Caffeine and Hallucinations?

We learned in class that caffeine is a stimulant, but a new study shows it may have some hallucinogenic effects, summarized in this article.

Researchers at Durham University conducted a survey among "high caffeine users" and found correlation to stress and proneness to hallucination.
Before the implications are discussed, we first must note the definition of these "high caffeine users." The study defines it as "more than 7 cups of instant coffee a day," which, because I think instant coffee is gross, I had to do some research for. According to the USDA, instant coffee averages around 100mg of caffeine. To put it into my perspective, that's 3-4 cups of regular, brewed coffee. And even less cups of espresso. (Check out conversions for your caffeinated-beverage-of-choice here. Bear in mind serving size; they are all for 8oz.)

What I thought the article tried to get at but failed to make clear was this: Caffeine, stress, and sleep deprivation all contribute to cortisol levels, a hormone produced in the adrenal gland, and widely dubbed "the stress hormone." So the so-called chicken-egg situation should be more like a cycle--people aren't taking in caffeine because they hear voices. Rather, these people are under a lot of stress to perform well, thus have to stay up late to study thus can't sleep, thus drink coffee. All of these factors combined spell cortisol release. And it is cortisol that causes the hallucinations.

I searched for the actual study to see if this was discussed (the link in the article didn't work) and found access to the abstract. Even when stress was controlled for, caffeine still succeeded to produce proneness to hallucination, but not 'persecutory ideation'--when an individual believes that harm is occurring or going to occur, when in fact no harm is present.

In the end, while caffeine intake, stress, and sleep deprivation are all positively correlated and lead to cortisol increases, which in turn can lead to hallucinations, elevated caffeine-intake alone is enough.

- Emily Rogers

Medical Marijuana - Ben Stevenson

Over Thanksgiving break, my great uncle was telling us about his job. He is Sherriff in Montana, which os one of the few states that had legalized the use of marijuana for medical puposes. He was talking about the good old days wen he used to have fun by putting poeple in jail for possesion. He also comoplained a lot about how poeple are being really stupid and abusing the new law. Here is a clip about medical marijuana.

Lucid Dreams

This discovery channel video explains how dreams, and brain activity during sleep contribute to memory and creativity. It also focuses on techniques and applications for lucid dreaming. The makers of this seem to give credence to the activation-synthesis theory for dreams because they attribute dreams to the synthesis of random signals.

criminal profiling, mariah redman

This is a short clip of the tv show crminal minds, its about people that profile criminals such a serial killers for a living and this technique makes it so they can predict who the person/ killer is, where they are, who/ when they will attack next, and why they are killing. In this clip though the profilers are the ones being profiled. I believe this is the closest it gets to psychics. They use many techniques such as observation, and many times use images and cognitive maps to replay the crime scene in there heads.

Cocaine and Cognition

A new study has proven the negative effects prenatal exposure of cocaine. This may seem a little obvious, but the article goes into more depth and talks about some interesting stuff.

http://college.cengage.com/psychology/resources/students/news/news_20020415.html

-Aaron Buzek

Aayushi Sardana

http://psychology.about.com/

Reasons Why You Need to Get a Good Night's Sleep

Monday November 30, 2009

When was the last time you found yourself drifting off in the middle of a long class lecture or meeting? According to the National Sleep Foundation's 2008 "Sleep in America" poll, 29% of participants reported becoming very sleepy or even falling asleep at work in the previous month alone.
Sleep can affect learning, stress, weight and much more.
"Nearly 50 million Americans chronically suffer from sleep problems and disorders that affect their careers, their personal relationships and safety on our roads," explains Darrel Drobnich of the National Sleep Foundation in a press release. Unfortunately, getting a good night's sleep is not a priority for many of these individuals. The foundation's reports also found that approximately 63% of respondents simply accept sleep deprivation as a part of their life, while 32% turn to caffeinated drinks to combat their daytime sleepiness.
"Similar to diet and exercise, sleep needs to be an integral element of a healthy lifestyle. The impact of not getting good sleep is far reaching and has Americans compromising their productivity, safety, health and relationships - both on the job and at home," Drobnich suggests. Recent research has linked lack of sleep to a wide range of ailments, including memory problems and obesity. Learn more about some of the top reasons why you should get a good night's sleep.

