5 Amazing Facts about Human Brain and Memory

Examining the patient who is afraid of tickling, doctors usually try to have his or her hands over their own to prevent such feelings. This happens because your brain keeps your senses focused on the important things, such as signals from the outside world, which should not sink into the bottomless sea of sensations caused by your own actions. For this purpose, there is a part of the brain that generates a signal that distinguishes our own touch from someone else’s. It occupies about 1/8 of the total brain size and weighs about 4 ounces (113g).

It is very difficult to define what a sense of humor is, but we know it very well when we face with it. One theory suggests that the effect of humor is based on a surprise provoked by the outcome of the situation that is different from what standard logic and experience say, with an unusual interpretation of rather ordinary things.

To make it perceived as a joke and not as a logic puzzle, it should be a coherent story with an unexpected, but not too reasonable in the usual sense outcome. Some patients with damage to the frontal lobe of the brain do not understand jokes. Typically, it happens due to the problems with the interpretation of the process. For example, getting a joke with a choice of endings, they cannot determine which of them is funny.

Constant jet lag can be dangerous for the health of your brain. People who do long flights associated with crossing many time zones are at risk of brain damage and memory problems. This, apparently, is the result of stress hormones that damage the temporal lobe and memory, and are produced during the jet lag.

The presence of a song or, more likely, part of a song firmly stuck in your head is incredibly disturbing but, unfortunately, the risk of catching such a “neuroparasite” is directly related to the mechanism of functioning of our memory.

We constantly have to remember a number of sequences, from the movements of signing your name or preparing the morning coffee to a sequence of turns on the highway on your way home.
The ability to reconstruct these and other sequences enables most aspects of our daily lives, as we do it automatically, without thinking. Sometimes at the time when you are thinking about a song or speech, your brain can repeat a certain sequence, thus strengthening the ties with this phrase and associating it with a set of actions or movements. Next time, this sequence can automatically push a recollection out of your memory, that is, a phrase or a portion of a song. Thus, repetition and recollection lead to the strengthening of the reflex.

Despite the fact that we usually associate yawning with sleepiness and boredom, in fact it is a means to awaken us and to refresh our brain. Yawning is an expansion of the pharynx and larynx, which lets more air in and, respectively, more oxygen flows through the lungs into the bloodstream, bringing your body to a state of readiness.

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15 Unbelievable Psychiatric Syndromes You Didn’t Know About

The nature in general and our own psyche in particular are very crafty in creating states we know little about. People constantly experience something unusual, and a lot has already been studied and named in honor of famous writers, artists, book characters, psychiatrists and other individuals. And it is not a bad idea for us, as educated people, to learn about when and what kind of trick our body will come up with next.

This article presents 15 interesting syndromes, and this information will help us in becoming more knowledgeable and understanding of the way in which the human body functions.

The Stendhal Syndrome involves dizziness, fainting, heart palpitations and sometimes hallucinations when an individual is surrounded by fine artwork or incredibly beautiful scenery.

The name of the syndrome is based on one of the books by the French writer Stendhal, in which he described his emotions while visiting Florence: “When I left the Church of the Holy Cross, my heart was pounding, I thought that life had slowly drained out, I walked being afraid to fall on the ground … I had seen masterpieces born by the energy of passion, when everything else becomes meaningless, unimportant, limited, just as when the wind of passion stops pushing on the sails, which move the human soul, then it becomes devoid of passion and, therefore, its vices and virtues”.

We bet you are thinking about the artist’s ear? And you are almost correct. This syndrome is expressed by the fact that a patient is very insisting on going through a surgery, or even, frightful to know, will attempt to perform surgery on himself.

It is an amazing ability of women that spend a lot of time together to synchronize their menstrual cycles after a short period of time spent together. Scientists say that pheromones that the women detect in the air are the culprit. And one more interesting fact. Cycles of all women adjust to the cycle of the alpha female, even though sometimes this female does not even exist.

This kind of megalomania, which occurs only in Jerusalem. A tourist, who arrived in the ancient city for religious purposes, or on pilgrimage, suddenly decides that he or she is endowed with divine and prophetic abilities. He or she is the one who has to save the world. An indispensable addition to a variety of symptoms is their theatricality in speech and gestures.
This syndrome is ranked as a psychosis and requires involuntary hospitalization.

