Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia is the split between the emotional and intellectual aspects of experiences. There are disconnected with reality. Schizophrenics will experience all or some of these symptoms: delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech, disorganized behavior, absent emotion, inability to speak, and are unsociable. This disorder is very complex and determining where it comes from is very difficult. There are so many theories and they seem to all touch on just about everything. So what is it really? Is it due to the viruses a mother is exposed to while their child is in the womb, between 15 different genes mutations, a mother who doesn't eat enough fish, a parasite from cats, Rh differences  drugs, little glutamate, or too much dopamine synapse activity? I am really confused and concerned. Why is it so hard to determine? I feel very bad for those who have to go through this terrifying experience and I hope that people with schizophrenia aren't shunned away because they were born that way. I think schizophrenia is better explained from people who actually have it so here are some more videos.

The Rise of Depression

After learning about the symptoms of major depression I began to wonder if depression has increased since the past. I haven't really heard of many people being diagnosed as depressed in the past even through events such as the Great depression and WWII.

There are studies that show a steady increase in depression, anxiety, and other mental disorders among children and adolescents over the past fifty to seventy years. There were tests giving to young adults that date back to 1938 and it seems that young college students are more depressed now than in the past.
It is suggested that the increase is due to the fact that today's society is more worried about extrinsic goals rather than finding our internal value. This means that we are more concerned with the judgment of other people and material objects rather than being content in trying to develop our own meaning of life. As a result of the increased importance of being rich, looking attractive, and having a good job; people feel that they have no control over their lives.

Furthermore, it is suggested that this lack of control is due to the fact that children and young adults do not have enough free time. The duration of school has increased and control over students by teachers, grades, and rules has diminished their sense of self control and abilities to explore their own opportunities. We are taught at an early age that whatever we do or say is wrong. As students we were constantly supervised and directed by adults. This sends a message of incompetence, which can make a child or teen very sad and disappointment.

It is sad to hear that students are lacking this sense of control because of the over guidance of instructors and that this is causing more anxiety and mental disorders.

Moebius Syndrome

When telling a joke or a crazy story people usually look for your reaction, a facial expression to determine if you understand or like what they are telling you or not. If you look like your really not interested people might perceive you as not caring about what they say or that they aren't that good at story telling. It is a natural thing to look at the eyes and mouth to determine whether someone is sad, angry, surprised, happy, or afraid. For people with Moebius syndrome, making friends can be difficult. 

Moebius syndrome is a rare condition where a person is unable to move their facial muscles to make a smile. Apparently, studies have shown that people who smile feel happier than people who do not smile or laugh at a something. However people with this syndrome experience happiness just as anyone else. After hearing about this condition I wanted to hear about it from a person who is living with this rare syndrome.

As you can see in the video, Alonso is laughing and acting like a normal teenage girl but while laughing, is unable to move her mouth to show smiling.  Because Moebius does not allow facial movements, Alonso has a hard time pronouncing words that have to do with the lips. She seems to be able to move her tongue but I have heard from other videos of people speaking about their condition, that they can not move their tongue so speaking is even more difficult. Some surgeries have been done to help the people express emotion on their face, such as, taking muscles from other parts of the body and putting it in the face.
I am glad that this individual is able to overcome the bullying that comes to her way because of her condition. Thanks to Alonso sharing her experience of Moebius syndrome, I better understand what it is about.

Sexsomnia

This week I was really interested in sleep disorders. One new condition that got my attention was Sexsomnia. I had never heard of this condition until now and after doing some research I found that it has recently been accepted as a legal defense in some rape cases. Sexsomnia is a condition where a person who is asleep engages in sexual behavior, either with a partner or by masturbating, and do not know they are doing it. The reason they might not remember is because it occurs during non-REM sleep after dreaming about a sex in REM sleep. So as they drift out of REM sleep into the time where no dreams are happening, and that is where the sexual behavior occurs.
Sexsomnia or "sleep sex" usually involves another person who is unaware that the person is asleep and sometimes engage in sex willingly with them however, people who are simple sleeping next a person with this condition can end up being forced to have sex with them. People who have this will wake up in the middle of the night and find themselves having sex unknowingly and be ashamed, embarrassed,  and tend to have difficulty keeping relationships. Men are more likely to try an have sex while women tend to masturbate and moan. 
This condition is apparently more common than previously believed to be. And even though it is said to be more common in children, the reason might be that adults are more sexual and therefore, not reported as often.
After hearing about this I was afraid that it will come to be used often as a fake excuse to not be sent to prison for rape but the article that I got my information from says that by using a Polysomnograph to measure brain waves, they can determine if a person is prone to episodes of sexsomnia.
There is still a lot about this new condition that is unknown but most say that this condition could be caused by stress as well as other triggers like: sleep deprivation, alcohol, and other drugs. Some say that even taking medication for other sleeping disorders like sleep apnea can cause someone to get sexsomnia.  I hope that more research is done on this condition so that it isn't falsely diagnosed in sexual abuse cases.

