Phantom limb syndrome (phantom pain) is something that happens to a person who has lost a limb, but still feels as though it is there. Sometimes they feel as though the limb is in severe pain, but sometimes they may feel that it is still functioning, or sometimes even that something is brushing up against it. The question is, what could possibly cause it? And is there a way to prevent this from happening to us?

Left: A brain with phantom limb pain Center: Amputees’ brain without limb pain Right: Healthy control brain

Luckily we finally have the answers, but it actually took scientists about 400 years to figure out why something like the would occur. About 25 years ago, “neuroscientist V.S. Ramachandran of the University of San Diego discovered that the brain’s ability to form new neural connections might cause the syndrome. Areas of the brain responsible for perceiving touch sensations from other parts of the body — the face, for example — appeared to be taking on the sensation from the missing limbs. When touched on the existing body part — in this case, the face — the patient feels the same sensation in the phantom limb” (Borel).  During MRIs or PETs of these patients, it seems to be that, although the limb is missing, the portion of the brain that “had been neurologically connected to the nerves of the amputated limbs” (obviously) is still there (Mayoclinic). So for a while, the brain might remain wired to that specific limb, even after it is missing, but after some time, it might rewire (remap) as explained earlier. This happens when areas of the spinal cord recognize that there is no longer any connection to the limb or receiving sensory information, the information gets sent to another existing part of the body.

Of course, some cases could be simpler than this, caused by “damaged nerve endings, scar tissue at the site of the amputation and the physical memory of pre-amputation pain in the affected area” (Mayoclinic).Unfortunately for all amputees, about 80% experience phantom limb pain, which is a fairly high number.

Luckily, they are finding ways to cure it! There is a treatment called the mirror box which is “a lidless box that is partitioned through the middle by a two-sided mirror. Here, the patient puts both the intact and phantom limbs through two holes cut into the side of the box, so that each sits on either side of the mirror divider. The patient looks into the top of box at an angle, so that the reflection of the real limb is visible in the mirror” (Borel). The mirror helps to trick the brain into thinking that the real limb is actually the missing limb, which allows it to regain a sense of control. Even cooler than this is with the use of an Xbox Kinect. People found a way to alter the gaming system to create a way for an amputee who is playing to have all of their limbs in a virtual room. This method, again, would trick the brain. Here is a link for a video of a patient using the mirror therapy.

It is good that researchers are finding these treatments, but I definitely think it is important to keep advancing the research, considering how many people are affected by this syndrome. But it is fascinating to see how the human body works, and what causes it to work the way it does. Perhaps if researchers narrow it down to a more specific cause and effect, they will be able to come up with a more effective cure.

I always wondered why people overused the term, “beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” Based upon my knowledge of the celebrity world, it seems that there tends to be a general idea of who is considered good-looking and who is not. But maybe I was wrong, and not as many people agree as I had thought.
Scientists believe that a person’s liking for a particular height or the build of a person’s body may be a genetic predisposition, but new studies are showing that our attraction to another face is determined by the path of our individual life. I found an article on Sciencemag, in which a new study is discussed to evaluate the nature versus nurture problem, and whether or not it really does play a role in how attracted we are to another person. In the study, “researchers asked 547 pairs of identical twins and 214 pairs of same-gender fraternal twins to view 200 faces and rate them on a scale of one to seven…one being the least attractive” (Burton). Along with these twins, there were 660 people who were not twins that took the same survey. Interestingly, the surveys that the twins (especially those in the identical group) took were not as similar as researchers expected them to be, leading them to believe that their preference did not have that much to do with their family environment.

So from this, they were really only able to think that it’s neither familial influence or genetics, but the path that a person travels throughout their life that makes them attracted to a person’s looks. The researchers feel, however, that they still haven’t done enough in this specific topic, so they actually opened up the survey to the public! If you’re interested in participating, here is the link: www.TestMyBrain.org.