Summary: This article discusses the importance of sleep and how a lack of it can have an adverse effects. The correlation between sleep deprivation, memory problems and even obesity can't be ignored as a mere coincidence. Though many Americans have accepted sleep deprivation as a part of life they have forgotten that sleep is equally as important as eating healthy and maintaining a good weight.

Language and Cognition Lab--Mikey Makuch

http://coglanglab.org/index.html
This site is an online research lab with experiments you can participate in about language and cognition. By doing some of these you can contribute to the understanding of how learning language works and learn something yourself. They don't take very long to do and can be kind of fun!

Camilla Hundley

Darren Brown (the same guy who did the lottery trick) insists that he, and you!, can memorize the dictionary, as well as any other book, by using the simple technique of chunking.

Ten Second Tom - Tommy Curley

This is a video clip of the scene with Ten Second Tom, from Fifty First Dates. He is missing part of his brain due to a hunting accident and he cannot create long-term memories. His short-term memories only last about 10 seconds. This is the most accurate representation of this handicap I have seen in a movie so far.

The Curious Case of Clive Wearing

This is a video on Clive Wearing. A man that has no short term memory. It gives the accurate depiction of a person with no short term memory, unlike the unaccurate one in 50 First Dates. Once you see what a person is like without short term memory, you really learn to value your own.

Robin Wasserman

This video looks at the effects of isolation on the human mind. Six people volunteered to undergo isolation as part of an experiment to see what happens to the brain when it is "deprived of stimulation." Some were kept in total darkness and some were forced to listen to continual white noise. Solitary confinement has been used as a form of punishment in prisons, and in light of its common use in prisons such as Guantanamo, scientists are interested in learning how this affects our brains.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5688279003135893692#docid=5979976052909214366

Alexa McMahon

Who knows how embarrassed Jesse McCartney is after this but it is funny and shows a little about our memory and forgetting. Maybe he didn't rehearse or elaborate enough with the song, but altogether I know I would never want to be caught in something like this

This clip is an interesting way of remebering people's names through a number of fun steps. One technique in particular that we learned in class was association. Not only does this video give a good example of association, but also some good tips to improve your memory.

Camilla Hundley

Here's a really cool 3D "medical" video that does a good job of showing action potential and neural firing

Sarah Palmer

Harry Harlow wanted to find the importance of love. He learned it by messing with baby monkeys' heads. Harlow separated baby monkeys from their mothers almost as soon as they were born. He raised them in labs with two kinds of surrogate monkey mother machines that could both give milk. The monkey almost always chose the mother made of cloth and not the one made from bare wire.

Hopefully, there are educational, adorable clips of some of the nicer experiments here:





Later he raised monkeys exclusively with one mother. The ones with the cloth mother grew to be typical monkeys. The ones with the wire mothers didn't develop coping mechanisms, acting erratically, and were generally less well adjusted. Later experiments tested the effects of a mother's cruelty on her children. They don't end that well.

Harlow concluded that we need more than just sustenance to grow into mature, stable people; we need physical comfort and a feeling of being protected. Essentially, he argued we need love and touch to grow. It seems kind of obvious, but during the 50s when these experiments were going on people who worked with babies avoiding touching them because that was supposed to make them more unhealthy. Scientists told mothers that touching their children too much could turn them gay. At the time, the findings that touch was good were ground-breaking.

Camilla Hundley

An interesting video showing neuron firing and action potential.

