20 time reflection

For my 20 time project, Sophie and I came up with our idea because of our shared interest in hiking. We decided we wanted to make a blog where we could share information about hiking trails. We wanted to give people a place to go to find new trails and get information about them like intensity, how to get there, distance and other important things.  We created the blog and started posting reflections on trails weekly.  We also had a goal to monitor the amount of trash on the trails we chose so that at the end we could organize a group of our friends and students to go clean up a trail. We planned on doing the clean up on may 6th, but because of weather we had to reschedule it to later this week.  We challenged ourselves because we had to set a lot of time aside so that we could go on all these different trails.  We learned a lot, we didn't know how many different trails there were in this area but we got to visit and see a lot. We found a lot of different animals and interesting things. We did research and learned about all of the health benefits of hiking.  If I were to do this project again but differently maybe I would chose some more difficult trails or travel further to see some of the more popular trails.

Reflexes Lab

In this lab we tested our reflexes by doing a series of tests. For the first test to test our photopupillalry reflex, we covered one of our eyes and shined a flashlight over the hand, so when we removed the hand we watched the pupil to see it change in size.  The autonomic reflex is responsible for regulating the changes in pupil size.  We learned that when the intensity of light entering the eye increases, the photopupillary reflex is triggered and it stimulates the cilliary body to contract. Next, we hit our knee to see if it would kick out to test our monosynaptic reflex. When you hit below the knee, it causes the thigh muscle to stretch.  The knee jerk reflex has two neuron reflex arcs, it goes from sensory neuron to spinal cord to motor neuron to the knee.  For the next reflex, we tested the blink reflex by having someone stand with a piece of saran wrap in front of their face and have another person throw a cotton ball at it and observe if the person blinks.  The blink reflex is important because it protects the eye from things that could damage it.  To test our plantar reflex, we dragged a pen up the sole of the foot from heel to the base of the big toe, and observed if the toes moved closer together or further apart, and for us they moved closer together which is normal.  The toes might move further away if there is nerve damage, this could be a sign that the nervous system isn't completely myelinated. By dropping a ruler, having someone catch it and recording the number of inches the ruler dropped we could calculate the amount of time it took for us to activate our visual and motor reflexes.  We did the trial 3 times and took an average, then tried it again but while the ruler was being dropped you had to write a text with one hand and catch the ruler with the other hand.  By adding in that we had to type out a text, it slowed down our reaction time and made it harder for us to respond and catch the ruler.

Eye when first exposed to the light

eye after exposed to light
 pupil got smaller

Brain Map

The frontal lobes control your personality, helps with problem solving, memory, language and judgement.  The frontal lobes also controls your critical thinking and problem solving skills.  The last part of your brain to develop is the frontal lobes and to prevent it from deteriorating you can do exercises, but it still deteriorates with age.  The neo cortex helps navigate your body, it controls your awareness, senses, and motor skills. The pre frontal cortex controls your personality also, and how you behave in social settings. There is a part of the pre frontal cortex that tries to prevent you from doing two things at the same time.  The broca's area is responsible for speech production and language comprehension, tongue twisters may help improve part of your brain.  The sensory cortex is the part of your brain that is responsible for interpreting information from your senses. Your visual cortex helps you differentiate colors and recognize faces.  Parts of your occipital lobe sense motion and process visual information.  The occipital lobe helps you process short and long term memories. If your temporal lobes were damaged, you would have trouble remembering things because this is where your brain stores memories. Your fast brain picks up information in milliseconds. A neurotransmitter that is important to me is glycine, because it is used by neurons in the spinal cord which is really important.  The corpus callosum connects the two hemispheres of the brain. Listening to music can strengthen your corpus callosum.  The thalamus has nerve networks that send signals to the brain.
Relate and Review: 
In this brain map stimulation, I got to see the different parts of the brain and their functions. I also got to read more interesting facts about the different parts and figure out what would happen if these different parts were damaged. In the stimulation I got to read about the frontal lobes, neo cortex, occipital lobe, frontal cortex, the sensory cortex, and much more.  It helped me more understand how people are different, like how the pre frontal cortex controls your personality and how you behave in social settings showed me how some one with a different pre frontal cortex could be completely different. Also how the man who damaged his frontal lobes how his friends said he was a totally different person after the injury shows how important your brain is.

