Week 11

This week in Behavioral Neuroscience we discussed different neurological disorders. This topic tends to be rather sad or depressing but it is still very important to understand. The first topic we discussed was tumors. A tumor is a mass of cells that are dividing uncontrollably. Tumors can be either benign or malignant with the difference being that benign tumors are encapsulated but malignant tumors are free to divide and spread as they are not contained in any type of encapsulation. One of the main concerns about tumors is the possibility of malignant tumors spreading and causing cells in other areas to divide uncontrollably causing damage. Benign tumors cannot do this but in the brain they can cause damage in another way. If the tumor is big enough it can cause compression damage on brain structures adjacent to it as there is only a finite amount of space inside a skull. However, benign tumors can be removed surgically which is way easier and has less negative effects than the alternative. Due to the fact that malignant tumors are free spreading they cannot be surgically removed and require radiation treatment or chemotherapy. This can cause damage to healthy brain cells and the hippocampus is the first to be effected. This is why memory loss is common with high doses of these treatments.

We also talked about other types of neurological disorders this week like strokes and mental health but the one that I found most interesting to learn about was seizures. A seizure is defined as “a sudden and uncontrollable burst of activity in cerebral neurons.” Sometimes a person having a seizure will tense up an convulse and that is caused by a seizure in motor neurons. There are different types of seizures and we learned about a few of them. However, the most interesting one for me was the Grand Mal seizure. In this case “Grand” means “great” or “big” and “Mal” is taken from the latin root for “bad”. This means a “Grand  Mal” seizure is really a “Big Bad” seizure. A grand mal seizure occurs in stages. The first stage is called the “Tonic stage”. This is when you see complete muscle contraction in the body of the person having the seizure. This stage lasts for about 15 seconds. After this the person enters the “Clonic stage” which is characterized by periods of twitching and trembling, violent grimacing and eyes rolling around in their sockets, and sympathetic nervous system activation. This stage lasts for about 30 seconds. Now the stages are nameless but the next stage involves the muscles relaxing and breathing resumes. The person will experience a loss of consciousness and this will last for about 15 minutes. After this the state of consciousness will shift to an altered consciousness similar to a sleep-like state and this will last for the next 3 to 4 hours. All things considered, I fell like the Grand Mal seizure has earned its name and I am glad I have never experienced one and hope to never have to in the future.