Foundations of biological functioning - Essay Example

Correlational method is considered by scientists in the experimental context as important in the process of validation. For example, if the results of an experiment can be verified through methods outside of the initial experimentation, then there is a higher chance that the conclusions reached are valid or even universal in application. Similarly, if other methodologies fail to produce corresponding results, or even produce data that conflicts with the experiment as referenced, then there may be serious dispute as to the validity of the conclusions involved.

In general, experimental results should be supported across methodologies of correlation if they are to be considered valid in practice. 2) Describe the double-blind technique and state the significance of it. The double-blind technique is where neither the administrator of the medicine or the experimental behavior of the research nor the patient / participant knows whether they are part of the active experiment or a placebo test group. Both the experimental manager and patient or participant is “blind” as to whether they are administering or receiving a placebo drug or the real compound under testing.

This is said to produce more reliable results as it removes suggestibility and subtle influences from the researchers from the data. 3) Imagine you work for a drug company that just created a medication to decrease anxiety in adults. Design an experiment using the appropriate research method that would allow you to best market your company's new pill. The clinical trial is based on two subject groups in this instance of testing an anti-anxiety medicine. The first patient group is considered to be new anxiety patients who are reporting their first contact with medical professionals for the problem of anxiety.

They are given the medicine in a test study by researchers using the double-blind methods and placebos. Their recovery and improvement rate is tracked against the placebo group, and other medicines. In the second patient group, habitual sufferers of anxiety who previously failed to result in improvement with other methods of medication are tested with the new medication following the same double-blind methodology and analysis. 4) Jack was hit by a drunk driver and sustained a severe injury to his left frontal lobe.

What should Jack and his family expect now? What difference, if any, might Jack's age make on the situation? The left-frontal lobe is related predominately to language processing and higher critical thinking in the brain, and thus following this injury it can be expected for acute language disruption in speaking, vocabulary memory, and even self-identity structures related to language, as well as motor-coordination problems. Age is a minor factor to consider when structural anatomical damage is present.

The ability of the brain to re-route and repair functionality around the missing and damaged pieces of the brain is not overly-determined by age, though younger patients may relearn these abilities easier. 5) Explain at least three of the following techniques used to study the brain: EEG, CT scan, MRI, PET scan, fMRI. What is the significance of these brain-imaging techniques? The EEG or Electroencephalogram measures mental activity through electronic sensors or electrodes placed around the outside of the skull and transferred into patterns of change by monitoring machines.

MRI or Magnetic Resonance