How To Write Reflections

Today I'm going to teach you how to write reflections for multiple reasons which I'll list out below:

-I got an assignment on reflective writing
-It's the most easiest solid thing I learned that I can share with you guys
-2016 is coming to an end and what better time than this to learn reflective writing?

What is reflective writing though? Reflective writing works on this model:

Fair enough, right? You work in that order to think about a problem you've had. That's it. That's reflective writing. That's all you gotta know. You start writing or thinking. It helps to make this a regular habit since you'll be able to seriously learn from your experiences.

Here's what I wrote. Not only will it give you an idea about reflective writing, but it'll also let you know about how my week had been going.

Earlier this week, I found out that my history notebook had been misplaced. This history notebook was very important because it needed to be submitted at the end of the gynecology rotation. I had given it to one of my receptors to get checked and it had gone missing in the process. 

When I first found out about my notebook going missing, I was not alarmed since I had been told that I would get my grades put in without the history notebook. When I found out that the entire portfolio needed to be submitted, I became worried and decided to check in with the clinical administration. They told me that I would need to rewrite the entire notebook in order for it to be submitted and my grades to be calculated, which made me feel like the entire procedure was very unfair for me. My friend and I forwarded the incident to a few other preceptors, which made me feel apprehensive. I received a call just this weekend explaining that my notebook had been found, which made me feel very relieved. The incident came to a close with some received feedback. 

The good thing about this incident was that it made me get out of my comfort zone to talk to people in order to get my work done. It also showed me all the ways that you could approach an issue, such as talking in person, sending an email or discussing with the correct authorities. I also learned that it's important to cover all of your bases right from the start and that if something seems fishy, it's important to hammer out the details, as well as the fact that there is a hierarchy that needs to approached in a correct way if you want your concerns to be addressed. 

The bad thing about this incident included the fact that I ended up getting quite stressed over it and was finding it difficult to focus on my studies. I also kept imagining the worst outcomes and was mentally preparing for them. At one point I had even given up and decided to start working on a new history notebook quietly. I also found myself more easily irritable and on edge. 

Thinking over this incident, I have decided to focus on all the things that went right. I feel that it was the right thing to do when I decided to approach the administration to question on how the mishap could be dealt with. It was also the right thing to email the correct authorities to update them on what had happened and ask for their help. These actions should have been done right from the start if there had been continuous communication though. 

Concluding this incident, I realized that there were ways in which the situation could have been handled better. First of all, this entire situation could have been avoided if we had decided to value giving things directly, instead of giving things on time. My friend and I had been focusing on trying to get our work done on the time we had promised to turn it in and this had resulted in a mishap with stress and a whole week lost. Secondly, we should have gone to get our history notebooks checked up by the person they were supposed to go to. That way, we would have found out about the mishap much earlier and been able to do something about it. Thirdly, we had ended up thinking about making a new notebook entirely, instead of looking for the lost notebook. Assuming that notebooks would get lost in a hospital that runs on patient files that look absolutely identical was not the right course of action. 

If this sort of incident was to happen to me again, I would definitely react in a different. My first plan of action would be to find whatever is missing. Most of the time, such things have only been misplaced and people dismiss the value of the lost item by just saying "get another one". I should also improve my communication skills. I found myself stuttering half the time when I needed to speak out about what my problem was. Maybe I didn't appear to have any communication issues to a third person, or even the second person I was talking to, but I certainly felt some fluency was lost under the pressure of the situation. I should practice my verbal skills more in order to be able to convey my grievances properly next time. Apart from that, I also need to pay more attention to orienting myself in regards to the hierarchy of authorities to approach for a problem, instead of approaching whoever I find most accessible. It's important to work within the system in order to minimize more problem arising from the primary concern.

Have you ever thought reflectively about things that have happened in your life? This whole exercise would especially be interesting for people who keep daily journals, although if you don't keep a journal, this could definitely be a good prompt if you would like to get started! Have a nice day!

How To Ace Your Viva

or at least feel marginally less stupid than you usually feel.

You might be wondering, what are vivas? Well, vivas are basically an oral examination where there's just you and your teacher/professor and they ask you a series of questions, testing your knowledge and your method of conveying what you know. Introverted people like me find vivas extremely daunting, mostly because you can, in real time, gauge how your performance is going by judging from the examiner's expressions.