I find this topic of research interesting, mostly because the nature v. nurture battle is such a controversial topic in the science world. I had never even really considered why I found someone attractive and others unattractive, while my sister would find the exact opposite.
I think in order to fix the original study (not including the part that is now open to the public), they should make the sample size more diverse. During this study, the participants were all from the same general region of the world, and were mostly all the same race. Although, at this point, the researchers were simply trying to find whether it was nature or nurture, I still think that to really know for sure, they should be testing a more diverse group of people, and maybe that will help them to better understand if it is familial influence, an individual’s path of life, or genetics! I believe that it is most definitely something to look further into, though, and do more research on because the more we know about ourselves and the reasons we think the way we do, no matter what the topic, the more we will be able to know about humans in every aspect.

When I was home over the weekend, my friend and I were driving back to State College and picked a playlist from Spotify to play. It ended up being a compilation of a lot of melancholy and rather sad songs, but we kept it on because we were enjoying the music. Then my friend said in the midst of our singing, “sometimes I like listening to sad songs just to be sad for a little while.” Now before you think that the comment is strange, think about it. If you’re having a day where things aren’t going too well and you just feel like allowing yourself to have a bad day, you’ll probably not be found listening to upbeat pop or positive music. Instead, you’ll probably listen to something more subdued and relatable to your mournful attitude. Speaking from experience, music is usually a tool that aids us in wallowing in our sorrows, and providing words that relate to our misery. Could there really be a problem with wanting to engage in something that allows us to be sad just a little longer, like my friend does? The answer is yes! Because believe it or not, music is, in some cases, linked to depression!

According to a study of 106 patients that was conducted at the University of Pittsburg School of Medicine, music does actually cause an increased chance of teenagers developing depression. How much more likely of developing it? 8.3 times more likely as opposed to teenagers who spend their time reading, which were one-tenth more likely to develop it (Fox News).

With this study and many others, researchers have still not been able to find out whether the actual act of listening to the music is what leads teenagers into depression, or if they become depressed, then listen to sad music, causing them to fall deeper into a depressed state. But Pediatrician Brian Primack is saying, at this point, that “it’s more likely that depressed teenagers are turning to music for solace, rather than music being the cause of the mental illness” (Primack).

Basically, the researchers weren’t completely concerned with cause and effect as this point, but they did want to know if music could be a third variable in the cause of depression in teenagers, considering depression affects 1 in every 12 teens.

The study measured depression in teenagers who mainly watched TV, read a book, spent time on social media, or listened to music. Perhaps one of the biggest surprises in this study is that it showed that “there wasn’t a big correlation with depression and TV. Instead, it was music that matched with depression” (npr). This really surprised me because TV definitely provides its viewers with some shows that can be very saddening, but music, even though it’s not visual, appears to have an even worse affect.

I think that to know for sure if these results are true, more studies will have to be done to prove it. And it would, of course, be interesting to see the cause and effect of this problem. But in the mean time, if you feel yourself becoming depressed or upset, maybe you should take a break from the music and distract yourself with a book or a walk!

Every morning before high school, I would be greeted by my sister with yet another sarcastic remark, and I would respond appropriately. I found it quite annoying, but had to get used to it due to the amount of sarcasm being thrown around throughout the day. Then I started wondering, why do people use sarcasm? Does it have some kind of affect on our interactions or relationships or intelligence? And apparently, according to the research I found, other people have wondered the same.

According to an article in the Smithsonian by Richard Chin, Studies have shown that exposure to sarcasm enhances creative problem solving…[and] and inability to understand sarcasm may be an early warning sign of brain disease” (Chin).

I was shocked by that statement! I couldn’t believe that something as simple as sarcasm could be a predictor of brain disease. So then I really wanted to find out why researchers were finding these types of things!

Katherine Rankin, a neuropsychologist at the University of California at San Francisco, explains how our society uses sarcasm in everything nowadays, and  “’People who don’t understand sarcasm are immediately noticed. They’re not getting it. They’re not socially adept’” (Chin). To further this idea of the prominence of sarcasm in our society, “according to one study of a database of telephone conversations, 23 percent of the time that the phrase “yeah, right” was used, it was uttered sarcastically” (Chin).

