New and Improved

2006-05-01T04:41:00.000-04:00

Jackson Pollock

Abstract Art is art that is not an accurate representation of a form or object. The artist can represent objects in many different ways including the shape, color, and form. The artist takes the object and then either simplifies it or exaggerates it. Abstract Expressionism was the first major art movement that was started in the United States. It began in New York in the 1940’s. Abstract expressionist art, unlike regular abstract art, is more of a study in color and brush stroke. There are two types of Abstract Expressionism Art, color field painting and action painting. Color field painting artists are concerned with colors and shapes, while action artists are more concerned with paint texture and the movements of the artist to create the work.

Paul Jackson Pollock was a major artist in the abstract expressionism era in America. Pollock’s paintings were more about the motivation behind them, and processes that he took to make his pieces of artwork, rather than just the look of them, and this causes there to be deeper meaning when looking at the paintings. Pollock was an action artist. The types of actions Pollock used to make his paints were dripping and pouring the paint to his works.

Jackson Pollock was born in Cody, Wyoming. Pollock began to study painting in 1929, at the Art Students League in New York. Pollock’s mentor was Thomas Hart Benton, who was a regionalist painter, but Pollock was also influenced by Mexican muralist painters Orozco, Rivera, and Siqueiros. By the mid 1940’s Pollock was painting completely as an abstract artist. Pollock would put his canvases on the ground to paint, and this way he could literally be “in” his paintings if he walked around them and worked from all four sides of the painting.

Pollock for several years had been undergoing psycho therapy for his depression, and it was thought that his depression was another reason behind his unique style of painting. Pollock would use his whole body to throw and drip paint onto very large canvases that he used for his paintings. This is what gave him the name “Jack the Dipper” and helped him coin the term action painting. Pollock wanted to abandon the European traditional of painting with easel and paintbrushes. European artist had set a standard for painting and Pollock wanted to be able to bring something new to the scene of art and how it was viewed, this is what made him turn away from easels and brushes on canvas.

It is really around 1947 is when all of Pollock’s paintings began to look like action paintings. Before 1947 his paintings are really just abstract paintings. All of Pollock’s paintings however have to be studied to even begin to make sense if they do at all. It is really the names of the paintings that give a person an idea of what to think of them. All abstract art is something that takes imagination to look at. Some of Pollock’s paintings had nothing to do with the look, but everything to do with the methods that Pollock used. The paintings Catheral made in 1947, Full Fzathom Five made in 1947, Painting made in 1948, and Lavendar Mist No1 made in 1950, are all paintings that make absolutely positively no sense what so ever, but if they were to be looked at without a name then they would just be a canvas with paint spilled on them. Pollock really shows his drip painting skills in his Untitled painting made in 1950, and Number 7 made in 1951. All of these paints are just emotion that is displayed on a canvas. There is not a true picture that is created, but the more you look at them and contemplate the names of the paintings, more you start to make a real picture out of them.

Pollock is maybe considered the greatest painter of the Abstract Expressionism art movement. Since this is the first big American Art movement, some people consider him to be the greatest American painter, but there are always going to be critics, so some people do not think he was the greatest American Painter. Unfortunately Pollock was killed in a fatal car crash in 1956, so he could not continue to add to his collection of paintings. Maybe he could have painted more pictures that eventually gave an insight to what he really meant or was feeling when he made his paintings.

When I first looked at the paintings that Pollock made I did not have much to say about them but “is this really art?”, but when I think about the worlds that artist create for themselves to live in, and how they paint those worlds for other people to enjoy, it makes sense that I am not supposed to understand art. Pollock did not make his paints so everyone could understand them, in fact I am probably more than sure he never wanted anyone to really know what his paints meant. Everybody has to make up their own meaning for abstract paintings.

Kramer, Hilton. "Jackson Pollock & the New York School, II." The New Criterion 1702 1999 April 24 2006 .

Pioch, Nicolas. "Abstract Expressionism: Jackson Pollock." The BMW Foundation 1607 2002 April 28 2006 .

2006-05-01T03:52:00.000-04:00

Julie Hefferman: Self-Portrait as Dirty Princess with Tail

I went to the Ackland Art museum in Chapel Hill about a week ago. Of course I was lost when I got inside, because I was looking for the 20th and 21st century art pieces. I finally found the areas of the museum that held the art works that I was looking for, but not until after I got some of the free food that was on display. In the 20th century art room on the first floor there was a very interesting 3-dimensional technological computer piece that was made out of key boards and small, maybe three inch, computer screens. There were also other paintings hanging on the walls that looked like I needed to be a deep thinker or a philosopher to understand. As I walked around the room taking in each piece of art work in slowly, I came across the painting that I have posted above. The name of the painting is Self-Portrait as Dirty princess with tail, by Julie Hefferman. This painting was very disturbing, but beautiful at the same time.

When I got back to my room, I looked on the internet for the painting so I could study it longer and better in the comfort of my own room. But to my dismay I could not find the same picture in the museum, so the picture that I have up with my paper is not the exact same as the picture that is hanging in the Ackland Art museum. The picture in the museum is larger, and shows the princess standing in a ball-room. The tail had more animals lying around, and there was a giant dead squid coming from where the tentacles are at the bottom of the picture. The walls of the ballroom in the painting, had paintings on them that were covered by shadows, but one of the paintings on the wall, was a picture of an open fetal pig that is resembles the one that I used in my college biology lab for dissection. The chandelier is not as close to her head as it is in this picture, and the painting is gloomier, but the flowers surrounding the tail are very bright.
Julie Hefferman is an American painter. She went to University of California, at Santa Cruz, C.A. and graduated with a B.F.A. with honors in painting and printmaking. Then she attended Yale School of Art, in New Haven, C.T., and graduated with a M.F.A in painting. All of the Julie Hefferman paintings that come up on the computer look very similar. They are gloomy looking along the outside of the paintings, and the center or main focal points in the paintings are very bright. Most of the paintings titles start off with self-portrait.

I still have not come up with the exact reason of why this painting captured my attention in the museum, but there are things in it that stick out in my mind. The contrast of colors and tones may have been what made me stop and look harder and longer at this picture than others, or maybe the dead animals that surround the tail of the princess and her colors. Most of the time people do not think of death with bright colors. The fetal pig that is in the wall the original painting in the Ackland museum is interesting to me also because I took special interest in the dissection of the pigs when I was in biology lab. The caption on the wall beside the picture from the author, said that the painting represented the destructiveness of the wealthy of the time. So I guess that is what all the dead animals represent in the picture. The wealthy is being represented by the princess, and the tail represents the beauty and power that people had at the time, but also destructiveness and greed of the wealthy at that time.

There were other paintings in the museum that interested me, but none of them compared to the interest that this painting employed in me. The picture is beautiful, but has so much about it that makes it odd. Maybe I like it so much because like me, at first glance I am just like every other person walking around campus, but if anyone bothers to take a closer look at me and what I do and experience on a daily basis then I am similar to the picture. I challenge what is normal, and expected of me and this picture of Self-Portrait as Dirty Princess with Tail challenges what is expected to be seen in the picture.

2006-04-30T22:51:00.000-04:00

<>Surprisingly Symbolic Salvador

Salvador Dali was a man of mystery. As I “Googled” Dali for my English project at the University of Chapel Hill, I was surprised to find that he more than dabbled in politics, science, and philosophy, in addition to the art that is his claim to fame. His friends described him as eccentric and he was well-known for living his life off the beaten path. In concordance with his unconventional lifestyle and political convictions, Dali joined the artistic surrealist movement soon after its birth in the early 1920s. According to Artcyclopedia, “Surrealism is a style in which fantastical visual imagery from the subconscious mind is used with no intention of making the work logically comprehensible;” Salvador Dali is identified by Artcyclopedia as probably the greatest surrealist artist,” yet Dali’s paintings can be logically interpreted. His surrealist paintings considered just as mysterious as the man himself. But are they really? Are they truly open to interpretation? Dali provided symbols within his paintings that can be logically interpreted. Through the use of symbolism, Dali conveyed his philosophical ideas on the passing of time, his political views, and his interest in science that, contrary to surrealist subjectivity, invoke a logical method of thought from the viewer

Dali’s Persistence of Memory is wrought with symbolism. Although some of the symbols may be open to interpretation, the majority have a single popular, meaning which invoke a logical, methodical thought process from the viewer. The painting conveys four watches, melting like soft cheese- two rest on what appears to be a table, one melts on a tree branch, and the other, in the center, rests on an abstraction of the human face. The clocks melt away, just as time quickly melts away in our own life. The clock in the far left is being devoured by ants, symbolizing how time disappears; a fly has landed on the next clock to the right, portraying the rapid speed of time. In the center, Dali painted a greatly distorted human face that holds up the melting clock, most likely suggesting how the human race must recognize the passing of time and how our lives our directly affected by the ticking clock. Despite some ambiguity over the meaning of the face, the clocks in Dali’s most famous work, Persistence of Memory, make a clear statement about the passing of time. The setting sun in the distance also suggests time passing; Sunsets insinuate, in the 21^st century, as they did in the 20^th century, the end of life and the beginning of darkness (death).

Dali's political views, which were not exactly popular during the 1930s, had a significant effect on his artistic work. Due to his open support of General Francisco Franco, who was leader of the front against the Populace Party and later recognized as Spain’s legitimate ruler by the Nazi regime, Dali was kicked out of the surrealist movement by his fellow artists in 1937. They did not support his ties with authoritarianism or Nazi Germany. According to Robin Adéle Greeley’s article for the Association of Art Historians entitled, Dali’s Fascism; Lacan’s Paranoia, The Weaning of Furniture-Nutrition portrays a wet nurse, sitting on the shore with a night table cut out of her that rests on the side. The skyline in the distance appears tumultuous and the earth tones used throughout the painting invoke a depressing mood. Dali originally painted a swastika on the side of the nurse’s shoulder, which incited great uproar from Dali’s contemporaries. According to Greeley, Dali was accused of holding fascist ideals, unacceptable during a time when a revolution was occurring in Spain in which the populace was overthrowing an authoritarian government. This painting was extremely disturbing to Dali’s contemporaries because Dali was perceived to be making a connection between his bourgeois childhood, by conveying the wet nurse, and Nazi Germany and fascist ideas; Dali’s fellow artists certainly did now want one of their fellow bourgeois class members to associate his upbringing with that of the Nazis. Dali never outwardly chose sides with the revolution in Spain, although his supposed fascist ideals would have sided him with the authoritarian government, but his fellow surrealists did not want one of their own to be associated with fascism at a time when such ideals endangered the lives of many who disagreed with the populace. Dali’s bold placement of the swastika could not have been open to interpretation. Such a symbol, especially during his lifetime, did not leave much to the imagination. The turbulent skyline and dark colors also add to the insinuation of evil. Although simply the presence of the swastika and the depressing setting do not mean that Dali was a fascist, their presence combined with popular sentiment on Dali’s political views at the time allow the viewer to logically deduce that Dali was making a statement about his upbringing with Nazi idealism and was associating himself with authoritarianism.

Dali was both an art and science connoisseur. He held a particular fascination with the double helix, which appeared in many of his paintings, such as Butterfly Landscape, The Great Masturbator in Surrealist Landscape. Although the mere presence of DNA in Dali’s paintings does not hold some deeper meaning, there was a logical reason that the helixes were included in Butterfly Landscape; Contrary to popular surrealism, the painting can be logically interpreted. According to Dali and the Double Helix, written by Elena Guardiola and Joseph E. Banos of the Nature Publishing Company, Dali was interested in everything from quantum physics to the double helix. After reading Watson and Crick’s 1953 article in Nature Magazine regarding DNA, Dali stated, “it is the real proof of the existence of God.” Because Dali associated DNA strands with God, the viewer can assume that his addition of the helix to the otherwise drab landscape suggests the presence of God and creation in the everyday world. <>Dali utilized symbolism in his Galacidalacidesoxyribonucleidacid, a work named after his wife, himself, and DNA. According to Guardiola and Banos, the DNA structure symbolizes life from God, the men shooting guns symbolize death, and God symbolizes life, the three stages that Dali believed to be a part of the human process. Dali used cross-cultural symbolism to represent his ideas to the reader in a clear fashion.

Dali also sought to bring God into the bustle and craziness of life. In his Still Life Fast Moving Dali painted an eclectic piece with everyday objects, such as knives and wine glasses, with a bird flying overhead. At first glance the painting appears to be just a random grouping; a typical surrealist painting left completely up to viewer’s imagination. Yet, according to Guardiola and Banos, spirals, representing the double helix, can be found throughout the painting. Dali was attempting to convey a sense of stability to the viewer in the midst of all the mayhem. Including a symbol that suggested God and his plan for life, Dai was encouraging the reader to seek solace in the steadiness and assurance of a higher power. <>Dali’s Hommage a Crick et Watson displays the faces of both Watson and Crick with the writing “Watson: A Model Builder” and “Crick: Life is a Three Letter Word” written under their respective profiles. Dali was not shy about his admiration of the two and, in the case of this painting, comes write out and spells out his message to the viewer.

In conclusion, Dali was not afraid to portray his ideas about time, politics, or philosophy. Through symbolism, Dali invoked his thoughts to the viewer in a clear manner; even today’s 21^st century laymen browsing an art museum can pick out his melting clocks, turbulent skies, and double-helixes. Dali’s surrealism is not illogical, his symbols still today, as they did nearly 100 years ago, raise a logical interpretation from the viewer.

Works Cited:

Elena Guardiola, Josep-E. Baños“Dali and the Double Helix.” Nature Publishing Company. Volume # 423, 917, (26 June 2003)

Robin Adéle Greeley “Dali’s Fascism; Lacan’s Paranoia.” Association of Art Historians. Blackwell Publishers. Volume # 24, (September 2001).

2006-04-30T21:42:00.000-04:00

“The Father to Us All”

Paul Cezanne…the name sounded familiar, however I was far from an expert on his work. I would have been unable to identify any of Cezanne’s pieces until we looked at a few in my art history class (“Large Bathers” and “Mont Saint-Victoire”). I was taken aback by Cezanne’s bright, intense colors and broad, painterly brushwork that create energy-charged scenes full of movement. Picasso called Cezanne “the father to us all,” implying that he gave birth to modern art including cubism, abstract expressionism, and surrealism. Before Cezanne, most artists were concerned with portraying objects as they appear in real life, trying to hide their brushstrokes to convey an illusion of reality, but Cezanne changes all that. Cezanne breaks many conventions of color, perspective, and brushwork to represent his subjects in a new way so the viewer perceives the subjects on two levels; what they represent, and what they literally are: paint.

Traditionally, painters paint objects using their colors in real life. Cezanne, however, often uses arbitrary color. Arbitrary color is when an artist uses colors dissimilar to reality. For example, if an artist painted an apple with purple paint, he would be using arbitrary color. Cezanne does this often in his paintings, such as in one of his versions of “Chateau,” in which he paints trees a brilliant violet. Cezanne would carefully select what colors to paint objects, so that complementary colors were next to each other in his compositions. Complementary colors are colors that are opposite from each other on the color wheel, and are therefore not composed of any of the same primary colors. Pairs of colors that are complementary are: yellow and purple, red and green, and blue and orange. Cezanne places the complementary colors next to each other in his compositions to make his pieces active with stark contrast. According to Bois et al, writers of the article, Cezanne: Words and Deeds, Cezanne did not like to mix or blend his colors in any way, but he preferred to place them side by side. He does this in “Chateau” by placing the purple trees next to the bright yellow building. When placed side by side, complementary colors force the eye to move back and forth between the two colors, and it is difficult to dwell on one of the colors for a long time. This is because both colors are equally dominant. Since the viewer’s eyes must move while observing the piece, the objects in the piece seem to be moving. The entire painting becomes more active. In “Chateau” the yellow against the purple makes it appear as if the chateau and the foreground trees are right next to each other. Cezanne is playing tricks on the viewer because he also includes the tree roots in the foreground and the large tree on the left overlaps the chateau, both of which suggest that the trees are in front of (not next to) the chateau. He makes his viewers ask questions about the depth of the scene. Are the trees in front of the chateau or are they next to it? In this way Cezanne is using color to demonstrate perspective. According to Bois et al, “it is up to color to supplement the insufficiencies of linear perspective.”

Along with conventions of color, Cezanne also breaks conventions of perspective. He uses other techniques besides the juxtaposition of complementary colors to confuse the viewer’s sense of depth. Many of the lines in Cezanne’s pieces do not seem to go backward in space towards one vanishing point. For example, his painting, “Still Life 1900” is of a table with a vase, a glass, and a bowl of oranges that are overflowing onto the table and it violates many of the standard rules of perspective drawing. Edges of the table that go in the same direction are not quite parallel. Also a single edge of the table that is interrupted by other objects will be drawn at one angle on one side of the object and at another angle on the other side of the object, even though, technically, it should be the same line. The bowl on the table appears to be tilted up to show the viewer the oranges inside, instead of laying flat on the tabletop. In the background there appears to be three different surfaces, possibly a wall and two different kinds of fabric, but it is difficult to tell what surface is in front of the other. The violations of standard perspective make the inert subjects in the piece seem malleable. The entire piece seems less static, as if the viewer is moving around them during perception. Laporte, the author of “ Cubism and Science,” says that Cezanne realized that the unifying factor in the painting was, to him, the universal geometry of the objects and Cezanne said himself that each side of an object or of a plane “directs itself toward a central point.” Laporte interprets this as meaning that each geometric form, or at least each area, has its own central point. This interpretation explains why Cezanne did not draw all of the geometric subjects in his paintings as relating to one vanishing point. This effect makes the viewer focus more on each individual and rather flat object in the painting, rather than on the scene as a whole. Instead of providing the viewer with the illusion of depth, Cezanne challenges the viewer to hmake sense of how the objects relate to one another in their own mind. Cezanne also manipulates perspective in an unprecedented way in “Large Bathers.” The piece has two groupings of large nudes in the foreground. Looking meticulously, the viewer realizes that many of the figures are superimposed on each other. In conventional perspective, the figures would overlap other figures behind them, but in this painting their limbs, torsos, and shoulders blend and fade into each other. For example, the left-most figure’s right hand is also the blurred face of a seated woman. Also, on the right side of the painting one figure’s buttocks and legs are also the shoulders and arms of a figure kneeling below her. Cezanne is breaking all rules of reality in this painting. It is ambiguous not only where the figures are in the painting, but also what they are. What body parts pertain to each figure? The painting takes on a surreal, transparent, dream-world quality, because this blending of figures could never happen in reality. Laporte complements Cezanne by saying, “As soon, therefore, as the single object as object becomes a negligible factor for the artist, as was increasingly the case in painting since Cezanne, the picture is stripped of a whole set of depth suggestions, and perspective itself reveals its non-artistic character.” According to Laporte, capturing the essence of a scene is not about achieving accurate perspective, but instead, Cezanne depicts his subjects in the most artistic way possible, which sometimes means abandoning conventional perspective.

Another technique Cezanne employs, that becomes more popular in modern art is painterly brushwork. Painterly brushwork is when an artist paints a piece using broad strokes. The brushwork remains visible in the finished piece. Viewers are able to see how the artist moved his hand to create the image. The brushwork places an emphasis on touch because the viewer can observe how Cezanne touched the work. Bois et al suggest that he attempts to combine the two sensory fields of sight and touch to create a type of tactile vision. Cezanne’s brushwork is particularly unique. He makes several strokes in the same direction to convey movement and /or add texture to his pieces. In “Chateau,” this technique is easily visible in the dark tree located in the foreground. All of the brushwork on the leaves is deliberate diagonals going in the same direction. This same diagonal is also echoed in the purple sky in the top right. Cezanne successfully creates the illusion of the leaves rustling and suggests that their movement is from downward gusts of wind from the purple sky above. The choppy, visible brushwork also gives added energy to Cezanne’s paintings because it makes them appear as if they were made very rapidly. The sketchy lines and fluid streaks of paint imply that his work was done quickly, however Cezanne’s work was carefully planned. He may have employed the use of painterly brushwork to manipulate the perceptual experience of his viewers and make it appear as if his subjects or his viewers are moving during the perception of the scene.

Laporte refers to Cezanne as, “The shift from the perceptual approach of impressionism to the conceptual approach of cubism.” Not only did Cezanne paint between the impressionist and cubist movements, but he shaped how artists painted after him in modern society. Cezanne was not concerned about painting subjects exactly how they look, or how someone perceives them during a single movement from a single angle. Instead, Cezanne painted the conceptual essence of his subjects. He once said that he wanted to paint, “the organization of one's sensations” not a mere “servile copy,” but of a “harmony parallel to nature.” The world parallel to nature that Cezanne painted was full of bright arbitrary color, conflicting perspective, and painterly brushwork. Cezanne’s revolutionary techniques paved the way for modern artists to paint objects in a creative way; a way unbound by the rules of reality.

2006-04-30T16:35:00.000-04:00

On the Banks of the Oise

Camille Pissarro’s impressionist painting, Banks of the Oise, currently on display at the Ackland Art Museum in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, conveys a realistic scene of everyday life along the banks of the River Oise. While browsing the impressive new museum to find a piece of artwork to analyze for my English class at UNC-Chapel Hill, the Banks of the Oise grabbed my attention; the painting appears to be in motion with rushing water and a light breeze.

Pissarro did not sugarcoat any aspect of his work. His sympathy for the poor and his socially-conscious mind yielded paintings that identified with the working class and their everyday, normal lives. I was surprised to find that if I looked up a the painting from the bottom right corner, I honestly felt like I was staring down a river, with choppy water surrounding me, vegetation rushing by, and distant homes fuzzy in the background. The oil painting’s formal qualities, including Pissarro’s use of light, brash brush strokes, bold colors, attention to depth perception, and abstract representation of nature, provide a semblance of what he saw and reflect Pissarro’s appreciation for the realistic world- allowing the viewer to ride the barge down the river and to observe what he wishes along the way.

The sun’s rays glisten on top of the water, culminating on the far end of the river bank. My eye was immediately drawn to this light spot in the middle of the river and from there to the landscape on the far bank. My eye traveled down the river towards the sun’s reflection on the water, just as a barge would have traveled through the narrow pass.
<>
Pissarro used the impressionist technique, meaning he used bold brushstrokes to create a total affect. The combination of bold colors and brushstrokes gives the painting a natural glow. The blending grass, bushes, waves, etc. do not create a sharp image, but instead leave the perception of the painting somewhat up to the viewer. I imagine that if I was passing by the river banks in a barge like the one pictured, the vegetation would be hazy similar to how it appears in the painting.