Of course, not all examiners are the same. Some will smile encouragingly when you answer correctly, to help boost your confidence. Some will smile encouragingly when you're wrong, just to see what other blunders you're going to be making today. It depends really. Of course, if your examiners are your own teachers, you pretty much judge them according to how they are in class. But sometimes, teachers change and go into exam mode, where some will be lenient and doing their best to make sure you pass, while others will be grilling you harshly to see if you were actually paying attention and still making you pass, and yet others will be harsh and end up failing you at the same time.

Here's a couple of things I do during my viva;

1. Don't start talking immediately. Just help them note down your roll number/name and then stay quiet. Let the examiner start the examination, don't jump in with everything you know. 

2. When they ask a question, take a few seconds to think over what they're asking. Don't start blurting out the answer! Take your time. 

3. If you don't understand the question, don't be afraid to ask them to repeat the question. It's better to sound like you didn't hear, rather than talking on and on about something the examiner didn't even want to hear in the first place! 

4. If you feel like you don't know how to answer the question, break it down. Start simple. Let the examiner know that you're thinking, by starting from the first step. As you talk, the next step will get clearer and clearer until you finally blurt out what the examiner has been wanting to hear! You can start out by telling the examiner the obvious things first "I understood this this and this" and then state your inferences, "This means this, this means that" and then the conclusion "So this must be the answer".  

5. Don't judge how you're doing from the examiner's expression. If possible, ignore them completely and assume they're trying to drag you down the wrong path (unless they're a really nice teacher and you know they're trying to help you). Stick with what you're saying, don't let them sway your statements and appear indecisive!

So those were a couple of tips that I can give to someone who's appearing in their viva and is kind of nervous about it. I'm not saying that these tips are perfect or that I am experienced in giving vivas, but it's just that this is what I do and I feel like I don't perform as bad as I think I do, considering how nervous and tongue tied I get!

Do you find oral examinations difficult? How do you deal with them? Have a nice day!

How Bad is it to Fail?

It's pretty ironic how I wrote an entire post on how to study anatomy just a few days ago. I'd written the post after my exam on the gastro-intestinal system, partly because I had finally figured out how I should be studying these things and partly because my exam hadn't gone very well and I decided to write everything I should have done down was a good way to ensure I didn't screw up an exam again.

Unfortunately, I wasn't prepared for how badly I had screwed up.

You heard that right. Kanra Khan, second year med student, failed an important exam for the very first time in med school. Was I shocked? A little bet, yes. I'd realized my exam didn't go so well, so I had been expecting a borderline pass, like maybe 50.01% or just 50%. Results get emailed though so when I finally went home and opened the document, I didn't get past the bare minimum to pass. I had gotten a 48%.

So I was shocked, yeah? I study quite a bit, writing notes and drawing drawings, but it just didn't seem to be enough. I realized that when I saw the paper, and I realized it again when I saw my result. For real, guys, med school is tough. You put in so much effort and time and it all literally drains you and then you find out you weren't even up to the mark.

Does it hurt?

Yes.

But no pain, no gain, am I right?

Here are five reasons why failure isn't as bad as it sounds and feels.

1. It's a chance to evaluate yourself.
Where did you go wrong? Did you think this class, this subject was going to be easy peasy? Or maybe you decided to party out with your friends all weekend? Or maybe you did study, you really did, but you focused on the wrong things? Either way, you need to sit down and think about what you've done. We're so caught up with staying ahead in class, we never really stop to think about what we've been doing in the past. Here's your chance.

2. It's a wake up call
Whatever you've been doing, it's not working!! Just reading the text won't get you to pass this class- the way it may have helped you pass all the other classes. Do you need to change your study strategy? Switch from detailed reading to smart strategic learning? An F on your exam is the clearest sign you can possibly get that tells you "Hey, whatever you were doing, it's not going to work. For real, change your strategy".

3. It's your chance to ask for help
I'm a student so I know how there's a sort of facade us students hold up. Whenever it's that time of the school year where grades come in, people ask around "What did you get?" and if you got good, you'd announce your result. And if you didn't do good, you'd just try to play it casual, like "Mmh, yeah, I passed at least".
Well yeah, you didn't do good but in your attempt to look cool in front of everybody, you really missed out a chance to ask for advice. When you fail, there's no way you can continue this facade. You should just take a deep breath and admit that your failed. You'd be surprised at how nice people will be about it, giving advice and tips about studying and test-taking.

