I was shell-shocked and disoriented, unaware of what was happening to me. Every time I tried to express myself nothing came out. I was forced to remain silent and could not follow either verbal or written commands. Words sounded to me like jargon… the people around me spoke a foreign tongue. I could neither comprehend nor use language...I lay in bed, staring blankly and feeling helpless. (1)

Our ability as humans to understand the emotions of others allows us ease of socialization and empathizing.  With a mere glance at facial emotions, we are able to determine happiness, sadness, anger, distress, etc… In typically developing children, these abilities come naturally and easily; however, autistic children lack the capability to understand the emotional states of others. It has been determined that “mirror neurons” are responsible for the facility of emotional processing.  However, recent studies have revealed that persons with autism are missing “mirror neurons” and that explains why they have such difficulty with social interactions.  If autism is due to a biological imbalance rather than to a psychological deficit, then is it possible to “cure” autism?  Can the way that autistics view the world be altered?  And is that what they want?  After all, our emotional connections with others bring the burdens of stress, heartbreak, and depression.

Dear Dr. Drew Faust,

            My name is Alex and I am a Bryn Mawr College undergrad. I am currently enrolled in a course called Gender and Science. I wanted to write to you in a broad sense, and talk about the relationship between the scientific world and the gendered world, but more specifically, what it means to be a "woman scientist". Even more importantly, we recognize that there is an inconsistency or inequality among the ration of men to women in the laboratory. In order to analyze this discrepancy I think it is important to analyze what prevents women scientists from being made, rather than how these women scientists are made.

In order to examine if an opiate drug of abuse is actually rewarding to an animal, it is necessary to demonstrate that the drug will be self-administered through intracranial administration. In order to find the structure in the brain that acts as the reward producer, cannulae can be implanted into different areas of the brain and when self-administration is observed, one can assume that they have found the reward center. Post-mortem analysis of the brain tissue will allow the experimenter to determine where the site was. An alternative to self-administration is the place preference paradigm which will also help determine where the reward producing site is.

Humans have the natural instinct to make sure their offspring are safe and healthy, and when a child is not what would be considered 'normal,' a crusade begins to make them so. We want an exact cause, the perfect cure. Many neurological disorders are not as cut and dry as giving a pill and making it all better. Autism is exactly that. Autism is a spectral neurological disorder that effects the development of social interaction, communication, and is often marked by an interest in repetitive activities. Due to its spectral nature, it's difficult to pinpoint an exact cause or assign the 'right' treatment for each individual affected. Different groups of people appoint varying amounts of focus to the multiple theories of causes and treatment methods.

Schizophrenia is a mental illness affecting nearly 2.2 million Americans (5) or 0.5% (3) people world wide. Although this is a relatively low prevalence rate, it is a very debilitating disease which still has no known cure or direct cause. By studying the histories and symptoms of current schizophrenic patients, more can be learned about the disease to help future victims.

Symptoms usually develop between 15-25 years old for men and between 25-35 years old for women (3) and are characterized by both positive and negative symptoms. Positive symptoms include auditory hallucinations, olfactory hallucinations (unpleasant smells), gustatory hallucinations (unpleasant tastes), somatic hallucinations (pain), visual hallucinations, delusions and loosening of associations or “word salad” (3). Negative symptoms are those which affect normal functioning. These include avolition, poverty of speech, or even catatonia (3). Patients who suffer from primarily positive symptoms are said to have acute schizophrenia, while those who suffer from primarily negative symptoms are said to have chronic schizophrenia.

The notion of human perception is a hot-button issue for me in this course and in my waking life. I am not a philosopher, so I lack the existential vocabulary. I am not a biologist, so there goes any solid physical explanation. I am, however, an English major and I could talk your ear off in metaphor, waxing Romantic about how we elevated sentient beings are different from monkeys and rats and pigs but that’s not the point of this course. The point, at least for this paper, was to set out on my futile expedition to glean meaning from scientific articles using words I hardly know how to pronounce, even with my two requisite years of high school biology. Mission accomplished. I have ended up so far from where I started, I feel like a hobbit on the way to Mordor. So you want to talk perception? It ain’t me, babe. I found my way through a monsoon of articles and journals, asking originally asking “does the creative brain operate in a chemically altered state?”

                                                         Born Gay? 

            In recent years, homosexuality has become more openly prevalent and accepted. From my own personal experiences I have come to realize that homosexuals are not just people a person reads about in the newspaper, but they are bosses, professors, friends, and family members. I have grown to respect them as individuals and not to see their homosexuality as the main characteristic of their identity but just another piece of who they are. However, given the increased number of homosexuals in my everyday life, I cannot help but wonder what makes these respected, successful individuals different from everyone else? How did they come to be attracted to the same sex? Were they born this way? 

We would all like to believe we have control over our own bodies. We can talk, and walk, and think and daydream. But what happens when our bodies start doing things we have no control over? In times of stress and extreme emotions, some part of our brain takes over and interferes with our body’s natural functions. Why don’t we have control over our body in these circumstances? We control our brain don’t we? Even if we agree that there is a particular part of the brain that is causing these external reactions to internal stimuli (the I box), where is it and what determines the response?

Seeing without Sight

Jessica Wurtz

The brain and the rest of the nervous system is a vast network of neurons, synapses, potentials, and many other critical parts that we might not ever understand.  Just when we think we have finally figured something out about it, it seems that there is always something that contradicts the so-called scientific facts.  One of these curious phenomena is that of how a human being uses their senses to perceive the surrounding environment.  Since we are young, we are taught we have five basic senses: sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste.  While this seems cut and dried, there are circumstances that are a source of confusion, such as when a person is deaf or blind.  Being deaf or blind completely changes the way a person perceives the world and their surroundings.  Often times, the other senses will become much more sensitive, as if to make up for the senses that are not functional.  While it seems natural for this to happen, such as a 3-legged dog who runs just as well as any other dog, a closer look proves that it is not as simple as that.