The river fades into the distance as do the vegetation and homes on the opposite shoreline. This depth perception adds credibility to the painting and makes it more realistic. When I observed the painting from a few feet back, I felt like I was looking out a window from inside a barge, straining to see the house in the distance and anxiously waiting to see what was around the bend. <>The impressionist technique does not result in a sharp, distinct picture, but instead creates a more abstract representation of reality. Because the image created is not clear-cut and is left open to some interpretation, the viewer is forced to sharpen the image in his/her own mind. This same process, however, is in fact how I perceive nature in reality. I am often rushing by fields or trees in my car, running by them on the streets of Chapel Hill, or simply not “stopping to smell the roses” enough to truly appreciate the outside world. Instead, I see a blurry image and my mind fills in the blanks.

For example, if I saw a rose bush on the side of the road, I would most likely only see a blur of green scattered with pink dots. My brain, however, would create a sharper image of the same bush, complete with individual leaves and rose petals. In a way, this is what our brain does with impressionist paintings, we see a somewhat more blurry or fuzzy version of flowers or trees and use our own minds to fill in the rest. When floating down a river, we also see a blurred version of reality; using the impressionist technique to create abstract representations of naure, Pissarro appropriately conveyed the view of the grass and the trees in the wind from a barge window.

In conclusion, Pissarro conveyed his desire to portray reality by conveying the scene on the Banks of the River Oise as they would have been seen from a barge floating down the river- as not quite in focus. The job is then left to the viewer to step back and survey the painting as a whole, filling in the blurry spots with his/her own ideas of nature.

2006-04-30T15:14:00.000-04:00

Picture Yourself Here

<>Camille Pissarro’s impressionist painting, Banks of the Oise, currently on display at the Ackland Art Museum in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, conveys a realistic scene of everyday life along the banks of the River Oise. While browsing the impressive new museum to find a piece of artwork to analyze for my English class at UNC-Chapel Hill, the Banks of the Oise grabbed my attention; the painting appears to be in motion with rushing water and a light breeze.

Pissarro did not sugarcoat any aspect of his work. His sympathy for the poor and his socially-conscious mind yielded paintings that identified with the working class and their everyday, normal lives. I was surprised to find that if I looked up a the painting from the bottom right corner, I honestly felt like I was staring down a river, with choppy water surrounding me, vegetation rushing by, and distant homes fuzzy in the background. The oil painting’s formal qualities, including Pissarro’s use of light, brash brush strokes, bold colors, attention to depth perception, and abstract representation of nature, provide a semblance of what he saw and reflect Pissarro’s appreciation for the realistic world- allowing the viewer to ride the barge down the river and to observe what he wishes along the way.

The sun’s rays glisten on top of the water, culminating on the far end of the river bank. My eye was immediately drawn to this light spot in the middle of the river and from there to the landscape on the far bank. My eye traveled down the river towards the sun’s reflection on the water, just as a barge would have traveled through the narrow pass. <>Pissarro used the impressionist technique, meaning he used bold brushstrokes to create a total affect. The combination of bold colors and brushstrokes gives the painting a natural glow. The blending grass, bushes, waves, etc. do not create a sharp image, but instead leave the perception of the painting somewhat up to the viewer. I imagine that if I was passing by the river banks in a barge like the one pictured, the vegetation would be hazy similar to how it appears in the painting.

The river fades into the distance as do the vegetation and homes on the opposite shoreline. This depth perception adds credibility to the painting and makes it more realistic. When I observed the painting from a few feet back, I felt like I was looking out a window from inside a barge, straining to see the house in the distance and anxiously waiting to see what was around the bend. <>The impressionist technique does not result in a sharp, distinct picture, but instead creates a more abstract representation of reality. Because the image created is not clear-cut and is left open to some interpretation, the viewer is forced to sharpen the image in his/her own mind. This same process, however, is in fact how I perceive nature in reality. I am often rushing by fields or trees in my car, running by them on the streets of Chapel Hill, or simply not “stopping to smell the roses” enough to truly appreciate the outside world. Instead, I see a blurry image and my mind fills in the blanks. For example, if I saw a rose bush on the side of the road, I would most likely only see a blur of green scattered with pink dots. My brain, however, would create a sharper image of the same bush, complete with individual leaves and rose petals. In a way, this is what our brain does with impressionist paintings, we see a somewhat more blurry or fuzzy version of flowers or trees and use our own minds to fill in the rest. When floating down a river, we also see a blurred version of reality; using the impressionist technique to create abstract representations of naure, Pissarro appropriately conveyed the view of the grass and the trees in the wind from a barge window.

In conclusion, Pissarro conveyed his desire to portray reality by conveying the scene on the Banks of the River Oise as they would have been seen from a barge floating down the river- as not quite in focus. The job is then left to the viewer to step back and survey the painting as a whole, filling in the blurry spots with his/her own ideas of nature.

2006-04-30T11:48:00.000-04:00

Cubism and the Brain

Each form of art has a distinct style which interests observers and compels people to analyze its meaning. Everyone has heard of Picasso, but few people understand the famous movement which he began and the extent of its impact on the world of art. Pablo Ruiz Picasso, along with George Braque, is credited with developing cubism. Cubism, often regarded as one of the most influential art movements, involves objects that are broken up and reassembled in an abstract form. Cubist artists effectively represent objects in their most complete form by combining all different angles of an object or scene into a single image. Each person interprets art differently; the meaning of art lies in the eye of the beholder. Therefore, artists must incorporate elements which appeal to the human brain and its analytical processes. The many works from the Cubist movement, primarily those of Pablo Ruiz Picasso, prove effective to observers because of his thorough understanding of the brain’s psychological networking.

Some background knowledge on the artists of the Cubist movement will help justify claims I make during the analysis of their many works. Pablo Ruiz Picasso and George Braque teamed up from 1908 to 1911 to create landscapes and other images made of painted “little cubes,” which was later defined as Cubism. Many of the artists’ paintings during this time period are so similar that it is difficult to distinguish between the two. They primarily focused on breaking down and analyzing form by painting angular forms and geometric shapes. Picasso particularly enjoyed painting musical instruments, still-life objects, and his friends. He was so prolific during his lifetime, that his works are divided into four main periods: the Blue Period (1901-1904), the Rose Period (1905-1906), the African-Influenced period (1908-1909), and the Cubism Period (1909-1910). Each of these periods incorporates different elements of psychological theory, and the Cubist Period will be explored further throughout this paper.

Picasso’s works display the artist’s understanding of psychological concepts of perception and sensation. According to Saul Kassin, Gestalt psychology concerns the idea that “the whole (perception) is different from the sum of its parts (sensation),” and that individuals tend to group collections of sizes, shapes, colors and other features into perceptual wholes (Kassin 112). The first gestalt principle of perceptual organization is that people automatically focus on some objects in the perceptual field to the exclusion of others. We focus on the figure, while everything else fades into the ground. Picasso took advantage of this psychological principle in his very first painting, Picador. When you first glance at this painting, the man dressed in yellow sitting on the brown horse almost pops off of the page. Though there are certainly observers present in the background, we do not notice them initially. This results from the contrasting colors between the jockey’s vibrant costume and the background’s brown color scheme. Our brains automatically focus on one object, while everything else requires a second glance to discover. The different levels of depth make the painting appear more life-like and realistic. Although Picasso painted this piece prior to his Cubism Period, it demonstrates his thorough understanding of the psychological process of the human brain.

The Glass, painted in autumn of 1911, corresponds to the gestalt principle of simplicity, where “people tend to group elements that combine to form a good figure and organize forms in the simplest way possible” (Weiten 105). The axis of this painting is moved dramatically toward the right, and the various sharp, angled, geometric shapes combine to produce an abstract representation of a wine glass. The Cleveland Museum of Art explains that “the shapes with which he suggests the glass do have a prismatic effect, giving that sense of transparency and refraction of light he must have desired.” Picasso arranged the shapes in such a way that mimics taking a snapshot of a still object from every angle possible. Analytic Cubism is like a puzzle; as observers, we have to organize the pieces as we see fit. The human brain sees all the various triangles, and somehow organizes them into the wine glass which Picasso intends to portray. Steven Lehar explains that neural processing takes our visual perception of an item and generates a “fully spatial virtual-reality replica of the external world in an internal representation” (Lehar). This means that our brains organize our perceptions and put them together to form an image. You could see The Glass as a complicated, many-sided figure, but given the inherent preference for simplicity, you are more likely to see it as an overlapping of shapes to produce a single image.

Depth perception involves the brain’s interpretation of visual cues that indicate how near or far away objects are. This psychological element is incorporated into all forms of art, specifically into Picasso’s works during the Analytical Cubist movement. For example, Bread and Fruit Dish on a Table, an oil-on-canvas piece from 1909, effectively illustrates how light and shadow can create an impression of three-dimensional forms. In this painting, Picasso purposely uses more vibrant colors than in other typical works of the time to create the visual illusion that the images in the painting are three-dimensional. Despite the rigid, two-dimensional shapes used to create the images, the wooden table seems to jump off the canvas. As with The Glass, Picasso eliminates the central perspective, and splits up individual forms into various shapes. Interestingly, I discovered that if the painting is turned upside-down, it appears that the folded table ledge is behind the horizontal table surface; however, when you look at the painting as intended by Picasso, the folded table ledge appears closer to you than the horizontal surface does. This is an example of a visual illusion, or an apparently inexplicable discrepancy between the appearance of a visual stimulus and its physical realtity (Weiten 109). In Bread and Fruit Dish on a Table, Picasso incorporates shadow and light with the differing color scheme to produce the visual illusion of a three-dimensional object.

Pablo Ruiz Picasso certainly left a permanent imprint on the world of art. His countless works, especially Picador, The Glass, and Bread and Fruit Dish on a Table, display his clear understanding of the human brain’s perceptual and analytical processes. Many theories of psychology, or the science which “studies behavior and the physiological and cognitive processes that underlie it,” are evident in Picasso’s contributions to the Cubist movement (Weiten 109). Picasso’s incorporation of these psychological principles has classified his works as timeless and allowed observers worldwide to identify with his paintings. Without Pablo Ruiz Picasso’s foundation of the Cubist Movement, the world of art would not be the same today.

Works Cited

Lehar, Steven. “Gestalt isomorphism and the primacy of subjective conscious experience; A Gestalt Bubble Model.” UNC-CH Library Online. Academic Search Premier. < direct="true&db="aph&an="12612580">.

Weiten, Wayne. "Achieving Self-Control Through Behavior Modification." Psychology: Themes and Variations. Ed. Michelle Sordi. Belmont: Wadsworth, 2005. 185-7.

Kassin, Saul. Psychology: Fourth Edition. New Jersey: Pearson Education, 2004.

2006-04-28T18:04:00.000-04:00

The Dutchman
By: Moyo Okediji
Acrylic on canvas

Waves of Panic

I wandered to the second floor of the Ackland Art Museum on UNC’s campus, and found a piece that impressed me from the very first glance. The Dutchman, a painting by the Nigerian artist, Moyo Okediji, depicts the middle passage journey of slaves from Africa to the New World. Okediji uses bright colors, wavy lines, and curvy shapes to convey chaos and confusion to the viewer. The busy and complex composition makes the viewers eyes dart around the canvas, making it more difficult to make out the scene. In order to understand the painting, the viewer must stop and take more time to appreciate its value, which is a tribute to the slaves who suffered the journey of the middle passage.

I was first attracted to the piece by its impressive size (about five by six feet), the exquisite colors, swirled shapes, the complexity, and the way the artist broke the figures up into many smaller blocks of colors, conveying a sense of movement. From far away the scene looks like a bunch of overlapping shapes and curvy lines painted in cheerful, intense colors, predominantly: orange, purple, blue, yellow, turquoise, aqua, black, and brown. However, once the viewer comes closer, and takes time to evaluate the painting, he/she quickly realizes that the subject matter of the painting is actually quite morbid. The juxtaposition of the happy, bright colors with the depressing subject matter may seem strange, but I think that the artist utilized the high-intensity colors to pull the viewers eye to several directions at once. It was physically difficult for me to look at one part of the painting for a long time. My eye kept darting all over the canvas. This makes it hard for the viewer to organize the figures into cognitive groups and sort out a narrative of what is happening in the painting. I had a difficult time making out what shapes comprised the bodies of the figures and sorting out how they were interacting. The large scale chaos overwhelms the viewer, along with hints of intense emotion such as the big blue tears on the cheeks of two women and people wailing in chains. There is confusion and a feeling of helplessness; things seem out of control. Okediji’s chaos unsettles his viewers because he has made it difficult for them to form clarity and receive answers to their questions about the painting.

I wanted answers, so I read the placard on the wall next to the painting. It described the scene and helped me identify groups of figures. On the left, a Dutchman grabs the arm of a crying slave woman. Another Dutchman, next to her, turns his head away from her tearful face. There is another crying woman to the right and then several chained men wail in the upper middle of the painting. On the right side of the painting, a ship clearly labeled “DUTCH” sails on rocky waves. In the middle of the painting there is a large upside-down figure plunging into the water, joining other figures in the shark-infested waters in the lower part of the painting.

Even after reading about the content of the painting, it was still difficult for me to identify every part of the painting. There is no differentiation between the foreground, middle ground, and background of the painting. The time of day is also questionable because there is both a sun and a moon in the painting. There are hardly any straight lines, making it hard for the viewer to focus on one thing at a time. In fact, it is hard to tell what one figure or object is composed of because they are broken up into multiple blocks of color. It is challenging for the eye to make wholes out of the figures and objects, and it instead makes wholes along the lines and among the patches of color dispersed throughout the painting. This is because, optically, the viewer groups together things that are contained within the same lines or are the same color. Okediji forces the eye to jolt all over the painting, struggling to distinguish separate parts. Eye movement of this nature is similar to how the eye would evaluate a real-life, chaotic situation. Okediji may be trying to help his viewers identify with the trauma that slaves in this confusing chaos would have gone through. Everywhere you look in the painting, you catch glimpses of disturbing things: crying women, abuse, drowning, and death, sharks eating corpses, chains, wailing, and the degradation of the human spirit.

The swirling shapes and rippling lines also mimic waves. If the undulating lines are interpreted as water, it could also be argued the Okediji was trying to paint the scene from the perspective of someone under the water. The viewer is looking at the situation from the sea, from the viewpoint of someone that has just been thrown overboard. This evokes a sense of panic because someone in that situation faces certain death from drowning, hunger, dehydration, or sharks and these were all sufferings that the slaves on the middle passage journey had to endure.

I was so absolutely captivated by this work of art that I could not stop staring at it. Truthfully, I had a hard time turning away from it. Okediji employs several techniques to help viewers identify with the plight and agony of his ancestors such as: long swirling lines, curvy shapes, bright color, and the depiction of strong emotion and chaos. Okediji probably has a psychological and sentimental connection to his ancestors who were lost in the Atlantic and who survived in the New World and The Dutchmen allows his viewers to feel this same connection.

2006-04-28T17:49:00.000-04:00

Undulating Expanse 1955

Hans Hoffman

Oil-on-canvas Painting

Finger Painting?

Do you remember finger painting as a young child? Each artist has his/her own particular style which interests observers and compels people to analyze the meanings of his/her works. Before visiting the Ackland Art Museum on UNC-CH’s campus, I was rather unfamiliar with the unique, abstract and expressionistic work of artist Hans Hoffman. Born and educated in Germany, Hoffman immigrated to the United States in 1932, bringing his extensive knowledge of European modernist theory to his many students across the nation. His impact on the world of art still inspires young painters and thinkers today. A primary contributor to the American Abstract Expressionism movement, Hoffman’s paintings combine spontaneous paint application and large constant fields of color. His oil-on-canvas paintings, specifically Undulating Expanse, somewhat mimic finger paintings of a young child, and I think this is why his work is particularly interesting to and well-received by observers.

It is essential to note Hoffman’s passion and respect for the natural world. He often incorporated the struggles of nature into his works, and Undulating Expanse is certainly no exception. In this particular work, shapes, colors, lines and squiggles somehow organize to form an abstract design of a landscape of mountains and the sun. Hoffman, known for focusing on geometric elements, pays close attention to volume and space throughout his works. Undulating Expanse, considered one of the artist’s finest works, consists mostly of shades of orange and red. What emotions do these colors connote in the painting? Why does the sun appear so much larger than the mountains? The sun dominates all other elements of the painting, and the overlapping of the sun and the landscape depict some cosmic relationship or struggle; spirituality and emotion are evident throughout this painting. Hoffman’s work combines influences from many different eras, from post-impressionism to abstract expressionism, and is therefore very unique and well-received by many people.

My eye was drawn to the large, worm-like structure that bisects the sun. This object contains a lot of blues and dark grays, thus standing out from orangish-red in the rest of the painting. I determined that this object brings unity to the painting, giving the work a scale and creating depth. It overlaps the pink background and the sun, and it contains colors which contrast with the rest of the painting. According to the Ackland Museum’s website, “Undulating Expanse of 1955 is unusual in Hofmann's work because it is composed in a long horizontal format.” It is believed that Hoffman was hired to construct a mural; thus he painted this work to be rescaled and proportionate to a horizontal wall. Hoffman’s unique style of brush-strokes, appearing random and almost messy, makes the painting even more interesting to the public. How can someone be so famous for creating works which mimic the finger paintings of a five-year-old child?

As an integral part of the American Abstract Expressionism movement, Hans Hoffman used his knowledge of modernism to influence his many works and to educate his art students at the University of California, Berkeley. Undulating Expanse, a painting of great openness and complexity, portrays a landscape with an abstract, kid-like appearance but a symbolic meaning. This non-objective form of art allows Hoffman to fully express himself through the incorporation of color, shapes and form. Undulating Expanse is one of the most unique paintings I have ever seen, and I hope to continue developing a personal appreciation of Abstract Expressionism artists in the near future.

2006-04-28T11:36:00.000-04:00

Historical Context Ruins Perception

Every form of art has its own particular style, making it interesting to observers and compelling people to dig deeper into its meaning. Artists throughout history have strived to make viewers think more deeply about their artwork by including various optical illusions or mind tricks into their works. Most, however, have failed to represent anything more than just a simple imitation of real life. What is even more important is being able to understand what has been created by a painting based on one’s own perception, and not what historical context or the artist says about the painting. By indirectly showing intrinsic qualities of a person/object rather than focusing on the more exterior qualities in realism, Cubists (especially Picasso), are particularly successful at persuading individuals to develop their own perceptions about art, which are changed with gained knowledge about the painting’s historical context.

little background on Picasso is necessary before I completely jump into analyzing a few pieces out of his cubist period. Picasso, who was born in 1881 in Málaga, Spain, was an artist’s son and his skill was recognized early in his childhood. Picasso was able to produce his first painting, “Picador,” at the ripe old age of eight, which can be seen here. I would be willing to bet that many people who have been painting for years would love to achieve something so great at such a young age. Most of us are still using markers and crayons in art class at that point. He went on and studied art in Barcelona and Madrid but eventually lived in Paris, France. Picasso had a greatly innovative mind and is thought to be one of the best artists of the 20^th century. Along with Georges Braque, a very close contemporary of Picasso, cubism was created. A name coined from an insult by Henri Matisse when he referred to one of Braque’s early cubist works as “Petites Cubes,” or small cubes and the name just stuck (Study Art). Picasso was amazingly prolific in his lifetime, so much that his works are typically broken up into the Blue Period (1901-1904), Rose Period (1905-1907), African-influenced Period (1908-1909), and last of all Cubism (1909-1919) (Wikipedia). It is funny that Matisse made his insulting “cubes” comment about Braque’s painting because John Ratey in his book, A User’s Guide to the Brain, talks about how people perceive things in pieces that the brain later puts together, which is especially delayed in autistic patients (Ratey, 306). The cubists, based their work on this same principle, and created a brilliant and more cognitive art form where something is presented much in the way that one’s brain actually perceive anything—in pieces or multiple glances.

A major downfall with cubist works, or most any painting, is that historical context can ruin an individual’s entire perception about a painting, and this holds true for Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907). Although some historians don’t recognize it as a cubist work, it maintains most of the qualities, and was certainly a major influence on cubism. Paul M. Laporte suggests in his article “Cubism and Science,” featured in The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, that while cubism was a highly intellectual movement, it was very little centered on conveying its own theory or program in each painting (Laporte, 244). His argument is very relevant to Les Demoiselles d’Avignon because basically whatever you want to see, you will see if you don’t have sufficient background on the painting. If looked at by an observer, uneducated about its background, he/she would find that it is hard to determine exactly what the painting is trying to portray. Who would guess that the women portrayed are prostitutes in a brothel wearing African masks to scare off sexual diseases (MoMA.org)? The answer would be, not many. Yes, the women are standing in what some may call erotic positions, and judging by the color tone of the painting, one can imagine they are without clothes. The sharp angles and lines that make up the outlines of the women, and the multi-perspective viewpoint give the painting some cubist characteristics. I think, however, that it remains difficult to perceive these women as prostitutes in a brothel. The absence of men makes me think that they could just be some women in an ancient culture doing a rain dance for all I know. Picasso actually made nearly 100 sketches of this painting before he finalized it, and some did include men (Wikipedia). Men in the picture would certainly clarify that these women may be promiscuous, but Picasso maybe omitted them on purpose so an individual’s mind might perceive its own view. Picasso’s contemporary, Braque, so aptly states that “There is no certitude but in what the mind conceives” (Laporte, 247). This, I think, is the beauty of cubism because no certain view is being forced on the observer.

Historical context stands as a key factor that changes an individual’s perception about a painting, and this is especially applicable to more abstract work like cubism over a more realist painting. In an article presented in Philosophical Quarterly, Nick Zangwill references to Kendall Walton’s argument in “Categories of Art,” suggesting background knowledge of a work changes the way we perceive it (Zangwill, 477). This background info is more likely to skew the perception of a cubist or abstract work than a realist painting because it is so hard to imagine what the artist is trying to convey in a cubist painting. A demonstration of this effect can be seen by observing a more realist painting such as David: The Death of Marat by Jacque’s Louis-David. This painting is obviously a murdered man who was attempting to write something while in a bath tub. This is what the mind sees at first glance if you had no information about what this painting was trying to depict. Yes, there is much more here to be known, discovered, and admired about this great piece of art, but the basic outline is given by your mind. This does not hold true for a cubist work like Les Demoiselles d’Avignon because the art is focused more outlining intrinsic qualities of an object/person rather than giving a truly accurate exterior depiction. The observer is to perceive exterior qualities based on the intrinsic qualities outlined by the artist. This perception, given historical context, can be ruined and alter your entire vision of the painting. To this end, cubists don’t want people to observe their works based on historical context, but rather wish that individuals let their own mind conceive the meaning. The paintings are purely subjective to who is viewing it, and not to what context an individual has about the painting. Regarding Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, a little bit of historical info about the painting and/or what Picasso might have thought ruins my perception and turns what appears to be a cultural dance into a theme characteristic of an R-rated movie. The historical relevance provided about this painting is only one perspective of the painting and is not the final vision in everyone’s mind, and effectively this is what the cubists perfected.