4. It proves you're a human
It's okay to fail every now and then. If you always passed with flying colors, wouldn't you stop working so hard? Wouldn't it give your efforts less meaning? That and, a lot of people would be pretty mad at you for being a know-it-all super genius. Failing means you're flawed and human. It's a perfectly normal thing to happen.

5. It tests you as a person
How are you going to react to this? Are you going to sit back and cry about it? Or get up and do something about it instead? What you're going to do after failing is what will decide if you are a winner or a loser.
So pick yourself up, get a plan running and get back into the game! I believe in you and you should believe in you too!

Have a nice day!

10 Tips on Studying Anatomy

I don't profess to be a good student, let alone a great student. I do try my best and while sometimes the best may be good enough, other times it's not. The important thing is to keep trying. There's no perfect way to do things, what works for one subject might not work for another subject. And what may work for me, might not work for you. So before I start this post, I just want to let you know a couple of essential things

It's okay to not know how to study. The important thing is to not give up heart and to keep trying out new styles.
Don't be harsh on yourself while you're adjusting. Yes, being harsh could get you to work harder, but save that study technique for when you can actually work hard and efficiently.
The study methods I've outlined here will not be the perfect or only way to study anatomy, and it also may or may not work out for you!

Glad we cleared this out! Now here's the big question: how can you study anatomy?

Anatomy is a subject that involves a lot of description. There are descriptions of the locations of organs, their insides, their outsides, their neighbors, their blood supply, their nerve supply, their lymphatics drainage, their supports and maybe even their development as well as their microstructure.

What I noticed about anatomy is that it needs constant revision. There's so much material to remember, it may seem trivial and confusing, but it's all really important. Here are 10 things you should focus on when you're studying anatomy.

1. Skim through the chapter first. Don't start studying from the first sentence, just go through the text and familiarize yourself with what's written. How much of this have you already studied? How much of this makes absolutely no sense? Skimming through the chapter will give you an overview of everything and it'll help keep you focused. If you start studying from the very sentence, you'll just end up tiring yourself out!

2. Always keep an atlas open. It's good to have a picture to help guide you through the long pages of text, whether it's the muscles of the limbs, the organs in the abdomen or the arteries around the heart.

3. When studying about a specific organ, always focus on it's relations. What's behind it? What's in front of it? What's beside it? Check it out on the atlas!

4. Similarly, it's important to know about a structure's blood supply, nerve supply, veinous drainage and lymphatic drainage. 

5. When studying about arterial supply, it can be really helpful to draw out an arterial map, starting from the aorta, all the way to the structures that your are reading about! The same can be done for veins.

6. Always go through the clinical conditions thoroughly. It would be a good idea to write them down in your atlas so you can go through it quickly to remind yourself.

7. In fact, write a bunch of quick facts (after you're done studying everything!) in your atlas next to what you've finished studying. I try to compact as much information as I can on my atlas so that when the time for the test comes, all I need is the pictures and the information scribbled next to it to remember all the important things!

8. Study developmental anatomy with gross anatomy. Sometimes, studying about development can help make things easier, like nerve supply and blood supply!

9. The same can be said for histology! Studying histology will help your understand the organ on a microscopic level and this can also really help you out when it comes to studying physiology too!

10. Go through the chapter over and over, whenever you get time! It's easy to forget what you've studied, but by going through it again and again, you can consolidate it in your memory :)

So here were ten little tips to help you study anatomy :) It's a great subject to study and it's satisfying to know everything, especially if you can see it on yourself, like the muscles in your limbs or the bones in your hands and feet. Have a nice day!

Urban Legends: Campfire Tales Entry

Before being a blogger, I always wanted to be a writer. I used to have this composition book (you know, the 50 cent ones that everybody had for school) and it was black and a light blue- a little like the color of the sky, but more bright, or more artificial, almost neon, you could say. 

I used to write a bunch of little poems in it, poems I can't remember now, poems I don't have, poems I can't write again because I lost the notebook and I was just a little girl. I couldn't remember everything I wrote, but I remember that I wrote it. 