Mollie Powell

This is a pretty cool article I found that explains how encouraging someone to do something they enjoy using rewards can actually make them enjoy what they are doing less, and work less hard on it. Enjoy!
http://www.spring.org.uk/2009/10/how-rewards-can-backfire-and-reduce-motivation.php

Parts of the Eye --Olivia Rosales

http://isee.nei.nih.gov/parts/eyediagram.asp

The Milgram Experiment

Mr. Doud's has already mentioned the Milgram Experiment, where participants were asked to shock people with increasingly high voltage. Stanley Milgram conducted this experiment in order to understand how the German people allowed the Nazis to conduct such heinous crimes against humanity during WWII. This video has several interviews with Milgram, footage of the original experiment, and modern psychologists discussing the implications of the Milgram Experiment.

via videosift.com

Familial Dysautonomia - Tommy Curley

Familial Dysautonomia is a disorder of the autonomic and sensory nervous system. It affects a person's feeling of pain and most other stimuli. It can also affect a person's production of tears, saliva control, muscle development, motor skills, gastronomical control, growth of spine, body temperature, sweating, and digestion. This video is a trailer for a documentary of the girl, Sam, who is coping with FD. She has done very well with it and has a positive outlook on her life. FD can be a very crippling disfunction of the brain, but it can also be treated with therapy and very manageable.

60 minutes with Tourette Syndrome

WATCH NOW! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GiHecd_xbdA

This is a clip about teenager, Bianca who is struggling with tourette's syndrome. Through her involuntary tics or tantrums, anger strikes, and extreme violent behavior, Bianca's family is inclined to support and love her even more. It's heart-breaking to see how her violent actions are unstoppable and how it affects all those who are around her.


Tourette's syndrome is a chemical imbalance in the brain. Some research suggests that there is a disturbance in the balance in neurotransmitters. There is no cure or medication to treat Tourette's syndrome.

Hannah C.

Alec Weech- Illusions

This video shows several optical illusions that take advantage of bottom-up processing, and also how the illusions are created. Even though you know intellectually that you are seeing lines move across a stationary image it appears that there is actually a moving image on the piece of paper. This illusion still works despite the fact that it is explained first.

Alexander Supertramp

This movie is about a man young man named Christopher McCandless. He decides to throw in the towel on society and hitchhikes to Alaska. Christopher lived a life of non conformity, which is not usually the case with most people. Take for example the Asch experiment, where people give a completely wrong answer just because thats what everyone else does. It makes me happy to know that some people don't just live the way they do because thats what is socially acceptable. I can only imagine how much cooler the world would be without conformity.

Balance posted by Ben Stevenson

This Video explains how balance works and it also explains what happens when we turn our head. I think it is interesting how there are 3 planes that we move on. Also, i find it interesting that we can mess up this sense so easily.



Here is an overveiw on vertigo (http://www.neurologychannel.com/vertigo/index.shtml)
Vertigo, or dizziness, is a symptom, not a disease. The term vertigo refers to the sensation of spinning or whirling that occurs as a result of a disturbance in balance (equilibrium). It also may be used to describe feelings of dizziness, lightheadedness, faintness, and unsteadiness. The sensation of movement is called subjective vertigo and the perception of movement in surrounding objects is called objective vertigo.
Vertigo usually occurs as a result of a disorder in the vestibular system (i.e., structures of the inner ear, the vestibular nerve, brainstem, and cerebellum). The vestibular system is responsible for integrating sensory stimuli and movement and for keeping objects in visual focus as the body moves. Benign paroxysmal position vertigo (BPPV) is a common cause for dizziness.
When the head moves, signals are transmitted to the labyrinth, which is an apparatus in the inner ear that is made up of three semicircular canals surrounded by fluid. The labyrinth then transmits movement information to the vestibular nerve and the vestibular nerve carries the information to the brainstem and cerebellum (areas of the brain that control balance, posture, and motor coordination). There are a number of different causes for dizzy spells.


I think it would be interesting to learn more about how vertigo makes you feel dizzy

Nicole Nee

I chose to post this video because it has an interesting story and does a good job explaining how the eye works.

Daniel Weltz

I found this video very interesting because it uses what we learned in our previous unit in terms of behaviorism and structuralism as well as maturation and action/reward to make a much larger point about the reality of our justice system. In it, Dr. Jennifer Woolard, an assistant professor of psychology at Georgetown University, argues that the government should rework its juvenile justice system because it doesn't accurately reflect the insufficient developments in the minds of our youth. She goes on to say that children are not fully mentally developed until sixteen and are not fully emotional developed until a while after that. Here it is:

Zach Thayer

Since we were talking about the anatomy and protection of the ear, i found this video awhile ago so enjoy.

