Final 20 Time Post

The product me and Taylor have created is a blog with various hiking posts that I am proud of. We organized a clean up and made a real tangible change in our environment so I also consider that a product of our 20 time assignment. We have worked every Monday to type up trail descriptions, hiking info, and trash awareness posts that were focused around the saratoga/Santa Cruz mountains. In our Ted talk we discussed our accomplishments and covered the major aspects of our 20 time process. We covered our setback and goals swell as our own personal stories! I'll link the Ted talk itself at the bottom of this post! It was fun me and Taylor enjoyed telling our class about we had been working on and sharing about all the fun we had. We had a lot to say, and unfortunately we went over the time limit but it's because we wanted to get all our information across. I'm hoping that we can maybe keep with the blog and update it with posts and pictures. I also hope to organize another clean up, even if it's just casual it feels good to help keep the mountains we love clean. The 20 time project taught me how much I value nature and that commitment is hard, but ends up being worth it.

https://m.youtube.com/watchlist=PLXVa0vGCksTaQxb0DUCUENbC9LuWRDKTr&v=NrPiVPu32bM

Your Brain Map

1. The frontal lobes manages your behavior.
2. Selective attention is the ability to focus on specific memories, and more selective attention is best for learning because it helps generate better memory
3. The last part of the brain to develop is the frontal lobe, to keep it healthy focus on reasoning rather than memory.
4. The neo cortex controls your senses, sense of direction, and motor skills.
5. The prefrontal cortex is what determines personality.
6. There is no such thing as multi tasking its just your brain changing tasks very quickly, seeming almost simultaneous
7. Broca's area controls communications like speech and language. If it is damaged, other parts of the brain can work to try take over the damaged areas responsibilities.
8. The somatosensory cortex responds to environmental factors like temperature.
9. The visual cortex corresponds with vision and processes images seen with the eyes. 
10. The occipital lobe manages creativity or imagination. It also understands the difference between short and long term memories.
11. Without the temporal lobe, you would have amnesia and no way to hold onto memories long term.
12. Your 'fast brain' obtains signals and info in milliseconds.
13. Omega-3 fatty acids, socializing, and healthy living (exercise) help for healthy synaptic function.
14. Patterns and memory aids like mnemonic devices help decomplexify dendritic pathways and allow your brain to work/remeber faster.
15. Big picture thinking also simplifies dendritic pathways resulting in faster brain function. 
16. Oxytocin is important because stops the body from over stressing.
17. The corpus callosum holds your left and right hemispheres together.
18. The corpus callosum is made stronger by playing music.
19. The thalamus receives the signals from senses and send them to the cortex to be processed.
Relate and Review!
This homework assignment was a great review. We have covered many of these terms in class already but there were some new ones like oxytocin and the broker's area. The brain is constantly working thats why the idea of multi tasking seems possible because the brain moves that fast. It's important to keep the brain healthy and strong especially during it's development. I learned that the frontal lobe develops last so that is one to focus on. Many of these structures were seen during our brain dissection but it is always nice to reinforce the information. 

Brain Dissection

In this dissection we observed the brain. We first looked at the exterior and identified the major structures. We saw the cerebrum which controls higher brain function, thought and action. We observed the Cerebellum which is more toward the anterior and coordinates and regulates muscular activities. And finally the brain stem, which transports information and signals too and from the brain to the rest of the nervous system. Then we cut through the Corpus callous which holds together the two hemispheres of the brain to see interior structures. We observed what we studied in the eye dissection: the optic nerve. This is the nerve that processes light and signals from the eye. We located the medulla oblongata which controls functions like breathing, swallowing and digestion. It is the center for respiration and circulation. We then found the pons which is near the medulla oblongata on the brain stem. This structure is responsible for managing things like hearing, taste and balance. The hypothalamus was harder to locate but we knew it was the structure where many hormones are created and released into the body. Lastly we saw the midbrain which is the area of the brain that controls temperature regulation, vision and the sleep cycle. These structures and more were discussed in our lectures but it was interesting to visualize all the lobes and actually see the structures we learned about. Finally we cut into the cerebellum and observed the whit and grey matter inside. The grey matter is composed mostly of nerve cell bodies that are not myelinated while white matter is myelinated. White matter affects how the brain learns and functions while the grey matter is involved with processing and cognition. Myelinated fibers in the white matter allow for faster cell/nerve communication and makes signals travel faster than unmyelinated fibers.

Black Pin: anterior 

White pin: posterior

Green pin: Cerebellum

Yellow pin: Cerebrum

Red pin; Brain Stem

Yellow: Thalamus

Green:Optic Nerve

Red: Corpus callosum

Silver: Medulla Oblongata

Black: pons

Blue: Midbrain

White: Hypothalumus 

Grey and White matter in the Cerebellum