Rain Rain Rain

Well it's that time of the week again and it's raining...like it has been for the past three days. No joke...it's been pouring for a long time. Long enough to prevent the kick-off to our intramural basketball season and keep us indoors studying all weekend long. This past week did bring a lot of new and exciting things, so if this post seems a little all over the place, forgive me. Our lectures throughout the week mainly covered the optical and acoustic systems, so once again we got to learn all about my favorite topic...the eyes.

On Friday, we had another hands-on lab, but this time it was for learning about the eye reflexes. We learned how to check if all of the external muscles of the eye were intact (by doing the follow-the-finger test...it's a lot more complicated than that), testing peripheral vision, looking for strabismus, nystagmus, pupillary light reflex (constriction and dilation), Argyll Robertson's pupil, Marcus Gunn pupil, and finally...we tested visual acuity. If you don't know what any of those are and would like to know, I'm sure Wikipedia and/or Youtube give great explanations...but for those of you that don't, I'll save you the boredom. One interesting thing that I was never aware of is that when you are a doctor, before measuring a patient's visual acuity, the proper thing to do is to make sure that they are comfortable with reading letters. I guess it's something that I always take for granted since I can read, but many people can't read. In those cases, different visual acuity charts exist that replace the letters with shapes or a single letter that faces different directions, ultimately allowing the doctor to get a more accurate result. Just because someone can't read, it doesn't mean that they can't see.

Another interesting thing that I learned this week (amongst hundreds of other things) was about the development of speech and language. So each one of us has an area in the brain called Broca's area, which is located in the inferior frontal gyrus of each cerebral hemisphere. This area is responsible for speech production. What I found so interesting was that this area of the brain matures around the ages 7-10. Prior to the age of 7-10, most of us learned how to speak a native language, whether it was English, Spanish, Chinese, whatever. Broca's area is where the knowledge and ability to speak that native language is stored. Now, every language that you learned after the maturation of Broca's area (after 7-10 years of age), they are stored in an area surrounding it. So, for example, in class we were presented with a case where a gentleman had a stroke in Broca's area. When he recovered, he no longer had the ability to speak his native language, but he could speak German...a language that he learned in his adult life. The funny thing about this is, if there is anything funny about it, was that none of his family members could speak German, so they had to hire a translator in order to understand what he was saying. Wow, the brain can do some complex, yet amazing things!

Before I call it a night, I just want to leave you guys with a video (not my typical music video), but one that has been floating around on the internet for the past week. If you have not seen it already, I hope that you enjoy it and that it provides a little perspective in your life. We have so much to be thankful for...so make sure you let those around you know. Grab a Kleenex.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NjKgV65fpo