Joanne's Blog :)

Summary:

     In a recent study, it has been shown that people who consume baked or broiled fish at least once a week are improving their brain health and are at a lower risk to develop Alzheimer’s disease. Alzheimer’s disease is an incurable, progressive brain disease that slowly destroys memory and cognitive skills. As many as 5.1 Americans may have Alzheimer’s disease. Consuming fish promotes stronger neurons in the brains gray matter by making them stronger and healthier. Gray matter is crucial to brain health.

Why I chose this article:

I chose this article because I thought it was interesting that by just doing one simple thing, it could prevent many struggles for you in the future. Imagine not being able to remember your childhood, your first kiss, your children, even the person you love. Imagine being confused all the time, not knowing what’s going on. Imagine how your friends and family would be feeling, not being able to do anything, just watching you suffer. To me, that sounds like a pretty horrible life. So, even though I dont like fish that much, I think I may just start to try and eat more of it whenever I can. It might be wise for you to do the same.

Title:  The Brain Smells What it Expects

Date: 10/11/11

Summary:

In the moments before you “stop and smell the roses,” it’s likely your brain is already preparing your sensory system for that familiar floral smell. Some scientists decided to test this theory. The scientists discovered that the brain automatically gets your senses ready to smell the smell you are about to smell. However, this only works in cases in which youve already experienced the smell. In the study done by scientists, subjects performed “odor search tasks” while being monitored inside an MRI scanner. The two scents used in the study were a watermelon smell and a Play-Doh-like smell. The researchers were able to look at the activity in the brain before any odor arrived and found that when they were looking at the object, the brain activity showed up before even smelling the object. When they were not looking at the object, the brain activity showed up after they had smelled the object.

What I liked and why: I thought that it was very interesting that the brain smells what it expects. Even before you physically smell an object, your sensory systems have already prepared you to do so. I also thought it was cool how they performed the study. The brain is a very complex thing and its amazing how it can get your sensory systems ready to smell something before you’ve even smelt it.