Another trick of an unstable nervous system is also played out in a special place. It most commonly affects calm and polite Japanese tourists. They go to the proverbial land of dreams, shrouded in an aura of romance and street cafes, but end up in a quite aggressive city with swarms of immigrants, no one really wants to pamper them, people are rude and streets are filled with theft. Because of this, about 20 Japanese a year suffer from acute delirious thinking, feel being stalked, detached from reality, or their own personality, experience anxiety and other mental issues. The best way to treat the Paris syndrome is to immediately send the sufferer home.

Also known as “bystander effect.” People who witnessed extraordinary circumstances often try to stay away from helping the victims. The likelihood that any of the witnesses will help the victim decreases as more people will just stand there and watch. One of the main ways to cope with this effect and hope for help is picking a person randomly from the crowd and personally asking him for help.

This is a consuming love obsession or longing for love and romance, hurtful passion without reciprocity. This syndrome got its name because of a real story that happened to the daughter of Victor Hugo, Adele.

Adele met an English lieutenant Albert Pinson and immediately decided that he is a man of her life. We cannot say for sure whether he was a heartless scoundrel who betrayed her feelings, or a victim of erotic inclinations. In any event, Pinson has not reciprocated, regardless of her beauty, nor her father’s fame. Adele chased him around the world, lied to everyone that they are already married, and in the end became completely insane.

This is a kind of hypochondria, when everything hurts or aches and nothing helps, but it is only an
illusion. It is a psychological disorder when a person pretends to be experiencing or exaggerates or knowingly creates symptoms of a disease to undergo medical examination, treatment, hospitalization and so on. The conventional explanation for Munchausen syndrome states that the simulation of the disease is a way to get attention, care, affection and emotional support.

From Hollywood films, we know that Stockholm Syndrome is a situation in which a hostage begins to understand the perpetrator, and even sympathize with him and provide various forms of assistance. Psychologists call this “protective subconscious traumatic relationship.”

However, it is not a psychological paradox or a mental disorder, but rather a normal reaction of the psyche. Moreover, it is a very rare situation, happening in about 8% of the cases related to hostage-taking.

Diogenes is famous for deciding to live in a barrel and behaving as an inveterate sociopath and misanthrope. This syndrome is named after him (and is also referred to as a senile squalor syndrome) and manifests itself more or less resembling this situation. It involves extremely dismissive attitude toward oneself, isolation from society, apathy, hoarding and absence of shame.

It can be said that this syndrome is experienced by those who actively try to remain young, devoting a lot of time and energy to look young and beautiful at any cost. It manifests itself in using items intended for younger generation, wearing clothes in a youth style, and can lead to abusing plastic surgery and cosmetic products. Sometimes this disorder ends with depression and even suicide attempts.

If you meet someone who suddenly starts to complain that he has rotted guts, no heart, he cannot ever sleep, telling you about nihilistic-depressive or hypochondriac delusions, combined with the ideas of self-importance or greatness unprecedented in the history of mankind, or that he or she is an offender, who had infected countless partners with syphilis or AIDS, poisoned the whole world with fetid breath, or reporting with drama that he or she would soon have to pay for what he or she has done, and all the pain in the world will seem nonsense compared to the suffering that he or she is about to face as a punishment, then call an ambulance and make it known to the health workers that this is a case of the Cotard’s syndrome.

It is another syndrome in psychiatry, also known as syndrome of mental automatism. Something related to “I see little green men telling me what to do” or “My legs direct me where I need to go, I have no control over them”.

Often referred to as “coprolalia“, an abnormal and irresistible urge to shout out obscene words, although this is only one side of Tourette’s syndrome. Often used in movies. Interestingly, the word “coprolalia” can be translated from Greek as “verbal diarrhea“.

If you watched the last part of “Harry Potter”, you will remember how Peter Pettigrew was strangled by his own hand. In many other films and cartoons something similar also happens, but it is not a work of fiction writers. The alien hand syndrome does exist, and is complex and not a treatable disorder.

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5 Really Scary Optical Illusion Paintings That Will Astonish You!

Normally I don’t post the articles like this, but these pictures really astonished me so I decided to share them with the readers of my blog who love optical illusions and are fond of the paranormal.

A private collector from Spain has a unique collection of old paintings with stereo effect, which makes the image change at an angle.

At first sight, you can see a depiction of people from the past times. However, once you change the view angle, a scary picture of an evil creature will appear before you. These paintings are really creepy! Enjoy!