Synthetic cubism produced Picasso’s Still Life with Chair Caning, which is infinitely more difficult to interpret and it is more likely that historical info will alter an observer’s perception. Synthetic cubism bordered almost on abstraction because, unlike analytic cubism where objects were broken into pieces for the observer to put back together, it centered on bringing together entirely different objects to make up a whole (Wikipedia). There are countless examples of this form, but more specifically Still Life with Chair Caning would be very typical of this period. My question is where do you begin with a painting like this? It’s not completely abstract or anything, but there is definitely a lot going here. According to Laporte’s article, the observer is forced to see all the objects in cubist works simultaneously just because the way they are arranged (Laporte, 251). This multi-perspective element can also be found in this painting, but because of the angles I perceive it as though I am looking at something from a bird’s-eye-view. Note that is just one possible perception. The role of the painting is not clearly distinguishable, and appears to me as an industrial scene of factories, dirt, and grime due to the darker colors employed. Letters appear in this painting which is also a major characteristic of synthetic cubism. The letters “JOU” don’t appear to mean anything to me, and may be a word of French or another foreign language. The vision of this painting is solely up to me, as I was not able to find relevant context to the paintings meanings. I can only rely on inferences in the title like “chair” and “caning.” A chair can be made out of materials such as wicker or rattan which is signified by “caning.” Now, with this knowledge, the fence-ish material in the middle of the painting looks like a seat of a chair, and the frame that surrounds the painting appears to be a rattan chair frame as well. This type of painting takes more thought than a realist painting, which Laporte affirms that cubism is “more cerebral” just because it makes the observer think so much. Picasso, with Still Life with Chair Caning was most successful in creating a piece that forces every spectator to make up their own mind about what is in the painting. Just imagine how perception of this painting would change with historical context and how it incredibly different from a realist work.

Picasso and Braque were not even close to understanding the imprint they had left on the art world with the creation of cubism. Innovators like Picasso dare to step outside the box, and the cubists took a leap out of the box because they believed that “art consists of creating not copying” and invented their own radical art form, a form giving multiple perspectives to any object or set of objects, which left interpretation of the objects to the observer. The new and tasteful technique has left lasting impressions, and has been the influence for many artists since their time. As seen, what you see holds true in your own mind if you are not given historical background to the work, otherwise your interpretation, like mine, will be skewed. Cubism is an entirely different form of art that Laporte aptly suggests can only be perceived correctly by its standards and not anything else’s (Laporte, 256).

Works Cited

Laporte, Paul M. "Cubism and Science." The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 7 (1949): 243-256.

Ratey, John J. A User's Guide to the Brain. New York: Random House, 2001. 306.

Zangwill, Nick. "In Defence of Moderate Aesthetic Formalism." Philosophical Quaterly 50 (2000): 476-493.

2006-04-28T11:04:00.000-04:00

Hidden Ancestry

This last week I took a trip to the Ackland Art Museum in Chapel Hill. The museum is located right on UNC-CH’s campus and offers a wide range of art that would be satisfying for the art novice or an educated connoisseur. Ackland was a great escape from the rain, and free of charge! While wondering around the museum clueless, as I am not very familiar with art in the least, Moyo Okediji’s “The Dutchman” (1995) stood out among all the other paintings. Of course, this was after the security guard told me that I was allowed only to take notes with a pencil, and he took away my pen as if a pencil cannot do equal damage to priceless masterpieces. Okediji was born into the Yoruba culture of

Nigeria

in 1956. After coming to America, he realized how tortured his ancestors and equals were as a cause of African slavery. It was this realization and Robert Hayden’s poem entitled “Middle Passage” that served as inspiration for the painting. The actual meaning of the painting is not decipherable at first sight and requires further scrutiny, which suggests that perception may be based on what we know to be true or historical context.

I approached the painting because of its absolutely wonderful eye-catching color and enormous size. At first glance, since the color was so bright (cheery and filled with vibrant reds, oranges, yellow, and even some pastels), I assumed the painting would render a happy scene or situation. As I got a closer look at the painting I became very much confused because of the many sharp lines, angles and shapes depicted in “The Dutchman.” It was not long before my confusion overcame me and led me to read the information placard about Okediji’s painting to further understand exactly what was going on in this jumbled mess. The bright colors and pastels are deceptive in nature, because after reading the placard I discovered the painting is a depiction of the Dutch controlled African slave trade across the Middle Passage. This information completely changed the way I perceived the painting. The Middle Passage was the longest part of the slave journey on tightly packed, disease infested ships, which stretched from the west coast of Africa to the Americas where the slaves were sold. Therefore, it is evident the color was engineered so that the viewer’s attention is attracted to the painting at first glance, and the tragic details of the painting are only to be discovered with further scrutiny.

Now, knowing the painting was a depiction of the Dutch enslaving Africans for sale in the Americas, my perception of the meaning and message was completely skewed. The only words on the painting label the ship “Dutch Ship” as to be clear the traders are indeed Dutch. The colors are bright, not because the subject matter is happy, but rather to make the event stick out and be noticeable. The deep blues have high significance in the painting because they represent mainly the Atlantic Ocean, the darkness of the mood, and according to Ackland the mournful, sad African-American blues music of Okediji’s era. Color is not the only technique that Okediji employs to get his message across. There are many other aspects of the painting such as the jagged, abstract lines and angles used to outline the figures that may demonstrate the anguish and hardship associated with the horrid journey in a cramped space across the Atlantic. The disorganization of the painting symbolizes the chaos, confusion and fear the slaves onboard were feeling. Fear is perceived in the women turning away from the Dutch traders and crying which may be a cause of sexual abuse or other mistreatment. Three slaves without shackles were thrown into the abyss of the deep Atlantic with swarming sharks and other large fish.

Okediji’s “The Dutchman” greatly represents an art form that plays with ideas of perception. The pain is to be perceived by the viewer because the pain has to be witnessed not through color, but through other actions and hints hidden in the painting. The painting can mean different things to everyone as a cause of the confusing lines, shapes, patterns and colors employed. In fact, I witnessed the people in the painting are more visible if looked at from the left side, but from the right side, the people appear to be only random figures that are difficult to make out. In my eyes, Okediji designed this painting so people are lured into the sadness of the painting by the lively colors and his abstract artistic ability that make the scene ever more chaotic and disorganized, as it may have been experienced through the eyes of his ancestors who were victims of such treatment.

2006-04-28T10:32:00.000-04:00

Shotguns by: John Biggers

“Shotguns” is a painting that was done in 1987 by John Biggers. I like this piece of art work because it portrays how black people lived in the south after the civil war, and it also represents where I grew up as child. Shotgun houses are narrow, one story houses that have rooms usually lined up in a row. I like the piece because it gives an artistic view of the way if life in the past, but I can still relate it to how black people are living today. In some neighborhoods houses are still being built like this. Most documents and examples of shotgun houses are given from, examples of houses in New Orleans. There are houses like shotgun houses in every black ghetto, around the country, and not just in New Orleans. In my grandmother’s neighborhood, where I spent a lot of my time as a child, there are many of these houses and seeing a painting that is focusing on a common black way of life is touching to me.

In the picture there are many rows of these shotgun houses. The houses are behind a set of train tracks. These train tracks are symbolizing the common term “on the other side of the tracks.” This means on the other side of town that nobody wants to hear of, or have shown. They are like a cultural barrier, and back in the old days black and white people did not mix together. The front row of the houses has a different woman standing on each of the porches. The women remind me of the common term it takes a village to raise a child, and the way the houses are close also reiterate the fact that the communities in the south are close nit. Each of the women on the porches are holding a different type of house in their hands, maybe to symbolize how their house is all they have.

I do not necessarily have a favorite picture, nor do I really look at different pieces of art, but I do know that this piece of art moves me inside, because of the name and the view that it gives of the southern black community. This picture reminds me of how much I love the country and down south ways. I know everything in the south is nothing to be proud of, but I would rather live in the south with its rich history than live up north where people do not speak to each other, and there is not a sense of unity. The strength of the black women and Big Momma in the family I think is really shown in this picture.

The colors in the picture tell another story about the painting and what it is representing. There are dark and light shades through out the painting; it makes the picture interesting to look at. The coloring of the picture does not suggest that it is a sad or gloomy but rather, it gives the sense that the people in the picture have troubles in their lives, but still have good times. The rows of houses in the background are representing the rest of the neighborhood and how close they families are literally and figuratively.

All of these things about the painting that I have talked about have come from the stories that my grandmother and parents used to tell me about their neighborhoods when they were young. I think John Biggers was raised in an all black neighborhood and is probably portraying what he experienced growing up as a child.

2006-04-27T21:25:00.000-04:00

Perceptions of "Persistence of Memory"

Although visual art is looked upon differently by all, everyone has a either a favorite piece or at least something that catches their eye. Personally, I don’t have a piece of art that I would label my absolute favorite, but during a Spanish research project found that Salvador Dali’s work really stood out. “The Persistence of Memory” painted in 1931 by Dali, a highly renowned surrealist painter, is among the most interesting works I have ever seen. Even though the painting itself is rather simple in quality at first glance, what Dali’s must have been thinking about while creating this work is strikingly complex. The painting is attractive to me because it deals with the concept of time, something that everyone in the universe is continually worried about. Time is evident in the painting because four gold, old fashioned, pocket watches are shown melting away, which is a rather depressing concept to think about. Although it may be hard to think about for most people, Dali gives and accurately describes how he perceived time as able to decay or melt. The ants crawling on the overturned watch symbolizes that time decay is analogous to insects eating cheese. The painting reminds viewers of the fleeting aspect of time, and that we may not be here tomorrow or the next day. In order to maintain a somber attitude, Dali composed the painting of darker colors with the exception of the largest watch having a bluish hue, and the picturesque mountain landscape being reflected into the sea. The mountain scene strikes me as being a representation of something else that flees away with time; the ability to benefit from what nature has created for its onlookers.

Though the conscious and subconscious are things that are not wholly understood by everyone, Dali clearly uses both parts of his mind in order to create a painting with images that no one else could have possibly imagined in the same way. It is reasonable, I think, to assume that most people could have created a landscape painting with mountains being reflected into a sea, and that may have been Dali’s goal when he started to paint “The Persistence of Memory.” However, there remains no doubt that Dali’s subconscious was at work here because no one else could ever imagine the exact image depicting “melting” time as seen here. The conscious part of the brain is the area that is alive and comprehends what is happening to one and the world around one. The landscape, Catalonia, Spain (Dali’s hometown), was the result of Dali’s conscious mind because he was living it and taking it in with his own two eyes. Everything stemmed from thoughts of daydreams, bad memories, and other possible goods or evils that dwell in the subconscious mind. Wikipedia explains that Sigmund Freud believed that the unconscious mind was a depository of wishes, desires, socially unacceptable ideas, traumatic memories, and/or painful emotions.

Dali’s painting appears to be representative of mainly the subconscious mind because many of the elements in the painting express objects or ideas that are highly characteristic of memories, dreams, or even socially unacceptable elements. More importantly, The Museum of Modern Art explains that a year before this painting was made Dali began to undergo his “paranoiac-critical method” which stimulated self-induced hallucinations in order to create art. Forms of hallucinations are definitely considered to be part of the subconscious because the mind is not fully active, and one cannot be aware of one’s actions or surroundings. Objects in the painting such as the melting watches, Dali likened to soft, overripe Camembert cheese. The idea to make the clocks like cheese probably came from a memory of eating such cheese throughout his life. It would also make sense because if the clocks represented melting cheese, this is probably why Dali chooses ants to be eating one of the clocks. Similarly, Dali may have seen ants eating cheese on a picnic which created the idea for them to also eat away time or the clocks. Dali’s subconscious appears again with the elongated face in the middle of the painting that also appeared in Dali’s earlier painting, “The Great Masturbator.” The face is his own, and it originates from the sexual thoughts of his previous painting and the fact that his father made him look at pictures of people with venereal diseases that left him mentally scarred for the rest of his adult life. These impressions made him believe that sex led to putrefaction and/or decay which may also be significant with the decay of the clocks in “The Persistence of Memory.”

2006-04-25T13:49:00.000-04:00

Vincent Van Gogh
Starry Night
1889
Oil on Canvas

Art is certainly not my forte; however, Vincent Van Gogh’s Starry Night is an image which I find particularly engaging for a variety of reasons. Every form of art has its own distinct style which interests observers and compels people to analyze its meaning. Starry Night, one of Van Gogh’s most widely recognized oil-on-canvas paintings, depicts a swirling landscape with stars and rolling hills. Van Gogh’s effective incorporation of artistic elements such as color and texture reveal his unconscious and conscious thought patterns while creating the piece.

Historical context stands as a key factor that shapes an individual’s perception of a painting; therefore, some background information on the artist himself is necessary before understanding analysis of the painting. Born in the Netherlands, on March 30, 1853, Van Gogh moved to England at the young age of 15 and began his career as a painter. Although Vincent Van Gogh was never famous during his prolific lifetime, his works gained appreciation after his death and have greatly influenced the world of art since then. He dedicated his life and resources to his work, remaining very poor and often spending money on art supplies rather than food. In regards to Starry Night, it is essential to note that Van Gogh suffered from clinical depression and was admitted into an insane asylum after slicing off his own ear. It was in this asylum, which incited emotions of loneliness and abandonment, that Van Gogh found inspiration to produce his famous oil painting, Starry Night.

The painting mainly contains shades of blue and black, with some splashes of yellow and orange to highlight the harvest moon and the stars; however, the main thing which catches my eye in this painting is the large black figure on the left-hand side. Some art critics and theorists have argued that Van Gogh is depicting an impressionistic view of a mountaintop or a treetop, but the purpose of its large size in the painting is still up for debate. The church belltower in the landscape and the ambiguous black object both point skyward, which directs an observer’s attention to the top half of the painting. Upon first glance, the painting can seem overwhelming because there is so much to look at. For example, the unique, circular brush patterns in the skyline focus one’s gaze on the middle of the painting, but the unidentifiable black object also demands attention. The black object adds depth and texture to the painting, producing the unique perspective of looking out of a window over a distant city after sunset.

Perhaps the circular brush strokes reveal the chaos haunting Van Gogh’s conscious and unconscious while recovering from and dealing with depression in the asylum. Maybe he longs to be outside of his window and in the peaceful town depicted in the painting. Van Gogh certainly leaves room for interpretation in this painting, as explained here. Historians consider inspiration for the painting controversial; some argue that Walt Whitman’s poem From Noon to Starry Night prompted Van Gogh, while others trace the painting’s purpose to his worsening mental state. Either way, Van Gogh's internal conflict is revealed through the dark color scheme and swirling pattern of brush strokes in the sky.

As a Dutch post-impressionist painter, Van Gogh undoubtedly left an imprint on the world of art. Starry Night offers a prime example of how knowing the historical context behind a painting can influence one’s perception of it. Through details and artistic techniques, this painting provides an inlet to the conscious and unconscious thoughts of Van Gogh and his severely depressed mental state.

2006-04-24T14:55:00.000-04:00

Georgia O’Keefe
Red Poppy
Oil on canvas
1927

Up-Close and Beautiful

Georgia O’Keefe has been my favorite artist since I looked through a book of her paintings for the first time in 9th grade. While looking through the book full of gigantic prints, this one caught my eye. Red Poppy was one of the few of her works of art that I recognized. I racked my brain trying to remember where I had seen it until I remembered that there was a large poster of this painting in my pediatrician’s office, right after you got off of the elevator. I had not visited that particular office since I was probably about seven years old, but I still remembered the painting. This large, vivid, red, extreme close up of a poppy had a profound impact on me. I remember thinking that it was the most beautiful flower I had ever seen.

O’Keefe painted several flowers, often times on an incredibly large scale. The original of this piece is quite small, but the viewer still sees the flower in a big way because the perspective from which the painting was done makes the viewer feel like they are very close to the painting. The poppy consumes almost the entire composition. The edges of some petals are actually cut off because the close up is so extreme. According to O’Keefe, “I often painted fragments of things because it seemed to make my statement as well as or better than the whole could.” The closeness almost forces the viewer to stop and take in every detail of the flower. It seems that this was O’Keefe’s goal. She once said, “Nobody sees a flower really; it is so small. We haven't time, and to see takes time - like to have a friend takes time.” O’Keefe’s amazing flowers encourage her viewers to stop and take time to see the beauty that they often miss everyday when they have the opportunity to look at flowers or anything beautiful in nature. That is what impresses me so much about this piece.

Along with the use of perspective, O’Keefe uses color to impact her viewers. The stark contrast of the red poppy on the white background seems to make the flower jump off of the canvas, out into the viewer’s space. The background also has fuzzy grays and black that seems to invade the edges of the viewer’s focus on the flower. This is an imitation of the way someone might actually see a flower close-up. Their vision would be blurred and obstructed around the periphery. She also uses a sophisticated method of modeling, or shadowing, to add depth to the flower’s surfaces. Instead of merely shading the reds with tints of white and shades of black to make darker and lighter reds, she also uses oranges to model the petals so they look more three dimensional. The use of orange in the modeling of the petals also adds texture to the viewer’s perception of the Red Poppy. The oranges make the petals look somewhat two-toned, giving them a velvety quality. This technique presents the illusion that the viewer is really close to the flower, close enough to see the velvety surface illuminated by the sun.

I love this piece because I really think that it achieves Georgia O’Keefe’s goal of conveying the beauty of such a small flower in a large way. I like the idea that such a small thing can overwhelm you if you limit your vision to take in just that one thing, or even just part of that thing. Something as tiny as a poppy can have amazing beauty, but you can only truly see how beautiful it is if you block out everything else in the world. Georgia O’Keefe explained it this way, “When you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it's your world for the moment. I want to give that world to someone else. Most people in the city rush around so, they have no time to look at a flower. I want them to see it whether they want to or not.”

2006-04-05T11:18:00.000-04:00

2006-04-05T03:30:00.000-04:00

The Terminator Had Better Watch Out!

So, I’m pretty much the female version of Arnold Schwarzenegger now. My bulging muscles cannot be contained! Every time that I ate too quickly last week over spring break and didn’t put my food or utensil down in between bites, I made myself do ten pushups. I performed this experiment for my English 12 class at UNC-Chapel Hill to assess how I could train my brain to keep myself from eating too quickly. Over the years, I have often found myself done with my meal in 5 minutes while the rest of my friends and family leisurely continue their meal. Eating too fast has also occasionally caused me to feel sick. Last week, I vowed to change my rapid eating ways! After doing push-up set after push-up set as a punishment for eating too fast, Arnold seriously should be scared. As a motivating reward, every time that I went through a whole meal without eating too fast, I allowed myself a half hour of mindless television. My experiment was a success overall; I realized that eating slower is more enjoyable because I do not end up having a stomach ache or sitting idly as the rest of my friends finish up. The number of times that I ate too fast decreased over the week and the ultimate goal of my experiment was fulfilled- I trained myself to eat slower and it is now habit.
My hypothesis was correct. It was definitely hard to focus on eating slowly and I had to be very conscious of what I was thinking about as I ate. As I predicted, my friends were very supportive and held me accountable for doing my pushups. Contrary to what I hypothesized, none of them joined in with my experiment. I think my pushups must have just been a little too intimidating.

It was much easier for me to focus on eating slowly during breakfast, perhaps because most of the time during breakfast the house was still quiet and there were few distractions. Also, any mess-ups from the day before were fresh on my mind, not to mention my arms were often sore the morning after from doing my nightly pushups; nothing like some lead arms first thing in the morning to remind me of my sins. I was also more reflective in the morning and I tended to move more slowly in general. I was often still groggy as I ate breakfast and the slow motion of my brain transferred into the slow motion of my eating.

I found it hard to focus on eating slowly in new environments; I would forget about the experiment or get excited about my surroundings and become distracted. It was much more difficult for me to eat slowly when I first arrived at the beach house and during our Charleston trips because the space was new and I found myself paying more attention to my surroundings than to my eating and resorting back to my old eating methods. Practically anything that distracted me from eating caused me to pick up my eating pace.

When the conversation around me was rapid and animated I found it much more difficult to take my time while eating. The increased conversation speed somehow caused my motor skills to speed up as well. I found this particularly true if I talked at a faster pace- before long my arms were following suit, and I barely had time to chew and swallow.

For breakfast on Monday, we made pancakes and it was difficult to eat slowly because the pancakes quickly got cold. Again, I found that conversation around the table distracted my focus from eating slowly. My arms were a little sore and it definitely took some self-discipline to do my pushups. Lunch out on the beach and spaghetti dinner with the girls was a success; my experiment had become the joke of the day and every eye watched me as I ate.

Cereal was on the menu for breakfast on Tuesday. I messed up a few times because I getting ready for Charleston and eating at the same time. Sure was awkward doing pushups in my preppy Charleston skirt! I vowed to eat slowly for both lunch and dinner in Charleston as I did not want to do pushups in the middle of a Charleston restaurant. That night, it was easy to slowly enjoy my honey-glazed salmon as I did not want to finish the delectable dish; I realized another time when it is easy for me eat slowly- when the food I am eating is special in some way and when I am focused on savoring the taste.

Wednesday morning was my first perfect meal. Yea!!! I ended up watching a half hour of “The Price is Right” to reward myself. My friends celebrated with me and several of them sat down to join me in front of the classic TV show. It was great to have their support and motivation! Lunch and dinner were both successes with just a few minor slip-ups. After experiencing my first reward that morning, eating slowly was much more at the forefront of my mind.

Thursday wasn’t so great. Like they always say, “one step forward and two steps back.” We went back into Charleston for a busy shopping day. It was hot, everyone was crabby, and I really just wanted to go back and lay out at the beach. I kept forgetting about the experiment completely and I was just getting tired of trying to focus on it. I found that when I am in an irritable mood I am much more likely to turn to food for solace and to resort to the shoveling method. Eighty pushups that night were not fun and I have to admit that I resorted to girl pushups after a little while.

When I got out the cereal for breakfast on Friday I really didn’t want to do anymore pushups. My arms were straining as I reached into the cabinet. Breakfast ended up to be a perfect meal after my fiasco the day before and I decided to go with “The Price is Right” again. A few of our guy friends came to visit later that day and, needless to say, the whole house got a little crazy. We had over twenty people in the small house, conversations were flying everywhere and loud music blared in the background. All of the hustle and bustle greatly increased my eating speed. I discovered that the faster life moves around me, the faster I pack it in.