Oxytocin

Sometimes referred to as the “Trust Hormone”, oxytocin helps mothers bond with their child, reduce social fears, creates sexual arousal, makes people more generous, and relieves stress and pain. Wow, doesn’t that sound awesome?! If you are wondering how to gain such pleasurable experiences, look no further than your own body. This hormone is in all of us and all we need to do is simply shake someone’s hand because body contact releases low levels of oxytocin. If you want to release high levels, physically interacting with the ones you love will do so.

Oxytocin is released during and after birth. When you see a mother bonding with her child by hugging and gazing after birth, oxytocin is also being released. Orgasm and the relaxed feeling after sex is another result of this hormone being released.

So I would say this is a very pleasurable and loving hormone.

When released, the hormone gives individuals more confidence in interacting with other people because of the reduction in anxiety.

After reading about this hormone I began to wonder if it had been used to help people with social disorders.

Because oxytocin helps with heightened social interaction, scientist conducted studies to see whether increasing this hormone would help cure autism. Autistic people have a hard time making social bonds because they cannot seem to recognize social cues or facial expression. After presenting this hormone in a tablet or nasal spray to these autistic children, they are better able to recognize social expression, which leads to a more pleasant social experience. 

Synesthesia

Synesthesia is a rare condition where some people may be able to taste colors, hear visual material, or associate color with numbers and letters. The reason this disorder exists is because the brain was somehow rewired wrong. The senses cross wired and now combine with each other to form a new way of seeing things. There are many variations of this disorder and is still being studied today. This phenomenon is very interesting and got me thinking about how I see things.

I remember being physically nauseous whenever I saw the color sea green in my crayon box at school. Something about that color just didn't sit right with me. After reading about this condition I began to wonder if it was possible to have a mild version of synesthesia.

If we look at the definition of synesthesia is would seem that there is no such thing as mild synesthesia and that only those who were born with the cross wiring of senses had it. However, there is something that some call “multimodal processing”, which may explain my experience with the sea green color crayon.

This multimodal process is a voluntary function where we associate different senses so that we are able to process an experience better. I guess that combination of the smell of crayons, the name of the color, and my uneasy feeling of being on a boat may have contributed to me feeling “sea sick”. I associated the color to the actual sea and my experience of being on a boat.

People with synesthesia do not experience the same thing. The experiences happen within the individual without any ability to control what they experience mentally. They will see, hear, smell, etc. what everyone else does but will have a “feeling” of it being of another sense. For example, They can see a black letter like other may but get this feeling that the letter's personality is giving off a sense of "blue"  I like to think of this phenomenon has kind of resembling how some people claim to see different shades of people’s Auras. It is an essence that comes off of objects or sounds that synesthetes experience. 

Check out this guys experience with synesthesia.

Semantic Demantia

Semantic Dementia is a very rare disease and is closely related to Alzheimer’s disease. People with this disease have an impaired ability to understand the meaning of words. They have a hard time putting together or understanding a full concept. This disorder is caused by the shrinking of the frontal and temporal lobes in the brain. This disease is really rare because it is a result of damage to the temporal cortex in both hemispheres and not just one.

It is quite an interesting disease because the person can understand what is being talked about or can recognize someone but will not be able to verbalize what it is. In other words they have lost the connection between the words and the object. Some people cannot remember what they have learned and therefore don’t understand what it is they are seeing or hearing. For example they my see a skirt and when asked to pick out a skirt they may pick out a pair of pants. The word meaning is lost. Some other symptoms include loss of muscle control, inability to show empathy because of lack of conscious control, and the repeating of words from memory. Unfortunately like Alzheimer’s, there is no cure for semantic dementia but some suggest taking anti-depressants to minimize the aggressiveness of the disease.

It must be very frustrating to not be able to hand someone what they ask for because you don’t know what the word attached to the object is. It’s kind of like being asked to get something for someone who is speaking a language you do not know. You must used context clues or see where they are pointing or staring to try to understand the word meanings but sometimes it isn't enough.