Critical Assessment of an Invasive Method of Investigating the Brain
There are many different invasive ways of investigating thee brain
including chemical stimulation, ablation and lesioning. All invasive
methods artificially stimulate, and actually affect the brain. For my
example I am going to look at electrical stimulation.
The first person to study electrical stimulation on the brain was by
Olds and Milner in 1954. They applied a weak current to the pleasure
centre of the brain to a number of rats using small electrodes. The
rats themselves could trigger the electrical stimulation themselves by
pressing a lever. They found that apart from eating and sleeping the
rats would press the lever for hours of end. This was very important
research at the time and showed how electrical impulses affect the
brain, but it has a number of weaknesses. It is difficult to
generalise these findings to humans. As we have conscious thought, and
our brains are much more complex. Therefore what affects a rat's brain
may have no effect, or even increased affect on a human brain.
The first person to study how electrical currents effected the brains
of humans was Penfield in 1958. He operated on people whom had severe
brain tumours or epilepsy. He decided to carry out an experiment on a
group of his patients (with their consent) into how electrical
stimulation affects the brain. He gave his patients small electrical
shocks to various parts of their cerebral cortex during the operations
and asked the patients to report what they experienced (as the brain
has no pain receptors the patients were fully awake).
He found that when he stimulated differen...
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(several areas affected). This can help a doctor decide if drugs are
an appropriate treatment or whether neurosurgery might help.
Other people have used EEG in similar ways to the above. Othmer et al
(95) used EEG as a biofeedback for improving Attention Deficit
Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and specific learning difficulties.
Although EEG are a very useful and important way of investigating the
brain there are a number of disadvantages and problems. The scans can
only measure the surface electrical activity of the brain and not the
deeper activity (which may be important in a number of syndromes such
as epilepsy). Also it is a very broad and wide-ranging scan. Although
it can show whether a persons brain activity is normal or not, it
cannot specifically pinpoint the region of the brain producing this
activity.
Phineas Gage, a 25 year old construction worker is known as one of the most famous patients that suffered from a traumatic brain injury. While working at a railroad site, an iron tamping rod (43 inches long, 1.25 diameter) went through his left cheek, through his brain, and out the skull. He surprisingly ended up surviving this traumatic injury. After a month in the hospital, he was back out on the street. Once a nice, caring person, Phineas turned into an aggressive man who could not even keep a job. Just like Phineas Gage, a TBI can potentially change everything. Brain studies on traumatic brain injuries are increasing every year. Even though the brain is very functional, brain injuries can have many physical, emotional, social, and economical effects.
11. Through the shift from first to third person and vice versa the technique strengthens his essay. With Gould’s usage of nouns and pronouns which refer to himself, the audience's attention is directed to that idea or concept. Provided that the essay had instead just been in third person, the monotony would have been too overbearing to target and decipher the real purpose. Using first person adds in his personal aspect about this research, ultimately making him seem more relatable and understanding, instead of just the
Penfield’s recherce and brain stimulation he was able to map the brain and its functional organization in living people. During his experiments he found that sending a shock to certain parts of the brain would have different reactions. By using this method Penfield was able to find the cause of epilepsy seizers and destroy it. In one case the patient would smell burnt toast right before a seizer, he used this knowledge to probe the limbic system to recreate the smell. None of this would have been possible without the map he created, the map was so influential that it is still used today. However, we no longer need to cut open the skull to see what inside, thanks to modern medicine MRIs are used to see what’s going on in our
First, let’s take a look at the ever present cons of ECT. When first brought into practice, the jolts of electricity would often cause muscle tears and broken bones, “routine use of hypnotics and muscle relaxants has eradicated [these] serious complications” (Sienaert 9). Sienaert goes on to say “Today, headache and nausea are the most common immediate side effects (9). Another, more serious, side effect of ECT is memory loss. Cyrzyk states “a systematic review of patients’ experiences . . . confirmed permanent memory loss in at least 30 per cent of cases (24). Cyrzyk goes on to say “memory disability (loss of working memory) and cognitive disability (loss of higher mental functions of cognition) to varying degrees” (24) should also be included in the list of the adverse effects of ECT. Another concern with ECT is informed consent, or lack thereof. Cyrzyk states “half of the participants reported that they had not received sufficient information about the ECT procedure and the possible side effects” (24). Also, while many think of ECT as a treatment for schizophrenia, patients with schizophrenia only showed “a short-term, small but significant, improvement” (Sienaert 8). Sienaert...
Currently, there is a lack of studies in regards to whether or not this therapy causes significant damage to the brain. Correspondingly, there is little research done in regards to how great relapse rates are and how long the treatment can truly last. Consequently, many people have abstained from receiving treatment to avoid any possibility of impairment or reversion. However, it has not been denied nor confirmed that ECT directly causes the aforementioned results. Moreover, many theories created to downplay electroconvulsive therapy’s effectiveness are being brought back into the spotlight, including one that attributes ECT’s success to brain damage. Breggin states, “More recently [Harold] Sackeim and Sackeim with a team of colleagues have covertly revived the principle that a therapeutic response depends upon the degree of brain damage and dysfunction” (par. 17). Although this theory was made to discredit ECT, there has been no research done to disprove its accuracy. Furthermore, because of a lack of research, when a new study such as this comes out, many people believe it right away no matter how erroneous it may actually be. More research on ECT is desperately needed to see if these theories are factual or not. As a result of these truths or fallacies, the therapy can be improved upon
Electroencephalography is a cheap non-invasive technique which has become widely used in studying brain activity to measure the electric potential differences on the scalp produced by the active cortical neurons (5).
