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Charles Riley Biography

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Roughly all science fields have a history of making discoveries by accident. Neurology, in particular, struggled in its early days to understand the brain due to the limited resources and information available about its numerous function. Humans that were victims of their own mistakes or had genetic disadvantages helped the scientific community gather more data about the beauty and misfortunes that the mind possesses. It is understandable that humans label everything, it is our nature; however, Charles A. Riley II is correct in Disability and the Media: Prescriptions for Change about the public and the media needing to stop using people that were unfortunate victims of inevitable events and instead, they should be covered in a fair and accurate …show more content…

Our knowledge about how the human brain works is in debt to numerous unfortunate individuals. In the early 20th Century, they were considered medical miracles, but nevertheless some pitied them. By doing so, these people that were attempting to live normally were constantly reminded of their disability(ies) to a point of exhaustion. Henry Gustav Molaison, for example, is one of the most known patients in Neuroscience. Known by H.M. until his death, he was a “neuropsychological phenomenon” that helped discover significant advances in understanding the function of memory in the “hippocampus”. H.M.’s “severe epilepsy” was the result of a highly risky operation designed to cure the debilitating epilepsy he had suffered since childhood (Dr. Gibbs, Barry, The Rough Guide to The Brain, Dr. Vann, 2012). Two holes were drilled in the front of his skull, a portion that includes half of the hippocampus on both sides, and amygdala. Because the procedure left him with no ability to store or …show more content…

Phineas P. Gage is a great example of people misinterpreting the true meaning of having a mental condition. Phineas Gage was an American railroad foreman, his job included packing explosive charges into the ground to make way for a new track. Unfortunately in 1848, an explosive charge blew too soon and sent an iron rod (3 feet 7 inches long and weighed 13 1/2 pounds) through his skull below the left eye, passed through the front left region of his cortex, and soared out of the top of his head. Gage’s freshly exposed brain placed him in weeks of coma and meningitis, but once he recovered, it appeared as if a new person was borned. It wasn’t bipolar disorder, Schizoid personality disorder, or other personality disorder, but it was a combination of many. The iron rod destroyed Gage’s region in the brain “ responsible for higher intellectual functioning” (Dr. Gibbs, Barry, The Rough Guide to The Brain, Ferrier, 1870). Moreover, his personality drifted away from the man everyone knew before the incident, therefore causing his family, friends, and other to avoid him. While the majority of people did indeed called him a medical miracle for surviving such traumatizing event, they also felt sorry because nothing was ever going to be the same. Gage knew how he was before but was not able to be that person. In

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At the time the physician removed parts of his hippocampus as a way to stop his seizures. HM seizures went away, but he could not form any new memories. However, one form of memory left intact in both HM and Leonard is the ability to learn skills. This ability is known as procedural memory, a memory that is shown by performance rather than by conscious recollection (Kalat, 1998), it allows us to learn how to do things such as ride a bike or play an instrument. The areas of the brain outside of the hippocampus are involved in procedural memory, which is why an injury that results in anterograde amnesia doesn't affect procedural memory.

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In his book The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Trials, Oliver Sacks accounts some interesting encounters with his patients (or “clients” as he believes is a more respectable term to call them). He has organized his collection of case studies by the neurologic disorder themes of the clients: Losses, Excesses, Transports, and the World of the Simple. The first part of the book is a collection of neurological disorders that Sacks categories as losses, or deficits. He describes their difference from typical deficits, as they originated in the right-hemisphere of the brain rather than left-hemisphere and have not been studied as much.

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A lecture i attended started off with uneasy jokes about how the mentally ill behave. Dr.Goldberg went on to explain his daily duties of working at a mental hospital and the things he experiences while working there. When an audience member asked how the workers deal with situations where the patients don't take their medicine, Dr.Goldberg laughed and stated something along the lines of “well we just hope and pray they don't kill us.” This specific statement along some other questionable jokes, helped me understand how he viewed his patients in the hospital-stereotypical. However, Dr.Goldberg was able to provide some real life examples of how the mentally ill are dehumanized where he works.

