Does ritalin do more harm than good?

Fall break at Penn is a great way to spend time catching up with friends, family, homework, and bioengineering research.

I spent some time today perusing articles on PubMed addressing several side effects of the stimulant ritalin. Ritalin certainly helps people of all ages dealing with ADD/ADHD, but as with any drug, comes with a myriad of risks and side effects. Aside from several common side effects such as loss of appetite, moodiness, headaches, and weight loss, people who are prescribed ritalin are warned about involuntary muscle spasms or "tics".

How does a drug cause involuntary muscle spasms? If ritalin is supposed to control the brain, why does the drug cause involuntary actions? Does this stimulant "overstimulate" certain areas of the brain involving motor movement?

I am fascinated as to why a stimulant is used to control the brain, but as well as to why it would cause additional actions such as tics. I think I may have found an even more specific research topic to deal with!

Researching a potential research topic:

I am presently five weeks into my BE 100 course. Five weeks is not nearly enough time to award myself an engineering degree, but I have mastered logging into the PubMed database for articles.

Over the past week, I have found myself “googling”, reading, and typing away, trying to find a topic worthy enough for my first of many research papers in bioengineering. The term “research paper” overwhelmed me at first. I am aware that I cannot cure cancer, treat heart disease, and come up with a new vaccine all in the span of three to five pages, but I am capable of learning and familiarizing myself with a topic of a more manageable size.

While finishing off my reading for psychology class, I came across a section of my textbook that explained the symptoms and treatments for Attention Deficit Disorder. I discovered that a common treatment, Ritalin, is not a suppressant, but a stimulant. If people with ADD/ADHD have brains that are hyperactive, then why do they take medication that will stimulate the brain? How does the stimulant suppress the over activity in their mind?

At the completion of that reading, I killed two birds with one stone: I finished my psychology reading for the week and I found a potential research topic for my paper!

My musical set of fingers:

Every time I place my piccolo in my hands, the keys feel like a natural extension of my fingers. The actions that are created by my hands are translated onto the tiny silver button beneath the pads of my fingers. After many years of playing this instrument, the keys of the piccolo have become my second set of hand joints.

Similar to the skeleton of a hand, the keys are attached to a joint on the rod. Each key can be moved individually and perform distinct movements. With 13 keys in total, there are countless of other pieces of metal that form the “skeleton” of the piccolo. A human hand has 5 fingers, but needs 27 bones to make up the structure and function of the hand. Who knew that a woodwind instrument is so similar to our own biological skeleton?

All aboard the piccolo train!

Looking even closer at my piccolo’s structure, the rods on the main body are at first glace complicated in nature. Interconnecting with thin wires and miniature screws, they rods are at the heart of the piccolo and is the central mechanical center for the instrument. The rods move with each other to assure the keys function in sync with each other in a flawless manner. As a vital part of the piccolo’s overall functioning, the rods are the momentum behind the sound, air control, and sound level.

As I boarded my train this morning from Penn Station in New York to Philadelphia, I passed by a poster of an old steam locomotive. The intricacy of the design of the wheels instantly captured my attention. While the mechanics of the steam locomotive wheels are on a much larger and complex scale than the 13.8 inch piccolo, the rods and mechanics of the locomotive serve the same function. Both were built and designed to act as the main “motion hub” of the structure. Their purpose to streamline the movements into one cohesive dance of technique.

Where do the roots of piccolos come from?

When I picked up the piccolo for the first time, the luster of the silver keys captivated me. They detracted my eyes from the long and dark wood body and each time I picked up the instrument, I was mesmerized by how an instrument such as the flute, which is typically quite long, can be compacted into such a small contraption. Until now, I never really compared the overall structure of the piccolo to anything else.

Last weekend, when I was in New York City, I ate dinner at a Japanese restaurant. Looking around the room, each corner of the room was adorned by a bonsai tree. The bonsai tree adjacent to my table had a dark brown trunk with bright green foliage blossoming out of the tiny branches. In retrospect, the bonsai tree at the Japanese restaurant and my piccolo are not all that different. My piccolo has a main body, small rods branching out, and keys that cap off each rod, while the bonsai tree has a trunk, branches, and bunches of leaves tailing the edges.

The labs are alive with the sound of music!

The Piccolo. An instrument that is small in size, large in sound, charming in appearance, and serious in technique. A member of the woodwind family. Alright, enough rambling!

I play both the flute and the piccolo and even though I do not fabricate these instruments, I know a bit about the structure and fabrication of them. At first glance, the piccolo is made of a combination of 2 different materials: metal and wood. Hence the name, woodwind. The piccolo is about half the size of a standard flute and can produce sounds that are an octave higher. Physically, the piccolo has 13 keys on the main body and one mouthpiece for air. The 13 keys control the 15 air openings that allow for different notes. From tip to tip, the piccolo is 13.8 inches long (roughly 35 centimeters). At the widest part of the instrument, the diameter is three quarters of an inch. Now this may sound boring and mundane, but trust me, this combination of metal and wood produces some of the most magical sounds in music!