Brain and Behavior

              Although I have taken countless biology and anatomy and physiology classes throughout my time in school I have definitely learned a lot about the brain that I did not know through the TED Talks and different videos that I watched this week. Out of the videos that I watched there were a couple with topics that really stood out to me, one of these being the one about sleep.
              As a college student and just a busy person in general I can definitely relate to the idea of not getting enough sleep. In his TED Talk, Dr. Dan Gartenberg , discussed the possibility of technology helping us gain more restful and deeper sleep. He mentioned a fact that was really interesting to me. This fact was that people today get a whole hour of sleep less than the people in the 1940s did. I thought this fact was very interesting considering how advanced technology has become since that time period and how much it is supposed to make our lives better and easier. I also thought that it was very interesting that a sound being played when our brains reached deep sleep would help us have even more restful sleep. The sound that he played really intrigued me though because it was such an odd sound. I was expecting to hear maybe like some type of calming noise but it was more like those ocean sound videos that you can find on YouTube but more of a sped up and shorter version than the normal wave crashes.
              Another video that I found to be very interesting was the video about the eight year old girl who has a very rare brain disease. This little girl, named Ellie, has leukoencephalopathy with brainstem and spinal cord involvement and lactate elevation (LBSL). This is a degenerative brain disease with a very dismal long term prognosis. In Ellie's case, this disease affected her balance early on in her life and could even put her in a wheelchair by the time she is a teen. Currently there is no cure for this disease so as her parents said "its a race against the clock" to find a cure before the damages of the disease become too much to recover from. The great thing about Ellie though is that she has the most positive and joyful outlook on life and her disease. She doesn't let it get her down at all. She has adjusted to it so much so that her mom said that Ellie cried at the idea that she might not have the disease anymore because she says that it makes her, her. I believe that Ellie is a great example for how we all should look at the challenges that we face or will face in our lives. No matter what the circumstance we should all try to have as good of an attitude as Ellie has.


Sources:
https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_gartenberg_the_brain_benefits_of_deep_sleep_and_how_to_get_more_of_it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kk23jZYLNI8&feature=youtu.be