Religion experiments have been performed to figure out the religious experience, how the pattern of neural synapses will result in feeling embraced and in the presence of the ultimate being. Through these experiments scientists have found parts of the brain that are triggered and even a neuron that is triggered when a person sees or hears the word God. With these findings there is the debate if the brain formed a capacity for religion, if there is a specific neuron that makes one more susceptible to religious belief or if religion is just an imprint, something that forms from exposure.

 Raven Harris

Neurobiology and Behavior

Thinking Outside of the Brain

I think To Live – may be a Bliss
To those who dare to try -
Beyond my limit – to conceive -
My lip – to testify -    

Consciousness is a state of awareness of self and the environment and is determined by the level and content of this awareness, also referred to as arousal and awareness respectively (1). Consciousness itself takes many forms, as can be seen in the many combinations of level and content of awareness. When describing comas and vegetative states, people often use the terms interchangeably and freely without regard for the differences in consciousness of patients in these states. This however does not account for the differences in consciousness of patients in these states. In a coma, a patient is described as having “disordered arousal,” as opposed to an impairment of the content of consciousness (as is found in patients in minimally conscious states).

“Mania is...constant anxiety, constant irritability, having everything be raw, being brittle, crying but feeling nothing, and really . . . just you never know” (Anon). Though it refers to a something that Western society generally characterizes as a mental illness, this statement is more applicable to madness than a medical condition. It is no small wonder that the stigma associated with bipolar disorder, once called manic depression, have endured far more strongly than that of many other mental illnesses.

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In order to describe the deeper issues involved with depression, I think it’s important to define what addiction really is. Addiction is a chronic, often relapsing brain disease that causes compulsive substance seeking and use despite harmful consequences to the individual who is addicted and to those around them. Addiction is a brain disease because the abuse of drugs leads to changes in the structure and function of the brain. It is a behavioral syndrome in which substances impede one’s ability to exert control over the impulse to use drugs despite adverse consequences. This is the defining characteristic of addiction. There is a slight difference between substance abuse and addiction. Substance abuse means using a substance in the wrong way.

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             What really is a blog? Is its best definition that of a genre, or of a medium, or maybe, as MOBYLIVES claims, it is purely “a place where people talk”.