In a study conducted by “Simone Shamay-Tsoory, PhD, and colleagues at the Rambam Medical Center in Haifa and the University of Haifa, [there were] 25 participants with prefrontal-lobe damage, 16 participants with posterior-lobe damage and 17 healthy controls. All participants listened to brief recorded stories, some sarcastic, some neutral, that had been taped by actors reading in a corresponding manner” (American Psychological Association). What they found is that the people whose brains were damaged were unable to understand the sarcasm in the stories, but people with undamaged brains were able to understand. Interestingly, specifically “people with damage in the right ventromedial area had the most profound problems in comprehending sarcasm” (American Pyschological Association).

(pictured is the right ventromedial area of the brain in red)

This ventromedial area “enables individuals to adapt their behavior in response to unexpected rewards or adversities” (Psychlopedia). And the prefrontal cortex, in general, is “involved in pragmatic language processes and complex social cognition, thus it followed that participants with prefrontal damage had faulty ‘sarcasm meters.’ At the same time, damage to the ventromedial area…will disrupt not only understanding sarcasm but also understanding social cues, empathic response and emotion recognition” (American Pyschological Association).

So to get back to why sarcasm is actually beneficial to a person, according to research done “by Francesca Gino of Harvard Business School, Adam Galinsky, the Vikram S. Pandit Professor of Business at Columbia Business School, and Li Huang of INSEAD, the European business school, [sarcasm] requires indicate ‘superior cognitive processes’ at work” for both the people speaking the sarcastic message, and the recipient of the message (Pazzanese). Along with this finding,  “‘For the first time, our research proposed and has shown that to minimize the relational cost while still benefiting creatively, sarcasm is better used between people who have a trusting relationship,’” said Gino” (Pazzanese).

What I gathered from this and many other studies is that both speaking and understanding sarcasm does, in fact, have a positive affect on people! Although it may be annoying to some, like how I feel in the morning with my sister’s remarks, I guess it’s not such a bad thing after all!

If you have a body ache or a sprain or pain, it’s becomes so easy in our society to pop open a medicine bottle and take a Tylenol or two, hoping for immediate relief for our ailments. Researchers found something strange, however, with pain relievers that contain the drug acetaminophen that is common in pills like Tylenol. They have been finding that not only does this drug help to decrease the pain you are feeling, but it is also numbing your emotional pain and sensitivity. What?!

Baldwin Way, a psychologist at Ohio University conducted a study with one of his students Geoffrey Durso and Andrew Luttrell, another graduate student in psychology, which involved 82 participants, “half of whom took an acute dose of 1000 milligrams of acetaminophen and half who took an identical-looking placebo. They then waited 60 minutes for the drug to take effect” (Grabmeier). Then the participants were shown pictures that are used by researchers all over the world specifically to trigger emotional responses. There were extremely disturbing pictures of upset and unhealthy children, a simple picture of a cow in a field, and then a pleasing picture of young children and cats. After the participants saw each picture, the study included that they rate how negative or positive the picture was from -5 to +5. They also had to rate their emotional response from 0 to 10, with zero being little or no emotion.

The results appeared to be what the researchers were expecting. Those who took acetaminophen gave all of the photos a less extreme rating than those in the control group. “In other words, positive photos were not seen as positively under the influence of acetaminophen and negative photos were not seen as negatively” (Grabmeier). Along with this, their emotional responses were also much less extreme. According to the study, participants “who took the placebo rated their level of emotional relatively high (average score of 6.76) when they saw the most emotionally jarring photos…People taking acetaminophen didn’t feel as much in either direction, reporting an average level of emotion of 5.85 when they saw the extreme photos” (Grabmeier).

Way explained that there might be a possibility of acetaminophen doing something to the insula, since this “is a portion of the brain that seems to be involved in a lot of things” (Way). He began to think that after looking at older studies that showed that people whose insula was damaged did not react as strongly to typically emotion-evoking images.

Don’t let this stop you from taking pain medication, if necessary, though. Allison Aubrey wrote a similar article that also observes the study done by the researchers at Ohio State, in which they claim that nothing can really be certain until the research goes further. Both Durso and Way admitted that their findings were too small to really have a huge impact right now.  Way stated, “I’d say there’s a common mechanism — a common lever, if you will, where one can affect both positive and negative systems in the brain…Or maybe there are two levers to dampen each system, and the pain medication just seizes them both at the same time, numbing our entire emotional connection to the world. The bottom line is we don’t know” (Way).

