Chocolate is a food we are all familiar with and occasionally develop cravings for. Why we develop these cravings (intense desires to eat particular foods [6]) is an interesting area of research. Usually at emotional lows [1] or times of boredom cravings begin to arise. It was found that 40% of women and 15% of men have admitted to developing chocolate cravings [10]. The difference in gender frequency will be further explored. It is obvious, by the availability and vast consumption, that chocolate has some mysterious power; it is very palatable and can elevates one’s mood. How? It is a substance that we all love and yet it consists of over 300 known chemicals [8] and many more that have yet to be discovered.

Lea Rifkin
Biology 202
Professor Grobstein
Spring 2007
Web Paper 3

The Perception of Pain:
Understanding Fibromyalgia

Similar to beauty, which has been said to be in the eye of the beholder, perhaps ironically pain is in the perception of the victim. Thus, throughout history, the victims, or patients, or clients, or invalids, or individuals experiencing pain have often also encountered difficulty communicating their pain to the medical community.

The case of Fibromyalgia, or Fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS), has been no exception. Although historians have noted that symptoms of Fibromyalgia have been documented as far back as biblical times, when Job complained of restless nights and tender joints, the medical community at that time had no name for his pain (1). The same holds true for Frida Kahlo, who is now thought to have suffered from posttraumatic Fibromyalgia (2). This diagnosis may explain Frida's poor response to the multiple treatments she received both in Mexico and in the United States of America (2).

Characterized by poor attention skills, hyperactivity, and an inability to control impulses, Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) impacts an estimated seven percent of the population (1)(2).  It is thought that ADD occurs due to missing neural connections and a lack of blood vessels in the pre-frontal cortex (2).  There has been research to suggest that the causes of ADD are due to a lack of dopamine receptors and transporters (2).  In recent years, there has been an increase in the number of children diagnosed as ADD (2).  Because of this, there has been an increase in research with the goal of determining the cause of ADD.  With this, several theories have emerged to explain the reasons behind ADD.  This paper is a critical examination of these possible origins.
 Research suggests that there is a genetic component to ADD (1)(2)(3).  Twenty five percent of children with ADD also have close relatives with ADD.  By contrast, this only applies to 5 percent of the general population (3).  One study suggested that up to 80 percent of ADD can be linked to genetic factors (4).  Currently, there is research being conducted to ascertain which genes are responsible for ADD (5).  So far, the genes that have been isolated are associated with dopamine receptors.  Most scientists who research ADD hypothesize that it is not a single gene that causes ADD but multiple ones.  The genetic explanation for ADD is logical because of the high correlation between parents and children with ADD.  That being said, there are probably other factors that can influence this disorder.

The short book Neurobiology of Human Values was edited by J.-P. Changeux, A.R. Damasio, W. Singer and Y. Christen (all of whom are senior and influential neuroscientists) and comprises 12 essays, each composed for The Symposium by several contributors. Organized by the Foundation Ispen in Paris on January 24, 2005, The Symposium was one of the first events seeking to provide an overview of the neurobiology of human values.

Man has been contemplating the basis of his own ethical and aesthetic values for centuries. Many scientists and researchers have avoided this field of investigation; in the name of seeking an objective truth, it has been assumed that the scientific approach should naturally avoid normative truths such as feelings and consciousness. Until very recently, such a mindset has kept such issues in the hands of philosophers, moralists and theologists. It has even been said that the purpose of moral philosophy is to protect us from science. Before having taken this class, I must admit that I was of relatively the same mindset. However, the rise of neuroscience and other similar disciplines has thankfully made it so that a more objective and experimental approach to the issue of human values is available to us.

In her two essays published as a single work entitled Illness as Metaphor and AIDS and Its Metaphors in 1990, cultural critic and intellectual Susan Sontag, a cancer survivor herself, aptly presents the varied and convoluted metaphors surrounding illness. Focusing on tuberculosis, syphilis, cancer, and later AIDS, Sontag wishes to demystify these diseases. Speaking from diverse perspectives, including academic research, nonacademic observation, and personal experience, she strives to dismantle such myths which exert profoundly damaging consequences for those troubled by disease. Moreover, Sontag contends that the latter two illnesses are popularly viewed as an individual and/or even as a societal blight or punishment. In turn, she reduces illness to what it is at its most essential level—nothing more than a disease—in the case of cancer, a malignant tumor caused by the abnormal multiplication of cells, and, in the case of AIDS, the retrovirus HIV which destroys white blood cells and debilitates the immune system.

I am going to finish my thesis. I am going to finish this paper. I am going to pass the MCATs (wonderfully, might I add) when I take them in a week. Why all the self-affirmations? Perhaps this seems like the ramblings of a senior who is ready to move on with life, but I might actually be helping myself to do better on each of the above. What makes this possible is the glory of positive thinking. The idea that we can think positively about accomplishing a task, or just about life in general, and consciously affect our unconscious. We can actually will ourselves to do better, through the power of our I-function.

Against Depression Critique

What if van Gogh had taken Prozac? This is the central question of Against Depression, or at least the question that led Peter Kramer to write this book. After the publication of his book Listening to Prozac, Kramer noticed that at every stop along the book tour someone would inevitably ask this question. At first he brushes it off, annoyed, but eventually he comes to a realization—people do not have a full understanding of depression as a disease.

“Creativity is seemingly a mystery, for there is something paradoxical about it, something which makes it difficult to see how it is even possible. How it happens is indeed puzzling, but that it happens at all is deeply mysterious” (Boden, 1). Margaret Boden is a fan of hyperbole to the end of tantalizing her readers into probing deeper into her text. She spends much of the book wondering aloud if mysteries such as creativity are beyond the reaches of scientific exploration. If she truly believed that, I doubt she would have set out to write this book in the first place. Though her prose is circular in reasoning and highly repetitive, Boden offers interesting commentary on the inner workings of the creative mind, especially when viewed within the context of Neurobiology and Behavior topics of discussion.

Dr. Robert Benson discusses the powerful health advantages of the relaxation response in his book titled, The Relaxation Response. Through mental training techniques Dr. Benson demonstrates how to elicit the relaxation response and how to absorb the de-stressing effects it has provided for millions of individuals. Dr. Benson believes that Medicine is a tripod, balanced by three healing resources: medications, medical procedures such as surgery and self care. Regular practice of the relaxation response is believed to significantly strengthen the third leg of the tripod. After reading Dr. Benson’s book, I was both intrigued and enlightened by several of his ideas, theories and arguments. However, I was also hesitant and critical of certain claims that were presented.

Last night I dreamt that I had slept through my alarm clock. The red numbers flashed 10:15am. I had missed breakfast and class had already begun. I had to scramble to get ready. I couldn’t find my toothbrush. I couldn’t find the right books. I couldn’t find my key. Then I woke up to the sound of my alarm. I awoke to a different reality that seemed more real than the one I was previously in, and yet in the moment of searching for pens and book bags that disheveled, frantic world seemed alarmingly real. Why had I dreamt of oversleeping? What caused that dream to occur? Who or what controls and creates my dreams?