Neurology and Social Psychology | Assignment
5 Pages2425 Words329 Views
Added on 2019-09-30
Neurology and Social Psychology | Assignment
Added on 2019-09-30
ShareRelated Documents
NEUROLOGY AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGYIntroductionIn the last few decades, neurology has shown promising results in terms of its immense potentialin understanding different behaviors in social psychology. It is also being utilized in addressingpsychological problems and a range of other mental illnesses. Experts believe that social workeducation must integrate neuroscience for professional practice. The recent technologicaladvancements have also significantly affected the research in social and behavioral science.Using extensive research, the studies have shown that the human brain and bio-sociologicalprocesses are closely involved in our behavior. It has provided us a deep insight into etiology,treatment and prevention of mental illness and other psychological conditions (Martin, 2002). It was a positive attempt on the part of Library of Congress and National Institute of MentalHealth that have profoundly disseminated the public awareness in the field of brain researchbenefits. It was the continuous efforts of medical researchers who conducted real-time clinicalresearch on the functioning of human brain. The researchers and scholars in the field of socialwork as well are utilizing this new wave of knowledge and attempting to pull their social workprofession with this new trend of neurological science (Price, Adams, & Coyle, 2000). Thispaper tries to look into different aspects of neuroscience that have positively affected the societyat large. It discusses the various concepts of neurological science that have so far successfullyprovided solutions for certain psychological challenges as well.The following topics underline some of the important social psychological or neurologicalconcepts in today’s scenario:1)Neuroscience and the Development of Adolescent Brain The recent Congressional Neuroscience Caucus has addressed the fundamental differencebetween a growing and a developed brain. The speakers who conducted this research laid baretheir results in front of the scientific community. They told that the human brain start developingduring young adulthood till late 20s and early 30s for a lot of people. The researchers explainedas to how during early childhood, the development is more about establishing connectionsbetween the cells than the change in the number of brain cells. While the new connections aremade regularly, but only the ones that are frequently used remain. The rest are forgotten so thatthe brain can focus of the necessary connections and this process is continued throughout theadulthood (Vijayakumar et al., 2016). One of the researchers further elaborated that the neurons during adolescence have the ability tobuild connections to other cells twice as fast as the neurons in an adult brain. This ability allowsthe teens to ingest new information much more rapidly, which is why they are more vulnerableto the negative influences. So, stress, alcohol and substance abuse all of these have significanteffects on the brain of an adolescent that makes them highly sensitive towards addiction.Moreover, the part of the brain that is responsible for making sensible decisions is the one thatdevelops last. Therefore, they have a limited foresight and are prone to risky behavior. The
research also showed that the teen brains work harder in order to assess whether a scenario couldbe dangerous, showing increased activity in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DAHL, 2004).This important research can go a long a way to inform the legal system as to how to determinethe degree of culpability of teens who are always in a position of lacking maturity and impulsecontrol.2)Effects of Surgery on Cognition According to a study, in United States alone, the people of age 65 years and more undergoaround 20 million surgeries each year, which improve their health and most of the times savetheir lives. But because of the complexities of the brain, a condition of delirium emerges, whichis the immediate post-operative period and because of that there is a subsequent risk of dementia.The medical researchers and clinicians have closely observed for long that there is a clearassociation between surgery and cognitive compromise. This alarming situation has really madethem pay attention to this issue. In a conference devoted to surgery and cognition, Howard Fillit,Director of the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation made his views clear that surgery andcognition is the topic of profound importance. ("Predicting Effects of Surgery on Cognition -BrainFacts.org", 2016) There is an increment of one-third in the number of surgeries in olderpeople from 2000 to 2010, where serious complications arise in 10 to 25 percent of the cases. Ofall these cases, delirium is the most frequent and deadly. Apart from that, there is a condition ofacute confusion that disrupts in attentions and other related cognitive functions. So, it is thegrowing advancements in the field of neuroscience that is crucial to gain understanding andprevent these complications from occurring again. According to the research, the risk of decline in cognitive functions of the brain is very high afterthe surgery. Post-surgery, the cognitive functions of the brain follow a clear pattern – a suddendip, then a gradual recovery. According to a recent study including 225 cardiac surgery patients,the ones who did not develop delirium, showed an improvement above baseline function. While,the patients whose delirium lasted for 3 days or longer, couldn’t recovered completely even ayear later and the ones who developed delirium for much shorter periods, the delirium fell inbetween (Caza, Taha, Qi& Blaise, 2008).So, the researchers stick their neck out and said that the condition of delirium may be associatedwith increased inflammatory response towards the stress, and the patients even have higherinflammation levels before their surgery, the ultimate purpose is clinical translation. Theybelieve that they can successfully integrate neuroscience and biomarkers to identify individualshaving risk of delirium and a long-term cognitive decline. It will be a collective neurological andpsychological approach to develop intervention strategies that would protect the brain.3)Neurology and a measure of ConsciousnessThe neuroscience may still be struggling in accurately defining as to what consciousness is, butthe approach of thought process and ingenuity is creating a lot of stir in understanding its everyaspect whatsoever. It might look somewhat foolhardy to suggest that consciousness can be
End of preview
Want to access all the pages? Upload your documents or become a member.
Related Documents
Paper On Different Aspects Of Neurosciencelg...
|6
|2200
|127
Paper On Concepts Of Neurosciencelg...
|7
|2819
|294
Neurobiology of Adolescent Behaviorlg...
|12
|3371
|61
Understanding Science: Physicslg...
|3
|624
|479
Attachment in Adolescence and Adulthoodlg...
|15
|3827
|87
Importance of Attachment and Psychosocial Development in Infants aged 0-6 Monthslg...
|8
|1940
|178