Taking a blood pressure. .

Blood Pressure Cuff

The main purpose of taking a blood pressure is to measure of the pressure exerting the blood circulating on the walls of the bodies arteries. This helps nurses and doctors detect any possibly abnormal changes in valves. The procedure you go through when you do this is apply the round cold part of the stethoscope under your BF cuff placed just above the crease in the middle of the arm, usually in good alignment with the heart. When this is in proper place, you use the sphygmomanometer (pump) and air it up to around 180 depending on what age of person you are dealing with. When you get up to this, you slowly deflate the cuff and when you hear the first "lub-dub" this is the first detected heart beat and when it stops this will give you your diastolic and systolic pressure. A pretty normal BP is around 70-120. Anything lower should be reported to check for possible problems.

HEART DISSECTIONS

Pig Heart

The first dissection we did was Pig Heart dissection. This was the littlest heart that we had to deal with during this dissection. Measurements got no more than 10 cm. We had cut the heart exactly like this picture shows and inside we got a good look at all insides. It went to show that the pigs heart ventricles were way littler compared to the other two animal hearts we looked at. I learned that on each side, the organs on the left and right, were a little different sized instead of the exact same.

Cow Heart

This was the largest heart that we had seen during the dissection and had the biggest parts to it. The measurements of the ventricles were a lot bigger than the others. So they were the easier to spot and measure than in the pig. This one was cut down the middle like others.  With the other two parts the ventricles were close to 3 cm on average. The cows heart was 12 cm and the right ventricle was 13 cm.

Sheep Heart

When we dissected the sheep heart, it was a middle sized heart and so the organs on the inside were easier to see compared to the pigs heart. My group thought it would be easier to find all the ventricles and atriums etc. if we cut the heart down the middle. As you can see above, these are some of the parts we were looking for inside of the sheep heart.  They were a lot easier to find than in the pig. A main difference I saw was a very different color difference. The measurements in this were smaller than in the pigs.

Conclusion: After looking at all these hearts, the differences I saw was the size of all the hearts, color, and the shapes they came in. The major difference I saw in the heart specimens are all very similar to each other except for the sizes vary. 

Autism Slideshow

Autism Slideshow

Leech Neurophysiology Lab

Purpose: To record the electrical activity in the neurons.

Hypothesis: I think that there will be a various amount of electrical activity going on while cutting this leech open. This could be due to breaking apart the parts of the body.

Material: Probe, feather, forcepts, scissors, pins, scalpel, dissection tray, leech tank, 20% ethanol, leech tongs, dissection microscope, micromanipulator, oscilloscope, leech.

Procedure: You have to take the leech out of the ethanol, cut the leech open and inspect what is on the inside of it. Watching to see if there is little or a lot of electrical movement.

Results-- When you test each cell in the end you come to find out that each cell does different things. Some different cells respond to different things or some just don't react at all. The five types of cells consist of: N T P R and X. They each have different functions and this tells you what cells you are dealing with during the experiment.

Conclusions-- The lab was to show us the electrical activity that goes on when you dissect a leech. While doing this, you get to see how you would dissect a leech as well such as where you cut it at and what it would look like if you had to do it in real life. In the end, you get a chance to look at the different cells and see how they react to a feather, probe, and forceps.