Book Assignment : The Brain On Fire

After this episode a professor convinced her to go to the hospital and reluctantly she complied. This hospital did not take kindly to her psychosis and restrained her numerous times with straps. She had never been treated this way before and was confused and frightened. She later said for a hospital for the mentally ill it had been a brutal experience (157). She then was moved to a different hospital, memorial Unit 10 (MU10) where she was first diagnosed with “Schizophrenia with acute exacerbation” (167). Though she had finally gotten a diagnosis for her broken brain it seemed more like a death sentence than a diagnosis. She continued on with life in depression, psychosis, and denial.

“The Human Brain”, by myPerspectives, is an informative article that claims that the brain is a complex organ that is truly impressive. The brain is a key part of the central nervous system, that controls the entire body’s activities, to simple things such as breathing. These actions are fired through neurons, that quickly travel through the spinal cord. Surprisingly, the brain transmits these messages at an unimaginable rate, at 150 miles per hour, through 85 billion cells, called neurons. These neurons can form up to 10,000 synapses, or connections to each other. By itself, the brain can create billions of synapses, which change the structure of the brain every time new information is learned. However, there is still much that scientists

David Dobbs in the Article “Beautiful Brains” proves the theme that it takes teenage brains longer to mature due to the recent change in impulsivity and adolescent behaviors.

I started my education in Erie, Pennslyviana.I attend McDowell High. I would say that we were one of the richer schools were I live. I am going to talk about my first assignment Brainology. I thought it was very interesting and it thought me a lot about how some people have different mindsets.

Brain on Fire was a book wrote by Susannah Cahalan this was her story of the rare disease she got, this made her co-workers, friends, and loved ones worried about her although she was one tough girl her actions were saying different. Cahalan was a beautiful twenty-four-year-old woman who lived in New York and was just a normal writer for the New York Post.

Felicia Allen is a 32 year old woman, who was initially brought into therapy after an attempt to steal a bus. Due to her reported “emotionally disturbed” nature, this consult became a priority. The police report states that Ms. Allen pulled out a knife, and threatened the driver after the driver declined her dollar bills. She then took control of the bus, and crashed it across the street. Upon our meeting, Ms. Allen was fidgety, and swayed back and forth all the while mumbling to herself. If she were questioned, she would look up and say “Sorry, sorry.” As far as patient history goes, Ms. Allen started hearing voices when she was 5 years old. These auditory hallucinations were mostly composed of critical, disparaging voices that made comments on her actions and behaviors. Her severe symptoms led her to be hospitalized fairly consistently since she was 11. Ever since she was young, she has been driven to please, and has a strong desire to be independent. Felicia has been prescribed clozapine for 1 calendar year, which helped her auditory hallucinations a great deal. Given the above symptoms and information, I have diagnosed Felicia Allen with schizophrenia.

Another man told of his horrible experience with Prozac in an anonymous letter to Ann Tracy, Ph.D., who was doing research on the adverse affects of Prozac. He was taking Prozac for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and had been using it for a year; "I quite liked the unsought-for increase in confidence, sociability, etc." However, after he stopped taking it he began to experience what he called "a whole host of mental problems that I'd never experienced before." He described a lack of emotional response that soon became a full-blown depersonalization disorder, which was accompanied by episodes of derealization, extreme experiences of mental impairment, and loss of short-term memory. He went to seven of Los Angeles's top psychiatrists, each one telling him the same thing. They claimed that it wasn't the drug and would prescribe him higher doses of Prozac and other mind-altering drugs. He began to experience "nauseatingly violent dreams with a constant state of unremitting depersonalization . . .to the point where I could barely function." It got so bad that he began to consider suicide.

The autobiography, Over My Head, by Claudia Osborn, gave a glimpse into the life of a former Doctor. The book started by giving insight into Claudia’s life including her challenging career, whom she spent her days with and how she used her free time. Based on the title of the book I was expecting her to suffer from a traumatic brain injury, but I had not anticipated her reaction to it. Although I was aware of some disorientation after the incident, and even some memory loss, I was unaware of her disorientation to the life she once knew. Initially, when Claudia did not realize she had any memory deficits, I was convinced it was due to denial. She was a doctor, I would have thought she would understand her injury and recognize that her injury was as severe as it truly was. Later on in the book, I realized that she was not completely in denial, but truly thought there was nothing truly wrong with her. This could possibly be due to her perspective that nothing bad would happen to her. Every one sees something bad happen whether it is a car accident, cancer, or a traumatic brain injury and they think, “ It won’t happen to me.” In Claudia’s case, it is an extremely frightening and frustrating situation.

Rationale: Jennifer has been presenting with symptoms for unspecified amount of time. Jennifer meets six of the criteria for symptoms being present during the same 2-week period and represents a change from previous functioning. Jennifer is depressed most of the day, nearly every day, has diminished interest in all or almost all activities most of the days, nearly every day, has fatigue or loss of energy nearly every day, feelings of worthlessness, and diminished ability to think or concentrate, is having recurrent thoughts of death, recurrent suicidal ideation without a specific plan. The symptoms have cause clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, and other functioning areas. There is no know substance or medical condition and occurrence is not better explained by Schizophrenia Spectrum or Psychotic Disorders. Jennifer has never had a manic episode or a hypomanic episode. Possible family history of depression - mother.

The Brain That Changes Itself is an informative and an educational book was written by Canadian Psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, writer, and researcher Norman Doidge, who delivers a dramatic change message about the plasticity of the brain; how the brain changes itself. "The Brain That Changes Itself" is a chain of excellent case studies of individuals who have undergone a brain deficit of some kind and examines different types of brain deficits from simple sensory; auditory and visual to complex deficits; missing brain regions. The book recounts neuroscientific advances on how neuroplasticity does not limit the individual to predefined neural limitations and that our way of thinking, as well as the activities that we perform every day,

N.G. was a 43-year-old Russian female who was admitted to Palomar’s Downtown Behavioral Unit (BHU) on Monday 10/10/16. The patient’s reason for admission was that she was brought in by the San Diego Police Department on a 5150. She was being held on a 72-hour psychiatric hold for being a danger to others where she was making threats to hurt her mom. She has had a long history of treatment for her Schizophrenia that she was diagnosed with as a child. When she arrived to the BHU she had symptoms of a mood disturbances, including decreased sleep, increased energy, agitation, anxiety, and aggression.

The PBS special "The Secret Life of the Brain" took us through all different aspects of the brain and its formation through life. These five movies taught us that the brain is plastic and is always changing, cutting unused neurons and filling with different ideas and thoughts that you learn from your environment. The five videos go through the five stages of life; baby, child, teenager, adult and finally the aging brain.

How does memory work? Is it possible to improve your memory? In order to answer these questions, one must look at the different types of memory and how memory is stored in a person's brain.Memory is the mental process of retaining and recalling information or experiences. (1) It is the process of taking events, or facts and storing them in the brain for later use. There are three types of memory: sensory memory, short-term memory, and long-term memory.

There is always a process or stages in which things works or grow. They starts from the beginning and gradually work itself through the correct transformation or process.

I read the article called “Secrets of the Brain” by Carl Zimmer from the February 2014 issue of National Geographic. Zimmer told of a story of a 43 year old woman named Cathy Hutchinson suffered a massive stroke which caused her to lose movement ability, becoming completely paralyzed, and lost her ability to speak. Her doctors didn’t know if she was brain-dead or still mentally there, until one day Hutchinson’s sister asked Hutchinson if she could hear and understand her and Hutchinson looked up with her eyes to answer yes and to let her sister know that she was still there and could understand her.