Saturday morning was perfect. It always seemed like it was the easiest to refocus during the days after I struggled. I couldn’t really sit down to watch an hour of TV because we were packing up to leave, but I did turn on Good Morning America as I was cleaning out the fridge. Lunch was sandwiches in the car. I only messed up once on eating slowly but I didn’t have to focus much because I was driving and eating simultaneously and I didn’t really have the ability to eat any quicker. I ate a pizza dinner at home with my brothers and I decided to go ahead and tell them about my experiment so that they could hold me accountable. I really found it helpful when the girls encouraged me with my eating at the beach. I messed up once with the pizza because I was laughing at my brother and got distracted. I did my pushups for both lunch and dinner that night in my own room. The pushups were getting a lot easier and I was actually beginning to enjoy them.

On Sunday morning, I ate breakfast with my best friend at Elmo’s Diner before church. We split a pecan waffle (as always) and were so excited to see each other and catch up that we didn’t really focus on our food. We talked so much that we could barely fit food into the picture and eating slowly came easily. Another perfect morning! I waited to have my TV time until I got home after church; I ate a sandwich for lunch in front of a cheesy Hallmark movie and I just slipped up once while I was talking to my Mom. Dinner was back on campus at UNC at Subway with my friend. We caught up on our spring breaks and it was so great to talk to her that I took some quick bites of sandwich before realizing what I had done. On Sunday I learned that I eat more slowly when I am truly interested in the conversation that I am participating in, as opposed to simply listening and not being engaged. I had two deep and in-depth conversations with friends and I found it ten times easier to eat slowly when I was focused on our conversation. I did my pushups for lunch and dinner later on in the dorm room.

The pushups were a great idea as a punishment for eating too fast because I dreaded doing them and it was easy for my friends on the trip to keep me accountable- their watchful eye was always close upon me. They thoroughly enjoyed watching me “Drop down and give them 20.” Rewarding myself with a half hour of TV was slightly less efficient, as I did watch some extra TV on my own during the trip because I was on vacation. Nevertheless, I still enjoyed watching my half-hour of television guilt free when I didn’t eat fast during a meal. It was also difficult sometimes to keep an accurate count of when I was eating too fast because I would get distracted and not realize it sometimes after I did eat too quickly. I just did my best to pay attention.

In conclusion, I am thoroughly pleased with the results of the experiment. I improved my eating habits bit by bit over the course of the week, eating slower as the days went on, and I am happy with my overall improvement. I naturally eat slower now and it is ingrained in my brain to at least attempt to put down my utensil or sandwich in between bites and chew, swallow, and enjoy. I hope that I will continue to eat more slowly and to enjoy the blessing of good food!

2006-04-05T03:26:00.000-04:00

Extreme Makeover: Eating Edition!

Starring: ME. Picture this: One week of spring break, one house at Isle of Palms, 14 freshman college girls, and one rigorous makeover of yours truly. This isn’t just any makeover though; I plan to revolutionize my eating habits by training myself to sloooooooow dooooooown. I am always the first one at the table to finish eating and I always hear some comment about how fast I eat…it never fails. Eating slower will allow me to enjoy my food more and will hopefully decrease the amount of food I eat as I give my body more time to digest. According to the article, Fast Food: Dietary Perspectives, in Nutrition and Food Science magazine, eating quickly can cause uncomfortable gastrointestinal problems. I can second that one. While on vacation with my girls I do not want to feel awkward and sick and twiddle my thumbs as I stare at the rest of my friends still eating. I am determined to train myself to cut the habit!

When that many girls are in one place two things are bound to happen-talking about boys and eating lots of food. I want to be able to enjoy and savor these moments and not to feel bad about polishing off my mound of chocolate before anyone else. So, starting on March 12, the first day of our beach extravaganza, I will train myself to stop eating like a starving hyena! My goal is to put my fork down, chew, swallow, and savor my food after every bite. Hopefully repeating this process will naturally slow down my eating and will cause me to create a new habit- savoring my food and enjoying my time spent eating.

I have a strong feeling that this will be much harder than I imagine. Eating is extremely ritualized in our country and focusing on how I am eating is going to take real self-discipline. I particularly eat when I am upset. If it’s late and I have a paper due in a few hours or if I have just argued with a close friend, my first impulse is to head to the fridge. From there, I proceed to rapidly scavenge the food in the fridge until I feel sick to my stomach. This cannot be healthy for my body or my brain. I need to find a better way to deal with being upset; by removing the option of sedating my emotions with rapid food consumption, I will force myself to deal with troubles in a more beneficial way. I also tend to quickly binge eat after not eating for an extended amount of time because I am either dieting or too busy to grab a quick bite. This too is unhealthy for my body; after not eating for extended amount of time, the body begins to store food as fat cells in order to conserve energy. As I cut out the option of eating quickly and indulgently to make up for my prolonged hunger, hopefully I will teach myself to eat snacks in between meals and not to cut out large quantities of food when dieting. Lastly, I eat quickly when I am running out the door or when I am just trying to fit in a quick bite before my favorite show comes on and, apparently, I’m not alone; According to the Journal of Human Nutrition and Dietetics, a surprising number of teenagers will sacrifice the blessings of a leisurely meal in order to play a video game or finish before a TV show comes on which leads to negative side effects on the body and unhealthful “meal consumption.” Our society truly does not recognize the value of healthful eating habits.

Every time that I do find myself taking multiple bites of food without first putting my utensil down and enjoying it all for a moment, I owe myself ten push-ups, which I HATE doing. There’s a reason that I didn’t go into the army. After the end of every meal I will force myself to do my push-ups, based on the number of times that I ate too fast. I plan on telling the other girls on the trip about my experiment so that they can hold me accountable and watch me in case they notice a time when I am not putting my utensil down between bites. I will need to be very conscious of how I eat, since I automatically tend to shovel food.
When I do finish an entire meal without eating too fast, I will allow myself one half-hour of mindless television. This reward will work for me because, otherwise, I would not turn on the TV at all because I would feel like I was wasting time. Also, by celebrating my slow eating in such an open and public way, the rest of the girls in the house will know that I have achieved my goal for the past meal and can encourage and congratulate me and offer positive reinforcement. Or, who know, maybe one of them can step in as my drill sergeant. Haven’t we all wanted to occasionally scream “Drop down and give me 20!” to our best friend? I can feel the love already.

I predict, especially at first, that I will forget about the experiment halfway through my meal. As I said, I hope having 14 other girls holding me accountable will help (although the drama of 14 girls has the possibility to cause some serious food-needing emotions)! As time goes on, and as I get sore from suffering through so many pushups and realize how nice it is to just let myself watch TV for half an hour, my goal to change my eating habit will be at the forefront of my mind. I think that the challenge before me will be taken up by other girls in the house as well, and that they too will try my experiment. Having their participation will help me remember my experiment as I am eating. By the end of the week, I predict that it will just be natural for me to eat more slowly. I know that my Extreme Makeover will be a grand success! Maybe Ty will come visit…hmmm, I’m gonna get on that one.

Works Cited

G Jill Davies, Jennifer L Smith. Fast Food: Dietary Perspectives. Nutrition and Food Sciences, 2004.

<> J.Van Den Bulck, S. Eggermont. Media Use as a Reason for Meal Skipping and Fast Eating in Secondary School Children. Journal of Human Nutrition and Dietetics. Belgium, 2006.

2006-04-05T02:58:00.000-04:00

Observing Your Bad Habits

Over my spring break I kept track of my sleeping habits. I was supposed to do a self-experiment and have punishments and rewards for things that I did helped me reach my goal, but I do not have the will power to punish myself. Nor do I have the luxury of rewards. There was nothing that I could punish myself with, and I do not have a luxury that I miss and only have on special occasions that I can give myself for a reward. The best I could do was just to collect data on myself.

I did realize that I did worry more about what time I woke up, got out of bed, went to bed, and went to sleep during the week. I did put more effort into staying on a schedule similar to school, while still getting rest. My typical day over the break would be to get up in the morning and get out of bed within an hour of waking up. I recorded what went on throughout my day, and then documented what time I went to bed, why I went to bed, and what time I went to sleep, and what kept me woke before I went to sleep.

Even though I did not change much with an experiment with rewards and consequences, I did change other bad habits that I have. I became aware of my bad habit of slouching, and I put my best effort into making sure that I ate meal when I woke up in the morning. I know the idea of sleeping less was not going to be so hard when I went home on spring break because now when I go home; it is usually just me and my mother in the house. Due to the fact that I am no longer the only person in the house I have to get out of the bed when I wake up.
On the Monday of my spring break I did get to oversleep, but I did have to eventually get out of the bed, get a shower, and go out of the house. I did not stick to any of the rules of my experiment such as getting out of the bed at or around 12:00 noon, eating breakfast, and going to bed at or around 2:00 in the morning, but I was the first day of my long awaited spring break. I did not lie in the bed all day though. At around 4:00 in the afternoon I got dressed because I had to go with my parents to a meeting at my high school about my brother’s school schedule next year. After the meeting though I went back to my room to be lazy, and catch up on my sleep that I deserved from being in school. I went to sleep just a little after 3:00 in the morning.

Tuesday I was woken up by a stranger calling my phone, and my mother knocking at my door asking me if I wanted to go shopping with her and my aunt. So I did get up, and get dressed before 12 noon. In fact I was up, dressed, and ready to go by 10:00 that morning. I did not eat breakfast before I left the house, but I did go in the bakery down the street when we stopped there and get some food to eat. Of course I was not healthy, normal breakfast food, but it was food. When I got back home I was tired and had a headache so I did go to sleep for maybe one and a half to two hours. I woke up though to go to my brother’s band concert at school. I was still tired when I got back home from the concert so I ended up going to sleep earl around 1:00, which is good because I never go to sleep before at the last 2:00 when at school.

Wednesday was a busy day. My mother made dentist appointments for me and my brother, so I had to get up early. I got up and took my mother to the grocery store. I was out of the house by 11:00, but I did not eat breakfast. After the dentist I went back home and did not do anything else substantial all night. I stayed up for a long time though on the internet talking to old friends, and making new friends with people who were like me… Bored and up too late at night. I did not go to sleep until sometime after 5:00.

Thursday was the day I got my hair done. My appointment was 2:00 that afternoon, and I knew I had errands to run for myself before I went to the beauty salon. I set my alarm on my phone to wake my up at 12:00 so I could get up do what I had to do and still make my hair appointment on time. My mother made me eat breakfast before I left the house so for the first time all break I sat at the table and ate breakfast. After I left the hair salon I went to my high school to watch some of my brother’s baseball game. When I got home I left with some of my friends to go to one of their houses for the night. Even though there were all college students and other people there at the house our age, we were all asleep by 2:00.

Friday morning I had an alarm set for 10:00 so I could go back home. My mom was a little jealous of my friends, because I came home and still went somewhere with them. She said that we saw enough of each other in school. When I got home I ate breakfast and got a shower. My mother and I planed a girl’s day out with shopping and a movie. Later that night I was scheduled to baby-sit my little cousin overnight, while her mom threw her older brother a birthday party. I entertained her until around 11:00. We both watched the UNC Men’s basketball team. I went to sleep after the game around 12:00 that morning.

I woke up at 7:56 on Saturday morning because my little cousin was staring at me. We both eventually went back to sleep, and slept until a little after 12:00. I ate breakfast, took a shower, and went on a walk in the front yard with her. Later that night after we took her back to her mom, I went to my brothers swim banquet, and then to the movies with two more of my friends to watch The Hills Have Eyes. I did not go to sleep before 2:00 Saturday because I was having visions of fear from the movie.

The goal of this experiment was to change or maintain my school sleeping habits over spring break. Over any break out of school I usually spent the whole day in the bed. I wanted to get out of this habit and take myself out of the habit of being a homebody, because now that I am in college I should have a life when I am home as well as when I am in school. Besides being as lazy as possible on Monday, I got up before my designated time every other day of the week, and I did have things that I had to do outside of the house. Most of the days I was home I also stayed on my same sleep schedule for bed that I have set for myself for school, except on Thursday, when I went to the movies to see a scary movie with my friends. I stayed awake that night out of fear. I know I would have been up and on the phone or on the internet all hours of the night over my spring break and in the bed when I did not have anywhere to go, had I not been trying to change myself for this experiment. Like I stated earlier, I did not give myself punishments or rewards for doing things that abided to my experiment, but I observed my behavior, and my being conscious on my actions led to me maintaining good posture, making good food choices, and now that I am back in school from break I have maintained good study habits. These good habits all come from me planning out my day and thinking to myself about the positive and negative effects they will have on my life. So I have concluded that not all experiments have to have consequences and rewards, some experiments whose goals are to change ones self can just be observations. Because the more you pay attention to, and care about your own actions the more of better person you can become.

2006-04-05T00:34:00.000-04:00

The Freshman 15

unhealthy=yummy.
to find out more about this, listen to my podcast.

2006-04-05T00:25:00.000-04:00

Old Habits Die Hard

When I set my mind to something, I usually can do it. However, on the first day of my experiment, I realized that it would be much harder to kick the habit of cracking my knuckles back, and neck, than I initially thought. I did not overestimate my willpower, but I overestimated my consciousness of the problem. Once I became more aware of my habit, I was able to reduce how much I cracked my joints. It was just a matter of bringing the problem to the forefront of my mind.

I made a few modifications on my original experiment and omitted parts of the experiment that were ineffective. Originally, I had planned on doing ten push-ups after every time I cracked my joints and rewarding myself with a Skittle every time I resisted the urge to crack my joints. I quickly realized that my reward system was weak (one Skittle!) and that it was hard to reward myself after every time I resisted, mainly because it was difficult to track how many times I resisted. It was easy to keep track of the times I cracked my joints, but it was hard to determine how many times in the day I had resisted the temptation. About half way through the week, I changed my reward to a dessert for everyday that I reduced the number of times I cracked my joints, but by the end of the week I dropped the reward system completely. The reward system may not have been effective, in part because it conflicted with other goals I have. I have a goal to eat healthy and not gain weight, so an extra dessert was a conflict of interest. The punishment was, hands down, the driving force of the experiment. When I had the temptation to crack my knuckles, it was the pain in my sore arms from the push-ups that motivated me not to do it. When I wanted to crack my knuckles I didn’t think “I want dessert,” I thought, “PLEASE! No more push-ups!” I also modified another motivator, the end goal. In the original plan, the end goal was to go dancing on the weekend if I only cracked my joints four times or less during the week. This, I realized, was an unrealistic goal when I cracked my knuckles and neck six times on the very first day! I had to re-set my goal to keep myself motivated. If I had failed already, on the first day, there would be no point in conducting the experiment! So I changed the goal to cracking them, on average, less than four times a day. This goal was more realistic.

The first day of the experiment was a complete shock to me. I had underestimated how many times a day I cracked my joints. I crack them six times the first day: often, I did not even notice I was doing it until after I already had. The number of times that I did it decreased dramatically after the first day. I think that this is because I became more aware of my habit and also because I was better able to punish myself right after I had cracked my knuckles. On the first day I was not able to punish myself instantaneously because I was in the car all day driving back from Boston. I had to do all sixty of my push-ups from Monday on Tuesday morning. However, those sixty made a lasting impression on me for the rest of the week. I woke up with sore arms and I only cracked my knuckles twice on Tuesday. I did those twenty Wednesday morning and it was harder to do than the previous sixty! This whipped me into shape, Wednesday I only cracked them once, and did ten push-ups immediately. By linking the action of cracking my knuckles to that immediate punishment, I came to associate the action with a negative connotation, with pain. This association helped me out on Thursday--I did not crack anything! I felt very conscious and aware of my habit the whole day through. I paid close attention to what my hands were doing at all times, so that I would not end up doing it quickly and unconsciously. Friday I slipped back into my habit a little bit. I cracked my joints twice; both times it was my knuckles. Once, while talking to a friend, and once while cooking. I did not do it out of boredom, I did it while I was doing something else, and devoting less thought to my knuckle-cracking. Another reason for the slip may have been because the pain in my arms was recovering. The soreness was not there as a constant reminder not to crack my joints. On Saturday, I did better. I only cracked my joints once. It was my neck, and I did it intentionally. I had been sitting in a somewhat awkward position on the couch and my neck had become tense to a painful degree. My neck hurt so badly that I had to crack it. Immediately, the pressure was relieved and the pain was gone. I did ten push-ups afterward.

The tense neck incident that happened on Saturday is an example of one of the main reasons that I do crack my joints: to relieve pressure. When a joint is popped, it creates an air bubble in the fluid that is between your bones, in a way relieving pressure that has built up. That bubble pushes your bones apart a tiny bit more, stretching the joint (Kimborough) . Just as muscles can get cramped, I feel like my joints can get tense. Sometimes it is painful! I had formed a habit of relieving that pain by popping my joints. Over time, I may have unconsciously created a reward system for this behavior. The pain relief was a reward for the action. Another reason that I think I formed this bad habit was because I have joints that are, physically, highly pre-deposed to crack. Some people’s joints are harder to crack than others, and I think mine are more prone to being popped. Sometimes, my joints crack on their own when I move my limbs a certain way. For example, when I wake up in the morning, my ankles will sometimes crack when I jump down from my bed, walk or go down stairs, and then they usually do not crack for the rest of the day. My knees also will crack without my provoking. If I kneel down to sit on the ground they will usually pop. It is possible that my joints just crack easier than most people’s do. This may have set me up to have a vulnerability to forming this problem.

During the experiment, the joint that I cracked the most was my knuckles. I think this was because of a lack of consciousness. It was easiest to crack my knuckles without realizing I was doing it because it is a quick action that did not involve much movement, just a simple movement of the fingers. Since there was less movement required for the action, there was also less thought associated with it. Comparatively, it takes more effort to crack my neck and much more effort to crack my back. I have to tilt my neck all the way to the side, and I have to twist my entire torso to crack my back. The number of times that I cracked my neck and back correspond with this theory. I only cracked my neck a couple of times and I never once cracked my back. Therefore, consciousness of my actions clearly played a big role in the experiment.

Throughout these six days, I had to come up with ways to reduce the physical pain and the mental urge to crack my joints. One way I would do this was to think about my joints, focus on the tension there, and imagine it subsiding. Most times, I could convince myself that the tension had lessened. Another way I would reduce the urge was to distract myself. When I wanted to crack my knuckles, I would do something else with my hands, like massage them, place them flat on my lap, or rub the back of my hands. A third way I would reduce the physical temptation was to think about that bubble forming between my joints, it disgusted me. I would think of the long term effects I had read about in Kimborough’s article: swollen hands, a weak grip, and soreness. I did not want that to happen to my hands. In addition to forming techniques to reduce the physical temptation, I also tried to raise my consciousness of the problem. The way I did this was to verbally mention every time I cracked something to whoever I was with at the time. This helped keep me honest and helped me keep track of how many times I had cracked my knuckles throughout the day. If I mentioned it to someone, I would not forget it. My companions also helped to punish me for my infraction by verbally scolding me or by suggesting I do my push-ups immediately. When I took the time and thought to employ one or more of these techniques, I could usually resist the urge to pop my joints.

I am very pleased with the results of my experiment. It amazed me that I was able to train my brain to stop executing a somewhat compulsive behavior. In just six days, I was able to significantly reduce how much I cracked my knuckles. After the experiment was over, I began to crack my knuckles more often than I did during the experiment, but it is still much less than I did prior to the experiment. I have even noticed reduced soreness in my hands. This experiment has made me more aware of my habit, and this consciousness will help me to cope with this problem and possibly eliminate it in the future.

2006-04-04T23:43:00.000-04:00

Bad Habits are Officially Meant to be Broken!

Alright, I officially conducted my experiment to determine whether I could kick my habit of drinking more than one Diet Coke per day. It started Monday, March 13 and ended Sunday, March 19—I was successful. Unfortunately, I am under the suspicion that seven days was not long enough to train my brain. I believe that I will probably go back to drinking as many Diet Cokes as I please, now that the experiment is over. It is not that the experiment was unsuccessful, it is simply that I just do not want to give up this habit. I am enlightened by the fact that I was actually able to restrain myself from drinking over the one-soda limit, but I do have some ideas as to why my success was greater this time than it has been in the past when trying to drop this habit. One simply was the thought of getting that extra dessert serving that encouraged me to be a success everyday, and other reasons related to the time period in which the experiment was conducted.

I had some misconceptions about performing the experiment over spring break because I believed that spring break would induce a binge in Diet Coke consumption since I was at the beach on vacation. I was proven wrong, however; because spring break actually cut down my consumption because there were fewer opportunities to drink soda, considering my friends and I were always out on the beach, or keeping ourselves busy doing other things. Not only were there fewer opportunities to drink soda, but the few opportunities that I had, were expensive or not very tasty. I found seaside restaurants and restaurants located in historical Wilmington, NC had very expensive soft drinks, and I would much rather just have water than pay $3.25 for a single 12 ounce glass of the refreshing and sparkling brown liquid. Although the price of soft drinks did seem to be an issue in Wilmington at select restaurants, the overall bad taste of soft drinks in the area was noted by all of my friends. The sodas at every place that we ordered them were extremely watered down, or lacked the proper amount of flavoring, and overall just tasted like backwashed seawater with a hint of Dr. Pepper. Another factor that came into play considerably decreasing my Diet Coke consumption over spring break was the fact that I got sick. The last night my friends and I were at the beach I got a 102° fever and was not really feeling like drinking much else besides water. I remained relatively sick for about three days during the experiment, which I am sure reduced my soda consumption.

I will outline a few particularly interesting days of the experiment to provide a better idea of the results. The first day of the experiment, I was pretty quick to reach for a Diet Coke at lunch, and I just so happened to be at UNCW’s dining hall for lunch visiting a friend. It was very exciting that UNCW actually had Coke® products at their fountains rather than the Pepsi® that UNC-CH uses, regrettably. I was experiencing a hint of a headache that morning and I had to have something to drink with lunch. The Diet Coke fixed the headache, but the horrible taste of the soda at UNCW deterred me from having another—I had gotten my fix for the day. Later, we ate at an expensive restaurant called “Circa de 1922” in Wilmington, and the $3.25 price tag for a non-refillable glass of soda deterred me. I brilliantly rewarded myself that evening after meeting my goal with chocolate sushi and marble cheesecake from that same restaurant. Those delicious desserts made it well worth my effort to not drink more than one Diet Coke. It is important to note that in all instances of the experiment without Diet Coke there was a substantial lack of mental alertness and/or fatigue due to lack of caffeine. One Diet Coke allowed an increase metal alertness and decreased fatigue across the board. Tuesday, I had a Diet Coke with dinner from a restaurant called “Dockside” that was really watered down, so another was not ordered.