Fast forward to when I'm an adult (by the law, but neither in mind nor in spirit :p) and I'm just too busy to sit down and right poetry. Inspiration does not come to me, time evades me and the work that spills so fluidly out of other people makes me feel cheated out of my own childhood writing muse. 

Why did I have to lose that notebook? Why did I have to stop writing? What can I do about it now?

I thought I could just pick up little stories and start writing, anything, but I can't seem to continue projects that I've started. You could go see my profile on wattpad and you would see that I've been on there since 2011. I've been on wattpad for five years. During those five years, there have been countless books I published the first chapters of, only to lose focus and delete them.

Maybe being a poet or even a writer just isn't in me.

That doesn't lessen my wish of writing a horror piece. So when Eve announced a writing competition, I couldn't help but give it a go. It was especially exciting considering she was only taking acrostic poems and short stories and the theme was urban legends.

I decided to enter this competition by writing a poem for it. I have never written a poem in this format before and I thought it would be pretty neat to try! Thank you, Eve, for introducing a new style of poetry to me.

Whispering at night,
even though there seems to be
no one outside.
Darkness veils everything and
I am afraid to
get up and go, 'cause the
owls are hooting mournfully,
Stay away, child, stay away! 

It's dark tonight and there is
no moon to light your way. 

Peeping through the window there is
a pair of eyes, we must lure it
kindly, make soft mewls, ask for help.
It is easy to be what we are not.
Softly stalking, 'cause it doesn't matter if
they don't come. They are alone
and we are a pack, we
need to feed 

- Wendigos In Pakistan

I hope you liked it! Make sure to enter Eve's competition if you're interested! Have a nice day.

All You Need To Know About Road Trips

I'm not claiming to be a road trip guru or anything like that, but I've had my fair share of road trips. In fact, I spent last summer road tripping from Washington DC to Atlanta Georgia to Houston Texas to Tampa Florida and all the way back. I've also road tripped in Pakistan too, having explored Chitral and a bit of Hunza Valley. (the pictures of that post aren't very good quality, for which I apologize).

So I think I do know quite enough to start handing out advice :D it'll be good advice, don't worry!

Always have something to do
Road trips can get pretty boring, especially if you already know that it's going to be a 12 hour long drive and the only people there to entertain you are your siblings who are more interested in sleeping. Here's a list of things that you can bring with you to keep yourself occupied.
-books
-sketch pad
-handicrafts, eg loom band, lanyards, knitting etc.
-music player
-deck of cards

Document your experience
Not everyone gets to road trip and have fun at the same time! Make the most of your adventure by writing extensive reports. Carry around an adventure journal or notebook as well as your trusty camera. You never know when something amazing might happen, whether it's during the drive or at one of the stops. Always keep an eye out for adventure!

Have a back up plan for everything
This is especially important in terms of electronic devices. Always have your phone charger and a power bank, as well as the charger for the power bank itself. You don't want to end up out of battery and you'll also want to charge your gadgets whenever you find the opportunity to do so!

Never say no to snacks
Come on, what can a road trip be without accompanying junk food? Whether it's juice boxes or sodas or cookies or chips- take everything. You never know when extra food can be useful.

Have a trash bag at all times
You don't want to have trash in your car, especially when you know you'll be spending quite a few hours there! Keep a bag or two at all times to collect trash, which would presumably be mostly from eatables and perhaps tissues etc. It's a great way to keep your car clean. Don't throw the trash out though- dispose of it properly!

Carry a first aid kit
Bandages, alcohol swabs, parecetamol, gauze, one of everything in fact! It'll save you a lot of trouble to have such items in the car, especially when you're traveling in a relative foreign place and have no idea where a hospital or pharmacy might be!

Keep an air freshener on standby
It'll make things bearable, promise. Whether it's coming to your car after an overnight stay and discovering rotting food you forgot to throw out, or the smell of a roasting car after standing in the heat for hours. Spray spray away!

Make a mixtape
Get all your favorite sound tracks in one place, whether it's a CD or a USB or whatever. Plug it into your car's audio system for a good atmosphere. It could be something soothing to help you fall asleep or it could be something fast and cheerful to help keep you awake and exited throughout the drive. Either way, this can definitely help keep you entertained!

