DNA Testing and Bipolar Disorder

In this article it talks about using DNA testing to figure out your likelihood of having bipolar disorder. The article got me thinking about people who would use this in a negative way. Would there be people who discovered that their young child will most likely have bipolar disorder and then treat them differently, or even worse, not want them anymore. If i were a parent i don't know if i would want to know if my child had bipolar disorder early on. I would be afraid i might treat them differently. But a plus side to it would be being able to prepare and research about the disorder so you could handle it more effectively.

Night Terrors

My boyfriend's little cousin, Jake, is 9 and he for the last year or so has been experiencing night terrors. I've actually seen him after he has woken up and he was afraid, but he had no idea why. Whenever he has these night terrors he can almost never be woken up and his night terrors have also caused him to wet the bed from being so afraid and unable to wake up to use the bathroom. He has even been tested with it and has been told that if his night terrors get much worse he could even scare himself to the point of where he could die. Now after learning about it i can understand why it is so hard to wake him up. I never thought so in depth on it before today, and now i'm going to worry about him more.

Rewards

In class today we were talking about intrinsic and extrinsic rewards and i realized that almost everything i do has extrinsic rewards. I go to work for the money, i go to school for the grades, i do or say certain things so i won't get in trouble of things like that. I don't want to go to work, usually go to school, do school work, or say certain things, but its something i do because i like the reward out of it. The only thing that is more intrinsic would be hanging out with my boyfriend of friends. i don't get rewarded for hanging out with them, i just do it because i like to. I almost feel as if i should do more intrinsic things, but then i think; "what would i get out of that"

Operant Conditioning in my life

After talking about operant conditioning i made the connection between something that happened to me that is actually operant conditining. Last year I was speeding down a street that i go down every day to get to school. just down the road i was pulled over and given a warning for speeding. Now whenever I drive down that same street everyday i watch my speed because I am afraid of being pulled over again.

Vision

This is my second attempt at posting my weekly blog for the second week. i thought it poster earlier when i did it, but it only saved it instead so I'm reposting it and hoping it works.
This week we talked a lot about vision and problems with eyes. I can very easily relate to vision problems because i can recognize many of the symptoms of bad vision because i have very terrible vision. Without my contacts i can barely read in front of me and driving would be very dangerous. At night i take out my contacts and wear glasses which also correct my vision. I noticed that the book never really mentioned that vision can worsen over time, and i know this for a fact is happening to me because every year when i have my annual eye appointment my vision is getting worse. For example last year my eyes were both -7 and now they are -7.25

Old Brain New Tricks

So I did this with Alicia and neither of us understand how the tongue is connected to the eyes. The article specifically said they both have no connection. We came up with the idea that it may go threw first the temporal lobe of the cerebral cortex. Once the message is received it would go threw the parietal lobe of the sensory cortex. From that, the message is taken over to the occipital lobe that would possibly have been taken over by other parts of the brain due to plasticity.

MDMA (Ecstasy)

MDMA releases serotonin, dopamine,norepinephrine, and acetylcholine. It also releases prolactin and oxytocin. MDMA is an agonist and it creates an amplified sense of intimacy, mood lift and arousal. It will also give you increased energy and alertness.
After prolonged use of MDMA not having it in your system anymore could cause anxiety, depression, headaches, and restlessness. MDMA has also been associated with liver damage and excessive wear of teeth.

Interview with a Dead Guy

I like this project, because it was more creative than most other projects like just having to type an essay. It gave us something to do that was actually interesting and different. The only thing that i didn't like was having to watch our own videos in class, its mildly embarrassing. Oh and well i guess i didn't like how much time doing watching the videos took, but that can't really be changed.
I think that this should be kept as a project. Other students will like it, and it gives everyone the change to be creative.

Experiment

Groups:
Control= the group that just had to make sure they could understand the sentences
Variable= There were two variable groups. one group were the people that were told to visualize the sentences and the other group was told to pronounce each sentence

Variables:
Independent= the type of comprehending the sentences which were understanding, visualizing and pronouncing them.
Dependent= were the scores of subjects that each person could remember from each group.

This study was a single blind procedure because mrs wollersheim knew which group had which type of skill for comprehending the sentences.

Technology and Use in Educational Future

Today i am very proud of Ashwaubenon for jumping into the 21st century with these netbooks that we are allowed to use. I never really figured that our school would ever do something like this, i figured that we would ever want to use computers like this at school we would have to bring our own.
This is a very large step for me individually. I figure that for the rest of my academic school life, which will be college, that I'll always have something like this at my disposal. For my college classes as long as we are allowed to i plan on bringing my own laptop so i could take my own personal notes. if technology keeps going like this it's only a matter of time until this whole school has netbooks and everyone gets to use their own one. I look forward to that day, but i also like being able to use books. I guess it's just because I'm so used to them that i prefer reading out of a actual book than out of one online. Maybe I'll just need to get used to it then...

Writing Assignment 1

When i signed up for this class i assumed that it was going to be like any other AP class. I assumed it was going to be challenging and a lot of work, and i figured it was going to take a lot of work. I also assumed i would be spending quite a lot of time doing homework. In the last 48 hours those expectations haven't really changed. I haven't had to spend very long time doing homework yet, but i am anticipating i may have to still.

The first quiz on moodle wasn't really that hard. The only mistakes i made were because i second guessed myself and changed the answer right before i submitted it. I am most exciteda about being able to use netbooks in class because i've never had a class like this before.

TADA. first blog post ever...