teenage brain

     Recently, I watched the most interesting video that gave me a lot of insight about the human brain. It was specifically about the teenage brain. I used to have a belief that at the age of adolescence, our brains were fully developed. But, the video I saw proved me completely wrong. During adolescence, our brain is still developing, especially in the frontal lobe area. Development in our brains during these years, is strongly linked with behaviors that are particularly seen in teens. It is said that teens get a real lack of sleep. They usually get 5-7 hours per day. While they should get about 9- 11 hours a day. Throughout the whole day, our brain is functioning non-stop and it is still working although less, while at sleep. Not getting enough sleep for teens is extremely bad for their brain development meaning, their productivity in school next day will not be at their full potential. Experiments like a late start at school have been made on several occations. It has been proved that there were positive changes amongst teens by giving them extra hours for sleep. But, a late start affects after school activities that are said to benefit a person even more than sleep. Teenagers seem to be always in a bad mood, or having a terrible time. I believe this phase should be worked upon teens in order to move on to adulthood. If they are getting very few hours of sleep, teens should manage their time in a way they could get enough sleep. If parents are having a hard time with their children, they should try to be more comprehensive since it is natural for teens to act the way they do. Ultimately, believe it or not lazy teenagers are the next generation of hard working adults. Development will soon happen in their brains and they will become adults.

How our brains work

     Our human brain is one of the most interesting and complex part of our organisms in my opinion. People these days, even very intelligent people barely use a small percentage from the total power of our brains. I believe evolution might be involved on people using a more abundant percentage of their brain's power, but it is very uncertain. The brain as you probably know, is divided into two main parts. The left and right hemispheres. These hemispheres control specific actions of ours and are in charge of many diverse tasks people do every day. They are also known as the left and right sides of the brain. Each of the brain sides control different ways of thinking of people. The left brain for instance, is more logical, uses more reasoning, makes us think rationally and is more objective. While the right brain is more subjective, uses instinct and it is more random. People may be thought as left brained or right brained. But, the truth is a combination of both sides of the brain is necessary and natural in human beings. The two brain hemispheres are connected by the corpus collasum which is a large bundle of nerve fibers. The corpus collasum gives the ability to both sides of our brain to communicate. In our brain we have little specific parts that are in charge of all abilities we have. Paul Broca, a doctor who studied the brains of his aphasic patients discovered which specific part of the front lobe was responsible for our speech or syntactical abilities. He did so when he found a lesion on one of his patients in the ventroposterior part of his frontal lobe. Because of this, his patient barely had syntactical abilities and barely said the word “tan”.This part became known as the Broca's area. Roger Sperry won a nobel prize for his work called the “split brain”. In his study, he tested ten patients who had epileptics. They tested these people, by asking them to do different tasks that were known to be controlled by specific brain hemispheres. By doing so, Sperry found out each brain hemisphere had consciousness. Karl Wernicke, found out that language and comprehension deficiencies were not always due to damage or lesions in the part of the brain known as the Borca's area. He found out that damage on the left posterior, superior temporal gyrus also caused lack of language comprehension. This part of the brain is know as the Wernicke's area. Specific brain lobes are responsible for our abilities. For instance, our vision and ability to recognize things comes from our occipital lobe. The temporal lobe is most responsible for our hearing and language. The frontal lobe is most responsible for us to do math calculations. The frontal lobe is also the most responsible for our abilities of judgment, reasoning, and ability to control our impulse. I believe the brain is the mos extraordinary part in our bodies. I as a person have a goal to unlock more and more of the incredible potential my brain has.

Sources-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Broca

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerebral_hemisphere

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Wolcott_Sperry

http://www.funderstanding.com/content/right-brain-vs-left-brain

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Wernicke

http://library.thinkquest.org/J002391/functions.html

Phineas Gage and his extroardinary case

Phineas Gage was an American citizen who worked at a railroad. He was an ordinary and common man until he suffered a terrible accident which he surprisingly survived. It is because of this accident that Phineas Gage is well known in modern days. His accident occurred on a normal day while working at the railroad blasting rocks in order to make space for a roadbed. He was ordered to destroy a large body of rock. To do this he needed to blow it up with an explosive mixture of gun powder, fuse and sand. The explosive could not be just placed beside the body of rock for it to explode. Instead, with the help of a large and sharp iron bar he needed to place and compress the explosive mixture deep into the body of rock. But, Phineas Gage forgot to add sand to the mixture. So the explosive suddenly exploded and the iron bar flew and went through his face and front part of his brain. But,amazingly Gage did not die. In fact, he was already speaking minutes after the accident. Although their was thought not to be any damage to him in any way , there was a great change in his personality. He became a person people do not wanted to be with. He always spoke the first think that came to his mind, not caring if it was really offensive. He used to be a very responsible and hard-working man. But, because of the accident he had a very different personality. As a result he lost social inhibition abilities completely. From this case we learn that the destruction of some parts of the brain like the front cortex may not cause death. But, surely can affect people in one way or another. In the case of Gage, his great change of personality led to inappropriate behavior amongst other people. The idea of brain localization states that many individual parts of the brain are in charge of making certain actions. Meaning the frontal cortex was probably in control of the social abilities of a person. The concept of brain lateralization states that the left side of the brain and right side of the brain are responsible for different human actions and behavior. Gage's right frontal cortex was destroyed by the iron bar. Meaning the right brain is responsible for humans to think in a creative way and be social. To conclude, the case of Phineas Gage was really extraordinary and still amazes current scientists.