So maybe pain relievers are affecting the way we view emotions, or maybe they aren’t. Maybe one day we will know, but until then, we will just have to pay closer attention to just how numb we are to pictures of puppies next time we have acetaminophen in our system!

In an earlier post, I discussed the negative effects that the Baby Einstein videos have on infants and toddlers. I was curious to know, however, what kind of effect technology in general has on babies. If videos designed specifically to help children of this age learn more, then what effect is it having on them when Disney Channel or Nickelodeon are on, or they’re playing on an iPad? Well I found the answers, and wasn’t quite expecting what I found.

In 2011, American Academy of Pediatrics released a statement that stated that “by age 3, almost one third of children have a television in their bedroom. Parents who believe that educational television is “very important for healthy development” are twice as likely to keep the television on all or most of the time” (AAP). Unfortunately for these parents, however, they are horribly wrong in thinking this, as the AAP also stated that no baby under the age of two should be engaging in any type of screen time, regardless of whether or not it is educational. Then even when the child is three, although they don’t say to avoid screen time at all costs, it is still not appropriate for a child this age to be watching television often. In their book Children & Society, Lydia Plowman, Joanna McPake, and Christine Stephen say that there seems to be a disjunction…between the case put forward by those warning of the toxic effects of technology and parents’ own perceptions,” which is clear in the studies shown in multiple cases (Plowman, McPake, Stephen). The AAP explained that “unstructured play time is more valuable for the developing brain than electronic media. Children learn to think creatively, problem solve, and develop reasoning and motor skills at early ages through unstructured, unplugged play. Free play also teaches them how to entertain themselves” (AAP).

Along with this, parents watching television around their young children can have a downfall, as well, many pediatricians are claiming. This is because when a parent is watching a tv show, he or she is not fully engaged with the child, causing a disconnect between parent and child. Not only this, but even if the child isn’t fully engaged in what is on the screen, “there is a strong consensus among doctors and experts that an excessive amount of electronic media can exacerbate the ADHD behaviors in children.” This is caused by the “development of brain systems that scan and shift attention at the expense of those that focus attention, as well as undermining some natural attentional mechanisms in the human mind” (Armstrong). There seems to be a disjunction, then, between the case put forward by those warning of the toxic effects of technology and parents’ own perceptions

Not only does it have the possibility of causing ADHD, but also problems such as anxiety, anger management, and violent behavior (Chakraburtt). Of course, there is always the possibility in this case of a confounding variable, such as availability of the parent to engage with the child often or socioeconomic situation. If the parent is in a bad socioeconomic situation, and is unable to frequently engage with the child (i.e. working most hours of the day), the child may have behavioral issues not caused by television, but by lack of attention and engagement.

From what I found, I’m not saying that television is all around a bad thing, because there are times when it’s appropriate, and when it’s  not. But I do believe, based on the research, that when it comes to very young children and technology, it is something that should not be taken lightly, and should be closely observed. Something as easy as reading to your child before bed rather than clicking the power button might save your child from multiple complications down the road!

For adolescents all over the country, harmless sites, such as ask.fm become their biggest adversary. For me, just like many other children and teens, I was greatly affected by social media at a time in my life. With parents coming from a generation that isn’t completely aware of social media’s pitfalls, they are unaware of how to monitor their children’s cyber activity, so cyberbullying has become a horrific, seemingly-endless cycle.

My grandmother lives in a lakehouse in a small town in the mountains, and ever since I was a baby, my family would take frequent trips there to visit her and take some time to destress by the water. I would always become frustrated at the thought of having to walk around the lake to get to the other side, when it would take only half the time if we could simply walk right down the middle of the lake. The problem? This would require us to acquire some kind of super power that would allow us to walk on water. This got me thinking, is it possible to walk across any substance that isn’t a solid? Well I have found the answer.

On a UK television show a few years ago, John Tickle was seen walking across a pool of custard, and two physicists wanted to see if it was, indeed, possible to do so, or if it was just a trick. Jon Evans plains that “Instant custard consists of a sense suspension of microscopic particles…[which] are well known to harden on impact” (Evans). No one really knew why this occurred, though, and there were multiple explanations, but most of the explanations had problems with them.

