As mentioned by the British Journal of Psychiatry (2003), the human brain is a complex entity all by itself. The notion of thinking and brain mapping in itself amazes professors researching in that particular field. The current brain imaging serves as a guide for diagnosis of mental disorders present in patients. Despite the new and improved technical developments in neuroimaging (Andreasen, 1997), scepticism is still prevalent among researchers in that field
mainly due to its association and relation to psychiatry.
As brain imaging has been known to provide evidence and support clinical benefit for patients, it is still judgemental on how far it can bore fruits in the field of brain research and how much data that is collected will still remain relevant in today’s day and age. The research in brain studies have much proven the brain structure and function prominently of high importance in the study of how the brain works and psychiatry. The measurements that are taken into account are comprehensive and encompasses all details relevant to the study of the human brain. It is thus important to find a clear and distinct correlation between the problems arose and biological reasoning.
Although brain mapping is a distinct way to research on the brain holistically, it still merely provides a general picture of the situation that has already been discovered and known. In this instance, Schizophrenia is a disease mostly researched in the brain field. However, disappointingly the data shown has proven the obvious and no new relevant data surfaces. The functional psychosis which is part of a brain study has been found to be not linked with any organic and structural abnormalities of the brain. This discrepancy proves that there might be some jeopardising of data collected and collated thus affecting results.
This boils down to the point that researchers now have moved on and targeted that psychosis as the main cause of a disconnection syndrome adversely affecting the structure of largescale neurocognitive networks in the brain. This has been a versatile evidence in support of brain mapping and psychiatry as a whole.
There has been reports of distributed patterns of grey matter deficit in disorders such as attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) (Castellanos et al, 2001; Overmeyer et al, 2001), autism (Courchesne et al, 2001) and various neurogenetic syndromes, prompt the hypothesis that disconnection syndromes might provide a model for the anatomy of neurodevelopmental disorders in general, not solely schizophrenia (Bullmore et al, 1997). All syndromes mentioned above from (The eye's mind: brain mapping and psychiatry, Journal 2003), serves as a guideline for us to place the basis of our argument on an agreement in which brain regions are critically abnormal in any given syndrome.
The article overview on brain mapping as a whole gives us an idea of the vague data collated in the sampling that was taken, data analysis that has been done and how the study has been designed to be like. The number of patients and the differences in demographic details of each patient may not have been sufficient to provide a clearer view on the situation given perhaps. Overall the brain mapping has been a great way in relating reasons to psychiatry as a whole.
Received for publication March 11, 2002. Revision received July 15, 2002. Accepted for publication August 8, 2002.
Friday, February 27, 2009
Saturday, February 7, 2009
the lecture review
I personally felt that the speech given by Mr Palmer, Mr Benjamin and Mr Bala each was inspiring and gave me a bigger picture of the growing problem in the environment today. Global warming as we all know has been a topic that sits red hot on the pan due to humans doings to the environment.
Mr Palmer who was the first speaker gave a brilliant headstart into the lecture and briefly touched on the topics such as greenhouse gases, global warming and the inter-connectedness and link between one another. He was quick and bright to brought up a very intriguing idea of the capture and storage of carbon dioxide. I felt the this idea is a creative and innovative one that would be feasible if carried out properly.
The idea he mentioned in itself sounded compelling yet an efficient way in encouraging people worldwide to cut down on the carbon dioxide emission using cutting edge technology. Likewise, this technology serves to store carbon dioxide deep in the earth or seas as a storage compartment in the attempt to mitigate the problem at hand.
However, I felt that though this method seems technologically feasible, yet its seems impractical judging from the costs involved and process required for it to achieve its maximum potential to fulfil our very objective of a cleaner environment. Yet his idea was indeed substantiated with industrial evidence that he uses as examples.
He also mentioned that it was reasoned out that due to the current economic crisis that is occurring at our very eyes, policy makers would not be too keen on this method as their main priority would be the economy at hand. Soon after, Mr Benjamin continued the engaging lecture by pointing out that there is more to global warming solutions that what was touched by Mr Palmer. He then began to include examples to further elaborate his idea of the practical approach to renewable energy or power. In addition, he gave his personal opinion of Mr Palmer’s idea and thought what it would be perturbed by the global economic recession.
