Cognitive Neuroscience

My past few blog posts have been on my goal to become an Olympic sprinter, but today I'm switching topics from my sports goal to my professional goal. For the longest time I've been convinced that I wanted to be a lawyer. I was going to go to UCLA and study psychology in undergrad then go to Stanford Law School after that. This past weekend, however, I watched three episodes of the show Morgan Freeman's Through the Wormhole on the science channel and I was sucked into the two episodes that had to do with the human brain. The first one was about the brain patterns of criminals and psychopaths and also the people who judge them. It talked a lot about the different parts of the brain and how a small change in one little section can cause someone to ignore the will to be good. They showed a study on the episode that proved people's will to be good started at an early age by doing a simple experiment on babies. The other episode, which was the most interesting one to me, was one about our subconscious. I was basically glued to the tv for the entire hour and I can't even describe how awesome it was.


Here's a link to the episode on YouTube.

I'm actually watching an episode now about eternity and next is the one on evil and then the one on the subconscious comes on. :) Anyway, this got me thinking and I decided that I'd really like to be a cognitive neuroscientist and study the mechanics of a brain and what makes people act the way they do. This website is something that I found that just provides a few recent studies and the overview of what they mean. I think this is a really good way to keep up with what's going on and to learn basic things about neuroscience. Another thing I found was just somebody's quizlet flashcards on high school level neuroscience vocabulary words. I thought that this was really interesting and that it would be cool just to check them out.

The last thing I have today is a summer program on cognitive neuroscience for high school students at Berkley University in California. I really want to enroll in this program because I would get fundamental information on the subject.

Here's a picture of some neurons.

Usain Bolt

In my last blog post I wrote about wanting to become an Olympic sprinter, which is still true. I'm joining indoor track at Blair and our season starts in mid November! I'm really excited for that and to see how I am at the 100m. I might try the 55m or the 200m but the 55m just seems to short and I'm worried about my knee (which has next to no cartilage in the left one) running around the curve of the 200m. But I digress.

This post is really just supposed to be about the fastest man in the world; Usain Bolt. He's one of my idols because he hasn't been running the 100m for that long in the track world and he's already set tons of records. He was originally running the 200m and 400m because his coaches thought that he was more of a long distance sprinter, but he wanted to run the 100m. Once he broke the Jamaican national record for the... I can't remember if it was the 200m or the 400m but he broke that record and his coaches let him start running the 100m, and look at where he is now!!

I admire his (and all the other sprinters') hard work and perserverence and his total commitment to the sport. I really want to get that feeling about an activity where I love it so much that I don't mind doing it for several hours every day.

Usain bolt is 26 years old in case anyone was wondering, and he's really tall for a sprinter; 6'5" and the first time he won a medal for the 100m by himself was in the 2009 World Championships in Beijing and he got gold! He only got his first 100m medal three years ago and he's already set the world and Olympic records. Just the fact that he's been doing that event for such a short time with so much success is really motivating to me and makes me think that in four years I'll be good enough to make it to the Olympics, even if I don't make it past my heat. To get into the Olympics last time I checked the qualifying time was 11.24 seconds in a national or international competition. My issue will be finding a national competition to enter...

This post is pretty much over but I just want to point something funny out that I've noticed. Every time Usain Bolt runs a race as he approaches the finish line he looks behind him to see the other poeple. I'm pretty sure this isn't good and knocks off some of his time, if only a few hundredths of a second but still. I wouldn't recommend that. Even with his looking back at the end of a race he's still blown away the world record and the Olympic record so I guess it's not that much of an issue for him.



Usain Bolt looking behind him at the 2012 Summer Olympics

My New Aspriation

I've never really followed the Olympics until this past summer, where I was watching it every day. I was blown away by the sportsmanship shown throughout the different events and it made me realize that not everyone on that level is competitive to a point where they are rude to competitors. I was really impressed with the gymnastics but what really caught my attention was the track and field. I have never in my life had an interest in running except for occasionally sprinting but after watching the Olympic track events, especially the 100m and 200m it was like my entire attitude towards running changed. I'll describe it as being "bitten by the running bug" as some might say. I saw Usain Bolt dominate the 100m and the 200m for the second Olympics in a row and I was inspired beyond words. All of a sudden I decided that I would be like him and become an Olympic athlete. Luckily for me, track isn't a sport like gymnastics where you have to start at the age of 3 to have any chance at making the Olympics, a lot of track stars start in early high school or late middle school. I made the decision sometime last year to do winter track, but that was primarily because I just wanted to do a sport. Recently I've been really looking forward to doing winter track to gauge whether or not I could actually be good at the sport. If I find that I'm running the 100m in 15 seconds or the 200m in 32 or so, I probably don't have much of a chance of making it to the Olympics. My goal by the end of the winter track season is to be able to run the 100 in around 12.5 seconds if I can get the start right. Depending on where I am at the end of the season I'll most likely quit lacrosse and do track in the spring and hopefully I'll knock off another .2 seconds. I've been warned that in training for the 100m I'd have to do several longer distance runs but unlike before I look forward to doing them if it will improve my sprinting. Throughout the track season I will look up to people like Usain Bolt, Carmalita Jeter, Allyson Felix, and Sanya Richards-Ross to continue to motivate myself. I know this is far-fetched but I'd like to make it to the 2016 Olympics. I have no illusion that I'll get close to medaling, if I went I wouldn't even get to the semi-finals but just getting to Rio would be incredible. In the 2020 Olympics I'm definitely going to the finals.

Carmalita Jeter after winning the silver medal in the 100m at the 2012 Olympic Games