Incentive to Ear Protection: Nice Head Phones for <$20.

What's Wrong With Optimism by Amy Woolsey

This is an article I found on the website for Time magazine:

"If you're craving a quick hit of optimism, reading a news magazine is probably not the best way to go about finding it. As the life coaches and motivational speakers have been trying to tell us for more than a decade now, a healthy, positive mental outlook requires strict abstinence from current events in all forms. Instead, you should patronize sites like HappyNews.com, where the top international stories of the week include "Jobless Man Finds Buried Treasure" and "Adorable 'Teacup Pigs' Are Latest Hit with Brits."

Or, of course, you can train yourself to be optimistic through sheer mental discipline. Ever since psychologist Martin Seligman crafted the phrase "learned optimism" in 1991 and started offering optimism training, there's been a thriving industry in the kind of thought reform that supposedly overcomes negative thinking. You can buy any number of books and DVDs with titles like Little Gold Book of YES! Attitude, in which you will learn mental exercises to reprogram your outlook from gray to the rosiest pink: "affirmations," for example, in which you repeat upbeat predictions over and over to yourself; "visualizations" in which you post on your bathroom mirror pictures of that car or boat you want; "disputations" to refute any stray negative thoughts that may come along. If money is no object, you can undergo a three-month "happiness makeover" from a life coach or invest $3,575 for three days of "optimism training" on a Good Mood Safari on the coast of New South Wales.

But the question, before you whip out your credit card or start reciting your personal list of affirmations, is, What makes you think unsullied optimism is such a good idea? Americans have long prided themselves on being positive and optimistic — traits that reached a manic zenith in the early years of this millennium. Iraq would be a cakewalk! The Dow would reach 36,000! Housing prices could never decline! Optimism was not only patriotic but was also a Christian virtue, or so we learned from the proliferating preachers of the "prosperity gospel," whose God wants to "prosper" you. In 2006, the runaway bestseller The Secret promised that you could have anything you wanted, anything at all, simply by using your mental powers to "attract" it. The poor listened to upbeat preachers like Joel Osteen and took out subprime mortgages. The rich paid for seminars led by motivational speakers like Tony Robbins and repackaged those mortgages into securities sold around the world.

Optimism wasn't just a psycho-spiritual lifestyle option; by the mid-'00s it had become increasingly mandatory. Positive psychologists, inspired by a totally overoptimistic reading of the data, proclaimed that optimism lengthens the life span, ameliorates aging and cures cancer. In the past few years, some breast-cancer support groups have expelled members whose tumors metastasized, lest they bring the other members down. In the workplace, employers culled "negative" people, like those in the finance industry who had the temerity to suggest that their company's subprime exposure might be too high. No one dared be the bearer of bad news. The purpose of work, at least in white collar settings, was to flatter and reassure the boss, who had in turn probably read enough of the business self-help literature to believe that his job was to motivate others with his own relentless and radiant optimism. (Read "A Primer for Pessimists.")

Two years into the Great Recession, it's time to face the truth: optimism feels good, really good, but it turns out to be the methamphetamine of run-amok American capitalism. Meth induces a "Superman syndrome." Optimism fed into what Steve Eisman, a banking analyst who foresaw the crash, calls "hedge-fund disease," characterized by "megalomania, plus narcissism, plus solipsism" and the belief that "to think something is to make it happen." The meth-head loses his teeth and his mind; the madcap optimists of Wall Street lost something like $10 trillion worth of pension funds, life savings and retirement accounts.

Fortunately, the alternative to optimism is not pessimism, which can be equally delusional. What we need here is some realism, or the simple admission that, to paraphrase a bumper sticker, "stuff happens," including sometimes very, very bad stuff. We don't have to dwell incessantly on the worst-case scenarios — the metastasis, the market crash or global pandemic — but we do need to acknowledge that they could happen and prepare in the best way we can. Some will call this negative thinking, but the technical term is sobriety.