Scott Waitakaitis at the University of Chicago, along with his colleague Heinrich Jaeger decided that he wanted to “investigate what happened when he dropped an aluminum rod onto 25 liters of custard” (Evans). What they discovered from their various types of videos that monitored the impact was that the particles of the custard, during impact, squished together to “form a depression in the surface and an expanding solid region of jammed together particles below this depression…as a result, the falling rod initially comes to an almost complete halt on the surface of the suspension, before slowly sinking as the solid region gradually ‘melts’ away” (Evans).

Custard, along with ketchup, is what is known as a non-Newtonian fluid. So while they are technically considered liquids, they don’t behave like water does. When hit by an outside force, the starch acts more like a solid than a liquid, as the particles compact into a temporarily jammed solid, which grows out from the impact site (Gregory).

This finding is exciting in the world of science because it’s not just something fun to watch on a TV screen or experiment with in your home, but it could also have practical applications in other areas of the scientific world. Waitukaitis says that not many materials have the capability of switching from soft to hard instantaneously. Knowing that custard is a material that does have this capability, he continues, “has usefulness in everything from construction to hydraulics to personal protection” (Waitukaitis).

So I guess to fix my frustration and shorten my time to get from one side of the lake to the other, all I have to do is fill the lake with custard! But lets be honest, that would clear just about twenty-five grocery stores of all of their instant custard packs. So maybe in this case, I’ll just have to deal with the extra few minutes it takes to walk around. But you never know, if we can walk on custard now, maybe one day we’ll be walking on water.

Being a girl who’s had seasonal allergies my whole life, I am used to sneezing. I sneeze all the time, and my poor friends feel obligated to say “bless you” every ten seconds. When I was in elementary school, all the buzz was about the fact that if you were somehow able to keep your eyes open while you sneeze, your eyeballs would pop out of their sockets. Being a naive elementary schooler, of course I believed them. But the question is, were they right?

On April 30, 1882, a story was published in the New York Times, claiming that a woman’s eyeball burst out of its socket (known as eyeball subluxing) after a sneezing fit in a street car. She claimed to be suffering intense pain since the accident (NBC News). This, however, is an urban legend.

Some people can naturally keep their eyes open while they sneeze. Others aren’t able to do it naturally, but it is possible pry your eyes open with your fingers while you sneeze. Neither have been reported to cause problems to the eyes. Optometrist Bert Moritz of the Mayo Clinic Health System in Eau Claire, Wis., explained that “six extra-ocular muscles firmly hold the eye in the socket, making it almost impossible for eyeball subluxing” (Moritz). There is actually no physical mechanism involved in a sneeze that could make your eyes pop out. There is only a small build of blood pressure behind the eyes during a sneeze, but not enough to dislodge your eyes (Wellmont Health System).

But then the question remains, if we aren’t clamping our eyes shut to keep our eyeballs in place, then why are we? Well, it’s actually due to an involuntary reflex that occurs just the same as when your leg swings forward from the physician tapping your knee. Right before you sneeze, your brain sends a signal to your eye muscles, making them shut tight. According to some, this is to protect the eyes from the stuff that is getting sneezed out, and according to others, it just happens for no reason whatsoever (Wonderopolis).

All-in-all, whatever the reason may be for shutting our eyes when we sneeze, at least we can find peace knowing that we won’t risk losing our eyeballs during allergy season!

When my 14 year old brother and sister were first brought home after being adopted from Russia, our neighbors threw a party for their return. Everyone brought things like toys, puzzles, and diapers, and some people came with Baby Einstein videos, claiming that they used them on their kids, and it really quickened their early learning development. My mom, however, wasn’t so quick to believe that the videos actually did anything, so she decided to do some research. She wasn’t too happy with what she found, so needless to say, the videos didn’t last in our house for too much longer.