One of the most controversial forms of treatment is electroconvulsive therapy. Electroconvulsive therapy, or ETC, is a procedure that consists of strong electric shocks that pass through the brain to induce convulsions (Vocabulary). This was a common method solve mental illnesses in the 1940’s and 1950’s. ECT was often criticized for not working and causing permanent memory loss (Mental Health America). Another dangerous and controversial diagnosis is Lobotomy. Lobotomy is a surgical procedure that interrupts the nerves in the brain (Vocabulary). It was very popular before prescription drugs and was also a common diagnosis of mental illnesses (Vocabulary.) The side effects include, but are not limited Mto; personality changes, empathy, inhibitions, inative, and the ability to function by themselves (Live Science.com). There was over 50,000 known lobotomies performed in the U.S., most were in mental hospitals (Live Science.com). Dr. Barron Lerner, a medical historian and professor at NYU Langone Medical Center in New York, told Live Science the science or thought process of lobotomy (Live Science.com). "The behaviors [doctors] were trying to fix, they thought, were set down in neurological connections. The idea was, if you could damage those connections, you could stop the bad behaviors (Live Science.com)." That’s why lobotomy
The biological approach assumes that all behaviour, including mental illnesses, has physiological causes in the same way that physical illnesses have physical causes. Abnormal behaviour may be caused because the brain is damaged or because the brain is not functioning properly. The biological approach assumes that mental illnesses can be caused by chemical imbalance in the brain or by genetic disorders. The biological approach assumes that psychological illnesses, just like physical illnesses, have recognisable symptoms that can be categorised. Finally, the biological approach assumes that mental illness can be treated medically. One type of therapy is Psychosurgery. This is an invasive medical treatment that involves the deliberate destruction of tiny amounts of brain tissue in order to treat mental illnesses such as clinical depression. The aim of psychosurgery is to interrupt the brain
There are many ethical issues towards invasive techniques (open surgery) because people often debate is it necessary for us to move further in the world of psychology by using invasive techniques or why don’t we just start to use non-invasive techniques. This is believed because it is still barbaric to be cutting up human brains just to discover and learn about the human brain. However by using non invasive techniques such as:
First, let us look at the electroencephalogram (EEG), which is based on recordings of electrical brain activity with millisecond temporal resolution and it provides “the most direct measure correlate of ongoing brain processing that can be obtained non-invasively (Johnsrude and Hauk, 2010, p. 28). The ba...
...mall minority of neurologists supports the use of very precise surgical techniques to produce small abrasions in defined areas of the brain to treat rare cases of severe mental illness such as life-threatening depression or impaired anxiety or obsessions. However, there is little need for such procedures today. Antipsychotic and antidepressant medications are the treatments of choice for treating mental disorders. Mainstream medicine now classifies psychosurgery as an experimental procedure, and many rules exist to protect patients who might be subjected to it. The majority of mental health professionals believe that psychosurgery is either never justified or should only be considered as a last resort, to be reserved for the most extreme cases of untreatable mental disease when all other therapies have failed (http://www.minddisorders.com/Ob-Ps/Psychosurgery.html).
Neuroscience refers to “the scientific study of the nervous system” It has been responsible for breakthroughs involving molecular, cellular, developmental, and medical aspects of human behaviors. Various organizations such as the “International society for neurochemistry” and the “European Brain and behavior Society” exist today to further the study of the nervous system and expand human understanding of medical and psychological ailments. The actual study of the nervous system dates all the way back to ancient Egypt where surgeons would drill holes into the human skull in order to alleviate a variety of aliments. The second half of the 20th century furthered the study of neuroscience via advancements in Molecular biology, and electrophysiology. These advancements are currently being used to study potential solutions to diseases such as (ALS) amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, strokes, and brain trauma. This research is funded by credible organizations such as the (NIH) National Institute of Health and the “National S...
When it comes to death, everyone has a different perspective about it. One might think death is just a beginning, a key to open the door to the afterlife. A release, a way out to a different world. Others might think that death is simply a lesson of life. It teaches one not to waste his or her time but live to enjoy it, while it still last. Live and do whatever one desire before time runs out. Surely, death has many different purposes and meanings. In the short story “Bullet in the Brain” by Tobias Wolff. He uses death as a flashback and a final thought to show the reader the character’s life in the story. In the “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” by Ambrose Bierce, he uses death to teach the reader that one should stand up and protect the
Other problems with using these noninvasive imaging methods of only few changes of variables in the brain’s activity are that maybe the problem does not reside in the blood, oxygen intake, or glucose utilization. It may be in other factors that we do not observe that is causing the trouble. By being limited to these estimations of brain activity does not really make our effort of correcting the problem that successful.
(Johannes Muller, 2014). The doctrine of specific nerve energies was his most important contribution to the study of physiology of behavior. He observed that all nerves carry the same basic message, but we discern the messaged of different nerves not the same. Because of his doctrine of specific nerve, experiments were performed directly on the brain of animals, which was done by Pierre Flourens a French physiologist. This was knows as experimental ablation. There after he claimed to have found the part of the brain which was responsible for breathing, controlling heart rate, purposeful movements and auditory reflexes. Soon after this experimental ablation was applied to a human brain. This observation led to show that a portion of the cerebral cortex on the front part of the left side of the brain performs the functions that are necessary for speech. This remains important to the understanding of the brain. (Physiology of Behavior,