Wear comfortable shoes
It's important to keep yourself comfortable and your feet are not an exception. Socks and sneakers are great, flip flops are great, sandals are great! You're going to be sitting for long periods of time and you'll want to walk and exercise once you get out of the car.

I hope you found these little tips useful! I wrote these out since I'm going to be going on another road trip this Monday. We'll be going to Kashmir and other valleys like Naran and Kaghan with my aunt and grandfather, who would be coming from Karachi on Sunday. I'll be missing three days of school, but I'm really excited to go! You bet I'd be carrying my adventure journal, camera, back up batteries and power banks, and documenting each and every thing!

Have you road tripped before? Where did you go? Did you enjoy yourself? Have a nice day!

5 Essentials You Need For Efficient Studying

When this current module (maxillo-facial system) started, I was so sure I had gotten a grip on how to study anatomy. I thought I had learned my lessons from LMS (locomotor system) and that this second pure anatomy module would be a piece of cake. It has only been three days and I have realized how wrong I was.

Students like myself often forget about the essentials of studying. Sometimes we thing we have everything under control only to realize that we had lost touch with the basics of studying. What are the basics of studying? Well, I'm here to tell you that!

Efficient studying requires time. It's quite an obvious statement, but it is not to be taken lightly. Study time should not coincide with or involve social media, drowsiness or environmental distractions. Shut off your phone or put it away. If you're drowsy, just go to sleep to be honest. Find a quiet place to study if you have rowdy siblings.

Gather all of your study materials. Put everything in front of you, whether as a list or as a pile. This was another thing I often forget to do. When it comes to studying anatomy, the book is often not enough. You also have to consult the atlas as well as go through a couple of YouTube videos. If your course is also one where you are advised to consult different books, just do it. It really helps.

Give yourself small goals so you stay focused. Instead of scattered studying, make a list of things you have to complete. Five pages of chapter three? That's one goal for you to complete and having this concrete goal will remind you to stay on track so you get things done faster. I often end up studying in a scattered manner, flipping pages back and forth. While it helps me relate together concepts, I often end up with an incomplete chapter.

Use highlighters and colored pens. Write notes in the margins, or use stick notes. Make your book look pleasing, make it colorful enough to have it stick in your mind. I have started using colored highlighters on text heavy pages while annotating with colored pens in the margins and diagrams. It keeps me amused and helps me remember the pages and information more clearly than a simple reading would have done.

Go through the information again and again. Revise what you've learned at the end of the day, at the end of the week, whenever you get time! Don't let things pile up for the exams! Fortunately, I end up having tests every week or so, so I'm obliged to go through the material learned a few times. However, I'd still like to go through everything frequently enough that I have everything memorized and that's definitely one goal I need to set for myself.

These are five things that I realized I definitely needed to get my studying game back on track. Which of these do you practice? Do you find it hard to get in the right studying mood? What advice would you give? Have a nice day!

What's On My Phone

Hello everyone! Is it just me or is PicMonkey giving a lot of trouble these days? It won't launch properly, as a result I've had to try out a new site. BeFunky is a bit like PicMonkey and so far, it seems pretty easy to use considering it was my first time. They've even got this really neat font style where letters are outlined. I recommend you to check BeFunky out- and now to the post!

I'm the kind of person who would rarely be found without my phone. It's got a ton of things I need to use throughout the day, whether it's checking up on my academics, my emails, my social media or just playing games. It also turns out to be a great time waster too- top of the list when it comes to ways to procrastinate!

So, first things first. My current lock screen is a wallpaper of a night sky in New York City. I found it while browsing through tumblr and ended up collecting quite a few imaged I could use. Of course I picked the best one to use first and so far, I haven't changed it at all. I like it because it's really soothing to look at it and it's also better than putting my face on there instead.
I realize a lot of people- especially girls- tend to put their own pictures up on the lock screens and wallpapers, but it just seems a little narcissistic to me. I mean, sure, if anyone picks up your phone, they'll know who's it is, but most people don't let their phones out of their hands, let alone their sights. It's just basically you looking at your face more than 50 times a day.

