Showing posts with label Neurons. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Neurons. Show all posts

Monday, 27 August 2012

Smarter kids are more likely to use drugs

 

Its True (Unfortunately)


Thankfully I do not know this from experience but from using the little peanut in my head. Many people would find this statement very surprising at first glance, but when you mull over it, it makes perfect sense.

Stimulation

My hypothesis is that children with higher IQ's and a higher dedication to learn will be more likely to try drugs at least once during there lifetime's.

You see, whether Adults like to admit it or not, school no longer serves a purpose. Its just a place in which we dump our children so that we can go to work, and since our youngsters and teenagers have no economic value anymore like they did back in the industrial period, we leave them in school because they would be in the way. (Which they probably wouldn't if we gave them a chance)

And in this school, it becomes a sort of prison environment, where the inhabitants live in a bubble. A bubble where there actions have no 'real' consequences. I remember a girl in my class was angry because she wasn't allowed to go on a school trip because she was due to be in seclusion that day (which they also do in prisons), and she said in her last school (she was excluded from the last) she pushed a girl down the stairs and broke her wrist but she was still allowed to go to a theme park the next day with the whole school. There are no real consequences when you live in a bubble because your actions only affect everyone locally, they don't actually even cause a blimp on the radar in the 'real' world. (The real world being the one where we all work and socialise with our co-workers.)

In the Bubble

So with a lack of consequences and without a purpose and no stimulation, children and teenagers very smartly and resourcefully create a little makeshift hierarchy and little world (like what happens in prison), in which nobody wants to be at the bottom of and so people claw to be at the top where they are safe.

But smart people who want to learn don't claw because they simply don't want to be popular. Instead what they want is to learn. And this is what makes them easy targets because they (or we if you classify yourself in this group) instead of going to parties, prefer to read book's and practise for that test on Monday morning. I'm not saying Nerd's don't want to conform, it's human nature to want to be part of the herd, but people who crave stimulation of the intellectual kind want to be smarter more than over being popular.

Have you ever wondered why poor white people from the southern states of America are one of the most racially abusive towards black people? (of course this does not apply to every white person from the southern states of America as I tend to find most of them quite sweet)


Often it's because Black people in there view are the only group of people in which they can tread on to make themselves appear to be higher up the hierarchy. Which is wrong because no one is either above nor below each other, just as no child is either above or below one another, but because of this kill or be killed mentality that seems to infect teenagers and children they feel as if they have to have someone below them. And the people at the bottom are more often then not smart people because being 'smart' is not a desirable trait compared to being attractive and envied.
 

How could we not expect them to use drugs?

Living in a bubble in which they don't fit in and being there only world that they can live in during there secondary school years can make them feel bored from the same routine of endless teasing by peers and the lack of purpose of school. And this can make one want to seek stimulation, as that it what makes someone smart someone that seeks new challenges to stimulate brain activity, that they cannot get from school and want to escape the bubble that I have just described (and bored you with, very sorry). So when there world is this cruel and boring, who are we as Adults (who see ALL of this and just blame it on hormones getting to them so we can continue working to survive this economy crash btw) to tell them not to?

And the worst part is I don't have a theory (very unsual I know) on how to make it better for the children.

'No one dies a Virgin. Life fucks us all.'

                                                                    -Kurt Cobain
                                                   
 

 

Saturday, 18 August 2012

The Science behind Addiction

 Different Addictions



Some people are even unfortunately addicted to coloring
When I talk about addiction in this blog post I am not just limiting addiction to drugs because you can be addicted to other stuff besides drugs. So lets just get this clear; you can be addicted to anything. Some people become addicted to gambling, reading, eating, exercise, love, looking in the mirror, anything! I myself had Arithomania (an addiction to counting) a couple years ago where I would associate people with numbers for instance; I would associate my English teacher with the number 1.618 (if you are aware of the divine proportion you will realise the significance of this number and know its actually quite an endearing number) and I would count all the cars on the road. I would also recite the Fibonacci sequence whilst I went asleep aloud which drove my siblings crazy!
So now the point that you can be addicted to anything, even counting numbers, has been made

What make's us addicted to these things?

 
The little red mark is the Nucleas Accumbens

Well, you see it's not actually your fault that you get addicted to something (unless you stupidly inject yourself with heroin then that is your fucking fault), its to do with the brain chemistry. Every living thing on this earth has a reward system implemented into the brain through years of evolution and it is this reward system that has kept you alive for as long as you have been. Without a reward system we wouldn't eat, sleep or drink water. Which is the vital things that keep you alive, unless your a woman, then you need to eat, sleep, drink water and hear compliments. And what produces this 'reward system' is the part of the brain called the Nucleas Accumbens. It is located underneath the Cerebral hemisphere and once a creature performs an action that fulfils something like eating to stop hunger, dopamine is released to the cluster of nerves to encourage this behaviour and you feel good. So next time your hungry you'll know to eat something so you don't feel the pain of hunger and you also get a little rush of dopamine to continue encouraging this behaviour. This is what can make you addicted to the craziest things! Such as coloring ;)

I'm not saying everyone is addicted to sleeping,eating and drinking water. As addiction is when you become very OCD about what your addiction is and it's when it gets out of 'control'. I mean most people don't have a compulsive desire to sleep 24/7 do they? (Unless of course they suffer from a medical disorder or are just fucking lazy.) Whereas someone can have a compulsive desire to looking in the mirror 24/7.

Are some people more at risk of having an addiction than others?


Yes. Just like some people are more likely of getting the flu than other people. But in this case it has nothing to do with the immune system it has to do with the amount of dopamine receptors in the brain. Research conducted by Cambridge university shows that people who had fewer dopamine receptors in a certain region of the brain are more at risk of having an addiction.

I theorise its because of the low amount of receptors in the brain of whatever particular animal or person that makes them want to seek out how to amplify that amount of dopamine that is being released by having an addiction. Of course they are not doing it consciously (unless they are making the ridiculous conscious choice of whether to have that snort of cocaine), many addictions are accidental as I'm sure no one really want to get addicted to eating plaster off the wall, as I saw on an advert for the TV show 'my weird addictions'.

Whats the cure for addiction?


 







Monday, 13 August 2012

How does Classical music enhance brain activity?



The Joy of Classical music


I love classical music. Being I nerd, I don't have a choice, otherwise I am no longer allowed in the nerd circle at school. And its not like I'll be welcome to any other cliche's in the school yard. Anyway,other day, one of my non-nerd friends asked ''does Classical music actually make you, like, cleverer?'' (Her word's not mine)

I don't know as all studies conducted on this subject all seem to contradict each other. But if it were to
enhance brain activity and make you ''cleverer'' so to speak, then I imagine it would be because of the following reason. So Jenna, my buddy, this is answering your question ;)


In classical music the instruments do not always play at the same time and at the same note. And it is this pattern of stimuli that requires the brain to logically process this different note playing at different times stuff. And the brain loves it! Without stimulation the brain tissue would die even if you were to preserve it with the nutrition and temperature, which is why when people are locked in an empty room without social stimulation they go slightly crazy. (Which is what my family does to me quite often) :/

And because classical music is a harmony of  beautiful, and genius mathematical precision when the brain detects this it consequently stimulates both hemispheres of the brain and causes to begin to fire in sequence of the particular piece you are listening to.


Damn if the neurons begin to fire to the sequence of the music your listening to, imagine how fast there firing when your listening to this!