Athletic Abilities- Nature or Nurture?

     Have you ever wondered where traits such as intelligence and athletic ability come from? The truth is that it may vary according to the trait. What is surely known about these traits is that they come both from nature and nurture. But, there is an ongoing debate discussing whether each of the specific special traits a person has, comes more from genes or the environment. Athletic ability is amongst these discussed traits. Special abilities in sports such as basketball or soccer may have something to do with genes, but I believe nurture plays a much bigger part than nature. I do because one can be born tall, strong, or fast, but no one was born already knowing a particular sport. All professionals in any sport had to begin by learning the basics of the sport. Then they needed to find the area or position in the sport in which they play the best and are more effective. They needed to learn techniques and develop many new skills. Also, athletes have to learn from past mistakes in order to gain experience. Only then by repeatedly going through all of this things, the person will get better and better at the particular sport. So, depending on many things they may end up being professional athletes at a sport. But, I am sure that there is no way that any professional athlete had their special athletic abilities in their genes.




     Beliefs in Psychology and Science say that both genes and the environment play a large role to determine whether a person should or should not develop athletic abilities. For instance, a professional football player would have never become good enough for playing in the big leagues if he was not strong enough, tall enough or fast enough. Meaning that genes play this part since height and muscularity are hereditary. But, the question lies that even if a person had the physique of a football player but never trained, or even played might be good at football. Probably not since training sessions are the most effective on becoming a good athlete. It is not sure whether nature or nurture play a bigger role for having athletic abilities. There is a great belief in people that athletic abilities come more from nature. For instance, Bobby and Barry Bonds. Both father and son are baseball stars, so many believe that Barry is so good because his father passed his traits of being a good athlete. But, Barry's environment may have played a bigger role on his baseball skills. Since his father was a baseball star, young Barry may have seen him as a role model so he probably trained a lot since young. He never stopped training and training until he became as good or even better than his father was. Barry's strength, height or speed is surely hereditary. But, it is not for sure if his amazing baseball skills were on his genes. The truth is that scientists nor psychologist have found the answer of where do athletic abilities mostly come from since the theme is so complex. Never the less, there is a universal belief that both nature and nurture determine special traits in people like athletic abilities.



     In conclusion, there is not an answer on whether genes or environment are more effective on people in order to have good athletic abilities. Probably there will never be an answer since so complex themes like nature and nurture and creation were never meant to be understood by human beings. For sure, nature and nurture both play a great role but I believe nurture plays a much bigger role than nature in athletic abilities. I believe so because of different variations of good abilities in different sports in diverse countries. Also, because no athlete was born already playing like a professional. What is certain is that each person is unique regardless similar environments or same parents.
 
Sources-
 
1.http://www.thetech.org/genetics/ask.php?id=91
2.http://expertfootball.com/training/naturevsnurture.php
 
 
 

Bob and Barry Bonds( Father son all star baseball players)

Lionel Messi( Best Soccer player in the world)

Nature vs. Nurture

     Nature vs. Nurture is a term known as a debate in order to determine behavioral traits. It refers to what traits does a person come with since they were born, and what traits develop in a person based on his or her environment. The first person to use this term was an English Victorian polymath known as Francis Galton. Common topics discussed in this debate include homosexuality, criminality, personalities, talents, anger, happiness etc. Topics like this are not one-hundred percent sure to come from either nature or nurture. This debate is very complex and difficult to understand and after all, it may always be a mystery if any of traits come from the environment, or hereditary. What is believed about this debate, is that although no one can't ever be sure, it's a fact that both nature and nurture play a part. I believe if I would choose one of the themes because I think it is more rational and true, I would choose nurture. Yes our nature can determine our height, eye color, hair color and many more physical traits. But, behavior I believe comes on how the environment influences the particular person. As this person lives more time, his personality, way of thinking, and behavior is influenced by nurture. To conclude, this is a debate to complex to understand but I believe Nurture plays a much bigger part on a person's behavior than nature.