Thursday, June 24, 2010

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Vertigo: Between acrophobia and vertigo.

In the famous " Vertigo" (awkwardly translated into "Vertigo") of Hitchcock , Scottie is a former policeman from vertigo hence the title of the film, and because of this problem is the victim of a melodramatic accents. But there is in this film a deliberate confusion and distinguished between, the giddy "true" that seeks to make us feel the film in several scenes, and the psychological problem Scottie has linked his personal experience, and that's where the talent Hitchcock. Hopefully this article does not give you dizzy dizzy see what ...




a perception problem ...
Our head over his remarkable brain is equipped with standard sensors propositional, that the eyes are especially peripheral vision, and the vestibular apparatus located in the inner ear. Both systems include continuously inform the body of his position in space: the proprioception, a kind of perception whatsoever.
When your body is on a high point on a taut string, a rock, or before a bungee jump, it feels easy unpleasant sensation rotary sometimes accompanied by other signs (nausea, tachycardia, cold sweat. ..). This is true vertigo the not to be confused with fainting.

It is linked to a contradiction between the information from the eyes and the vestibular receptors ( maculae and semicircular canals ) that inform the head position and its displacement (linear acceleration and gyro). In fact if you look down, your eyes tell you that the vacuum around you, so that the sensation of falling is an expected consequence of this situation. But your inner ear she informs you that the position of your head is stable and not subject to any acceleration due to the lack of support.


Manage contradiction ...
The brain has faced such a disagreement presume a dangerous situation and abnormal (which is the case) and will thus trigger a set of responses to correct this situation (increased heart rate by example, tonic muscle activity causing the tension and sweating, nausea or vomiting for a possible poison ingested by mistake), we find here the symptoms of vertigo.
Note that the dizziness disappears when the information is again concordant for example when the bungee jumper jumped dizziness disappears, same principle for the paratroopers. These
dizziness are shared by all, but can be tamed because the brain is plastic (it means that the brain can be permanently changed easily). And climbers, tightrope walkers and other acrobats are not subject to vertigo because their brain is accustomed to this contradiction between the signals.
Other cases of inconsistencies between the proprioceptive receptors are well known: motion sickness, or dizzy after a stint on the turnstile ...



The acrophobia not for the acrobats!
From Ancient Greek ἄκρος, Acros, "high, extreme" and φόβος phobos "fear, fear", the acrophobia is a psychological disorder designating the fear of a situation in which the person should or standing near the empty or height. Like all phobias it is linked to the experience of individual and acquired, while vertigo is innate. So if Scottie is afraid of heights is by seeing his fellow police officer falling off while he tried to save ( see video below ), therefore he fears this type of situation because of his guilt, but it is not about dizziness in the physiological sense of the term, since the individual anxiety the idea of being in this situation before and is afraid of being in an elevated position (Scottie can not go to help "madeleine "...).
Like most psychological problems can be "cured" of this type of problem and at the end of the film Scottie, comes at a not empty, the wind in your hair, and remains motionless.

The opening scene of the film Vertigo - Alfred Hitchcock - 1958.
[Note the use of offset when traveling Scottie stares into space, giving the impression that the image grows, and illustrating the sensation of vertigo. This is actually a camera moving down exactly offset by a zoom]

Finally, Hitchcock in Vertigo tries to make us live the pathological acrophobia Scottie us by imposing various methods for making traveling with offset (traveling until cleared by a zoom out, see video) physiological vertigo that we can all feel and are related to problems of perception ...
Well done Mr Hitchcock, master of suspense, and psychological / physiology?



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Saturday, June 19, 2010

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Rigor mortis. The origin

"Under the flashes of his fellow journalists, the naked body and white Pr Adjemian sitting in his bathtub seemed like a wax figure of marinating in plum juice. Rigor mortis had done his work. The scientist was there, staring, wide open, mouth agape, eyebrows raised.
But there was something curious in body position. The left hand rested in the stagnant water of the last bath, but the right hand, she was entrenched on the edge of ceramic, index tense towards the mirror.
As if, just before his death, the scientist wanted to nominate someone or something reflecting it ... "
Book excerpt: Father of our fathers , Bernard Werber.