The  American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) conducted a study in 1999, which produced results showing that a child age 2 or younger should not be allowed any screen time. That includes TV shows, movies, games on screens, etc. The recommendation from the study added, “Although certain television programs may be promoted to this age group, research on early brain development shows that babies and toddlers have a critical need for direct interactions with parents…for healthy brain growth and the development of appropriate social, emotional and cognitive skills” (Guernsey). This wasn’t the only study conducted to show the negative side effects of plopping your baby in front of the TV and turning on the videos.

A study at the University of Washington, led by Frederick Zimmerman and Dr. Dimitri Christakis showed that “with every hour per day spent watching baby DVDs…infants learned six to eight fewer new vocabulary words than babies who never watched the videos.” Christakis then said that the babies who watched the videos “Scored about 10% lower on language skills than infants who had not” (Park). These videos are not helping the child’s language development, but actually doing the opposite by delaying it. Not only this, but additional research showed that Baby Einstein videos could even cause a baby to develop asbergers, autism, or ADHD.

A different study from the AAP showed that showing you baby videos such as Baby Einstein may lead to ADHD. The reason for this is that “watching TV,” according to Christakis, “rewires an infant’s brain” (Lotus). It overstimulates the brain, since the speed of television is much faster in comparison to real life. This causes the child to become easily irritated and cause them to have extremely short attention spans. The damage usually becomes apparent around the age of 7 when the child has trouble focusing in school. The autism comes out of the social interaction part of it. If a child is simply staring at a screen, and doesn’t get face to face interaction with people, the child doesn’t develop appropriate social skills, causing problems later in life.

Based off the research, I think it’s time my brother and sister start thanking our parents for not allowing those videos to ever make it onto our television screen. Just remember, never judge a book by it’s cover, nor trust movie by its title, even if it does have the name of a theoretical physicist on it.

Just as it is for most people in college, there are days where my emotions are all over the board, as an outcome of too much work, too little sleep, and a lot of change. If there was a way to help yourself on one of your moody days, would you take advantage of it?

Studies have been showing that the color of the clothes you wear, whether you realize it or not, will have an affect on your mood throughout the day. According to one study, if you wear a red shirt to class, for example, it will “evoke avoidance motivation and undermine intellectual performance” (Elliot and Maier). This means that wearing red helps us to avoid negative stimuli throughout our day, and focus more on the positive. Along with this, it is easier to perform intellectually without stressing about it.

Red isn’t the only color of clothing, though, that can help a person to change their mood. According to “research done at the University of British Columbia…because people associate blue with openness and peace, they feel safer exploring their ideas when they’re surrounded by [blue]” (Bowers). Along with this, pink often makes a person feel more sophisticated, yellow makes a person feel happier, and purple makes a person feel more powerful (Wright). All colors can give off different moods for different people, but these are just some examples.

With this research, however, not many experiments or research has proven that every color has the same meaning or feeling for every person. While some people believe that the brain is what determines the meaning of a color, the more popular idea is that the perception of a color’s mood is based upon culture, and what an individual has learned to believe as he or she grows (social sciences). One study, for example, involved participants that were both British and Chinese. Every person was given 20 color swatches at a time and had to rate it the color on 10 different emotions. From the experiment, they gathered that the British and Chinese participants greatly “differed on the like-dislike scale” (Kauppinen-Raisanen). From this study and multiple similar studies, many researchers have gathered that the way a person sees a color’s emotions does have a lot to do with the society in which he or she grows up. But whether it is something in the brain that causes us to be influenced by the color of our clothing, or it is simply something that we learn to feel, color still has the ability to affect how we feel.

So next time you’re feeling down and you think about putting on a neutral color, think twice and throw on something with a little more vibrancy! Because according to science, your clothing really can have an effect on your mood! Whether you’re having a day where you’re wanting to feel happy, calm, sexy, or in charge, the color of clothing you decide to put on your body can help to influence that.

Hi everyone! My name is Caroline Stacks, and I’m a freshman from Chester County, Pennsylvania, right outside of Philadelphia, but everyone is sick of hearing that. I’m majoring in Human development and family studies.

I’m taking this course because it seemed like a different approach to science, and I found that interesting since I tend to choose english and social studies over science and math. I’m not majoring in science because it has never really caught my interest. While I do know it is extremely important, it’s just not my thing.

Here’s a happy little throwback for you all: some good old Bill Nye