[These are *gif images that contain animation, so you should wait a bit until the whole page is loaded]

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4 Shocking Stories of Researchers Who Risked Their Lives for Science

What can be put in danger for the sake of science? Maybe a few hours in the lab or one’s personal life… However, some researchers did much more, risking their physical integrity in order to contribute to the advancement of science.

Read the shocking stories of four scientists who played “all or nothing” to advance their research.

1. According to legend, the Chinese Wan Hu tied himself to a chair with 47 rockets because he wanted to be the first to visit the moon. When the wicks were lit, there was a terrible crash and a lot of smoke, but there was no longer Wan Hu! A small crater on the moon was named in honor of the ambitious Chinese, who is remembered as the first astronaut.

2. Isaac Newton plunged a needle in his eye in order to better understand how human vision works. The British physicist known for his work concerning the laws of gravity was at the same time a pioneer researcher in the field of ophthalmology. He conducted a number of experiments with mirrors, but it was not enough to understand the anatomy of the eye and color vision. So he took a needle and, according to the manuscripts, “pierced it between the eye and the bone near the back of the eye, and, pushing the eye with the tip of the needle, saw white, dark and colored circles.”

3. The Romanian doctor Nicolae Minovici wanted to know how it feels when one is hanged so he decided to… hang himself. In the early 20th century, Minovici conducted a series of experiments, one of which put a loop on the ceiling, passed his head through it and asked his assistant to raise him up. Although his legs were not removed completely from the ground, he said he felt a terrible burning. After that, he found it hard to swallow for a whole month. His findings were published in 1904 in his native language and a year later in French under the title “Study on hanging”.

4. The Australian Franz Reichelt tested a parachute by jumping from the Eiffel Tower. Thus, on 4 February 1912 he decided to test if the designed parachute could save lives in the case of an aircraft accident.

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The Most Funny and Absurd Scientific Discoveries of 2013

Beetles that find their way by the stars, mice that live longer after a heart surgery when they listen to opera, and walking on water on other planets are among the funniest, or most unnecessary scientific research that were awarded with Ig Nobel Prizes this year, which are a kind of Nobel prizes for ‘mad scientists’.

Each winner will get $10 trillion Zimbabwe dollars, which unfortunately are only four dollars.

Ten Ig Nobel Prizes 2013 were awarded at the 23rd annual ceremony at the U.S. Harvard University, which is traditionally organized by the humorous journal «Annals of Improbable Research», according to the «New Scientist» and «British Guardian».

The Ig awards aim to highlight research and discoveries that “first make people laugh and then make them think.”

The Ig Prize in Astronomy and Biology was awarded to Eric Warrant and his team at the Swedish University of Lund for their discovery that the dung beetles find their way at night using the stars of our galaxy as a reference. The beetles not only push their dung balls in straight lines using the moon as a celestial “navigator”, but in moonless nights they use the light of distant stars. This discovery can help – as strange as it may sound – to design autonomous vehicles and robots.

The Medicine award was given to the Japanese Masanori Niimi, University of Tokyo, for the discovery that mice after the heart surgery live longer when they listen to particular music. While the mice normally die after seven days, but when listening to the opera “La Traviata” by Verdi, they live for 27 days and when listening to the Irish singer Enya, they live 11 days.

The Psychology award was given to Brad Bushman of the American University of Ohio for the discovery (or rather confirmation) that many people feel more attractive when they have drunk too much alcohol! “A drunk person thinks he/she is more attractive, but in reality he/she is not,” said Brad Bushman.

The Probability prize was given to a group of zoologists of the Scottish Agricultural College in Bert Tolkamp for the (shocking) discovery that the longer a cow is lying down, the more likely it is to get up soon and, secondly, that from the moment it stands up, no one can easily predict how soon it will lie down again.

The Physics award was taken by Alberto Minetti of the University of Milan for the study that concluded that people – thanks to the small gravity – will be likely to walk on lakes of liquid water on the Moon, but probably not on Mars.

The Engineering prize in the field of security was awarded to Gustano Pizzo for the invention of an electromechanical system that traps an airplane hijacker in a bag, throwing him automatically out of the plane.

The Chemistry prize was awarded to a Japanese research team led by Shinsuke Imai for the discovery that the biochemical processes that make people cry when cleaning onions are more complex than scientists thought until now.

The Peace award was given to the President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko, who has forbidden public applause in his country, and to the Belarus police, who arrested a one-armed man for applauding…

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