Why a Personality Change?

 

What do we know about the frontal lobe? We know that the frontal lobe is the one responsible to do planning, organizing, sequencing, and helps control our personality. Why is it important that we have a healthy frontal lobe? What if I told you that a frontal lobe injury could cause us to become a different person and lose our judgment. Like in this video by Woody Igou, he describes the function of a damaged frontal lobe, what behavior changes a person can have, and what type of consequences these behavior changes can cause. After watching this video I found out how important the frontal lobe is for our personality because it helps us in complex social interactions and it filters our impulsive behaviors by controlling our expressive speech. After a brain injury such as in an accident, stroke or having a tumor in the frontal lobe a person may go through some subtle or drastic personality changes. They are not the same person they “used to be”, they have become someone else these are words that family members or caregivers have described someone after a brain injury. Personality changes can be dramatic they can be an exaggeration of the person’s pre-injury personality that has intensified. For example, like in this video provided, the person used to be kind, laid back, easy going and then for some reason he became easily angered, agitated, and aggressive. The reason for his personality change was due to the fact the he had a benign tumor compressing his frontal lobe. So our personality makes us who we are and if you notice that you are becoming a total different person get your brain checked.

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)

You probably might not have noticed this while you were in your class, but you might have a classmate that was always hyper, got easily distracted, did not pay attention, and had difficulty controlling his/her behavior. Well maybe there might have been a reason for why they had this type of behavior. The behaviors described previously are some of the symptoms of someone who has Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).  According to the National Institute of Mental Health website, the number of children being diagnosed with ADHD is rapidly increasing, especially boys who are four times likely to be diagnose with it than girls.  Scientists are unaware of what causes ADHD. They are not sure if it might be genetic, from environmental factors, or their diet like the theory of eating too much sugar. In the following video, it explains what ADHD is and describes the physical and chemical differences the brain has. So imagine having the brain of someone with ADHD they pay attention to everything and have four to five things going on in their minds at once. That is why they have trouble functioning in social and academic settings.

 I work with a lot of patients that are diagnosed with ADHD and I can immediately notice when they are on their medication and when they are not. When they are in their medication they look like zombies because they are zoned out and do not feel like doing anything. Supposedly the medication they take is to calm them and have a “focusing effect” which can help them improve their everyday life. In this video, it is being discussed if children should be medicated or not and if it’s the only effective treatment to use. This controversy had been questioned a lot because nowadays most physicians are prescribing medication like amphetamines (Adderall) and methylphenidate(Ritalin and Concerta) for the children diagnosed with ADHD, but how much is enough for the child. The medication method might not apply to all children because it might work and effect children differently. How do these prescribed medications affect the brain? They work by increasing the dopamine levels, in which dopamine is a neurotransmitter that is associated with pleasure, movement and attention. The effects of the stimulant are done slowly and steady increases of dopamine, which is similar to how dopamine is naturally produced in the brain.

So what happens with the children when they grow up? In the following video it describes how it might affect them in adulthood if they are not treated early in childhood.

 

Multiple Sclerosis

It was back in 2012, when I first heard about Multiple Sclerosis (MS) in one of my classes. Then I heard about it again when Jack Osbourne, the son of Ozzy Osbourne was being interviewed because he had been recently diagnosed with it. Now, that I was reading our textbook for our physiological psychology class that disease was referred as the topic of myelin sheaths was introduced. So I went on search to find out what causes Multiple Sclerosis and why is it important to have myelin in our brain. 

 I did my research and with the information provided from the website of National Multiple Sclerosis Society I was able to know and understand what it was, its symptoms, what causes it, and treatments. In-case you do go to the link I provided from the National Multiple Sclerosis Society I recommend watching the video they have provided in order to have a better understanding of how significant it’s the role of myelin. It sure did help me. I was able to understand that myelin is very important for our brain because when a person has MS the myelin in the central nervous system is damaged and the nerve fiber interferes with the transmission of nerve signals between the brain and spinal cord or other parts of the body. If you start feeling some numbness in your limbs or start losing your vision please go visit your doctor so you can make sure you don’t have it. With the video that I have provided  it explains the types of MS and how in each type a person might experience distinct symptoms. So no person experiencing MS has the same symptoms or feels the same way.

The bad news about MS is that there is still no cure for it. It is still mysterious for doctors so I hope that one day in the near future researchers find a way to stop this disease. Once again let me repeat what is MS, it is an autoimmune disease that attacks the central nervous system and it is an unpredictable disease because you never know how it will strike its victims. Like in this next video that I provided it shows the different experiences that each person has had to deal with living with Multiple Sclerosis.