"Rigor mortis! "

That sounds like a dark spell walked straight out of Harry Potter ... It is not so, since we are talking about rigor mortis often mentioned in our favorite thrillers but never explained. This phenomenon, which means the hardening characteristic of the muscles begin 3 hours after death, is maximal after 12 hours and decreased gradually during the following 48 hours, and this observation may provide a rough estimate of the time of death ...

[Contents of a muscle cell observed under the microscope E - x25 000. the striated appearance is due to the presence of filaments of actin and myosin.]

We have seen in the previous article (it is better to read), the muscle cell is composed of filaments: actin and myosin, which slide against each other thereby shortening the muscle, ie contraction. During this sliding settle temporarily bonds between actin and myosin. That's when the energy molecule ATP is hydrolyzed and ADP released thus far extended to the heads of the myosin molecule to retract [ see diagram].

[1] [2]

myosin (yellow) therefore has two configurations:
[1] - The configuration high energy, or the head of the myosin molecule (yellow) is energized, like the arm of the catapult armed.
[2] - low energy configuration or the myosin head is bent and bound to actin (pink).



What happens there after death?
After death the calcium concentration increases in muscle cells, in effect charging systems to store calcium in the cell stop working tanks, and tanks they leave more and more calcium ions escape ... This increase in calcium concentration is the signal that triggers the connection between the filaments of actin and myosin.

Therefore, for the muscle returns to its relaxed state, the molecules must myosin is detached from actin filaments, and this action is only possible if a new ATP molecule is attached to the myosin to the switchover to high-energy power-up.

But after the death of ATP production is impossible and the actin and myosin are then bound irreversibly, causing rigor mortis observed. It does not disappear when the muscle proteins begin to degrade within hours after death.

to read on this subject: Wikipedia article

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cramps.

"Oh painful sensation of a muscle that refuses to relax," this is poetry that we may well tell these poor professional footballers in this period of world. What an idea to run as long after a ball like I though it should be an attractive remuneration for such work ... Cramp but also affects the common man, who in fact did not experience this unpleasant feeling of tension during prolonged exercise? At a remarkable paradox cramp, muscle fatigue despite shrinking violently; examine the solution of this problem ...


mechanism of muscle contraction.
The force of contraction of a muscle is to be found in the infinitely small, the heart muscle cells, it is here that we find in fact proteins assembled into filaments: the ' constitutes actin thin filaments, and myosin constitutes thick filaments. These filaments bind temporarily slide against each other under the effect of withdrawal of myosin and thus allow the shortening of the muscle cell and thus muscle [see diagram] . Of course the retraction of myosin filaments, requires energy which is in the form of ATP .

1: [ Actin filaments (blue) and myosin (red) slide against each other causing the shortening of the muscle. ]

2: [ Adenosine triphosphate: a molecule used for all biochemical reactions that require energy, it consists of adenine ribose and three phosphate groups ]

Cramp ...

When nerve signal reaches the muscle, the muscle cell mass release of calcium stores it at rest in a sort of tank (sarcoplasmic reticulum). This is the starting signal for contraction, the myosin filaments are then extended to bind to actin filaments, then retracted that causes the shortening.

In an effort to produce muscle ATP quickly, one way to do then is to "ferment" a molecule Glucose is the lactic fermentation . This process is favored for short, intense effort or when the amount of available oxygen is low. But the problem is that this fermentation produces waste, and in particular lactic acid. Now that said acid, said change in pH, that muscle cells do not really. So to avoid this change, the ion currents of the cell will be modified and calcium can then be released into the cell. Neither one, nor two, under the effect of this calcium signal, the filaments of actin and myosin bind, and there is contraction: That's cramp. Note to
passing that these changes in ionic currents may be influenced by various factors such as temperature, diet, or dehydration ...

The solution?
No miracle cure, you just have well prepared her body and especially the effort to stay hydrated in order to promote the elimination of lactic acid on the one hand and ensure the availability of large ions (or minerals) despite sweating on the other. Finally we note that lactic acid is also responsible for muscle soreness, more reason to stay hydrated ...