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The thalamus, hypothalamus, amygdala, and the hippocampus are structures in the brain that enables us to remember, recall and creates new memories. Wearing showed specific symptoms of his memory loss. He would repeat himself often and exhibit moment to moment consciousness. He often showed extremely emotional behavior like fits of rage. After a period of about two minutes he felt that he was awake for the first time,

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How they are perceived, and their of lack ability to meet the expectations of society was interpreted as mental illness. Although they are all institutionalized for different reasons, the one they all have in common is society. McMurphy, for example, was admitted for being a “psychopath”, while others felt that they were not able to function and signed themselves up voluntarily. Consequently, society sets up expectations for what is viewed as normal. If these expectations are not met or if someone is different they walk the fine line of sanity vs.

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In the book “One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest” Ken Kesey shows that the “insanity” of the patients is really just normal insecurities and their label as insane by society is immoral. This appears in the book concerning Billy Bibbits problem with his mom, Harding's problems with his wife, and that the patients are in the ward

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In the book Girl, Interrupted, by Susanna Kaysen, one of the biggest focal points is mental illness. Mental illness can be tough to talk about, simply because the phrase “mental illness” encompasses such a wide range of conditions and conjures up images of deranged people, but it is very important, especially in this book. There is a certain stigma that people who are put into mental hospitals because they have medical problems or are insane and a possible danger to society. While this is sometimes true, it is far more common for patients to need help for a disorder, but just don’t know where to go or what to do, and can end up putting themselves or someone else in danger.

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According to some, Gage became very violent at times and behaved in manner not like his normal self. He was also alledged of molesting children. After exhibiting these behaviors doctors begin to expand thier beliefs on decision-making and the social cognition, these to areas are exemplified in the frontal lobe of the brain. Later Gage died, experiencing convulsions before his death. A lot of Gage rememberance can be found in museums of

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When people hear the words, “mental illness,” they think of insane asylums and psychiatric wards, but that’s not necessarily the case. Yes, back in the 1800’s they did have asylums for people with mental disorders. But that was when doctors didn’t fully understand mental illnesses and disorders. But currently, doctors are able to comprehend illnesses and disorders.

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This is what other researchers have thought of too, and therefore a conclusion was made that additional processes have been taking place as well. Another strength is that there is neuropsychological evidence for this model as a patient, HM (Milner, 1966) underwent surgery which impaired his hippocampus and in turn affected his long-term memory as it no longer functioned properly, whereas his short-term memory was rather functional. Due to this we can conclude that these two processes are involved in the process of memory, as one of the stores was affected when the brain was damaged but the other was not (Baddeley, 2009).

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This study helped scientists figure out that new neurons are born in the brain’s hippocampal region. The results of the study found that cab drivers had unusually large hippocampi because of how they had memorized how to navigate the city. Another study found that after people had been practicing piano at different levels, the subjects who had practiced more had an enlarged motor cortex. 
Evidence found that 
the average adult generates 1,400 new hippocampal neurons every day. When practicing an action consistently there was tangible change shown from the fMRI scans taken after these sessions generally resulting in increased masses in the part of the brain related to the action.

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“Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity” - World Health Organisation, 1946. Although there have been a number of ground breaking discoveries in science as a whole I strongly believe more can be done within neurology. Epilepsy affects more than 500,000 people in the UK that is almost one in every 100 people. I wish to study neuroscience as I would like to look into conditions such as this but also explore into neuroaesthetics. Having a close family member being diagnosed with epilepsy, I have been exposed to the fundamental importance of how to deal with seizures.

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In his book, author Oliver Sacks tells the accounts of many of the stories he has encountered throughout his career as a neurologist. Each individual story ranging from a variety of different neurological disorders, displays a common theme which add to Sacks’ overall message conveyed. The themes that are conveyed by Sacks include losses, excesses, transports, and the world of the simple. Each theme consists of grouped stories that coincide with the overlying message. In the losses section, the nine chapters all deal with some sort of deficit inside of the brain.

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The biological approach to the basis of memory is explained in terms of underlying biological factors such as the activity of the nervous system, genetic factors, biochemical and neurochemicals. In general terms memory is our ability to encode, store, retain and recall information and past experiences afterwards in the human brain. In biological terms, memory is the recreation of past experiences by simultaneous activation or firing of neurons. Some of the major biopsychological research questions on memory are what are the biological substrates of memory, where are memories stored in the brain, how are memories assessed during recall and what is the mechanism of forgetting. The two main reasons that gave rise to the interest in biological basis of memory are that researchers became aware of the fact that many memory deficits arise from injuries to the brain.

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Patients with mental health illnesses are many times defined because of their diagnosis and that is

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