Psych 1010 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Psych 1010 - Essay Example This was interesting to me because it laid out pretty clearly exactly how reward pathways work and how a lot of stuff in the brain goes on. The Beyond the Reward Pathway was interesting for the same reason, because it explained how drugs do what they do. Although I have seen plenty of movies or books where the characters are on drugs, and know some of the stereotypes about how people behave, it was really interesting to see the actual chemical reactions and problems that lead to that behavior. Beyond the Reward Pathway was the most educational, especially when coupled with the Mouse Party game. Both of these together taught me exactly how specific drugs cause specific behaviors in people, and the mouse party game really made it come together well by showing the actual behaviors in the mouse you picked. For instance, after playing the mouse game I learned that the reason cocaine makes its users so twitchy is because the drug causes problems in the part of the brain that deals with vol untary movements. I also learned from the Reward Pathway article about the different types of pathway in the brain, such as the Dopamine, Tuberoinfundibular, and Nigrostriatal pathways, among others. Each of these has different purposes and different effects on how the brain operates. Although the mad scientist game and the cerebral commando games were interesting, they each had their drawbacks. The mad scientist game just took too long to start up. There was too much boring information at the start which had nothing to do with anything and I couldn't skip it. The commando game didn't really teach me much, and was kind of difficult to use. The way it flashed was also annoying. The game I enjoyed the most was the mouse party game, again. It wasn't really much of a "game" but I still enjoyed picking the mice based on their actions and then looking at the slides to see exactly how each of their actions was caused. It was also interesting to know why mice are used all the time in resear ch and experiments. For instance, the website says that mice have about 60% of the same genes as a human being, which seems strange. However, this is why they make good test subjects. For research about brain chemistry and drug reactions, mice are even more of a good fit because the brain is built in the same way, and even uses dopamine and other reward pathways in the same way. I learned this from the "Mice are Good Model Organisms to Study Addiction" article. The reason so much of the website talked about Dopamine is that this is how a lot of drugs function. They either, like cocaine, block the dopamine transporters, or interact with the chemical in other ways. Since Dopamine is how our brain registers pleasure, it plays an important role in how we become addicted to things. When we feel good, we remember that and then want to feel good again. So we become addicted because of the way drugs interact with dopamine. Because the website is all about the science of addiction, it is nat ural that it would talk a lot about dopamine more than other parts of the brain's

European Idea Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

European Idea - Essay Example United States had financed the European war effort through the lend lease agreement in which 50.1 billion US Dollars (almost 700 billion dollars at 2007 prices) worth of materiel was dispatched. However at the end of the Second World War, Europe was in no position to repay the mammoth debt. Also the tremendous rise in industrial effort in United States had led to a high level of production capacity whose only possible buyers could be the European states. Thus it was in American vested interests as well to finance the reconstruction of Europe through various instruments available, one of which was the European Recovery Plan or the Marshall Plan. But to American thinkers, the biggest hindrance to the reconstruction of Europe was the traditional strict protectionist trade structure of Europe. American thinkers rightly believed that quick recovery of European Continent could only be possible by the creation of a United Europe on the lines of United States where all the resources availabl e are synergized to achieve a faster reconstruction and growth. However this could not just be credited to United States as the promoter of European Idea as the entire continent was tired of the countless wars and long standing antagonism in the continent. Movements had started all over Europe for integration of Europe into one federal state or state like structure. However the Europeans wanted to stay away from American sphere of influence as well as the iron curtain of Europe and maintain a third European Pole. But the cold war ensured that this non alignment would be increasingly difficult to maintain and the Europe as on the border of expanding Soviet sphere of influence have to choose United States as its reliable partner and accept the American model of governance. The Marshall Plan was the first step in practically forcing the European idea into the real world. As per Marshall Plan, United States agreed to fund the reconstruction effort in post war Europe only on the condition that if the Europe act together and present a mutually agreed reconstruction plan. Indirectly United States dictated the European states to learn to negotiate towards a common European recovery goal rather than the narrow self interest they had hitherto been following. This had a remarkable effect on the integration of future Europe. The Marshall Plan itself and the institutional mechanism established to implement it became the training grounds for the bureaucrats who later on worked in institutional integration of Europe. The success of the plan demonstrated to all and sundry in Europe, the benefits of economic integration. The free trade and non protectionist environment generated due to Marshall Plan ensured continuous two decades of excellent Economic Growth. Thus Ma rshall Plan stands as one towering example of United States's influence in shaping up the European Idea into a practical reality. North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) became another fundamental effort by United States to shape up European thought into mutual coexistence in political and defence domains. What Marshal Plan achieved in economic domain was achieved by NATO in political / military domains. Though it can be argued that Marshal Plan started the economic integration process which culminated into one European Economy, while nothing of this sort is visible in military / political