Wednesday I only had a Diet Coke with lunch at Arby’s when returning from the beach to go back to Chapel Hill, NC, and due to being sick Gatorade and water were the choice drinks for the rest of the day. Thursday I was very sick and did nothing but sit on the couch at my house in Chapel Hill and drink water all day. Unfortunately, I went without reward of meeting my goal on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday because I was too sick to have extra dessert. Fatigue was present on all these days as well as headaches because I certainly was not drinking more than one Diet Coke. However, it is difficult to separate these symptoms as being a lack of caffeine or an effect of being sick. I believe here that the symptoms were mainly due to being sick rather than lack of Diet Coke.

By Friday during the experiment, I had regained my health and again was able to drink Diet Cokes if I chose. I managed to go the entire day Friday without drinking a single soda even though I greatly wanted one. In the afternoon, I was feeling the effects of caffeine deficiency and was extremely tired for it being so early in the afternoon. I had to have a Diet Coke to wake me up so that I could drive back to Chapel Hill from Raleigh. Nearly immediately after drinking the Diet Coke, I was renewed and ready to go for several hours. On Saturday, I saw a similar effect after drinking Diet Coke, but this time in reference to headaches. Saturday, before lunch, I had been experiencing a headache, and after drinking a Diet Coke with lunch my headache was completely cured. I did not drink any other Diet Cokes on Saturday. On Sunday, the last day of the experiment, I managed to go the entire day without a Diet Coke but I crumbled when it came time to finish my homework for class on Monday. I had a Diet Coke make me more alert and concentrate on my homework, but it was the only one that day. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday I rewarded myself with the usual cookies and then an additional bowl of ice cream—it was a success.

The results of the experiment are in sync with my original hypothesis and revision of the hypothesis is not necessary. The experiment revealed things about caffeine and addiction that I was looking to prove. As I hypothesized, I was able to reduce my consumption of Diet Coke to only one serving per day. I have often tried this in the past and those attempts were unsuccessful, but when you set up an experiment that gives incentive to your brain for dropping a habit, many things are possible. The extra serving of dessert that served as a reward and the 25 sit-ups serving as punishment were great influences on my behavior. The most interesting result of the experiment is that I totally met my goal everyday and was not required to undergo my punishment. I was under the impression that after having to do the punishment a few times, that it would serve as motivation not to drink more Diet Cokes. However, the punishment served as a complete deterrence from drinking soda in a sense that I thought about the punishment before I went over the limit. This is proof that the brain actively thinks about everything that it performs, and in most cases if you teach it, it will learn.

Through the experiment much was learned about the effects of caffeine, caffeine withdrawal and possible addiction. Caffeine is found in many common food substances, drinks, and supplements and according to Drs. Roy J. Matthew and William H. Wilson in The Journal of Head and Face Pain, individuals in most surveys consume anywhere between 500-600 mg of caffeine per day (Matthew and Wilson). Harris R. Lieberman suggests in Appetite that caffeine in doses of between 100-600 mg can increase cognitive alertness and decrease fatigue (Lieberman, 250 par. 2). These findings are very closely related to my experience with caffeine in this experiment because they prove that many people consume numerous amounts of caffeine in their daily diet and may not even know it, and only a relatively small amount of caffeine is needed to see affects. In my case, soda and most soft drinks have about 40 mg of caffeine per serving according to Lieberman, and even though I only had one soda per day I was probably consuming caffeine in other foods as well. Out of all the foods you can eat, soda with 40 mg is substantial and was probably enough to push my intake over the edge so I could experience the positive results of the caffeine. Consequently, shortly after I had a Diet Coke I witnessed heightened cognitive performance due to better alertness because caffeine makes people less fatigued. Headaches were caused by caffeine withdrawal as expected because Drs. Matthew and Wilson suggest that lack of caffeine can lead to headaches (Matthew and Wilson). A headache could be immediately cured with the extra 40 mg push of caffeine that a Diet Coke offers as I witnessed in my experiment.

Addiction is the main issue of concern in my experiment because as I said earlier I do not expect to maintain my limit of one Diet Coke because I know that I can not do it for extended periods. Lieberman suggests in Appetite that caffeine has inconclusive addictive properties. Due to my experiment I would be willing to prove that caffeine is slightly addictive because it affords a user better alertness and cognitive performance especially with lack of sleep. A person who does not get very much sleep could easily become reliant upon caffeine to get them through their everyday lives, which is more than likely my case. I would not be able to imagine one day without caffeine considering my lack of sleep on a normal night. I have become completely reliant upon caffeine in order to function, and this is why I will be continually unsuccessful at dropping the Diet Coke habit. Diet Coke is no longer a habit; it is an addiction because I have allowed it to become the main source of caffeine in my diet. Therefore, I was successful with dropping Diet Coke for a short-term experiment, but overall I will not be able to give it up.

Works Cited

Lieberman, Harris R. "Nutrition, Brain Function and Cognitive Performance." Apetite 40 (2003): 245-254. 9 Mar. 2006 .

Matthew, Roy J., and William H. Wilson. "Caffeine Consumption, Withdrawalal and Cerebral Blood Flow." Headache: The Journal of Head and Face Pain 25 (1985): 305. 9 Mar. 2006.

2006-04-04T21:48:00.000-04:00

Busting the Habit

My friends tell me it’s gross. They say it’s rude, it’s loud, it’ll make my hands big, it’ll give me arthritis one day….and yet I still do it. I have a terrible habit of cracking my knuckles, loudly and often. Not only that, I also crack my back and my neck quite frequently. Now, I want to find a way to kick the habit. Though, no studies prove that cracking knuckles can cause arthritis, it does create unhealthy side effects. I do not want this habit to persist, so I designed an experiment that I will conduct over spring break using positive reinforcement, positive punishment, and the motivation of an end goal to help me stop this unpleasant habit.

According to Doris R. Kimbrough of the University of Colorado, crack-able joints are diarthroidial joints, meaning that there are two bone ends that are not attached but have a space between them filled with synovial fluid. In her article, Henry's Law and Noisy Knuckles, she explains that an air bubble forms in the synovial fluid when joints crack. This relieves pressure between the bones. Joints cannot crack again until the bubble dissolves. The bubble formation causes that disgusting popping noise. All of this seems pretty benign, but repeatedly cracking joints can stretch them out. In fact, Kimbrough discovered that people who crack their knuckles have more swollen hands and a weaker grip. This fact motivated me to conduct the experiment. I do not want that to happen to me.

The experiment will be conducted over the course of six days, from Monday to Saturday. I will have a chart in which I fill in the number of times that I felt the urge to crack my joints, the number of times I gave in, and the number of times I resisted each day. I have a reward system and punishment system for every time I resist and give in respectively. Each time I resist I will allow myself to have one piece of skittle candy, and each time I give in I must do 10 push- ups. Hopefully over the course of the six days I will stop cracking my joints even if I am tempted to pop them to relieve the joint pressure because it will not be worth the pain of doing push-ups. The reason I pop my knuckles is because it relieves built up pressure in my joints and popping, so popping them has been a rewarded habit. Now, I will train my mind to associate NOT popping my knuckles with pleasure, with a sweet flavor. Along with the instant gratification of the skittle candy, I will also provide a long-term incentive in my experiment. If I am able to crack my joints only four times or less over the course of the six days I will reward myself on the weekend by allowing myself to go dancing on the weekend. However, if I do not reach this goal, I will not be allowed to enjoy this reward.

A study published in the National Library of Medicine by Kelly, Zyzanski, and Alemagno, sheds some light on the best way to break a bad habit. These psychologists with the Department of Family Medicine in Cleveland, Ohio studied over two hundred patients who wanted to change six habits: smoking, dealing with stress, amount and types of food consumed, use of seat belts, and exercise habits. The doctors concluded, “Behavior change was poorly predicted by beliefs, support, and self-efficacy for most lifestyle areas. However, adding motivation to the discriminant function equation resulted in significant predictions in all six lifestyle areas.” The results from this study suggest that motivation is an important variable when evaluating behavior change.

My experiment has several types of motivators: a reward (to eat skittles), a drive to avoid punishment (push-ups) and an end goal (dancing on the weekend). I predict that these motivators will help me effectively change my habit and significantly lower the frequency with which I pop my joints. Hopefully this experiment will help me stop a very unattractive habit that is having negative effects on my joint strength. If I succeed in reducing the number of times that I crack my knuckles over the course of the six days, I may be able to employ similar methods of punishment and reward for the long term and possibly ditch the habit completely!

2006-04-04T19:27:00.000-04:00

A Painful Week without Diet Coke

Drinking too much Diet Coke is definitely an unwanted habit. It is hard to go even one day without the cool refreshing taste with a slight hint of much needed caffeine. In most cases, if I do not have a Diet Coke before lunch I start getting a headache. However, I have decided that enough is enough, and I must try to at least reduce the amount of soda I drink. After doing some research, it is easily understood why I get headaches from caffeine withdrawal. According to Drs. Roy J. Matthew and William H. Wilson in The Journal of Head and Face Pain, caffeine is a very commonly used psychotropic agent and a cerebral vasoconstrictor (Matthew and Wilson). Caffeine is highly influential upon cerebral blood flow and too much of it is known to induce headaches as well as withdrawal symptoms (Matthew and Wilson). Also, Harris R. Lieberman has an interesting article in Appetite that studies how caffeine affects the alertness in military trainees. Lieberman’s study concludes that caffeine is successful in helping someone maintain cognitive performance, especially under sleep deprivation, but subjects who suddenly reduce caffeine intake are known to suffer from headaches and degraded mood states (Lieberman, 250 par. 2). Being a college student, I know that I have continually used caffeine to keep my brain moving just to finish a paper or a lab report. Little things called adenosine receptors in the brain are responsible for arousal levels and are directly affected by caffeine intake. They are also responsible for giving caffeine that “stay awake” quality we all have come to rely upon so much (Lieberman, 250 par. 3). It is true that most people, whether they like it or not, have become addicted to caffeine’s ability to give the body an extra boast—myself included.

Spring break will be a perfect opportunity to test whether I can kick my habit of drinking too much soda. It will be difficult to achieve my goal of drinking only one Diet Coke per day because I will be on vacation and the urge to indulge in the habit will be astounding. While I am at the beach and in complete relaxation, I would like nothing more than to pour a nice tall glass of Diet Coke, and most likely more than one per day. I must try desperately to overcome these urges and train my brain to reduce my habit.

The experiment I propose will test my ability to drink less Diet Coke over a period of seven days. Mainly the experiment will try and determine if I can decrease my Diet Coke consumption to no more than one can daily. Also, the study will show me when during the day I drink soda the most—whether it is before lunch, at lunch, at dinner, just randomly during the day for a snack, or if I am thirsty. Another interesting aspect this experiment will examine is whether the lack of caffeine affects my daily life. Will I become more tired throughout the day? Will I develop headaches from caffeine withdrawal? I am not interested in completely giving up my habit because I know I would not be able to since a soda can be nice every once in a while. Instead, I am most concerned with considerably cutting back my intake. Allowing myself only one Diet Coke a day will be a big step, and if I exceed one per day some punishment will ensue. Since exercise is the devil, like it is to most lazy Americans, I will have to do 25 sit-ups for every Diet Coke I drink over the one limit and this will be ample punishment. The thought of having to actually exercise will definitely be a great enough deterrence to help me stay within my goal, and if not, I better watch out because I might actually gain some muscle! Also, there shall be a reward where I will be able to indulge in a larger portion of dessert for days that I fulfill my goal. I absolutely love having cookies after dinner and I would gladly trade those lost Diet Coke’s for a few extra cookies or some other sweet thing after dinner. Therefore, if I am able to accomplish my goal I will reward myself two additional cookies each night, or any extra serving of any dessert I choose—now that’s worth it!

I hypothesize that through my experiment I will be able to cut back on my Diet Coke consumption so that I don’t have to resort to doing sit-ups after every soda. I would rather not spend my entire day doing sit-ups, so I am sure that this punishment should be significant influence to stop drinking so many sodas. Lack of caffeine concerns me most because I feel that if I change the amount of soda that I drink, I will not be getting as much caffeine as before. I hypothesize that with less caffeine I will feel more sluggish during the day and will be without the extra energy boast caffeine provides. Not only do I propose I will be more tired, but I also think that due to lack of caffeine intake it is possible that I may develop headaches. Also, since soda is my main source of caffeine throughout the day, I think that it will be particularly hard to reduce my drinking habit. Lieberman’s study suggests that many scientists agree that caffeine has addictive properties which would make dropping the Diet Coke habit immeasurably harder (Lieberman, 252 par. 5). Regardless of Diet Coke or not, I think that I would eventually have to find another way to get my caffeine—hopefully I will not turn to coffee.

Works Cited

Lieberman, Harris R. "Nutrition, Brain Function and Cognitive Performance." Apetite 40 (2003): 245-254. 9 Mar. 2006 .

Matthew, Roy J., and William H. Wilson. "Caffeine Consumption, Withdrawal and Cerebral Blood Flow." Headache: The Journal of Head and Face Pain 25 (1985): 305. 9 Mar. 2006 .

2006-04-04T15:59:00.000-04:00

Junk Food Defeated Me

Do you eat too much junk food? I have always had a sweet tooth and a terrible habit of replacing meals with unhealthy food choices including chocolate, chips, ice cream, bagels, doughnuts, candy and cookies. For one week over spring break, I conducted a personal experiment to evaluate my eating habits. I hoped that keeping a log of all the food eaten at every meal would make me realize the amount of unhealthy food I normally consume, thus assisting me in changing my eating habits. My hypothesis was that I would eat healthier over the experimental week only because I was aware of the experiment’s purpose and intentions. I expected to see a significant portion of daily meals either replaced with junk food or skipped completely. Mapping out my eating pattern would hopefully serve as a realistic guideline for the severity of this poor habit.

Each meal and snack eaten, the time of the meal, and exercise completed daily for a period of seven days were recorded on a large data table. Some errors probably occurred in record-keeping because I often tallied all the food eaten throughout the day after dinner, when I might not have recalled each and every selection for the day. Rewards I received for eliminating excess junk food from my daily diet, such as a cookie for dessert, were also included in the chart. The frequency of punishments received for poor food choice was also recorded. Unhealthy food choices one day were accompanied by extra running the next day. I’d rather eat healthy than run three or four miles a day, wouldn’t you?

One factor that tremendously affected my ability to eliminate junk food from my daily diet was my younger brother Mario. Currently a senior in high school, Mario received a full athletic scholarship to play football at Appalachian State next year and has been asked to gain forty pounds before summer practice. He is an offensive lineman and eats more food in one sitting than I do in a day. There were desserts and snacks filling up our pantry, so I was tempted to grab a snack every time I passed through the kitchen. I feel that it would have been easier for me to maintain a well-balanced diet if my house weren’t full of yummy junk food. I will now outline the eating habits of the week to illustrate my progress throughout the experiment.

The first Saturday of break began with a big cup of coffee and a bowl of Special K cereal for a late breakfast around 11:00. Cereal is fairly healthy, isn’t it? I must confess that I poured two spoonfuls of sugar on my cereal to spruce up its bland taste, which provides an example of my tendency to somehow make healthy foods bad for me. Around 1:00 that afternoon I went my the local YMCA and ran three miles on a treadmill, part of my daily physical therapy routine to increase my stamina and endurance lost during my case of Mononucleosis. Exhausted and sore from the exercise, I came home and showered and then ate a chicken burrito with one of my best friends. I basically consumed twice as many calories from eating the burrito as I had burnt off while running. Some friends and I then went to the mall, so dinner consisted of a strawberry-banana smoothie from Smoothie King.

Sunday again was accompanied by sleeping until noon and then having coffee for breakfast. Lunch consisted of a glass of water and a condiment-free turkey, lettuce, cheese and tomato sandwich. Not bad so far. Then I ran two miles on a treadmill and rode an exercise bike for twenty minutes. As punishment for Saturday’s food, I jogged outside around my neighborhood for 15 minutes. After working out I was hungry and ate two large pieces of scrumptious chocolate cake. I have absolutely no self-control when I see chocolate. Dinner consisted of mashed potatoes, broccoli and grilled chicken.

Monday and Tuesday seemed fairly routine…sleeping late and then waking up to coffee and Special K around noon, followed by babysitting for about three hours. The little boy I was watching had a 24-hour stomach flu and was not in the mood for eating anything besides saltine crackers, so it was easy for me to avoid unhealthy snacks while looking after him. However, as soon as I returned home and saw the desserts and snacks, I gave in. I also managed to run a few miles each of these two days, and each day I added an extra mile for the unsuccessful day before. Notice that I still have not received any awards by this time.

Wednesday was slightly different. I woke up around nine in the morning, ate some cereal, and got ready for the day. I decided to take a day off from exercising because my entire body ached from the grueling punishment. I brought my younger sister Catie a french dip from McAlister’s Deli for lunch at school. I ate a grilled chicken caesar wrap and a large chocolate chip cookie; it was too difficult to pass up the freshly baked cookies. I then ate homemade cheese pizza for dinner. I think my failure to exercise on Wednesday stemmed from a lack of motivation. I was tired of being sore and would much rather take the easy way out and be lazy. I also justified my lack of exercise by noting that it is good to give your body a break from strenuous exercise.

Thursday morning I woke up and decided to bake chocolate chip and fudge brownies for breakfast. I even managed to eat a significant portion of the batter before putting the mix in the oven. This act involved such poor judgment that it warranted running an extra two miles as punishment on Friday. I exercised only briefly on Thursday, running about two miles; however, I did not satisfy my punishment mile from Wednesday. Dinner consisted of Italian bread, my dad’s famous homemade lasagna and some green beans. I did some about 200 crunches that night while watching television before bed.

Friday was a short day…I woke up around 1:00 in the afternoon, got ready and went out to a late lunch at Chili’s with my best friend Sarah. I got a Southwestern Cobb salad and a sweet tea. Pretty healthy so far. Of course I ordered a molten chocolate cake for dessert. Peer pressure when I’m around friends often guilts me into ordering foods which I know I should not eat. If all your friends were ordering dessert, wouldn’t you? Dinner that night consisted of pasta and meatballs. Once again, I failed to exercise.

Then came Saturday, the last experimental day, and I knew I could do it…I would refuse junk food for the first time that week. Wrong. I ended up eating the last brownie left in the pan for breakfast. So once again I failed and this proved that my experiment was pointless. This repetitive failure to avoid unhealthy foods presents a serious problem of self control. As a nineteen year old college student, I should be fully capable of prohibiting myself from eating chocolate instead of salad or meat. My reward system is also to blame for this issue. A cookie for dessert is hardly a motivation for me to refuse all kinds of tempting junk food throughout the day. I ate cookies regularly anyway, so I should have chosen a much better reward for the experiment.

Since I was home alone on weekdays (parents at work and siblings at school), I consistently slept in until about 11:30 or noon. For this reason, I skipped breakfast everyday except Wednesday, as predicted in my hypothesis. Being home alone also meant that I had nobody to watch me and limit my junk food intake. My family members were obviously aware of the week-long experiment I had to perform for English class, and would yell at me when they saw me eyeing chocolate or other snacks. My evidence reveals that in a time crunch I either resort to skipping a meal completely or to replacing it with some sort of unhealthy food. I think this is mainly because I am too lazy to make or prepare a nutritional meal, especially when I could just eat a piece of leftover pizza or a package of Pop Tarts®. Skipping meals then causes me to become very hungry later in the day, so I eat large quantities of food at once. An irregular eating pattern is unhealthy and negatively affects your energy level, metabolism and your overall health.

My punishment of running an extra mile for each day I ate unhealthy food was also unsuccessful. On two weekdays I completely ignored my punishment. Nobody was home to remind me and/or force me to run. Also, I run on a daily basis for exercise anyways, so this wasn’t really imposing on my daily routine. I enjoy exercising and being in good shape. A punishment such as doing a family member’s laundry or washing the dishes everyday would have probably been more effective over the week.

Interestingly, I consumed so much unhealthy food that I earned no rewards over the week studied. My experiment ultimately failed because I am not emotionally strong enough to eliminate junk food from my diet. I need to resist peer pressure and temptations from others to eat the foods which I so often crave. Maybe someday I will be able to give up junk food, but for now it is out of the question.

2006-04-03T17:55:00.000-04:00

POP! POP! POP!

I have a terrible habit of cracking my knuckles, and apparently terrible luck also because it is one of my roomate's biggest pet peeves. Listen to this podcast to hear us discuss my problem.

2006-04-02T16:29:00.000-04:00

An Experiment to Eat Healthy

OK, junk food consumes my diet. For one week over spring break I will perform a simple experiment to hopefully eliminate unhealthy food from my daily routine. Rewards and punishments will be meticulously incorporated into the experimental procedure to ensure accuracy and to produce maximum results. I hypothesize that I will likely replace meals with junk food, eat unhealthy food late at night, drink soda in place of water, and sometimes skip meals completely. I also suspect that being around friends at home may pressure me into eating foods which I know I should avoid. Others’ knowledge of my experiment and its goals may assist me in limiting junk food intake. In addition, I predict that this experiment will not produce lasting results; after the week is over, I will likely return to my normal eating routine. This week long experiment will hopefully serve as a realistic outline of my poor eating habits.

For a period of seven days, I will record every meal and snack eaten throughout the day. I will do my best to eat well-balanced meals at regularly scheduled times, and all food intake will be recorded in a large data table. Since I consider chocolate a motivation to eat healthy, a day of nutritious food choices will be rewarded with one chocolate chip cookie for dessert after dinner. Punishment for caving in and eating junk food will be running one extra mile the following day. Since I normally run two to three miles daily anyways, fear of this additional strenuous physical activity will probably inspire me to avoid junk food at all costs. This reward and punishment system will propel me to make the most of this experimental week.

Irregular eating patterns and consistent consumption of unhealthy foods negatively affects one’s overall health, including energy levels, metabolism, and immune system. Eating habits among adolescents are of growing concern in the United States today. According to RM Triches and ER Giugliani, the children who are unaware of the effects of unhealthy eating patterns are more susceptible to obesity. I understand the dangers associated with developing serious problems often stem from lack of knowledge, and I feel that I should do my part to maintain a well-balanced diet and active life style. An article from the U.S National Institute of Health explains that keeping a diary of all food eaten for a period of four months helped participants of the experiment to improve their eating habits. Much like the results shown in this experiment, I hope that my week-long food diary will assist me in eating healthier.

