Treating Parkinson's disease with deep brain stimulation

Parkinson's disease is a progressive disorder characterised by the loss of dopamine in a specific part of the subcortical brain called the substantial nigra of the basal ganglia. The basal ganglia is a key part of the body involved in motor control, and essentially acts as a gateway for new actions, resolving competitions between different actions. Its primary role is in movement initiation, controlling movement inhibition and excitation.

Whilst we're "resting", a lot is actually going on. Our basal ganglia works hard to keep us still, and as such there is strong inhibitory baseline activity. In people with Parkinson's, these inhibitions are reduced, resulting in involuntary tremors, caused by excess activity in the subthalamic nucleus and GPi.

Deep brain stimulation is one recent technological development in treating these tremors. It works by stimulating the subthalamic nucleus or GPi through the use of a micro-electrode inserted into these brain structures.

And the effects are astounding. It doesn't cure the disease, it doesn't stop its progression, and there are side effects. But the difference in quality of life pre-treatment and six months post-treatment is great to see. And it's fantastic to get a glimpse of the amazing outcomes research into biological psychology can produce.

Click here to see for yourself.

If you want to find out more, take a look here for one recent experiment outlining the effects of DBS for Parkinson's disease.

Why coffee makes you happy

Coffee is great. It gives you that buzz that you need to start the day, makes working a lot more tolerable, and is one of the world's favourite drinks. So, why do we love it so much?

Aside from the gorgeous taste of a caramel latte, the caffeine in coffee changes the way our body works. Many neurons which release neurotransmitters such as dopamine and adrenaline also release a self-inhibitor called adenosine, just so we don't get too much pleasure (dopamine), and our hearts don't start racing. (Thanks, adenosine!)

Yet, when we gulp down our caffeinated delights, we're inhibiting the effects of adenosine, meaning neurotransmitters such as adrenaline and dopamine are more effective. So, we get rushes of pleasure and your blood starts pumping quicker. Just like a mini-rollercoaster!

Not only this, but your energy levels increase because caffeine acts on cAMP, which is what controls glucose metabolism in your cells, inhibiting  the enzyme that normally breaks it down. That's what gives you your extra energy.

Yay for coffee!

Leadership: Getting people to do what you say

There are a lot of theories of leadership - it's a personality trait, it's something we're born knowing how to do, it's about confidence, it's about style, it's all down to context, etc.

But to me, none of them sounded too promising. They all had niches, and bits where things didn't quite make sense. Simon Sinek, on the other hand, appears to have hit the nail on the head with his theory of how great leaders inspire action, with real life examples including Martin Luther King Jr., and Apple.

Here's one of many fantastic TED talks on social psychology. Enjoy, and Happy Saturday!

A little more than just “a bump to the head”

Children are clumsy - most of us can recall many a time when either ourselves or a younger relative came home from school with scraped knees and bloody elbows, or a bump to the head. Rarely would we think too much of it if this happened with no obvious signs of damage.

However, brain injury in children can occur without it causing concussion or a cut to the face. Sometimes, the parents may not even be aware of their children having hurt themselves at all. Most of the time, a fall causes no serious damage to a child, but where the brain is shaken or scraped against the skull, especially when the frontal lobe of the brain gets damaged, these injuries can have mild to severe effects on the development of the child, and their behavior throughout life.

So, just how prevalent are brain injuries?

In the UK, approximately 1 million people are taken to A&E every year for brain injury (Kay, 2001). Brain injury is the leading cause of death in children, and adults up to the age of 44, ranking above cancer.

How is brain trauma classified?

Trauma to the brain is measured on the Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS), where medical professions ask the patient to follow instructions of actions (motor), react to stimuli (visual), and give spoken responses (verbal) such as their name and date of birth. Better performances of these tasks give responses of 13-15 (where 13 or 14 is mild trauma), whilst anything between 12 and 9 is moderate, and under 8 is severe.

What areas of the brain are typically affected?