He then explained further reasons for accepting and adopting new technologies and how it can fuelled by our need to mitigate or solve a problem at hand which need due attention. It is not merely a technological problem as he pointed out, but rather it is a socially implicated problem that boils down to humans themselves whom play a huge part in worsening the problems. The examples he used to substantiate his claims were the electric motor car and wind turbine. These examples were quoted to show evidence of how making a certain new technology popular could go against certain interests of a nation in particular. In addition, cultural and behavioural aspects, the adoption of a new product may eventually force people to change their habits. These would lead to drastic outcomes and consequences and hence the rejection of new technologies would merely mean the failure of the market to progress. Lastly, Mr Bala addressed the issue of global warming as a specific rather than a bigger picture as painted by his fellow two other speakers previously. He encompasses issues that related more to the causes, consequences and several other possible solutions to mitigate and solve global warming at hand. Despite doing an excellent job on the explanation, his points were mainly a regurgitation and reiteration on what is known to everyone. I personally felt that he was repeating whatever that was said and mentioned in the mass media such as the newspaper articles and educational films; The Inconvenient Truth.
The two hours presentation was thorough and comprehensive however there should be more interaction between the speakers and the audience to make the lecture a more engaging and interactive one which would eventually spark interests in the audience to do their greater part in helping to reduce or mitigate global warming.
Mr Palmer who was the first speaker gave a brilliant headstart into the lecture and briefly touched on the topics such as greenhouse gases, global warming and the inter-connectedness and link between one another. He was quick and bright to brought up a very intriguing idea of the capture and storage of carbon dioxide. I felt the this idea is a creative and innovative one that would be feasible if carried out properly.
The idea he mentioned in itself sounded compelling yet an efficient way in encouraging people worldwide to cut down on the carbon dioxide emission using cutting edge technology. Likewise, this technology serves to store carbon dioxide deep in the earth or seas as a storage compartment in the attempt to mitigate the problem at hand.
However, I felt that though this method seems technologically feasible, yet its seems impractical judging from the costs involved and process required for it to achieve its maximum potential to fulfil our very objective of a cleaner environment. Yet his idea was indeed substantiated with industrial evidence that he uses as examples.
He also mentioned that it was reasoned out that due to the current economic crisis that is occurring at our very eyes, policy makers would not be too keen on this method as their main priority would be the economy at hand. Soon after, Mr Benjamin continued the engaging lecture by pointing out that there is more to global warming solutions that what was touched by Mr Palmer. He then began to include examples to further elaborate his idea of the practical approach to renewable energy or power. In addition, he gave his personal opinion of Mr Palmer’s idea and thought what it would be perturbed by the global economic recession.
He then explained further reasons for accepting and adopting new technologies and how it can fuelled by our need to mitigate or solve a problem at hand which need due attention. It is not merely a technological problem as he pointed out, but rather it is a socially implicated problem that boils down to humans themselves whom play a huge part in worsening the problems. The examples he used to substantiate his claims were the electric motor car and wind turbine. These examples were quoted to show evidence of how making a certain new technology popular could go against certain interests of a nation in particular. In addition, cultural and behavioural aspects, the adoption of a new product may eventually force people to change their habits. These would lead to drastic outcomes and consequences and hence the rejection of new technologies would merely mean the failure of the market to progress. Lastly, Mr Bala addressed the issue of global warming as a specific rather than a bigger picture as painted by his fellow two other speakers previously. He encompasses issues that related more to the causes, consequences and several other possible solutions to mitigate and solve global warming at hand. Despite doing an excellent job on the explanation, his points were mainly a regurgitation and reiteration on what is known to everyone. I personally felt that he was repeating whatever that was said and mentioned in the mass media such as the newspaper articles and educational films; The Inconvenient Truth.
The two hours presentation was thorough and comprehensive however there should be more interaction between the speakers and the audience to make the lecture a more engaging and interactive one which would eventually spark interests in the audience to do their greater part in helping to reduce or mitigate global warming.
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