Here's the main screen where most of the important things are gathered like the Calendar (not used very much), the Clock (how else to wake yourself up everyday?) Contacts (because I can't remember anyone's number except my own), Photos (blogging purposes), Settings (for when the WiFi randomly disconnects), App Store (maybe used once a month to get a new app), Weather (once a month, it's just here cause it's blue), DropBox (considering to be used for blogging purposes), Adobe Acrobat (for academic lecture slides and PDFs), Evernote (blogging and note taking), iBooks (academic purposes) and Maps (it's blue).

The main tray on the other hand has the solid essentials- Phone, Mail, Messages and Camera. It's there for easy access and lets me see about immediate things I should know about- missed calls, emails, texts to reply. (It looks like I'm really bad at replying to texts but that's because I read them from the notifications center and answer there without going to the messages section at all. So any texts that don't need to be replied to are all piled up. Quite a few are promotional texts from my service providers as well as general advertisements about sales etc).

I only have two screens to switch between- having more doesn't seem very necessary to me. This one has a lot of things piled together. There's Timeful, a really nice time organizing app that I had been frequently using in first year. It's basically like the iPhone Calendar, but it's mostly for every day informal use, like developing little habits and setting small reminders. It was a really nice app and although I stopped using it when exams rolled around (this app requires a lot of maintenance, since you have to plan out your day) but I really want to get back into shape. Next up is Inkling, an educational app linked to most of my medical textbooks. You know how it works- scratch the code in your book and get the virtual copy of it in your phone. It's really nice but I haven't been using it regularly- I have two other books I have yet to load into Inkling but it's just not that necessary for me. Perhaps this app would be more useful on a tablet. Quizlet is all about making flashcards. I was using it regularly in first year and I had promised to use it again in second year but it just hasn't happened yet... My lack of enthusiasm is probably because the flashcards are a little dull- you can't add pictures. alQuran is another app that took forever to find- it's got Quranic texts with translation and you can download recitations for listening to offline. It's really useful and I would recommend everyone to have this (if you'd like it, I mean). 

I've lumped the rest of the apps into folders. Useless Apples is home to all of the useless Apple apps that I can't delete and just clutter my phone. Productivity is a misnomer- a lot of things in there I don't really use. Social has all the media apps, Instagram, SnapChat, Twitter, Tumblr. You'll notice there's no Facebook and that's because Facebook is not that useful for me. I've installed Buffer though, and its a really useful app for blogging. It basically queues posts for social media accounts. I've hooked it up to my twitter and facebook at the moment.

Chrome is just too important to be categorized- I need it to be on hand for browsing (and checking facebook). The last icon you see is for a game I'm currently in to called Summoner's War. I'm planning to review, just like how I reviewed Clash of Clans, so keep your eyes peeled!

What apps do you have on your phone? Do you use all the apps you've installed? Does your home screen reflect what kind of person you are? Have a nice day!

The Alphabet of Neurosciences

It's April, which is basically the month for the A to Z blogging challenge where you were supposed to blog about each letter of the alphabet every day! Now I'm not exactly a punctual blogger so I was not able to even properly formulate a plan about this event, let alone even attempt is, but here's my little contribution to the blogging community. Mixing it up with the latest module I've been studying, I've decided to share with you the ABC's of neurosciences in the hopes that you might learn something new today! And just to help you feel accomplished, I've even added a short quiz at the end. Are you ready? Here we go!

Disclaimer: This is by no means well- written explanations. I have purposely left out a lot of major detail to make things easier for the average reader. If any of this interests you and you want to learn more, let me know in the comments below and I can direct you to helpful reading sources or videos or perhaps write something extra for you.

A is for Aphasia. If you look at the word carefully and try to figure out what it means, you can break it down into two parts, 'a' meaning without and 'phasia' meaning phases. So Aphasia meaning "out of phase". This term is used for incoordinated movements, when you want to perform a task but you can't because your muscles aren't working together in phase. Aphasia is a general term.

B is for Broca's Area. This is a very special area in the brain. It functions to gather your thoughts in response to a question and plan out how you're going to say it. The Broca's Area sends the "speech" plan over to the cortex of your brain that controls the muscles and that's how you're able to flawlessly speak, using all the teeny tiny muscles in your voice box as well as the muscles in your tongue. If there's something wrong with your Broca's Area, you won't be able to form a proper reply, your speech muscles will be out of phase and whatever you say won't make a lot of sense with several pauses and difficulty saying words. This is called speech aphasia.