It depends on the individual injury. Generally, brain trauma affects three parts of the brain: the frontal lobe (involved in higher order mental functions, such as co-ordinating social behaviour and speech production), the limbic system (associated with emotional responses and pleasure), and the temporal lobe (primarily involved in memory and learning).

Brain injury in children

Initially, it was thought that children were more resilient as they hadn't finished growing or developing and thus could repair themselves, however, research now suggests that although they continue to develop, children with traumatic brain injuries (TBI) develop at a somewhat slower rate. Yet, 5% of children with mild TBI and 50% with moderate or severe TBI develop problems with self-regulation. Teachers, parents, and peers might notice that the child has difficulty socialising. TBI is thought to affect theory of mind (as is autism), meaning that they find it difficult to determine emotions in others, perceiving threat when it's not there and being unable to find appropriate responses to emotional stimuli. This effect is most obvious where the TBI occurs in children between 2 and 6 years of age, so this a period of risk.

So, next time a child gets a little "bump to the head", get them checked out. It's better safe than sorry.

Deconstructing "psychology" (I'll give you a hint, it's nothing to do with mind reading).

Before you go about learning studies and theories, you  need to know what psychology is about. If you've ever told someone you study psychology, you'll have been lucky if nobody asks you to tell them what they're thinking, or to decipher their dreams like you're Sigmund Freud. But psychology isn't about either of these things (as you're probably very aware).

Psychology can be defined as the study of behaviour and mind of humans, but that's a pretty dry definition. What else is there to say about the nature of psychology?
A good place to start is looking at the word itself.

It's formed from two words: psyche and logos. As many of you may know, the "-ology" part (from the Greek word logos) translates as "the study of", but it also translates as "a conversation about". So, what is it that we're studying, finding out about, or discussing?

"Psycho" is generally used as a colloquial abbreviation for psychopath, so are we looking at madness, or abnormality? Well partially, but abnormal psychology is just one aspect of what psychology is about.

The "psych" part of psychology is actually from the Greek word psyche. It translates roughly as mind, spirit or soul. So, we could reasonably argue that psychology is the study of the mind, spirit and soul; what it is to be human and alive. 

Psyche was part of Greek mythology, a girl whose story encompassed a great many aspects of what psychology is truly about: curiosity, love, compassion, perseverance, envy, hatred and pride. Of course, this list is not exhaustive, and if you want a more comprehensive and interesting outline of the myth of psyche, check out Todd Daniel's podcast available here.

Aside the Greek roots of the word, there's another important thing you need to know about the foundation of this discipline. Psychology is essentially derived from the lovechild between philosophy (the study of the nature of knowledge, reality and existence) and science (a systematic study of the structure and behaviour of the natural world through observation and experiment).

What psychology is meant to do is enhance our knowledge about the mind and its functions, and to study human behaviour. How we do this, why we do this, and how well we do this, is a completely different story. 

A little hello.

Hi there. Yes, you. Hi. Unless clicking on my blog was a complete accident, you've got an interest in psychology. That's great - me too. Getting off to a good start, I see. (If you did actually click here accidentally, feel free to stick around anyway. You might just like it.)

Psychology is all about what makes people tick, what ticks them off, and even how they tick. The mechanisms, the theories, the trends, the patterns, the real human experience. Neurons, nerves, cortices, lobes, actions, reactions. Sex. Love. Trust. Deceit. Belief. Survival. Everything.

And that's what this blog will be about too. Everything that I think people should know about the species they are part of, delivered to you in a way that doesn't lie to you (like most of the news articles or myths about behaviour you've no doubt come across), and doesn't make you cry into your dictionary, but in a way that I hope might just help you do something miraculous and beautiful and so often overlooked -- think. To consider and debate and discuss and learn and really, truly think.

So, I'll be posting regularly. There's some good science out there that I want to bring together, and some awful bits which still need attention. There's so much we've found out, but still so much left to discover.

Care to join me? If so, subscribe, or pop back every now and again to see if any of the posts take your fancy.

Have a wonderful week.

See you soon,

Vicky
Psychology undergraduate, author of Just Another Psychology Blog.