According to WebMd, eating foods from a variety of different food groups is necessary to provide your body with all the nutrients it needs to thrive. Unfortunately, many people, myself included, “eat more of [their] favorite foods from only one food group, and as a result, avoid others.” Convenience is also a major factor in many people’s daily routines, in that they eat what is readily available to them. Why would you grill a chicken breast for lunch when you could just eat cold pizza that is leftover from the night before? I think I currently have a convenient eating style; I eat the things I like that are fast and easy. I’d rather eat a chocolate chip bagel from the dining hall than wait in a long line for the steak sandwich they are serving that day.

Hopefully this week-long experiment will identify the amount of junk food which I normally consume and help me to eliminate it, at least partially, from my diet. Maintaining a healthy life style is essential to living a long and happy life, and I’d like to start making some changes in my routine to ensure this possibility for myself. It may take some serious self discipline to get rid of the chocolate and ice cream, but I think I can do it.

Works Cited

"Diet Disease Link may be Enhanced by Nutritionist Debreifing to Assess Food Diary Data." U.S. National Institute of Health. 26 March 2006. LexisNexis Online. <http://web.lexis-nexis.com/universe/document?_m=725c53216beb9b1aa85e9d451cdc36cc&_docnum=1&wchp=dGLbVtz-zSkVb&_md5=25952b89c39ce6c288c4ef2b22f04eab>.

RM Triches and ER Giugliani. "Obesity, Eating Habits and Nutritional Knowledge Among School Children." PubMed Online. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov.libproxy.lib.unc.edu/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=16113901&query_hl=3&itool=pubmed_docsum.

2006-03-30T16:50:00.000-05:00

2006-03-28T17:24:00.000-05:00

Habits That Just Can't be Broken: Diet Coke

Here are my thoughts about my Diet Coke drinking habit put together in a podcast. I just cannot break it the habit. Here is a link to the MP3 file.

2006-03-10T11:27:00.000-05:00

The Unconscious brain

The brain is a very mysterious thing. It causes people to love, hate, and discover many interesting things. The brain can also go into its own world. When I say a brain can go into its own world I mean it can slip into a coma or worse a vegetative state. When brains go into a coma it is in a deep unconscious state. Comas are usually caused by illnesses or traumatic brain injuries to the head and brain. Comas usually last up to six weeks, and when the person wakes up from it they usually regain normal bodily function. We know that people in a coma are sleeping, but unlike everyone else when they go to sleep people in a coma can not be woken up. People in a coma also can not respond to any form of stimulation.

Doctors use the Glasgow Coma Scale to determine how severe a case of coma a person has. This scale reads the persons neurological brain function, and assesses the level of consciousness a person is at. If a person scores a 15 on the scale then they are almost normal and probably have minimal brain damage. There is another scale that is used called the Rancho Los Amigos Scale. This scale is used within the first weeks or months of the brain injury and assesses the coma patient’s progress toward recovery.

But since the brain is in a state that is similar to sleep does it unconsciously respond to stimulations? There should be a study in which doctors use MRI to scan the brain to look at the different levels of response a brain has while in a coma. There should be some activity in the brain while in a coma, even if the person is unable to respond to outside stimulus. As long as a person is alive the brain should still have activity occurring within it. MRI’s can be taken of a person who is in a coma to show how much or how little brain activity they have, and if there is some part of the brain that responds to stimulus while unconscious.

It is imperative for patients to be absolutely still when having an MRI. Since people who are in a coma are not prone to movement it would not be hard to study their brains. There should be scans for coma patients whose families are willing to let them participate in the study. The patients should be in the MRI machines and have different types of stimuli administered to them. Since the brains of patients in a coma are not fully asleep, but just merely in a deep state of unconsciousness. The different types of stimuli that could be administered to the patients in a coma could be the voices of a family member of significant person in their life. The sound of something that could cause fear in a person, such as a scream, or sudden loud noise could be a stimulus. Another stimulus could be causing pain to a sensitive area of the body. The pain of course would not be intolerable, but jus enough to cause a reaction to the nerves of a normal person. Like the pricking of a finger or pinching of a foot. All of these stimuli to a person should cause the brain to respond in some kind of way.

There have also been studies done on the brain activity of people sleeping. Many people show brain activity in the rapid eye movement stages of sleep, also known as REM sleep. I believe that if there can be brain activity in the deepest parts of sleep then, there can also be brain activity in some and maybe even the smallest parts of the brain during a coma.
In the experiment that I am thinking of the MRI scans of the brain should be able to reveal to doctors what goes on exactly in the brain of a patient in a coma and how well it is functioning at different levels of consciousness. Maybe if there is a way to treat comas from within the brain then there could be a prevention of coma patients going into a vegetative state. A coma is diagnosed as an irreversible sleep, but with the way things are being discovered and inventions being made there might one day be a medicine or treatment to make coma patients recover faster.

I do not know why I have such an interest in the brain in a coma, but I think the brain is the most interesting thing in the human body. The brain is the most powerful and mind boggling thing. It is capable of giving people the ideas of inventing machines like MRI’s that can look inside of another human beings and view their brain. Humans are the most intelligent beings on the planet so their brains in my opinion are always functioning, until death of course. Since a patient in a coma is not dead there is always going to be some brain activity. Maybe we have not had the right person to invent the right machine to specifically see what happens when the brain is at maybe one of its weakest points.

2006-03-10T11:24:00.000-05:00

MRI AND BRAIN SCANNING TECHNOLOGY

There have been many changes over the centuries in the way doctors diagnosis and treat their patients. Every year, the technology that is available to doctors that helps them better treat their patients and their illnesses. ADHD is Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder is a common learning disability that affects many children. Prosodic processing in humans is speech recognition and understanding of what is being said. Doctors are now using MRI’s to look at how the brain responds to different things people experience in life, and the developing brains of children. Prosodic processing and ADHD are two things that many children experience in their developmental years.

MRI’s or magnetic resonance imaging provides pictures of the brain and other organs inside the body without taking X-rays. These machines have been able to give doctors images of what parts of the brain are working when certain behaviors are being expressed. In most of the studies the doctors used BOLD fMRI’s, which is blood oxygenation level dependent functional magnetic resonance imaging. Some doctors would argue the findings of the study, because of what a MRI picks up on a scan, and how effective they are with the limitations they do have. MRI’s are very sensitive to even the slightest movement during scanning.

Doctors mostly used the BOLD fMRI’s to look at the brains of children with ADHD. They tried to find children that could represent every child that could possibly have the disorder, and they even followed some patients from their childhood into adulthood to study the lasting effects of ADHD and their brains. The total size cerebral volume of ADHD patients is approximately 5 percent smaller than age and gender matched control subjects (Giedd para 5).The corpus callosum is a broad, thick band running from side to side of the brain, and consists of millions and millions of nerve fibers. In many of the ADHD patients studied the corpus callosum was generally found to be smaller. The frontal region of the brain was also found to be slightly asymmetrical, with the right frontal region smaller in boys scanned with ADHD. Most of the images taken of different patients with ADHD found that they did have slightly smaller areas of their brain that were used for different tasks. MRI, as of right now, is not used to diagnose a child as having ADHD or not. Some children may have a history of ADHD symptoms, and not show the usual symptoms on a brain scan. Other children may, in a brain scan have activity that is constant with an ADHD brain and not show symptoms of the disease (Giedd para 21).

The second article is a lab report of a study done on children that is usually tested in adults for speech recognition, also called prosodic processing. Doctors have concluded that children can use prosodic processing from infancy to assist them in decoding words and sentences. There was a study conducted of 284 children from the ages of 5 to 18, where they had their brains scanned to reveal multiple regions of their brain, and note changes in these regions as different task were given to them. Such as decoding a target sentence what was repeated at a low frequency pitch. Prosodic processing can either be cued emotionally, linguistically or via sentence structure. The imaging done revealed that different parts of the brain were responsible for sentence recognition in different age groups. There were similar areas of the brain that responded to the sentence recognition task, but in different age groups of children. Frontal regions of the brain in most of the subjects did not show much activity.

Both of these articles give details on research of two things that affect children, and the way a child learns. Since the use of MRI is not harmful to children because of its lack of ionizing radiation and capacity to provide exquisite anatomical detail, it is a great help to doctors who study their brains. Doctors have been able to see how the brain functions in patients with ADHD, and can start to make an improvement in the way they look for and treat this disease. Doctors still have to study the brain in children a little longer to find out exactly how their brains work and are able to use prosodic processing with learning.

Giedd, Jay N., Johnathan Blumenthal, Elizabeth Molly, and F. Xavier Castellanos. "Brain Imaging of Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder." Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 931 (2001). 12 Feb 2006 .

Plante, Elena, Scott K. Holland, and Vince J. Schmithorst. "Prosodic Processing By Children: An fMRI Study." Children's ospital Research foundation, The Unviersity of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH USA (2005). 12 Feb 2006 .

2006-03-10T09:40:00.000-05:00

MRIs Actually Work!

The medical world is making exciting strides towards learning how best to utilize new MRI technology, which, according to the North East Medical Center, allows for “the production of detailed pictures of internal human anatomy without the use of x-rays.” For my English class at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, I am responsible for summarizing and relating the following two scholarly articles that discuss recent MRI technology; Correlations of brain MRI parameters to disability in multiple sclerosis, which I will refer to as article 1, written by a group of doctors from the Copenhagen MS clinic, the Department of Neurology, and the Copenhagen University Hospital and Compatible scales for progressive and additive MRI assessments of haemophilic arthropy, written on behalf of the International Prophylaxis Study Group, which I will refer to as Article 2.

Article 1 discusses the effectiveness of MRIs at evaluating two signs of multiple sclerosis; lesions on the brain and the amount of white matter within the brain, which serves as the communication line between the grey matter, which processes information, and the rest of the body (Schreiber et al., 24). The study involved patients from the Danish Multiple Sclerosis Registry (DMSR) and all of the patients were evaluated by the same neurologist. Legions were defined as “larger than 5 mm or…asymetrical [with] a difference of more than 2 mm between the sides (Schreiber et al., 25).” The study concluded that there was a slight correlation between multiple sclerosis longevity and a greater number of lesions, and a correlation between the presence of multiple sclerosis and a decreased amount of white matter. The study also concluded that the MRI technique used was effective for gathering broad types of data but that improved MRI technology (which is now being developed) that gathers more detailed data is needed (Schreiber et al., 25).

Article 2 discusses the two main strategies for using an MRI for evaluating the joints of patients who suffer from joint swelling due to blood loss, or haemophilic arthropy; the progressive strategy, which assigns scores to joints based on observed “characteristic stages of development” and the additive strategy, which involves the “summations of specific changes (Lundin B., et al., 109).” The World Federation of Hemophelia held meetings in both 2002 and 2003, sponsored by the International Prophylaxis Study Group (IPSG), to discuss MRI technology. At these meetings, doctors concluded that a complete evaluation combining both the progressive and additive strategies was the most effective way to study haemophilic athropathy (Lundin B. et al., 112). The two meetings also concluded that since both methods were unlikely to be used together, “it would be ideal if classification of joints based upon MRI could be performed using one or two universally accepted methods (Lundin B. et al., 112).”

Both articles conclude that MRI technology is an effective tool for assessing abnormalities in patients. Articles 1 and 2 have a positive tone towards MRI technology and view it as an exciting development. Both articles point out ways to improve the use of MRIs; Article #1 stresses the importance for the advancement of MRI technology, whereas, Article #2 calls for standardization for the interpretation of MRI technology.

For the purpose of my English at Carolina, these articles can teach us about the broad range of uses for MRI technology. Article 1 implements MRIs to study the brain and Article 2 assesses rates of swelling in the joints of patients with haemophilic arthropathy. Both of these articles also prove to our class the effectiveness of MRI technology, as both Articles 1 and 2 portray how MRIs can show abnormalities in the brain and joints respectively. It is encouraging to know that what we have been studying over the past month is actually useful and effective in the real world!

Work Cited

Schreiber K. Soreman PS, Koch Henrikson N, Wagner A, et al. Correlations of brain MRI parameters to disability in multiple sclerosis. UK: Munksgaard, 2001.

Lundin B., Babyn P., Doria A.S., et al. Compatible scales for progressive and additive MRI assessments of haemophilic arthopathy. Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

2006-03-10T03:34:00.000-05:00

Different Strokes for Different Folks

My whole life, I have been interested in the humanities. Even before I went to kindergarten I loved to paint and draw. I enjoyed trying to write words more than numbers. In school, I remembered the names and faces of people easier than I could remember mathematical formulas; I enjoyed reading books for English class more than doing labs in chemistry. I have always wondered what made me love the humanities more than math and science. Is there a reason that I have always had the interests that I still have now? I would like to see neuroscientists and psychologists team up to do an experiment together to help answer this question.

According to Larson and Buss, authors of the textbook Personality Psychology: Domains of Knowledge about Human Nature, there have been many studies done with brain scanning that have aided in determining several personality factors such as how left and right lobe activity correlate with positive and negative affect, levels of extraversion, and levels of neuroticism (Larson and Buss). For example, psychologists have discovered that there is an association between higher left hemisphere activity and more positive affect, emotions, facial expressions, etc (Larson and Buss). I would like to see these professionals use brain scanning to see if there is a correlation between one’s biology and one’s passions. Everyone has subjects that have interested them as long as they can remember. Some people just love math, and others cannot stand working with numbers, and would prefer to write. Still others get totally wrapped up in painting or drawing. What determines whether someone loves math, science, social sciences, language and writing, or the fine arts? Since these preferences tend to be relatively stable over time (usually someone’s favorite subjects in middle school are still interesting to them in college) there may be a biological basis for these subject preferences. By coupling a questionnaire and brain scanning, a trend between subject preferences and brain activity may be visible.

For this experiment, a random sampling of a good number (preferably 100 or more) of middle school students, both girls and boys, would be given a questionnaire asking questions that would help determine their subject preferences. Examples of these questions may be: What is your favorite subject in school? What do you want to be when you grow up? And In what extracurricular activities do you participate? The questionnaire would be evaluated by personality psychologists and each participant would be classified according to their strongest interest (such as math). The second component of the experiment would be an MRI brain scan, conducted while the subjects perform different tasks. Larson and Buss refer to MRIs as a "noninvasive imaging technique used for mapping the structure and function of the brain" (Larson and Buss). David Dobbs of the Scientific American Mind reports that MRI scans measure levels of iron, and therefore blood, in different regions of the brain (Dobbs). Brain activity has been associated with blood levels in different regions of the brain (Dobbs). So the MRI would be measuring where activity is the greatest while the subjects are performing different tasks. The students would be asked to perform several tasks that encompassed different fields of study, such as simple math problems, writing a few paragraphs about their day, or drawing a picture during the MRI. The two parts of the experiment (the questionnaire and brain scan) would be preformed blind from each other, meaning that different researchers would score the questionnaires than would evaluate the brain scans, that way the researchers would not let their own preconceived notions get in the way of classifying each subject’s questionnaire or brain activity. For example, if a researcher knew that a certain person had answered the questionnaire in such a way to suggest that she enjoyed math, they may suspect that there would be more activity on the left side of the brain than the right, and therefore think that they see more activity on the left than the right. According to an article in Psychological Science called Semantic Categorization in the Human Brain, the left side of the brain is the more logical, analytical and therefore mathematical side of the brain (Löw et al). If the same researcher rated both the questionnaires and the brain scans their knowledge of this fact may screw the actual results, but if the ratings are done blind from each other, they will be more objective and accurate.

When scientists evaluate the same people at several different points in time, it is called a longitudinal study. A longitudinal study may be the most effective way to conduct this study. This way, psychologists could see if these subject preferences are stable over time and therefore probably more biologically influenced, or changing over time and therefore, more environmentally influenced. The same subjects could be tested in the same manner when they are in college and in their 30’s or 40’s when they are out in the workplace. The questionnaires could be modified to suit the subjects stage of life, asking questions like “What do you plan to major in?” while they are in college, and “What does your job entail?” for the last trial. Also the cognitive tasks to be performed during the brain scan could be made more challenging for age appropriateness. The three different trials could be compared to one another to see if people showed relatively the same brain activity (as it relates to subject matter) over time, and if they indicate the same, or similar preferences in their questionnaires.

The point of the experiment is to see if there are different kinds of brain activity in people who like different fields of study and also to see if these interests are relatively stable throughout life. Is there specialized brain activity in different hemispheres and cortexes that is similar between subjects who enjoy the same field of study? My hypothesis is that the researchers would find a correlation between the locations of elevated brain activity and the answers to the questionnaires. I think this because a person may enjoy one subject more than another because they derive more mental stimulation while performing tasks that relate to that particular subject area. It makes sense that if a person experiences more mental stimulation from a certain subject, they will find that subject more challenging, engaging, and interesting. Regarding the second aspect of the experiment, I hypothesize that the neuroscientists would find that the brain scans and questionnaire scores of each subject would remain relatively stable throughout the three trials. This result would suggest that our interests are more biologically hard-wired.

A study like this one may stimulate more similar research in psychology. More researchers may be inspired to design studies which investigate the origins of our interests and passions, and the activities that give us joy. Where do they come from? Are some people predisposed to enjoy certain activities? Psychologists may be able to answer these questions soon. This study would also be very helpful to society. People are always trying to find their niche in life, their passion, their calling. Once psychologists better understand why people like the subjects that they do, they may be able to help people discover what they would be most happy doing with their life.

Works Cited

Dobbs, David. “Fact or Phrenology?” Scientific American Mind. 16.1 (2005) : 24-31.

Larson, Randy J. and David M. Buss. Personality Psychology: Domains of Knowledge about Human Nature. New York: McGraw-Hill. 2005.

Löw, Andreas, Shlomo Bentin, Brigitte Rockstroh, Yaron Silberman, Annette Gomolla, Rudolf Cohen, and Thomas Elbert. “Semantic Categorization of the Human Brain.” Psychological Science. 14.4 (2003) : 367-372.

2006-03-10T01:36:00.000-05:00

Post Traumatic Stress: It’s a brain thing

Have your ever seen a war veteran jump when he hears a loud sound? Or seen a movie in which a character is troubled with vivid flashbacks of a terrible event that happened to him? These symptoms may be due to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. PTSD is a psychological disorder in which sufferers have trouble coping with their traumatic pasts. Symptoms of PTSD include nightmares, flashbacks, skittishness, and intense physical and emotional reactions to stimuli associated with their traumatic memories. People most likely to get post traumatic stress disorder are war veterans and victims of physical and sexual abuse (Stress). Psychologists are conducting some innovative studies that examine the brain activity of PTSD patients during both the recall of a traumatic event and during therapy. The findings from these studies may lead to groundbreaking discoveries of how the human brain functions.

Psychiatrists Israel Liberzon, Jennifer Britton, and K. Luan Phan did a study involving veterans with PTSD at the University of Michigan’s Veteran’s Affairs Medical center. The subjects of the study were sixteen combat veterans suffering from post traumatic stress, fifteen combat veterans without PTSD, and fifteen “age-matched, healthy control subjects” (Liberzon et al). These psychiatrists were interested in observing what happens in the brains of PTSD sufferers when re-experiencing a traumatic event. They also wanted to compare this brain activity to subjects without the disorder to discover what activity is unique to post traumatic stress. The researchers used positron emission tomography (PET) to monitor the activity in the brain by utilizing “radionuclide-labeled tracer molecules to measure changes in regional cerebral blood flow” (Liberzon et al). They conducted these PET scans while inducing a traumatic experience. The psychiatrists had the subjects look at a set of images while actors read a script to recreate stressful, combat related events. The combat subjects wrote and personalized the scripts themselves, so the readings evoked personal memories. The researchers labeled the combination of the images and the script reading as “symptom provocation paradigms” (Liberzon et al).

The results of the study are quite interesting and informative. The subjects with post traumatic stress disorder showed an operation dysfunction in the limbic system and the surrounding paralimbic regions (Liberzon et al). The brain’s limbic system is the control center for emotions. It is made up of several small parts including the amygdala, and pituitary gland. The amygdala is responsible for fear and aggression and the pituitary gland regulates several hormones such as adrenaline. The limbic system is the reason we are able to experience and control our emotions. Since the PTSD patients have altered activity in this brain region, they may have a harder time coping with their feelings, especially feelings of fear (Liberzon et al). The psychiatrists observed increased and different blood flow in the amygdala and insula of PTSD subjects. They also saw decreased or altered flow in the medial prefrontal and anterior cingulate cortex which, according to their report, is a neural circuit responsible for the emotional processing and regulation. PTSD sufferers and combat controls showed different blood flow patterns in these brain regions, so the difference in activity was not simply due to their exposure to combat (Liberzon et al). The PTSD patients are literally and physically processing their memories differently from people who experienced similar situations but do not have PTSD. Liberzon, Britton, and Phan came to the conclusion that this difference in neural processing may be responsible for the “deficits in emotional processing in PTSD” and “resilience to trauma” in the combat subjects without PTSD (Liberzon et al).

Psychologists are also learning new things about PTSD therapy. Sheldon Lewis of Advances in Mind—Body Medicine journal held an interview with psychotherapist, Dr. Belleruth Naparstck who developed a therapy method called guided imagery. The therapy attempts to equip PTSD patients with mental tools for coping with their emotions (Lewis). Guided imagery makes use of the patient’s imagination and sensory recall to deal with emotional stress. In guided imagery therapy, the patient looks at a series of pictures and/or listens to audio commentary that directs the patient towards using healthy mechanisms to process and resolve their unsettling emotions (Lewis). Some common images used are from spiritual and healing traditions such as golden light and the presence of a companion. Dr. Naparstck’s therapy has been especially successful. Her audio programs are used by over 1,500 hospitals around the country and her books and programs are distributed by several groups working with trauma patients such as the Veteran’s Administration, the Red Cross, and Oklahoma City Disaster Services (Lewis).

According to Dr. Naparstck, many psychologists think that “talking through” the memories that haunt PTSD patients is an ineffective method of therapy. Naparstck says that PTSD sufferers cannot “just talk through their issues with you.” PET scans have shown that PTSD patients have significantly smaller language centers in their brains which may contribute to the difficulty they have in processing memories and emotion. Talking about these memories flips a switch in their brain to induce a flashback which Naparstck defines as “not a real memory—it’s a form of re-experiencing the trauma with vivid, unprocessed, sensory fragments, perceptions, emotions, and kinetic reactions. So you’re basically re-traumatizing people in your office and they’re paying for it” (Lewis). Naparstck wanted to create a therapy method that actually helped patients instead of abusing them and apparently her programs are working. Studies have shown that this is a satisfactory way to treat posttraumatic stress. Patients at the VA Gulf Coast, in Biloxi, Mississippi, reported that, though some of them found the imagery uncomfortable, they all said that they would do it again. Many continued to use the therapy even after the study was over and they said they would recommend it to their buddies (Lewis).

