hormones are not lipid soluble and are received by receptors external of the cell membrane. The lymphatic system's job is to gather waste in fluids so we can properly get rid of it. Lymph vessels are throughout our body similarly to our blood vessels, and is moved along by skeletal muscles. Dead cells and excess fluids are transported away. 
I think this unit went a little fast. I found sometimes it was slightly overwhelming trying to retain all of the information, but that just means i need to study harder for the test. I thought the digestive system lab was interesting but that was the only one we did. 
So far my New Years Goals are still progressing along. I haven't gotten any bigger but I am going to start lifting more once basketball ends. I have a C right now because I didn't finish the digestive system lab ;(