Prefrontal Lobotomy

Prefrontal Lobotomy

Lobotomies were surgical procedures where they would disconnect or damage your prefrontal cortex from the rest of your brain. It was Walter Freeman, a medical doctor, and untrained surgeon that performed this cruel procedure. What this doctor did just tells us how desperate some people can get in an attempt to "advance science" for fame. This individual used kitchen utensils to perform his procedures and in a matter of 5 minutes he will pick your brain with an ice pick through your eyes and will credit himself of having cured your sickness. He did this procedures to thousands of people who believed that they would be cured from schizophrenia. Unfortunately that never happened they actually ended up worse. Consequences of this procedure were apathy, loss of the ability to plan or take initiative, memory disorders, distractibility and loss emotional expressions. I do not have enough words to express my feelings of disgust for the procedure that "Dr. Freeman" did on the thousands of people. In that late 1940's to 1950's more doctors joined on the prefrontal lobotomies and had about 40,000 procedures here in the United States of America. I have added a video to the blog to help you understand my disgust to this doctor. warning this video is graphic .

***** WARNING GRAPHIC VIDEO******

 

The Human Endocrine System

The Human Endocrine System consists of glands throughout the body that secrete hormones whenever they are commanded to do.They are all tuned in to the hypothalamus and whenever the hypothalamus secretes hormones it activates certain glands throughout the body.
Some of the major glands throughout our body are the following:

1.  Pineal Gland 
2.  Pituitary Gland
3.  Parathyroid Glands
4.  Thyroid Glands
5. Thymus
6. Liver
7. Adrenal Gland
8. Kidney
9. Pancreas
10. Ovary ( in female)
11. Placenta( in female during pregnancy)
12. Testis

The following video is a visual aid for the human endocrine system

Firing Neurons

     If you ask the average American if they can explain to you how neurons work they will probably give you a blank stare. Much of what we know about neurons has been just discovered in the past 100 years. We have just scratched the surface on how our brain works. First lets define what a neuron is. A neuron is a cell that receives information and transmits it to other cells by conducting electrochemical impulses. The parts of a neuron are the dendrites, cell body (soma), axon, and in some myelin sheath.

•     Dendrites are branching fibers that get narrower near their ends. The dendrite is shaped like a tree and it is lined with synaptic receptors that make it possible to receive information from other neurons.

•     Cell body of the neuron is like any other cell in the body. It contains the nucleus, ribosomes, mitochondria, and more.

•     Axon is the main road through where the information being send is traveling through.

•     Myelin sheath is an insulating material that most axons have.

 I hope that this blog will spark an interest in neuroscience. The following is a video that will give you a visual aid to what I have just explained.

Animal Testing

Animal testing has been receiving a lot of bad publicity in the past years. In the past century some of the most important discoveries have been found using animal testing. For example, in the 1880’s Emil von Behring found a vaccine testing on guinea pigs. The immunization was for diphtheria which is an upper respiratory. Behring received a Nobel Prize in 1901 for his discovery. Another person that used animal testing that you might be more familiar with is Jonas Salk. He was also a Nobel Prize winner and he used Rhesus monkey cross contamination studies to isolate three forms of polio which affected hundreds of thousands of people each year. It is said that each monkey that was killed saved 65 lives. Millions of lives have been saved because there was an immunization that was found through animal testing. These are just a few examples of what we can accomplish. Ethically we want to save human lives. What is the cost? I do agree though that there is times when animal testing could wait. But if we decide to abolish animal testing, what would happen to human kind? We have not had a major plague in a long time. Abolitionist would like to stop any kind of animal research no matter the consequence and that scares me. I consider myself a minimalist, if at the end of the day your testing is doing more good than harm to humanity I am ok with that.