Dr. Naparstck said, “We would stumble on remedies and help people heal in spite of ourselves, but our track record was shockingly lame. However, now we do know, or at least we know enough…..These are exciting times to be in this field” (Lewis). I could not agree with her more. The studies conducted by Liberzon et al, and Naparstck are very encouraging. Science is on the road to being able to help people who suffer from post traumatic stress. PET scanning has revealed that PTSD patients lack the necessary neural circuitry to process and cope with their emotions. Thanks to imaging technologies that allow researchers to be able to scan the brains of their subjects, we are learning more and more about how the human brain works and malfunctions. Knowing more about these problems will help psychologists be able to solve them in the future.

Works Cited

Lewis, Sheldon. “Entering Our Broken Hearts.” Advances in Mind--Body Medicine 21.1 (2005) : 29-32. http://www.advancesjournal.com/aj/login/index.jsp

Liberzon, Isreal, Jennifer Britton, K. Luan Phan. “Neural Correlatos of Traumatic Recall in Posttraumatic Stress Disorder." Stress: The International Journal on the Biology of Stress. 6.3 (2003) : 151-156. http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/10253890.html

2006-03-09T23:59:00.000-05:00

Can Alzheimer’s Disease Be Caused By Low Levels of Brain Activity In Mid-Life?

I know that everyone, one way or another, has found out that certain brain functions and everyday tasks become easier with constant practice. Many college students will easily and quickly forget information related to required courses because they must take such classes in order to receive credit; they will most likely never take another class of the sort. Conversely, information pertaining to a desired field of study is unlikely to be forgotten by a student because they see that material almost everyday. The brain remembers how to do things that it is most often required to do, and pretty much everything else will slowly be forgotten over time. Therefore, the brain is much like any other muscle in the body and needs constant exercise. I have developed an experiment to be preformed by professionals that would test the decline of brain functions over time, as the brain is no longer required to carry out advanced tasks. Eventually, results for the experiment will prove that decreases in constant brain activity, increases one’s susceptibility to contract conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease.

Before diving into the exact description of the experiment, it is important to quickly recap some studies that are relevant to my experiment and that will help form my hypothesis for its outcome. Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is widely known to affect many individuals as they get older. AD has been linked to certain chemical issues within patients such as an increased amount of the enzyme, acetylcholinesterase, which keeps nerves within the brain from communicating (FDA). Also, Drahomira Sencakova et al. discovered that increased levels of the apolipoprotein E (APOE) 4 genotype in African Americans can make individuals more susceptible to AD (Sencakova et al, 1596 par. 5). Other causes for AD, however, have not been extensively researched in combination with these chemical effects. There is reason to believe that AD is a progressive disease that can be exacerbated by an idle brain. David Hultsch et al. believes that when the brain is not used continually for slightly complicated tasks, the result is atrophy of cognitive processes or what is more commonly classified by the motto “use it or lose it,” (Hultsch et al., 245-263). Hultsch proves to be correct according to many researchers, such as Robert P. Friedland, who associated that patients with AD have less active lifestyles with less cognitive demand in mid-life through retirement. Participating in fewer activities and demanding less of one’s cognitive functions, puts individuals at a higher risk to develop AD in old age (Friedland et al.). Similarly, John Ratey in his book, A User’s Guide to the Brain, discusses the Nuns of Mankato who deterred AD by being cognitively active well into their nineties (Ratey, 42-43). The information provided in these studies indicates that the idle mind is essentially the devil’s playground which may have a strong correlation with susceptibility for AD.

An experiment that would test the relationship between an idle brain and the onset of AD would include sampling the effects of continuous brain activity and how it affects a person’s risk of obtaining Alzheimer’s disease. The experiment would involve the APOE 4 genotype chemical aspect as well as the “use it or lose it” theory. The experiment would consist of comparing a group of clinically diagnosed Alzheimer’s patients (20 Caucasian and 20 African American) to a group of normal control individuals (20 Caucasian and 20 African American) with healthy cognitive functions and the same age range; both groups would include patients between the ages of 65-75. The premise of the experiment would be to determine the effects of continued brain stimulation in old age and how brain exercise may prolong contracting Alzheimer’s disease. The incorporation of African Americans into the study would be used to determine whether they are at a greater risk for Alzheimer’s due to the apolipoprotein E (APOE) 4 genotype than white subjects. This aspect of the experiment does not require any time-consuming controlled tests other than the preliminary testing for the APOE 4 genotype in all patients.

In one facet of the experiment, 10 white patients with Alzheimer’s, 10 African American patients with Alzheimer’s, and 10 participants in the control group, would be allowed to live their normal lives as retirees. These individuals would lead the typical life of a 65-75 year-old person and use minimal amounts of daily brain usage for the subject of math or any other advanced cognitive functions. On the other hand, 10 white Alzheimer’s patients and 10 African American patients would be instructed to perform more advanced cognitive functions that stimulate the brain. The subjects would have to read, memorize vocabulary, solve math problems and word puzzles, and play memory games. In order to ensure that the patients in this area of the study were fully participating, they would be tested on these skills once a week. Similarly, 10 white and African American control patients would be subjected to the same tests and brain activity. All patients and subjects would be tested for levels of the apolipoprotein E (APOE) 4 genotype prior to the experiment, and this level will be used later in the experiment to determine whether individuals, especially African Americans, are at a greater risk to develop Alzheimer’s regardless of brain activity.

The main purpose of the experiment is to establish a correlation between patients and controls, and the effects of continued advanced cognitive functions have on the development of Alzheimer’s disease. A conclusion would be drawn over a period of three years; all subjects would have a comprehensive MRI scan twice per year and the results would help reveal whether keeping the brain active and/or the APOE 4 genotype have a significant influence on the development of Alzheimer’s disease. In order to determine brain deterioration, the MRI’s would examine gray matter levels in all regions of the brain as was done in the Thompson et al experiment. An increased gray matter loss in areas of the brain would prove that cognitive functions were indeed decreasing. This experiment differs from others that have been preformed because it will accurately show, with the use of MRI, that individuals who continue to use all of their brain’s functions to its full ability are less likely to develop AD. The inclusion of African Americans in the study addresses Sencakova’s concern that not a wide range of studies regarding AD have been carried out on African Americans (Sencakova et al, 1593 par. 1).

The experiment has two possible pitfalls that could potentially skew the results. The first pitfall is how to ensure that individuals are actually performing the activities that stimulate advanced cognitive functions. In order to rectify this prospective drawback, the individuals participating in this area of the study would have to be tightly controlled in order to give accurate results. They would have to perform the given tasks and would then be tested on them on a regular basis in order to ensure that they are participating fully. Secondly, the African American participants are likely to have significantly different levels of the APOE 4 genotype which is likely to distort the results. It is recommended that the African Americans chosen for the experiment have similar levels of the APOE 4 genotype in order to have continuity in the results of the experiment.

My hypothesis on this situation is based mainly on the Nuns of Mankato that John Ratey quickly referred to in his book, A User’s Guide to the Brain, which was not quite as comprehensive as my proposition. In addition, the research conducted by Hultsch and Friedman that asserts idle brains induce AD, is a major influence on my hypothesis. The patients and controls alike that continue to stimulate their brains will considerably reduce their risks to develop AD. The MRI scans will illustrate brain functions as well as gray matter loss in both patients and the control groups of both races involved in the study. I hypothesize the scans will conclude that individuals who help exercise their brain will retain advanced cognitive functions and have sharper memory and, consequently, have a lower risk for AD. The individuals who allow their brains to atrophy will suffer from significant brain function loss compared to others that kept their brains healthy with cognitive exercise. Also, the same effect will be found among African Americans; however, they are likely to suffer on a greater scale due to the APOE 4 genotype. For this reason, it is also expected that African American control subjects are likely to have slight differentiation in memory loss compared to white control subjects because African Americans without AD are already predisposed to it as seen in Sencakova’s study. Similarly, African American patients with AD will also show an increased memory loss compared to whites in both groups: ones with brain stimulation and those without. It is reasonable to assume that the degeneration of cognitive function begins in middle age. People who are middle-aged have already completed all education for their field of work, all other information learned in school slowly dwindles as it is no longer practiced, and it will soon be forgotten.

This study would reveal a significant new finding in the neuroscience world because it would prove that regardless of whether an individual is at risk of AD, anyone can delay the onset of AD by exercising the brain and keeping it healthy. In a large sense, the brain is similar to any other muscle in the body, and without exercise the brain will undergo atrophy. In many cases, a reason why old-age people are susceptible to AD and other forms of memory loss is because they no longer have a need for advanced cognitive functions, and their brain lies dormant. If a link between brain exercise and the risk for AD could successfully be made, people would have some choice of whether they wanted to develop a form of memory loss or not. A finding in this research would urge people of all ages to keep their brains healthy by keeping them challenged with advanced use everyday.

Works Cited

Hultsch, David F., and Et Al. . "Use It or Lose It: Engaged Lifestyle as a Buffer of Cognitive Decline in Aging." Psychology and Aging 14 (1999): 245-263.

Sencakova, Drahomira et al. "Hippocampal Atrophy Correlates With Clinical Features of Alzheimer Disease In African Americans." Archives of Neurology 58 (2001): 1593-1597. 5 Mar. 2006 <http://archneur.ama-assn.org/>.

Ratey, John J. A User's Guide to the Brain. New York: Random House, 2001. 42-43.

Thompson, Paul M. et al. "Dynamics of Gray Matter Loss in Alzheimer's Disease." The Journal of Neuroscience 23 (2003): 994-1005. 5 Mar. 2006 .

2006-03-09T22:13:00.000-05:00

Brain Scanning and Eating Disorders

Did you know that three percent of American females will develop some sort of eating disorder within her lifetime? The behavior of female Americans today has become increasingly influenced by Hollywood models and celebrities and the media that surrounds them. Celebrities display a specific body type, which is now coveted by young females everywhere. Additional pressure from peers, coaches and teammates to achieve a flawless figure specifically targets collegiate female athletes. The ideal body image, which focuses primarily on physical appearance, is most commonly pursued by young women who participate in stereotypical female sports; thus, additional research and development in the relationship between brain scanning technology and detection of eating disorders could prove beneficial in the future.

By using Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), a group of neuroscientists could easily study the brain activity of individuals suffering from eating disorders and decipher possible differences in the neural activity and physical size of their brains. MRIs construct pictures of the inside of the human body by using magnetic fields and radio waves. MRIs of the head test for “brain tumors, bleeding in the brain, nerve injury” and other damage, and these types of problems maybe present in individuals suffering from anorexia.

Is there a detectable difference which distinguishes the brains of those suffering females from females with healthy eating habits? Since there are many different types of eating disorders, this study would focus on one disorder in particular to promote as much accuracy as possible. According to the National Association for Eating Disorders, anorexia nervosa is characterized primarily by self-starvation and excessive weight loss. It involves an individual’s refusal to maintain a body weight at or above a minimally normal weight for height, body type, age and activity level. Over the past decade, sports medicine professionals have become more aware of the unique health concerns of athletic women. Scientists have found that female collegiate athletes participating in sports which focus mainly on individual performance and physical appearance, such as gymnastics, swimming, cross country, track, tennis and cheerleading are more vulnerable to developing anorexia nervosa. As a collegiate cheerleader, I have been surrounded by people struggling with this disorder and understand its severity. When all else fails, athletes can still control the appearance of their bodies, so many individuals desperately resort to this unhealthy method of weight loss.

The study would specifically look for a correlation between brain anatomy and suffrage from anorexia nervosa among female collegiate athletes. I hypothesize that the hypothalamus of females suffering from anorexia is anatomically different from those of females with healthy eating habits. The hypothalamus is comprised of distinct areas of nuclei which control vital survival behaviors and activities; such as: eating, drinking, temperature regulation, sleep, emotional behavior, and sexual activity. It is located just beneath the thalamus and lies at the base of the brain. The autonomic nervous system and endocrine system are controlled by the hypothalamus. In addition, I think that other parts of the brain which control emotions such as self-esteem and confidence may be affected by the development of eating disorders.

The study would involve two groups of randomly selected subjects, all female, and all members of cross country teams from various Universities in the same conference. Cross country teams generally have more athletes on them than gymnastics teams, swim teams or cheerleading squads do, which would allow for a larger sampling pool from which to draw participants. All participants need to be from the same sport to ensure that they experience similar physical and emotional pressures. It is highly unlikely that many girls on one cross country team would be suffering from anorexia; consequently, subjects with eating disorders would have to be collected from more than one source or University. The participants in the study would need to sign a consent form which ensures their right to privacy and their right to withdraw from the experiment at any time.

Subjects would be closely monitored by experimenters for a period of four years, a typical career length for collegiate athletes, and observations would be carefully recorded. During this time, coaches would be instructed not to alter their behavioral or coaching techniques in any way to monthly checkups with team trainers would check for changes in weight loss, appetite, muscle mass, percentage body fat, self confidence level, emotional stability, physical performance, and physical appearance. Interviews should be conducted with the randomly selected female athletes because interviews allow experimenters to ask specific questions and confront the girls personally. The wording of the questions, however, must be neutral as to not elicit a certain wanted response from participants. MRIs should be conducted once every six months to observe any possible changes in the brain physiology, and MRI technicians should record any abnormal findings and report them directly to experimenters. All data should then be compiled into large data sheets, comparing the progress of each female athlete to all others. General trends and patterns should be noted. The data would then be compared to normal brain activity and anatomy for females of the same age and development level. The routine MRIs would be funded by individual donations and fundraisers, and athlete participants would receive some form of monetary compensation for their time.

This four-year long experiment would hopefully discover a correlation between an irregular physiological makeup or abnormal neural activity and anorexia nervosa. Since countless female athletes struggle with this disease throughout life, the possible use of MRIs to detect eating disorders could potentially prevent suffering and even save lives.

2006-03-09T17:46:00.000-05:00

The Progression of Alzheimer’s can be mapped and does being African American put you at a higher risk to develop Alzheimer’s

Over the past few years, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) brain scanning technology has greatly improved and increased the amount of information available to research fields that deal with certain brain disorders. Essentially, an MRI has the capability to map the brain, scan for irregularities, and observe overall functions of the brain. “Dynamics of Gray Matter Loss in Alzheimer’s Disease” by Paul M. Thompson featured in The Journal of Neuroscience, compares how brain activity in a group of patients, 12 clinically diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and 14 elderly control patients, differs over a time interval of three years. The scan results demonstrate how AD is a systematically progressive disease that targets certain brain regions. Researchers were able to map these regions by detecting gray matter loss in brain functions. The highly detailed brain maps acquired by MRI were able to differentiate the multiple stages of AD and separate the symptoms of AD from regular aging (Thompson et al., 994, par. 1). The importance of this study is if the path of degeneration in AD patients can be compared to controlled elderly individuals there is more likelihood that scientists will be able to develop treatments for AD.

In combination with the use of MRI scans, the progress of the patients was tested with the Mini-Mental State Exam (MMSE), which helps determine the cognitive status of patients with a maximum possible score of 30 points (Thompson et al., 995, par. 1). The MMSE score of the patients with Alzheimer disease quickly declined over the course of the study from an average of 18 to just below 13; the control subjects were completely level with an average score of 29 (Thompson et al., 995, par. 2). Thompson and his colleagues believe these scores represent three stages of Alzheimer’s disease with natural aging corresponding to MMSE score of 29, and mild and moderate Alzheimer’s corresponding to scores of 18 and 13, respectively (Thompson et al., 995, par. 2).

It is also important to note that Thompson’s group was able to relate gray matter loss to lower MMSE scores and cognitive function among AD patients and control patients. Gray matter is most commonly understood as the parts of the brain responsible for information processing, and white matter is used for information transmission (Wikipedia). Gray matter loss in AD patients was considerable when compared to the controls, with AD patients losing approximately 5% per year and controls losing 0.90% per year (Thompson et al., 1000, par. 5). Another intriguing characteristic of gray matter loss in Alzheimer patients is the faster deterioration of the left hemisphere of the brain compared to that of the right hemisphere (Thompson et al., 1001, par. 4)—AD follows a sequence where the degeneration of matter starts in the frontal lobes, moves to the left hemisphere and then spreads to the right hemisphere. Therefore through Thompson’s research, his group was able to determine broad sequences of the disease based on accurate MRI imaging combined with MMSE cognitive scores which may help further the knowledge of AD degeneration.

Drahomira Sencakova, author of “Hippocampal Atrophy Correlates with Clinical Features of Alzheimer Disease in African Americans,” in the Archives of Neurology, shows how African Americans are more prone to contract AD. Sencakova was interested to determine whether race was a factor in the susceptibility of AD because past studies African Americans have been known to have higher levels of apolipoprotein E (APOE) 4 genotype than Caucasian patients (Sencakova et al., 1593, par. 1). Hippocampal MRI measurements, measurements of the medial temporal lobe structures, were employed because AD typically starts in this region of the brain (Sencakova et al., 1593, par. 1). The study was composed of 54 healthy African Americans, and 32 African Americans clinically diagnosed with AD.

Sencakova’s study among African Americans reveals that hippocampal volumes were drastically atrophic in patients with AD compared with the control subjects. The subjects in the experiment were monitored like in Thompson’s study with MMSE scores and Clinical Dementia Rating (CDR) scores. On the CDR scale a score, 0.5 is considered very mild and 2 is considered moderate (Sencakova et al., 1594, par. 2). The study indicates that hippocampal volumes declined with increasing CDR score in patients and proves that hippocampal atrophy is a characteristic of all patients with AD regardless of race. (Sencakova et al., 1596, par. 5). Lastly, the study confirms that African Americans who carry the APOE genotype are at greater risk to develop AD than subjects without the genotype. (Sencakova et al., 1596, par. 6).

Sencakova’s study shows that it may be possible to link certain genes that are prevalent amongst different races as a potential cause that leads to the development of AD in patients. This research is significant because if certain genes cause disorders, especially AD, than scientists may be able to alter the genes and therefore develop treatments.

“Dynamics of Gray Matter Loss in Alzheimer’s Disease” by Paul Thompson, and “Hippocampal Atrophy Correlates with Clinical Features of Alzheimer Disease in African Americans” by Drahomira Sencakova validate that MRI technology is essential for learning how the brain works. In essence, MRI’s have become like a roadmap charting the brain with sharp precision and will eventually lead scientists the destination of better understanding or even treatment of certain neurological disorders.

Works Cited

Thompson, Paul M. et al. "Dynamics of Gray Matter Loss in Alzheimer's Disease." The Journal of Neuroscience 23 (2003): 994-1005. 5 Mar. 2006 .

2006-03-09T17:39:00.000-05:00

MRIs Saving Lives

Can MRIs save lives in the future? As its scientific name suggests, Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) uses magnetic fields and radio waves to generate detailed images of the inside of the human body. MRIs detect many medical conditions and disorders, including central nervous system disorders, brain and organ tumors, brain abnormalities, blood vessel blockages and bone and joint damage. In his scholarly journal article, “MRI-Mapping the Human Brain Electronically,” Doctor Michael E. Moseley specifically discusses the success of fMRI and MRI in analyzing the metabolic changes which occur in the human brain during cognitive processes. S.F. Witelson’s article “Intelligence and brain size in 100 postmodern brains: sex, lateralization and age factors” similarly focuses on the development of MRI brain evaluations to benefit humans.

Doctor Moseley’s evaluation of the brain, divided into sections like those of an encyclopedia, introduces the concepts of MRI and fMRI, describes brain mapping by MRI, analyzes an experiment and provides multiple MRI pictures to explain his reasoning. He argues that fMRI methods “have major advantages over other functional imaging methods such as PET in that tissue flow, diffusion, perfusion, and oxygenation can be imaged continuously before, during, or after perturbation, disease, or activation of functional centers” (Moseley 3). This particular focus on minute details produces a more accurate reading of brain activity for neurologists to evaluate. Recently, MRIs have been used clinically to map the motor and somatosensory cortex of the brain to detect tumors, trauma and stroke. This non-invasive advancement in improved functional mapping will likely be incorporated into the lives of many elderly to “check-up” on their brain’s well-being. The “unprecedented spatial and temporal resolution” provided by the advancement of fMRI technology will potentially detect and help prevent brain disorders and abnormalities in the future (Moseley 4).

While Witelson’s article also involves the brain mapping technology of MRIs, it specifically measures human intelligence by comparing brain size to brain weight, head circumference and brain volume. Witelson’s study found that cognitive ability and cerebral volume do have a positive correlation; however, this cannot prove that one causes the other. The relationship also depends on the realm of intelligence studied, as well as the sex and “hemispheric functional lateralization” of the subject (par. 5). Specifically, general verbal ability was positively correlated with cerebral volume, and volume difference among women and men accounted for approximately thirty-six percent for variation in verbal intelligence (par. 5). In addition, studies focusing on males show that visual ability and cerebral volume are strongly linked to the age of the individual being studied. This relatively new and innovative research on brain mapping and cerebral volume can help explain relationships between motor skills and brain development in the future.

Though Doctor Moseley’s article differs greatly from that of Witelson, both concern the effectiveness of MRI in brain mapping and applying the new findings to the public. Moseley explains that fMRI, an innovative method of MRI, will eventually detect tumors, brain trauma and strokes in individuals. Witelson is able to find relationships between different cognitive development skills by comparing brain mappings from MRIs, which might help define the physiological differences in people with learning disabilities. MRI technology is improving rapidly and has much potential to more successfully improve the well-being of many humans in the near future.

2006-03-07T21:52:00.000-05:00

New Ways to Fuel Cars

Do you ever think about what would happen if the earth ever ran out of petroleum oil for gasoline? That is something that I think about. “Can ethanol replace oil?” is a blog I found when I was surfing the internet one day. There is talk that this new product can and maybe will one day replace oil used in everyday vehicles. Maybe I was not the only person who was thinking about the end of earth’s oil, because scientist and car manufacturers have thought of an alterative to using petroleum gasoline.

In stead of using gasoline to fuel cars, scientists are trying to use ethanol. The use of ethanol is not but so much better than using gasoline, but it can be produced from corn or sugar cane. There is so much of a need for new ways to fuel cars that researchers and scientist have turned to the environment for new alternatives. Car manufacturers are making cars that are called “flex-fuel” vehicles. These vehicles can run on 85 percent ethanol gas which is called E85. The development of a new way to fuel cars is a big discovery because the earth’s supply of fossil fuels will one day be depleted if they are continually used for fueling cars, and other machines that humans use for everyday life.