Besides, the constant effort of maintaining optimism in the face of considerable counter-evidence is just too damn much work. Optimism training, affirmations and related forms of self-hypnosis are a burden that we can finally, in good conscience, set down. They won't make you richer or healthier, and, as we should have learned by now, they can easily put you in harm's way. The threats that we face, individually and collectively, won't be solved by wishful thinking but by a clear-eyed commitment to taking action in the world."


I found this quite interesting because in our society we're always pressured to 'look on the bright side', but when faced with any difficulty, no matter how extreme, it's hard to constantly remain optimistic. In fact, maybe it's healthy to allow ourselves to get frustrated or depressed once in a while.

What do you guys think about this topic?

mariah redman

I was debateing on posting this video on obstacle illusions or a video on hypnosis. I chose this one because we are in the process of learning about the eye and brain and all the tricks it is capable of playing on you and all the faults you wouldnt know of. you should definatly watch this short clip because it will keep you entertained and by the end youll be surprised by what your brain is truely capable of. They say listen to half of of what you see and none of what you hear, obveously neither is to be truely trusted.

Wild Child - Feral children and the critical period

Is It Real - Feral Children 4of 5
by M_I_N_D

Mythological connotations aside, 'feral children' are human children who were raised with no human contact whatsoever. In this extremely abnormal case--that could probably only happen in sparsely populated countries like Ukraine--a girl raised by wild dogs developed canine instincts and behavior. But isn't human behavior innate and hard-wired into us?
Although the prospect of a wolf child may sound like an urban legend, feral children are often abandoned during their most critical period--as young, impressionable toddlers. As we learned in class, plasticity is a pretty remarkable thing. Seeking affection and direction, we will adapt and learn under even the most bizarre conditions.

The other parts of the video highlight more of the scientific background as well as featuring other children. And this is an interesting site for more of these alarming cases of neglect. Just makes you think about how far 'nurture over nature' can take us.

- Emily Rogers

Alexa McMahon

This is interesting to see, when even the simplest answer was there and yet the man still changes his answer to be like that of the others. This almost reminds me of spirit week, I know that if I tell some friends I'm not going to dress up for a spirit day it will defiantly alter whether or not they too will.

What the bleep do we know?

Perception of things around us: (Start at 2:00)

Part 2:

The Marshmallow Test: an Experiment in Self Control

I thought this was an interesting video and idea. The experiment shown is about more than just self control. The idea is "We can’t control the world, but we can control how we think about it.” This nicely fits into what we were talking about in class on tuesday about plasticity and changing the way we think about the world. The link explains a little more about the experiment.

-Aaron Buzek

Oh, The Temptation from Steve V on Vimeo.

How to Be Happy

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-scientific-fundamentalist/200812/how-be-happy

People today always seem to be in a bad mood, and they don't know how to find true happiness, but now there's a perfect explanation on how to.

Isaac Hayes

Running For My Life

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/14/AR2009091402163.html

Daniele Seiss had suffered from severe depression since she was a child. Only when she was a teenager did she receive treatment. Neither talk therapy nor medication were effective, and some meds had terrible side effects. The only thing that works for her is long walks or running. Many studies have shown that exercise can relieve depression.

Human Lie Detector

In the show 'Lie To Me' the character Dr. Cal Lightman solves crimes by being able to tell if people are lying. This guy, Bill Brown, is the real deal.




Mikey Makuch

Immortality only 20 years away says scientist

If we keep discovering more about the human body at the rate we are going right now, and technology continues to become more advanced, some scientists are predicting computer body parts within 20 years.



RJ Lucas

The Teen Brain

http://www.abc.net.au/science/broadband/catalyst/asx/Teen_Brain_hi.asx


This video is about the development of the teen brain from adolescence to adulthood. It tries to explain why teens tend to take more risks and be more impulsive than adults. Many questions about brain growth and development can be answered using techniques like the MRI. This video is very informative of current methods of viewing brain activity.


Mike Griffith

Science of Happiness- Aayushi Sardana

The video in this article is about the chemical processes that occur when we experience happiness and joy. These psychologists have done extensive research and are performing many experiments to see if one's joy level is set at birth and how much it can be controlled.



http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=4115033&page=1