Audrey Milford Sept,26,07 3/3

Today in Bio we marked that chart/matching sheet on an ear and then we were handed a handout called "sex creates brain cells". (you can get this sheet from the folder near the front of the class). Then we read pg 332-335 in our texts and answered three Questions:
1-Define hormone in your own words
2-Compare the Nervous sytem to the Endocrine System( response time and duration time etc.)
3- Does the organ await the hormone or does the hormone await the organ?
Then we did a brief intro of negative and positive feedback. You can read up on this info on page 335 in your text book.

My Opinion: I find the ear and the eye very interesting, there are so many little components of every thing in your body, it is just so complicated. Every little thing has a specific job.

You can get some great pics of an inside of an ear from the following website:www.earinc.com


PS. We also had a look at our bio marks so far if you want to see yours talk to Mr.Challoner at luch or before/after school.
PPS. We will be writing our Nervous System Exam tommorow(Sept 27) first block, so study hard. The key book we received is great for review.

Megan -Thursday, Sept 27-3/3

Today was a double bio day (groan), which means two hours of freezing. My feet actually turned puple!! Not even kidding. Anyways in the block before lunch we had the nervous system unit exam. It was insanely long, but it was ok. About halfway through the exam there was a lockdown, and it was extremely gay. We pretty much weren't allowed to leave the school untill there was 4 minutes left of lunch. It was a giant gong show. So second block we had 15 minutes to finish the exam, then took notes on the endocrine system.
my thiughts on the endocine system- we really havn't covered much, but im not looking foreward to it- having to remember all the hormones and their functions does not excite me, so I dread it.
What i want to know is can glaucoma be prevented? its not really current to what we are doing, but it's all i got.

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/glaucoma/DS00283/DSECTION=8
Until recently, there was no proven way to prevent glaucoma. But a large multicenter trial, supported by the National Eye Institute, found that when glaucoma eyedrops were given daily to people with elevated eye pressure (above 24 mm Hg), they reduced eye pressure an average of 22 percent. More important, the researchers discovered that daily use of eyedrops can reduce the risk of developing glaucoma by nearly half in blacks with elevated eye pressure.
Another study found that cholesterol-lowering medications reduced the risk of open-angle glaucoma, especially for people who already have cardiovascular disease. Although this may be an added benefit for those already taking these medications to reduce their cholesterol levels, more studies need to be done to confirm the reduction in risk of glaucoma.

Jessica Stermanns Blog September 19/07

Sept. 19/07

Jessica’s Blog

Today in Biology class we had a test on the brain. We needed to label the brain and know where the major parts are located. We also had to know the location and functions of the occipital, temporal, parietal, and frontal lobes.In the second half of class we filled out a fill in the blanks sheet about the eye. It listed the major internal structures. A worksheet was assigned for homework “Pathway of light through the eye”. It’s based on the information we learned previously in class today about the eye.

The question came up today in class about if dogs are color-blind. I did some research and found the answer: (http://ask.yahoo.com/20020902.html) resource

A dog's world is not all black and white. To understand what dogs can see, it helps to have some basic knowledge of vision for example the facts we learned today in class. Our vision is optimized for seeing in bright light, while dogs, like many other predators, see best in dimmer light. There are two types of photoreceptor cells in the retina which are rods and cones. Rods process visual information in dim light, while cones handle color and detail. Human vision is trichromatic meaning we have three types of cones that recognize different portions of the color spectrum.

Dogs have only two types of cones -- their dichromatic color vision is similar to that of a human with red-green color-blindness. In addition, a dog's retina contains a much smaller ratio of cones to rods than ours does. So even though dogs don’t have the color range and focus like us, their night vision is superior, thanks to a reflective structure behind their retina called the tapetum lucidum, dogs see objects in the dark as if lit by an eerie glow.

SEE PICTURE ABOVE

Svenja Sept17 3/3

What we did today:

• went over the brain dissection lab



• did the brain dissection quiz



• did the brain dissection of a sheep brain



• did question for the dissection and finished concept maps and flow chart

Thoughts on todays activities:

• I thought the brain dissection was pretty pointless. I thought we would we able to take the brain apart and look at all the individual parts of the brain. We didnt even get to make one cut so it was kind of lame. The questions we did after the lab were easy because all the answers were either in our notes or in the text book.

Beyond:

• How different do the brains of sheep and humans look?



• Human

Sheep

Lida, Fryday’s class overview September 14,2007 3/3

- We started the class out with a pop quiz about the nerve impulse and the synaps.
- We reviewed the concept about depolirazation, repolirazation, polirazation, excited transmit chemical, and inhibitory transmit chemicals.
- We took notes about the central nervous system, and labbled the parts of the brain.
- Second block we had a quiz about the nerve impulse and the synapse. You had to make sure you understand the difference between exitatory and inhibitory transmit chemicals.
- We watched a movie about the nerve impulse.
- Our homework is to read over the Laboratory of the Mammalian Brain.


The brain is really complicated and people still are not sure how the brain works. I think that it is funny that the technology is really advanced but people are still not sure how the brian works. The brain consist of two hemisphere the right (responsible for vision) and the left (responsible for verbal skills). The hemisphere consist of four different lobbes and they control different parts of your body. The four lobbes are frontal lobe, parietal lobe, temperoral lobe, and occitipital lobe. The brain is really complex and consits of many differnt part so it is not easy to label the brain because to me everything looks the same, and the names are really hard to remember. I did not know that the brain consist of grey and white matter and that only the white matte is able te fix damged neurons. I think that it is amazing how the brain controls everythings in our body. I can not believe that is the understanding of the brain is so complicated because the function of the brain is so common for us.

I wonder how morhphine effects the nerves in the body and the nerves in the brain. Morphine effects the receptors of the nerve cell membrane. There are three types of effectors mu, kappa and lambda. Morhpine mainly acts on mu receptors. Anaesthesia morphine has an effect on the actions of the spinal cord. Morphine decreases the transmission of painful stimuli to the brain. (information from http://www.nda.ox.ac.uk/wfsa/html/u03/u03_016.htm, http://www.narconon.ca/morphine.htm ) Morphine effects the brain’s reward system. Morphine is a too strongly activated brain reward and it alters the normal function of these sytems and cause an addiction.

Mr. C, Sept 13, 2007, Mark: 3/3

What we did today:

• reviewed synapses
• got a list of neurotransmitter chemicals (excititory and inhibitory)
• reviewed Key Points of:

1. creating polarized resting membrane,
2. action potential,
3. transmission of impulse,
4. all-or-none response,
5. synapse (+/- neurotransmitters)

• Note: quiz 2 tomorrow on nerve impulses and synapses

Thoughts/Opinions on material:
I find it hard to believe there are billions of neurons in my body all transmitting "messages" in the form of depolarization and neurotransmitter chemicals. Imagining, memories, movement are all due simply to depolarization of neural membranes?

Also, it seems like a system that could screw up very easily. M.S., Huntington's disease, Alzheimers are all due to screwups of the NS. I wonder why they're not more common than they are. Neurilema might be the reason: aids in repair of damaged neurons.

Finally, I wonder how drugs like crack affect my NS.

Above and Beyond:
This website: http://www.cocaine.org/hardstuf.html claims crack's effects are mainly on the PNS, specifically the sympathetic system ("a rush"). Specifically it affects dopamine (neurotransmitter). It signals release of dopamine, then inhibits reuptake of dopamine into synaptic vessicles, so dopamine remains in the synapses far longer than normal and extends euphoric feelings.