Chapter 6 and 7

Chapter 6: Sensation, Perception, and Adaptation

As a person with a high interest in art the Adaptive Functions of Color Vision was exciting to read because I had never heard of it before---and I took color theory! Mark Changizi's "skin theory of color vision" says that we have color vision because it allows us to better understand someone's health (yellow for sick) or emotion (red when angry or embarrassed) based on the colors displayed by their skin. Colors we often use to describe the skin (red, blue, yellow, green) align with the colors that rods and opponent cells respond to!! Another supporting point for this theory is that non-human primates with trichromatic color vision have no fur on their face, while primates who have retained dichromatic color vision have full facial hair. All of which is incredibly fascinating to me.

Chapter 7: Movement

I have anxiety myself and it was interesting to read about the effects our minds have on how we move. An example the textbook gave was on Alicia Sacramone, the Olympic gymnast, who had to wait before she could start her beam routine. It said that her motor memory was likely disrupted which could be what caused her to mess up. Beilock did research on athletes and speculated that those who had high-level automaticity (requiring less cortical input) but then take time to really think about what they are doing disrupt "the movement machine." I use to be in gymnastics as a kid and it was probably for the best that I didn't stick with it. I tend to be an over thinker, so that mixed with flinging my body through the air just doesn't seem like a good mix after reading this chapter.

Chapter 5

Chapter 5: Neural Development, Neuroplasticity, and Recovery of Function

Epigenetics are something we have been discussing since the beginning of the semester but we had not really gone into depth into the topic until now. It was by far the most interesting part of the chapter for me because I grew up through the school system with the mentality that changes only took course over several generations. Epigenetics is about how things like starvation or abundant food, high-licking rodent mothers, or even extreme stress can have long-term effects on descendant children. How is this possible? DNA methylation and Histone Acetylation (a remodeling mechanism). Epigenetics may be in place to help speed up the process of changing the DNA code which is necessary in a quick and ever-changing environment.

Germs in Your Gut Are Talking to Your Brain

Article Response

This article was summed up pretty nicely by the title. Dr. Cryan and other scientists are in the early stages of relating microbes in our stomachs to a variety of influences on our bodies and our brains. Dr. Cryan said his idea was not well received initially which is unfortunate but somewhat understandable. The idea that something so tiny could potentially play a role in Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, Depression, Schizophrenia, Autism, etc is incredible.

Dr. Sisodia, a skeptic of Dr. Cryan, performed an experiment on mice where they were given antibiotics that would kill off most of the mice's bacteria in their guts. What they found in these Alzheimer prone mice was that their brains had far less of the protein clumps that are linked to dementia. Dr. Sisodia was surprised by the results.

However, this along with the other research discussed in the article does not prove cause and effect. Scientists do not want to give the impression that a cure for the aforementioned diseases is in the near future. Dr. Costa-Mattioli warns parents against going for store bought probiotics because only some strains of L. reuteri alter mice behavior. Much more research still needs to be done according to biologist Katarzyna B. Hooks, "We have the edges of the puzzle, and we're now trying to figure out what's in the picture itself."