Sheep Brain Dissection

This shows the anterior side of the brain (white),
posterior side(black), the cerebellum(green), the
cerebrum(yellow), and the brain stem(red).

Sketch of the brain cut in half

In this lab, we dissected a sheep brain to identify important brain structures and their functions. First we got the brain and looked at the meninges, or the 3 layer tissue that protects the brain and spinal cord.  Next we removed the meninges and labeled the anterior side of the brain with a white pin, the posterior side with a black pin, the cerebellum with a green pin, the cerebrum with a yellow pin, and the brain stem with a red pin. Then we took pictures and sketched it.  Now, we cut the brain in half so we could see the grey and white matter.  Next we identified some more parts and labeled them with markers.  We marked the thalamus with a yellow pin, the optic nerve with a green pin, the medulla oblongata with a silver pin, the pons with a white pin, the midbrain with a blue pin, the corpus colassum with a red pin, and the hypothalamus with a black pin then took pictures and sketched it. We then identified the function of these structures and then cut a cross section in the cerebrum to see more grey and white matter and then sketched it.

sketch of the brain untouched

white and grey matter

Sheep Eye Dissection

This is the eye when we first got it,
 it is covered in a lot of
fatty tissue

The yellow ball shaped thing in the
picture is the lens, and it is
surrounded in the vitreous humor.

In this dissection, we took a sheep eye and cut it up to locate and learn about the different parts of the eye.  When we first got the eye, we  noticed it was very squished and oddly shaped, also there was a lot of fatty tissue.  First we found the cornea, which functions like a window that controls light entry. Next we found the sclera, optic nerve, external eye muscle and fatty tissue.  The sclera protects the eye and connects to the muscle that moves the eye. The optic nerve transfers information from the retina to the vision centers of the brain.  The external eye muscles move the eye, and the fatty tissue protects the eye and holds it in place. After finding these, we found the vitreous humor, retina, blind spot, choroid, and the peel layers of the retina and choroid. The vitreous humor is a jelly like substance behind the lens and it helps the eye maintain its shape. The retina is a think layer of tissue in the back of the eye on the inside, it receives light and converts it to signals to send to the brain.  The blind spot is a small section of the visual field that you can't see, there are no photoreceptors in this part. The choroid is between the sclera and the retina, it provides nourishment for the back of the eye. After this we found the ciliary body, lens, suspensory ligaments, iris pupil and the aqueous humor. The ciliary body connects the iris to the choroid, it releases a clear liquid called the aqueous humor, which maintains pressure in the eye.  The lens changes shape to help the eye focus on things from different distances. Suspensory ligaments help the lens curve to increase or decrease the refraction of light. The iris is the colored part of the eye which helps light levels inside the eye and the opening in the middle of the iris is the pupil, which also controls how much light gets to the back of the eye.

we cut the cornea off, and you
can see the pupil opening, on the side
you can see the bright colored tissue on
the side or the tapetum lucidum. 

"The Woman with a hole in her brain"

In this article it talks about a woman who was unaware of the fact that she is missing her cerebellum until she was 24.  She went to the hospital because she was nauseous and dizzy and they did a CAT scan and it showed that where her cerebellum should be it was filled with cerebrospinal fluid. She had trouble walking most of her life and she also wasn't able to speak that well until she was 7.  The cerebellum is 10% of the brains volume but 50% of the brains neurons. The cerebellum's function is it controls your voluntary movements and balance.
The Parietal Lobe
The parietal lobe controls sensations, it deals with and reacts to environment and it processes sensory information.  If your parietal lobe is damaged, the person will have trouble reading, recognizing things and people. It will be harder for them to be aware of their bodies.  People with damaged parietal lobes have trouble multitasking, issues with telling right and left apart and the mathematic skills they have is often reduced.  You can't live without the parietal lobe.

The Clay Brain

We studied the brain and made a model of the left hemisphere along the sagittal plane and the right cerebral hemisphere using clay on cardboard.  We traced an outline of the brain with pencil and filled in the spots with different colored clay, then labeled the parts in a key.