TRI-4, Wk3, Day 212 - Thursday

It's not uncommon to leave school with a bit of excitement and a bunch of ideas swimming in my head but, I've noticed the long drive home has a bit of a mental dampening effect on that mind set. I think that kind of happened today. That or I'm just having a hard time remembering everything I was excited about.

Oh, fundamental imaging diagnosis is a pretty cool class. Right now, we're basically learning everything there is to know about x-rays, from the anode to the cathode, what they're made of, what they were made of in the past, the improvements made over the years and, personally, I've found it all to be amazingly interesting.

From our teachers perspective, Thomas Edison was a bit of a jerk but, that made me think of the fact that Edison lost his hearing in his youth and that reminded me of the time I met Lou Ferigino up in Columbus, Ohio a number of years ago and Lou seemed to have a bit of a chip on his shoulder as well, maybe there's a relationship there or maybe I just caught him on a bad day.

The anode part of the x-ray machine has a disk made of Tungsten which rotates at about 3,000 rmp's per minute along w/ a cathode which generates a couple thousand degrees worth of heat/energy. Also, while the spinning disc hospitals & chiropractors would use for taking x-rays of bone is made of Tungsten (Tungsten alloy) the spinning disc used for mammographies is made of Molybdenum. I believe the spinning disk have silver ball bearings and no lubricant so, when those bearings give out, it's time for a new anode.

A small disk of tungsten, maybe 3 or so inches in diameter runs about $5,000

It's pretty interesting again how all our classes seem to line up with each other. We're studying neurophysiology in physiology III and also in NMS (neuro-muscular-skeletal diagnosis) and have already had exposure to neurology in Tri-2's Neuroanatomy class.

I am getting more familiar with basic concepts regarding the brain. Most all of our sensory input goes through the thalamus. The thalamus is a centrally located portion of our brain which is sometimes refereed to as the "primitive" brain. If we get poked w/ a needle in our leg, then our thalamus can perceive the pain but cannot discriminate much with regard to that pain, only that we've maybe been hurt and are experiencing pain. From the thalamus, the nerve signal goes to the outer gray portion of our brain - the cortex which is capable of higher levels of interpretation. With our cortex we can determine exactly where the pain is coming from.

If you hold out your hand and, using a blunt instrument, draw out the letter A then the thalamus might perceive pressure on the body but the cortex can tell you exactly where the pressure is coming from, how much pressure there is and can also discriminate and tell you the letter A was just drawn out on your hand.

In physiology we're learning that the brain works by inhibition - I need to learn more about this but right now, I'd say the brain is about 2/3 inhibition - maybe more. We're also getting into the RAS or reticular activating system in the brain. This area of the brain has to do with our levels of awareness. It's like a huge filter that basically ignores everything that isn't important to us and let's through everything that is important - - -

This has HUGE physiological implications and has been the topic of previous articles I've written elsewhere. As people, we are literally bombarded with millions of pieces of information every single day but only a very small percentage of that ever makes it's way to our cerebral cortex. And, that's basically what we have to interpret life with. Two people experiencing very similar days may perceive each one very differently. Even if the stimulus input is 100% identical - the perception and what is noticed may be radically different. A person used to complaining all the time and thinking life sucks and is the most unfair prank ever to be played by god will have a RAS that lets in as much negative stuff as possible - for that person it would be part of what keeps them in a state of homeostasis, it keeps their life and probably more importantly, their beliefs in tact.

Another person - again, with the exact same input, may have a RAS which filters out much of the garbage and lets a preponderance of good things get to the cerebral cortex and that's what that person may dwell upon.

For the most part, I think the RAS does much to help us maintain our current set of beliefs. I think most people have probably experienced the power of the RAS when they get a new model car that they've never owned before. All of a sudden, they start to notice that car all over the place when just the week before owning the car, they never really noticed them.

Another classic example would be a person at a party in a room full of chattering people. You wouldn't notice all of the conversations going on but, if a good friend said your name from across the room then the RAS would probably let that bit of info get up into your higher level consciousness.

The NBS or National Board Specialist came in today to chat with our class and give us our first set of assignments to help prepare for national boards. One thing they were quick to point out was the fact that we haven't completed all the classes that will be covered on National Boards, Part I so, we're to look over Bone pathology, Immunity and attend this coming Saturday's Spinal Boot camp.

It's all interesting. For Irene Gold, this past weekend, I met a chiropractic student who has flown in from New York for the past two weekends in order to get the Board Review and, like with this weekends spinal neurology lessons, we'll also have people from other schools and other states coming in to town to get the four hour review. Until today, I didn't actually realize it was a part of the NBS.

So, we've got prep coming from Irene Gold, which students pay for out of their own pocket and we also have NBS which is provided by the school (via part of our tuition) to also help prepare us for Part I of national boards.

I guess I'll stay up until 8 or so tonight - I've got another spin class tomorrow morning from 5:40 to 6:30 a.m. Wednesday was the first class and I *really* liked the new gym.

Off to cap off the night with a bit of studying :)