The United States is the world’s largest consumer of oil. We consume three hundred times more than China who is second in oil consumption in the world. I know it is a privilege to live in the United States, but we are sucking the world dry of its natural resources. When making a mental picture in my head of what the United States is compared to the rest of the world, I imagine the U.S. as this big bully, who threatens other countries and who takes what it wants without caring if the other countries in the world need anything. I know it is a silly thing to say, but when looking at a statistic like the oil consumption in the United States, we are bullies. Now that there is a concern for how much natural resources are being used we want to step in the picture of historical events and come up with remedies to problems that we had a major hand in causing.

General Motors is now launching a campaign that says “Live Green Go Yellow”. This is its campaign to promote their new line of cars that run on E85 ethanol. These cars are supposed to lower greenhouse gas emissions, reduce dependence on petroleum, reduce smog, and improve vehicle performance. GM is making all of their 2006 model cars E85 fuel efficient, but they have later model cars that are capable of using the new fuel. Even though GM is the leading automaker that is promoting the use of E85 ethanol, there are other automakers that are trying to manufacture flexible fuel vehicles such as, Chrysler, Ford, Mercedes-Benz, and Nissan.

There are different types of ethanol. There is E10, E20, and E30, but for now in the early days of research and trials automakers want to stick with the use of E85 for their vehicles. As of right now there are still not many E85 ethanol gas stations. There are only about 600 stations in the United States that offer E85 ethanol, but the number is steadily going up. The price of E85 varies, but when gas prices went up in September 2005, E85 ethanol was 60 cents cheaper. That is a lot of money when you are talking about gas. So now when you are thinking about buying a new car, there are more things to thing about other than the price, and look of a car. The type of fuel used is now a big issue when choosing a new car to drive, because we all want the best for our selves and the environment.

2006-03-06T14:58:00.000-05:00

Giving déjá vu a second look

My swim team started a tradition of hosting a meet every year. On the night before the second annual meet, the Pritchetts had the entire team over for a big, carb-loaded dinner. My teammate, Danielle, and I made our way to a table between the breakfast nook and the living room with our plates. We sat down and began talking about what events we would swim the next day. I had an overwhelming feeling that I had done this all before: sitting in the Pritchett’s house, in that spot, talking with Danielle. I asked her if we sat in the same place together last year and she said, “Last year? We didn’t have a team dinner last year…must be déjá vu.” I had never been in the Pritchett’s house before in my life….so what convinced me I remembered this experience?

According to a post on “Science Blog” titled Giving déjá vu a second look, there are actually people who have chronic déjá vu. This new discovery has made studying the fleeting feeling of déjá vu possible. Dr. Chris Moulin, in association with the Cognitive Feelings Framework (CFF) and Leeds University in Yorkshire, are conducting the very first psychological research on déjá vu by studying sufferers of this chronic condition (Science Blog). When I got déjá vu, it unsettled me because it does not happen often, but there are subjects in Moulin’s study that feel as if they are remembering all of the events in their lives. Moulin discovered chronic déjá vu when he met a patient in a memory clinic in Bath five years ago (The Yorkshire Post). The man was convinced that there was no point in going to Moulin’s clinic because he thought that he had already been there before, met Dr. Moulin, and could even report details of what had “happened” (Science Blog). In his study, Moulin hopes to identify what causes the subjects’ memory to have this cognitive malfunction.

The article I found on “Science Blog” defines déjá vu as “the unsettling sensation of knowing that a situation could not have been experienced, combined with the feeling that it has” (Science Blog). Chris Moulin is studying how this feeling is triggered by the brain. He has hypothesized that “the sensations associated with remembering are separated to the contents of memory, that there are two different systems in the brain at work” (Science Blog). In his study, Moulin collects subjective descriptions of déjá vu experiences, reported by his subjects, and conducts brain scans of his subjects while they experience induced déjá vu. He asks his subjects to explain what characterizes their “memories” and they can often recall specific details of events that never happened. Moulin’s research assistant and PhD student, Akira O’Connor, induces déjá vu in the subjects by showing a word to them, hypnotizing them to forget it, and then showing it to them again. Moulin then compares the different subjects’ reports and brain scans to find similarities in their experiences, and to figure out what the brain does during déjá vu. It is possible the subjects’ chronic déjá vu is actually a physical memory problem caused by a brain dysfunction that they have in common. If there is a part of the brain that is responsible for the sensation of remembering, that part may be overactive or permanently turned on in these patients (Science Blog).

Interestingly, all of the subjects in Moulin’s study have suffered from chronic pain or from a head injury, which led Moulin to report to the BBC news, “It is a new symptom, not a syndrome.” He also said that it could have detrimental effects on the subjects’ lives. Many of them fell into depression because of chronic déjá vu (BBC). I can imagine that life would become very mundane and uninspiring to these people. They are missing out on the excitement of doing new things. I think that this research is very interesting, and hopefully may make it possible to find a cure for this symptom someday. For the time being, at least the subjects now know that they are not alone, that other people have this recurring sensation. Dr. Moulin is forming a patient network to help encourage chronic déjá vu sufferers: “We’re finding people all over the world with these problems. Chronic déjà vu sufferers need the reassurance that they’re not alone, and we need them to help us learn more about who has it, what causes it, and why” (Science Blog).

View the original article from Leeds University's newspaper "The Reporter" (includes photos!)

2006-03-03T12:30:00.000-05:00

So what’s so different about people with brain disorders?

Are people born with brain disorders or do they evolve and progress as people age? What is it about the brain that causes people to suffer from brain disorders? Can modern medicine do anything to fix or prevent these abnormalities? These questions and more must be answered in order to improve the lives of people that suffer from all brain disfunctions. The effects on the brain of the following disorders will be evaluated and compared; schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and clinical depression. All three of these disorders drastically affect the lives of patients and deserve a closer look in order to better understand and prevent the disorders. The following detailed hypothesis and procedure are intended to fulfill the requirements for my English Unit project at the University of Chapel Hill.

Schizophrenia affects approximately 1 percent of Americans and occurs most often in men. According to schizophrenia.com, “people with schizophrenia often suffer terrifying symptoms such as hearing internal voices not heard by others, or believing that other people are reading their minds, controlling their thoughts, or plotting to harm them. These symptoms may leave them fearful and withdrawn.”

Bipolar disorder also affects about 1 percent of Americans. The disease is more treatable than schizophrenia, yet it also drastically affects the lives of those who suffer. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, bipolar disorder

“is a brain disorder that causes unusual shifts in a person's mood, energy, and ability to function. Different from the normal ups and downs that everyone goes through, the symptoms of bipolar disorder are severe.”

According to the National Mental Health Association, clinical depression affects over 9% of Americans; yet, over half of those suffering from depression, do not seek treatment. The National Mental Health Association explains that depression causes people to lose pleasure from daily life, can complicate other medical conditions, and can even be serious enough to lead to suicide. Depression crosses cultural, age, gender, and ethnic boundaries. Unfortunately, depression is considered by many as a natural part of life, however, it is not normal and results from a chemical imbalance in the brain.

The purpose of this experiment is to assess the progression of brain abnormalities over time of patients with bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and severe clinical depression and to compare and contrast brain changes of people with the three disorders. A thorough comparison of brain changes will help to understand exactly what happens in patients and to discover if specific brain disorders have characteristic tell-tale signs. My hope for the experiment is to provide a broad overview of how the brain may change in size, structure, and/or chemical processing as brain diseases progress.

Due to previous research in English 12 conducted at the University of North Carolina, I predict that the brain will change drastically in patients with all three disorders. I hypothesize that brain size, as well as other structural and shape abnormalities, will change in patients with schizophrenia, bipolar disorders, and clinical depression. Specifically, I hypothesize that the cerebrum and limbic systems of the brain will be altered since these areas control thoughts and emotions respectively. I believe that the most change will be observed in patients with bipolar disorder, followed by schizophrenia, followed by clinical depression, due to the severity of the effects of these three diseases.

To begin the experiment, a simple random sample of five thousand females and five thousand males born over the course of one week across the United States should be selected with no regard to race or ethnicity. An initial MRI brain scan should be conducted on each infant in order to assess the initial brain size, structure, and shape of the newborn. The MRI technique has been used since the early 1980s and involves magnetic and radio waves, not X-rays, and is, therefore, relatively safe; MRIs are an especially good way to study the developing infant. MRIs used specifically for brain scanning, however, are a much more recent way of assessing the brain. After the initial MRI, brain size, structure, and shape should be recorded and analyzed. Parents of infants with already noticeable brain abnormalities should be given special notice and initial hypotheses as to possible brain disorders should be formulated.

After the initial brain MRI, six months should pass while the infant is in its normal environment with no special attention. After six months, a second brain MRI should be conducted. All changes in brain size and chemistry should be recorded, as should any unusual behavior of the infant that might be tied to brain dysfunction. In order to accurately analyze change, quantitative numerical values should be assigned to different sizes and changes of the brain. Graphs and charts should be created in order to measure progression and change of the brain and to compare the infants. Another six months should then pass before the next MRI scan for the infants. Again, any changes should be recorded in accordance to the numerical values assigned to these changes and any unusual behavior of the infants should be recorded. At this point, parents should be interviewed in order to take note of any extreme behavioral aspects of their child. Parents should notify the interviewer of any extreme mood wings that the child experiences. Interactions of the child with other children should be discussed with the parent, as abnormal interactions can be signs of brain dysfunction. At this time, parents should also be questioned as to family history of schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and clinical depression. Many brain disorders are now considered to be hereditary and knowledge of the gene pool of the infants will help assess their current medical state.

An MRI should be conducted every six months on each individual until the children reach age 10. At each MRI session, any abnormal behavior should be recorded and parents should be interviewed as to the behavior of their children. Starting at age 5, children should also be interviewed in order to assess their mental stability.

Between the ages of 10 and 20, as the children begin their adolescent years when much growth and change is occurring, brain MRIs should be conducted every 3 months. Intensive interviews should be conducted with the adolescent and his/her parents with particular focus of the questioning on symptoms that might suggest schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or depression. During this time, as mental disorders become clear and medications and treatment are given, the effects of such medications and treatments on the brain should also be recorded. After age 20, brain MRIs should be conducted every 6 months until age 60.

After all patients have reached age 60, conclusions should begin to be made as to the changes in brain size and structure. Those persons diagnosed with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and depression should each be placed in separate groups and those persons not diagnosed with a brain disorder should be in another group. Within each group, trends should be observed and recorded as to brain changes in relation to when diagnoses were made regarding mental disorders. Conclusions should also be made regarding changes in brain size, shape, and structure after treatment for such disorders.

Throughout the course of the experiment, all families involved should be reimbursed for travel expenses and given a stipend in order to fully compensate for their trouble. All children involved should be treated with respect and all cases treated as confidential. In addition, all treatments and medications for the disorders should be given free of charge. This experiment would be an important step towards further understanding the anatomical causes of mental diseases

Specific attention should be given to the similarities and differences in the brains of those diagnosed with different brain disorders. This comparison will allow for a thorough assessment of the specific changes for each brain disorder and will allow the medical field to identify how each individual brain disorder affects the brain. Doctors will be able to more accurately diagnose patients with brain disorders and to assess the effectiveness of treatments. A cure is essential for those who suffer from schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and clinical disorders. This experiment is a step towards better understanding how the brain changes structurally and will hopefully inform medical caregivers as to how they can better treat patients, and, eventually find a cure!!

2006-03-03T00:39:00.000-05:00

Mononucleosis in College Students

Are you an overtired college student? Could Mononucleosis be the source of your exhaustion? The blog titled “Let’s go there…what do you want to know” discusses a wide variety of human diseases and health issues, including Mononucleosis, HIV, cancer and various sexually transmitted diseases. One of the most recent posts, “Infectious Mononucleosis,” specifically features the “kissing disease,” its symptoms, causes, treatments and risk factors. The site’s analysis of the virus proves rather general in that it merely skims the surface of the illness, yet effective in providing useful and accurate information. Highly contagious and transmitted solely through saliva exchange, Mononucleosis specifically threatens college students nationwide. Drinking after, kissing, or being coughed on by a carrier of the virus puts others at risk for infection. Crowded party atmospheres promote this type of close contact between students. Lack of sleep, poor eating habits, living arrangements and stressful work load burden college students daily and exhaust the human immune system. This makes students more vulnerable to the bacterial and viral infections prevalent surrounding them.

Symptoms of Mononucleosis commonly take two months to fully develop after initial exposure; consequently, many people are unaware of their condition and unknowingly pass the illness to others. According to WedMD, typical symptoms include swollen lymph nodes, sore throat, headache, fever of one hundred and three degrees Fahrenheit or higher, abdominal pain, stomach ache, fatigue, loss of appetite, and weakness. One severe complication of Mononucleosis mentioned in this blog’s analysis of the illness is the enlargement of the spleen, an organ located in the upper left part of the abdomen. The spleen acts as an integral part of the body’s lymphatic system, which helps the body combat disease-causing bacteria and infection. As blood from the body passes through the spleen, lymphocytes, a type of white blood cells, and macrophages engulf and destroy dead tissue and foreign matter from it, thus filtering the blood of various toxins.

In approximately thirty to forty percent of all mononucleosis cases, the constant fighting of bacteria in the body by white blood cells causes the spleen to become overloaded and swollen. This hypothetical enlargement of the spleen proves very dangerous and requires immediate medical attention. Recent research suggests that while experiencing spleen enlargement, patients should abandon all strenuous physical activity, such as participation in sports, because a swollen spleen can easily rupture if physical impact targets that specific area of the body. As a freshman at the University of North Carolina, I suffered from Mononucleosis for about two months at the beginning of the spring semester. It exhausted me both physically and emotionally, as it was difficult to juggle schoolwork, cheerleading and recuperating. My spleen became dangerously enlarged, which was painful and frustrating, since the only current treatment available for Mononucleosis is time. I had to suspend participation in all athletic activity; even walking to class was strongly discouraged by doctors. Abdominal ultrasounds, blood tests, and doctor appointments were scheduled almost daily for two months as I slowly recovered from the illness.

It is especially typical of a preoccupied college student to ignore an illness such as Mononucleosis, which is often mistaken for a persistent cold and exhaustion. For this reason, many people become infected and remain unaware for long periods of time. After all, most college students are overworked and overtired, right? If you experience symptoms of Mononucleosis or know that you have been exposed to the disease, seek medical attention immediately.

Works Cited
Huskey, Robert J. "Just what Does the Spleen do?" 24 February 2004. 25 February 2006 .
"Mononucleosis." University of Maryland Medical Center. 2004. February 13, 2006 .

2006-02-27T15:00:00.000-05:00

Holistic Treatments for Bipolar Disorder

Dear twenty-something, fun-loving, mood-swinging Canadian, thanks so much for your post regarding bipolar disorder on your blog, Caught in My Burble. I would like to add some additional information on some unorthodox treatments for bipolar disorder based on my research for my English class, entitled Blogging and the Brain, at UNC-Chapel Hill. Bipolar disorder deserves some serious research, as it affects more than 2.3 millions Americans. Symptoms include extreme mood swings, depression, excessive energy followed by laziness, poor judgment, and denial of the problem. While traditional treatments that you discuss, such as mood stabilizers, inositol, and lithium, are all useful in treating the symptoms of bipolar disorder, these treatments address only the symptoms of the disorder, not the cause of disorder itself. In contrast to traditional medicinal treatments, holistic treatments, such as nutritional programs, exercise, and healthy relationships, treat the disease, not just the symptoms, and are better long-term options.

In the twenty-first century, the term “holistic” has a spiritual connotation. Holistic practitioners, though they do pay special attention to the spiritual and emotional health of the patient, also focus on concrete treatment options such as nutritional programs and environmental changes that decrease disease symptoms. A holistic practitioner is responsible for creating a personal relationship with the patient and for assessing his/her patient’s entire lifestyle, including sleep patterns, eating and exercise habits, mood swings, relationships, and environment. Observations of the Abnormal and/or detrimental patient’s lifestyle lead the holistic practitioner to a comprehensive and well-rounded diagnosis and treatment plan.

Proper Nutrition helps maintain proper chemical balance in the body and the avoidance of certain foods can decrease the risk of a manic attack. Proper nutrition involves a diet heavily based on whole grains, plenty of protein, and lots of fruits and vegetables. Sound sensible, right? Eating properly is especially important for the bipolar patient, as one can avoid the risk of a chemical imbalance that might cause a manic attack. In addition, eating properly helps keep off those few extra pounds that might cause the patient to become depressed and, therefore, more susceptible to an attack. Avoiding refined sugars and caffeine also reduces the risk of an attack. Recent research suggest that supplementing a proper diet with Vitamin B complex, various amino acids, zinc, calcium, and Vitamin C can also help to maintain chemical equilibrium in the patient’s body.

Exercise is vitally important to treating bipolar disorder. Patients report fewer manic attacks when they are regularly exercising. Endorphins released while exercising increase the patient’s sense of well-being and help decrease the risk of depression that might lead to a manic attack. The body needs exercise and being active is a great way to maintain a proper chemical balance and avoid a manic attack.

Healthy Relationships with others are a vital part of maintaining a healthy lifestyle for a bipolar patient. Depression that can lead to manic attacks is often caused by loneliness or seclusion from society. Depression, in turn, causes many people to retract from society even more (from social groups, church groups, sport’s teams, etc.), which only makes the individual more secluded and without a support system. It is imperative for bipolar patients to have close friends to monitor their behavior, distract them from their disease, and to assist them in finding and maintaining proper treatment.

Holistic treatments for bipolar disorder are a great way to supplement a traditional medicinal treatment plan. As with medication, always check with your doctor before making any major lifestyle changes. I hope that by paying special attention to diet, exercise, and supportive relationships anyone reading this who may suffer from bipolar disorder can live a life without the stress and impediments of the disease.

2006-02-20T14:10:00.000-05:00

Prescription Drugs for Alzheimer Disease

“Abstract of the Day: Alzheimer Disease Drug Treatments” is a post written by Dr. Anthony Risser on his blog, “Brainblog.” He is a neuropsychologist who researches and accesses brain disorders. In his post, Dr. Risser analyzes a study that was conducted concerning three cholinergic drugs: donepezil (Aricept), galantamine (Reminyl), and rivastigmine (Exelon). Over the past decade, much research has been performed to help better understand the effects Alzheimer’s disease (AD) has on its patients and whether or not it can be cured. Riser’s research gives hope to patients and families that suffer from Alzheimer’s disease by presenting drugs that may prolong the effects of Alzheimer’s, but fails to connect with an every-day audience through his overly scientific tone.

In essence, the research examined by Dr. Risser indicates that the use of these drugs somewhat betters the situation of patients with Alzheimer’s disease, or at least slows the effects of AD. Although research has been conducted by many researchers to help find a cure for AD, currently, there appears to be no cure. The Food and Drug Administration approved the three drugs in Risser’s post, along with a few similar drugs, as prescription drugs for patients suffering form mild to moderate symptoms of AD. These drugs are effective in targeting symptoms of AD because they belong to a group of cholinesterase inhibitors which help increase the amount of acetylcholine, an important brain chemical that nerves use to communicate with each other in order to from memory (FDA). Cholinergic drugs facilitate memory functions by blocking the enzyme acetylcholinesterase which keeps nerves from communicating. Unfortunately, cholinergic drugs can only slow down the process of deterioration; the nerve cells continue to die as the disease progresses (FDA). However, Trey Sunderland, M.D., chief of the Geriatric Psychiatry Branch of the National Institute of Mental Health, argues the research proves that patients on these drugs can delay the need for nursing home care by an average of about 22 months compared to those not on the drugs.

The research discovered over the past few years will hopefully allow for many AD patients to prolong their mental health and sustain normal life. Having had a grandmother with a severe case of Alzheimer’s disease myself, the effects of AD can be numerous, depressing, and overwhelming for both the patient and all family members. The slow decaying of the patient’s memory and overall mental state is the most agonizing aspect of the disorder; the family is forced to see a loved one’s mind enter a vegetative state. The patient fails to remember their surroundings, daily tasks, familiar people, and eventually lack the ability to acknowledge their own family members or even remember to go to the bathroom. My grandmother was bilingual, French was her native language, and although she was fluent in English as well, midway through her condition she lost the ability to speak English and could only mumble some French. It was extremely emotionally tolling to witness my father’s pain as he was no longer recognized by his own mother. As my grandmother’s condition worsened, she could do nothing more than lie in bed and caress the hair of a “Madeline” doll which she thought was a real child. Sadly, considering my grandmother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 1993 there were no prescription drugs available to help prolong her mental wellness, and she passed away in 2001. Hopefully with this newer research, many families can be spared the grief associated with an Alzheimer’s patient that numerous other families, like mine, have endured.

There is no trouble with Dr. Risser’s argument on Alzheimer’s, but the format of the post remains too scientific and not meant for an every-day audience. With a highly scientific tone, Dr. Risser intends to share his findings and analyses with other professionals in the neuroscience field who are likely to understand the lab write-up format of his blog. Therefore, it can be concluded that he does not intend an average person to be interested in his work, given his tone. The posts are formatted to appear almost as a scientific procedure: summary/background, experiment, results, and conclusions. His commentary is also laced with medical/scientific jargon which many average people would fail to understand. The blog is not concerned with elaborate or descriptive language and is fairly cut and dry or fragmented as one may find in a scientific lab write-up. Also, Dr. Risser’s gains credibility because his information coincides with that on The Food and Drug Administration’s website, which proves his information can be accepted. Generally, Dr. Risser makes an argument that can be followed by most readers: background of the drugs and what they do, experiments conducted with the drugs, and conclusions of the findings.

2006-02-20T11:19:00.000-05:00

Hey Everybody! I'm Carissa. I'm a freshman at UNC Chapel Hill and I plan on majoring in psychology. I would also liked to do something with Spanish....we'll see if I can pull off a double major. Enjoy our blog!

2006-02-15T16:55:00.000-05:00

Hey, I'm Michael and I'm a freshman at UNC-CH. I am a Business Administration major with a Spanish minor. Welcome to our blog!

2006-02-15T11:43:00.000-05:00

Hello,
My name is Charlene. Im a freshman also and I am thinking about majoring in Exercise Sports Science, then going to Physical Therapy school for Pediatric Physical Therapy. Then I would like to back to school for a BS in Radiologic Science, and go into the field of Medical Imaging

2006-02-15T11:41:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone!! I'm Rachelle. I am currently a freshman at UNC-CH, and my intended major is Sports and Exercise Science. I hope to become a physical therapist after college. I am a cheerleader for the Tarheels, and I'm lovin UNC so far! :)

2006-02-15T11:38:00.000-05:00

Hi, this is Jenny! I'm a freshman at UNC-Chapel Hill and I hope to double major in sociology and spanish.