Anatomy Shared Article Research

This blog exists for the Anatomy students at Tree of Life Christian School. We will be reading various scientific articles, summarizing our research, and then commenting on others' summaries. We hope to broaden our view of the current research surrounding the human body, and to help others see how truly amazing the design of the human body is.

Thursday, January 08, 2009

From Noisy Eyeballs to Regulating Information Flow in the Brain.

R. Douglas Fields is a Neuroscientist that found out a lot about his area of study by studying a disfunction of his own brain. His disfunction was that he literally had noisy eyeballs. The problem, despite the fact that this was not normal, was that he was the only one who could hear his eyes move. The Neuroscientist was lucky to know a professor who had insight the scientist's problem. His problem was that his nucleus accumbens were smaller then normal. Now the nucleus accumbens are like the fliter of sensory input for the brain. With sound it helps fliter to what a person whats to hear and pay attention too. So for example, when your on a basketball court for your team you can still very clearly make out the coaches voice despite numerous more equally as loud voices. Or another example is when you talk on a cell phone in a nosy enviorment but you still only hear the person your talking too. This "zoneing out" of what you dont want to hear is credited to the nucleus accumbens. When this is smaller it cant block out all the sounds, so therefore unwanted noise is heard. Even interal bodly noises such as the noise of muscles pulling on the eyeball. A key component of the nucleus accumbens is serotonin which modulate's its activity. Moreover the Neuroscientist published his story and got many email replies back from people with similar, sometimes more sereve cases of his disfunction. In particular one person sent him an article from a scientific magazine that was inspired for the scientists own article. This article suggested sulfites were the problem. This hypothothis came about given the fact that sulfites, which are used as preservities for food, block enzymes that are very similar to the enzymes that are key in the production of serotonin. Therefore sulfites could impair the production of serotonion thus hurting the nucleus accumbens. But at this time this is only a possible theory. More scientific research is needed to find out more.

I thought this article was very intresting. Learning about the nucleus accumbens was fascinating as I never knew that our "zoneing out" of noses was actually a function of the brain that could be impared. I cant imagine not being able to block things out. It is also intresting to hear that we can hear many bodly noises but our nucleus accumbens just block the noises out.

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=noisy-eyeballs-regulating-information-brain

5 Comments:

Blogger Sarah said...

I find the information in this article fascinating. It has never occurred to me that the body makes noise internally. I wonder if this includes bones grinding and the movement of fluids. If so, the nucleus accumbens have a tremendous job! The information about the nucleus accumbens, previously unknown to me, show me once again how complex the body is. Many parts of our bodies keep them functioning smoothly in ways that we are completely oblivious. However, one of the only ways we discover these amazing parts is through a disorder or problem like the one mentioned in this article. These problems exist not because our Creator slipped up or made a mistake, but maybe so that we could discover complexities of our body previously unimagined.

Friday, January 09, 2009 1:24:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I have sometimes wondered how we are able to hear one thing among a whole host of others, but never knew how it worked. It's fortunate that the neurologist knew a professor who could solve the hearing problem for him and not think the doctor crazy for claiming he could hear his eyes move. This makes me wonder just how many sounds our bodies are making, both when we are moving and not. It is also nice to see a use of serotonin, instead of simply hearing about it in class.

Monday, January 12, 2009 2:53:00 PM  
Blogger Nick said...

I really like this amazing article. I never knew that the body's internal functions make noises. The analogies provided in the article helped me understand what the nucleus accumbens actually do. The job of the nucleus accumbens is awesome! The fact that God gave us something in our body that "blocks" out the internal noises of our bodies is unbelievable. This article truly shows that God thought of everything when he created us, and that his creation is perfect.

Monday, January 12, 2009 8:24:00 PM  
Blogger hannah71190 said...

This article disturbed me when I thought about a "noisy eye". It would scare me or anybody else if they could hear interal body noises. I hope that they can fix their "noisy eyes". Even though is sounds scary to me, it does show how perfect the body is. With that one small part of the eye it can cause a big disorder.

Tuesday, January 13, 2009 2:04:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

It was really interesting to read that eye movements actually make noise. Knowing this fact makes me wonder just how many other noises are making and how the nucleus accumbens can distinguish between the sounds we want to hear and those we don't. Also, if the nucleus accumbens have anything to do with how we can block out white noise at our discretion. It was quite fortunate for the neurologist to know a professor who could help him with his eye problem. It was also neat to see a use of serotonin instead of simply hearing about it!

Tuesday, January 13, 2009 8:05:00 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home