The teenage brain

It has been discovered that adolescents need lots of sleep because in that way their learning is easier, they partcipate more in the classroom, they are full of ideas, have more creativity and are full of energy all day long. If they dont get enough sleep what could also happen is that they will feel sleepy in the morning and falling asleep everywhere they are even standing but as the day goes by they will have more and more energy and stop feeling so tired.The average time an adolsent need of sleep is around 9 hours which is more than what a child needs. Teenagers who get more sleep act faster, get better grades, and understand easier what is happening. Having a routine makes the peoples lifes easier by going to bed at the same time always and getting up so that the body gets used to it and works correctly. Its better if sports are played eariler in the morning than at night. Many people have problems when they try to wake them up because they are still sleepy so they get mad to their parents or the person waking them up, this is most commonly seen in teenagers.

How our brain works

The brain is an organ that has two halves which are called hemispheres. Each hemisphere has different functions. The left and the right sides of the brain are very different. The left side is logical, analytic, rational, objective, deals with reality, and looks at specific parts. In the other hand, the right brain is random, intuitive, subjective, crative, and looks at wholes not at details. The left and right hemispheres are connected and communicate by the corpus callosum which are lots of nerve fibers that are found in the brains of mammals and is composed by white matter. Paul Pierre Broca was a french physician, anatomist, and anthropolisgt born in 1824 and died in 1880.  He became famous for discovering the center of speech which was named “Broca area” in his name for discovering it and for discovering many other things in brain localizations and various functions. His discoveries helped a lot for medical information. In the 1960s, Roger Sperry discovered that the ability to talk came from to specfic parts from the left brain. He won a price for dicovering it and he named it “Slit brain” which means that the corpus callosum is damaged a needs an operation; one side of the brain cant feel what is happening on the other. Carl Wernicke was a German physicia, anatomist, psychiatrist, and neuropathologist born in 1848 and died in 1905. After Broca discovered the “Broca Area” he started to investigate more about it and foud out that if the left posterior part of the brain is damaged it can cause problems in language comprehensions so in his name that part is now called the “Wernicke´s areas”.  The lobe which is the most responsible for vision is the occipital lobe. The temporal lobe is the lobe incharged of hearing and language. For math calculations you use and also judgemet, reasoning, and impulse control you use the frontal lobe. The brain has so many functions that it is interesting to learn about each one of them.

http://www.indiana.edu/~primate/brain.html

http://www.funderstanding.com/content/right-brain-vs-left-brain

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-the-corpus-callosum.htm

http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Paul_Broca

http://nobelprize.org/educational/medicine/split-brain/background.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split-brain

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Wernicke

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occipital_lobe

http://library.thinkquest.org/J002391/functions.html

Phineas Gage

Phineas Gage was an American who lived from 1823 through 1860. He worked in the construction of the railroad and became famous at age 25 after surviving an incredible accident in which an iron rod passed through his left cheek bone and frontal lobe of his brain, it then went out of his head completely. After that terrible accident happened to him his personality and behavior change completely to a very bad and mean one which made him lose his friends and live the rest of his life alone, this happened because his frontal lobe was damaged. Although it was an awful accident that could have caused him his death it was very useful for medical information and studies because they could notice that the personality had to do with the front part of the brain which is an interesting fact. It was unbelievable how his life changed, he used to be a good and friendly person but unfortunately he became all the opposite. Every part of the brain carries a different and important function. Some of the brain functions are the abilities to see, hear, talk, plan, understand, how to control hunger, thirst, and regulate the emotions. Any small injury that happens to the head is very delicate because the brain is there so it should always be checked by a doctor if not, it could change a life completely, just like it happened to Phineas Gage and his strange reaction because of his accident. It is amazing that he survived after that accident that happened to him.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phineas_Gage

http://www.deakin.edu.au/hmnbs/psychology/gagepage/Pgstory.php

http://facstaff.gpc.edu/~bbrown/psyc1501/brain/loclat.htm

Criminal Behavior

Their a various topics debated in Nature vs Nurture just as homosexuality, athletic ability, intelligence, personality, criminal behavior which is very serious, and many others. These topics are debated to see if the human bodies al already born with things because they have it in their genes like their parents or grandparents or if you change because of the environment you live on. I strongly believe that criminal behavior is one of those topics debated which has a great importance and it often occurs because of many reasons. In my personal opinion, I believe that both nature and nurture have to do with it but the one who influences the most is nurture because criminals are responsible for their own acts and they should change it makes them no good. As it is known pregnant women who drink or smoke may cause serious damages in the baby and one of them could be that the baby grows to be a criminal. That would be the mothers fault and that is an incorrect thing to do, she should love her baby because its hers and should take care of it although it is still not born, the baby has a life since it is created. What I think that affects the most on the human body is the environment in which the person lives on. Where do they live, with how do they live, do they have any friends and who are them, how do people around them treat them, are they bullied or do they bully other people, etc. If a kid grows up being treated in a very bad way by their parents meaning that they are yelled at too much, hitten, abused, in between others they are most likely to do the same with their own kids or even other innocent human beings  because they did not have a good example so it may become a non stopping cycle by the parents giving it to their sons and daughters and so on. Many of this kids end up in jail because they tend to treat people badly or even kill them with no reason, they are most likely not under control and that is why they do it. In my opinion, if a person is treated badly I think that the best idea is to communicate it to another person they trust and they can help them to feel better but most of the people are afraid of telling others what happens to them and they think that killing or making other feel bad will make them feel better. Not only parents treat their kids bad, it might have been that at school or another activity somebody sexually abused them which caused them a serious trauma and when they get big they do the same that was done to them maybe because they want others to feel what they felt, just as revenge, or simple for no reason. It is also said by sources that when you are a baby and they shake your head that hurts your brain and it becomes damaged so that can also make you become a criminal. Those are some of the reasons why I believe that nurture has to do more with criminal behavior than nature although both have to do.
http://www.personalityresearch.org/papers/jones.html