C is for Cerebrospinal Fluid, also abbreviated to CSF. This is the fluid that surrounds your brain and makes it float inside your skull. Your brain is made up of so many folds that if it couldn't float in CSF, it would collapse on itself and become very deformed. CSF also helps cushion your brain when you hit your head, protecting your brain from hitting hard bone and injuring itself! Too much CSF can be a bad thing though, you could end up compressing your brain as it fills with CSF. This condition is called hydrocephalus, where hydro means water and cephalus comes from cephaly, or head.

D is for Dopamine! Dopamine is a very important neurotransmitter. Neurotransmitters are small substances that are passed from one neuron (nerve cell) to another neuron and essentially carries across messages. Dopamine functions in emotions by giving us the drive and motivation to do things. Dopamine also triggers the reward centers in our brains and can thus lead to drug seeking behavior. Have you heard of Parkinson's Disease? It's a disease where the neurons that talk using dopamine are destroyed, as a result, it's hard for people with Parkinson's to move since the motivation is gone.

E is for Epinephrine! Also known as adrenaline, epinephrine is another important neurotransmitter that functions mostly in the sympathetic nervous system. The sympathetic nervous system is the part of our nervous system that instantly prepares us for fight or flight. That means that epinephrine will increase blood flow to our muscles so we can run, dilate our pupils (make the little black windows in our eyes bigger) so we can see better and releases more energy so we can use it to keep moving! Epinephrine is also released by the adrenal medulla.

F is for Frontal Lobe. This is the part of the brain that is at the very front- right behind our forehead! This is a very important part of our brain since this is where our thinking takes place- problem solving, planning as well working memory. The frontal lobe decides what to focus on. When you're reading this, you are focusing on the words in this line, not the words above or the words below. Similarly, if you're in class and your teacher is talking about something but your friend is making faces at you, it's your frontal lobe that decides to focus on your friend's antics and totally tune out whatever the teacher is saying! Of course, your frontal lobe is you, so blaming it for focusing on the wrong things is really blaming yourself xD

G is for Gangrene. Gangrene is, in simple terms, the rotting of a part of your body, most commonly the ends of your arms and/or legs. It usually happens when the blood supply to these areas is not enough. The cells and tissues there starve and then die. If left untreated, gangrene can result in amputation of the limb since the rotting flesh can spread over to the healthy parts, not to mention how perfect such dying tissue would be for bacteria.

H is for Hemorrhage, pronounced hemor-rage. No, it doesn't have anything to with rage. Hemorrhage refers to blood leaking out of the circulatory system. While a finger cut could be referred to as a hemorrhage, it's a term usually saved for more serious types of bleeding. It's especially dangerous for hemorrhage to happen in the brain because brain cells are not equipped to work without oxygen. Blood pooling in the brain can also squish parts of it and this can in turn affect our control on our body.

I is for Ipsilateral. This is an anatomical term that basically means "same side". The anatomical term for opposite side is "contralateral". For example, the right side of our brain controls the left side of our body. Anatomically, we can say that the right side of the brain controls the contralateral side of the body.

J and K stand for Just Kidding.

L is for Limbic System. This is a system inside our brain that controls our emotions. This is what tells you to be mad at the right moment and also gives emotional context to experiences. Remembering a memory that makes you smile involves the limbic system. It also plays a role in memory and learning through a structure called the hippocampus.

M is for Myocardial infarction. Often abbreviated to MI, myocardial infarction is when the blood supply to your heart is disrupted and the heart muscles just start dying. Dying cells release a lot of substances that can cause pain, so myocardial infarction is a painful condition. After all, how else can your heart get your attention except by causing you pain?

N is for Neuron. A neuron is basically a nerve cell. Neurons have their special shapes that kind of look like those cute girly pens that have feather pompoms on their ends. There's a rounded side that receives information from extensions called dendrites, then the message is carried all the way down the long end, called an axon. Axons can be really long, going from your spinal cord to the muscles at the end of your foot.

O is for Optic Chiasma. Optic refers to the eye and chiasma refers to crossing over. The optic chiasma is the X shaped part of the optic nerves. Before the optic nerves can go to the eye, they cross over each other. It looks kind of like this

P is for Pulmonary Embolism. This is a little like gangrene and myocardial infarction- a small piece of debris makes it's way into the lungs and gets stuck there, disrupting blood supply. Since blood can't move forward (there's a traffic jam!) it gets difficult for blood to become oxygenated. As a result, there is low oxyen levels in the blood, rapid breathing rate and rapid heart rate. Oh and pulmonary refers to the lungs while embolism refers to a piece of debris, usually a blood clot, that was formed somewhere else, got picked up by the blood and stuck somewhere else.

Q is for Queen I guess. Can't think of anything relevant.

R is for Reticular Formation. This is a part of your brain stem that functions to activate your brain, or wake it up. If anything happened to your reticular formation, you wouldn't be able to wake your brain up! The reticular formation is also located in a strategic position- right between the brain and spinal cord, so it is always updated with what kind of information is being sent up to the brain and what's being sent back down. When you're asleep, for example, there are a lot of things that your body can feel but doesn't get registered, but if someone was to give you a painful slap, the pain information goes straight to the reticular formation which immediately wakes the brain up!

S is for Stroke. A stroke is basically any derangement of brain activity that results from disturbance in blood supply. This can be either having a traffic jam in the blood supply and some tissues not getting any oxygen or blood leaking out of the vessels and pooling in the brain, called a hemorrhage (did you remember that? Good job!). Strokes can have a wide variety of effects since there are specific areas of the brain for specific tasks. A stroke in the Broca's Area would cause difficulty in speech, or speech aphasia. A stroke in the reticular formation would result in a coma, where the brain would never be able to wake up.

T is for Thrombus. A thrombus is related to an embolism. While an embolism was a travelling piece of debris, a thrombus is where it all began. It's basically a local clotting of blood that may or may not accidentally end up blocking the blood vessel. It could be that while trying to block a vessel, a piece breaks off and that piece is called an embolism.

U is for Upper Motor Neuron. This is a neuron that is an upper class neuron designed to control muscles (hence, motor). How is it upper class? Well, it comes out from the brain directly! Any neuron that carries motor control and starts from the brain is an upper motor neuron. This neuron goes all the way down to the spinal cord before ending and passes it's message on to the Lower Motor Neuron. The lower motor neuron's job is to carry the message to the muscle itself. Simple enough?

V is for Ventricle. These are little spaces in the brain filled with CSF, or cerebrospinal fluid. We have a grand total of four ventricles in our brain, two lateral ventricles, a 3rd ventricle and a 4th ventricle.

W is for Wernicke's Area. This area is where we understand language, whether it's spoken or read. When you read these words, it is the Wernicke's Area that is turning these miniscule curves and lines into something you can understand. When you listen to someone talking, it is your Wernicke's that turns the sounds and tones into something you can understand. If your Wernicke's Area didn't work, it would probably be very much like suddenly being in China where you can hear and see the Chinese language everywhere but you have no idea what anyone is saying. As a result, if anyone asked you anything, you would reply fluently along the lines of "I have no idea what you're saying, nothing makes sense" and this tells us that your Broca's Area is doing just fine, you can make a language response, even though it has no context to the question you were asked.

X is for X-ray. Need I say anymore?

There's no relevant word I can think up of for Y or Z!

Alright! You got through the ABCs of Neuroscience! Here's a small test to see how much you learned!

Q1. When you are exercising, which one of these is busy making your heart pump faster?

a. Dopamine
b. Epinephrine
c. Acetylcholine
d. Serotonin

Q2. Which one of the following is responsible for consciousness, or waking the brain up?

a. Frontal Lobe
b. Optic Chiasma
c. Reticular Formation
d. Pain

Q3. The anatomical description for "same side" is

a. Medial
b. Lateral
c. Ipsilateral
d. Contralateral

Q4. Which part of your brain is responsible for problem solving and planning?

a. Frontal Lobe
b. Parietal Lobe
c. Occipital Lobe
d. Temporal Lobe

Q5. If you had a stroke in your Wernicke's Area, you would

a. Be unable to read
b. Be unable to hear
c. Be unable to taste
d. Be unable to smell

Write your answers in the comments below and I'll let you know how well you've done on this test! Did you think you learned something new and interesting today? Would you like seeing posts like these again some time? I certainly had a lot of fun writing this! Have a nice day!