1. Mental and Emotional Health
Lesson 1: The Brain: The Control Center
Ecole Edward Schreyer School

2. The Brain is Our #1 Organ The Brain Controls:
Thinking
Feeling
Behavior
Changes in the brain’s activity result in changes in each of these responses.
Why is their change in brain activity?
Mental illness is a health condition that changes:
Thinking (worthlessness)
Feelings (sick)
Behavior (spending uncontrollably)
This will cause:
Distress
Difficulty with every day functions.
Ecole Edward Schreyer School

3. Activity 1 Step 1: Read the following email.
Step 2: How did you react to the video?
Jumped, increased heart rate, screamed, nervous, laughed, wondered, yelled, concentrated, afraid, scared, anxious (these are some examples)
Step 3: Group the responses into three categories. Look for similarities.
Category 1: Behaviors or actions.
Category 2: Feelings or emotions.
Category 3: Thoughts
Step 1  Make sure the projector is on and get the students to read the , then to watch the video. Make sure the room is dark and turn up the sound.
Step 2  List the reactions of the students on the board. There should be a difference in the reaction because people react to situation differently.
Step 3  Behaviors = jumped, screamed, yelled, laughed. Feelings = scared, nervous, anxious, afraid. Thoughts = concentrated, wondered, curious
Ecole Edward Schreyer School

4. Activity 1 - Continued Questions to consider?
Do your muscles make you jump for no reason? What controls whether your muscles cause you to jump?
What caused your voice box to become active and make you scream?
The brain regulates all of these responses.
Muscles control jumping while the voice box controls screaming.
All of this is controlled by the brain.
Now that the video is over, what do you think of it now? How do you feel?
Put answers on the board when you ask the question about the video. There should be differing responses to that of when they first saw it. This is because the responses to the video were short term, lasting anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes.
Ecole Edward Schreyer School

5. Activity 1 - Concluded
The video caused you to think, behave, and feel something different.
Are there things that might cause the brain to work differently for a long period of time? (hours, weeks, months or years)
Things that can cause the brain to work differently over a long period of time is: learning, illness?
Ecole Edward Schreyer School

6. Activity 2 What do you know about mental illness?
You will be handed a worksheet that contains open ended questions.
These questions will provide you with an opportunity to express what you may already know about mental illness.
There are many misconceptions about mental illness, and this activity will draw your conceptions to the surface. (10 min.)
Once you have handed out the activity to the students, give them 10 min. alone to answer the questions. Let them discuss the questions with one other student once they are done. (3 min)
Student responses should contain positive and negative responses.
See if a few groups would like to share their responses with the class. No one is forced to. Keep this as a controlled respectful environment. (10 min.)
Ecole Edward Schreyer School

7. Activity 3
This activity reinforces the idea of mental illness, which is a health condition that changes the way a person thinks, feels, or behaves, is tied to changes in the way the brain works.
What would it be like if you were thinking, feeling, or acting like you did during the surprise event for weeks, months, or years instead of just a few seconds or minutes?
Would you be able to live your life as normally as you do?
The key to answering this question is for students to remember the instant of the surprise, not the seconds before or after.
Student responses should reveal that they would not like to experience the changes in their thoughts, feelings, and behaviours all the time. They could not function normally if they were constantly feeling anxious, apprehensive, nervous, worried, or jumpy.
Recognizing that a person’s life would be negatively affected by constantly experiencing these changes in behaviours, emotions, and thoughts will be an important transition for students. The surprise that they experienced earlier gives them a way to think about how the brain regulates our responses to events in the environment in the short term.
These questions now begin to help students relate to changes that are both more negative and longer term.
Ecole Edward Schreyer School

8. Activity 3 Cont.
Mental Illness could be one type of long-term change in the functioning of the brain.
Mental illness by definition:
Health condition that changes a person’ thinking, feelings, or behaviour (or all three) and that causes the person distress and difficulty in functioning.
This does not mean that mental illness is long term or short term. It will depend on the individual.
Short term, instantaneous events can change a person’s thinking, feeling, and behaviour.
Eg  Heartache and loss brought on by a break up in a marriage or death of a loved one.
Ecole Edward Schreyer School

9. Activity 3 Cont.
What are some ways scientists might investigate changes in the brain that happen with mental illness?
electrodes to measure electrical activity in the brain, use of imaging techniques such as MRI or CT scans.
One technique that is used is called PET
Positron Emission Tomography
Scientists are the only people allowed to use these machines.
It is an optical slice through the brain.
These techniques can be used on living individuals, whereas techniques such as operating to look at the brain’s structure would only be used on dead bodies.
The use of PET imaging in our case is used to see what happens to the brain and how a doctor can help a patient with seeing these images. Doctors do not use these machines, scientists only do.
Ecole Edward Schreyer School

10. Activity 3 Conclusion
PET Exercise  Watch the animation and respond to the following questions.
What is happening in image 2 of the PET scan?
Is this long term or short term brain function?
The second image is of someone with schizophrenia at resting point.
Conclusion to the activity:
Color is added to the images.
Dark areas mean low brain activity.
PET images are at the given time, not over time.
During a surprise event, activity changes.
Students will notice that different parts of the brain have different levels of activity. Some of the areas of the brain have higher activity.
Incorrect responses to this would be that different parts of the brain actually change color based on activity. Color is added to the images when the computer enhances the image. The color is not real, it just makes the images easier for scientists to interpret.
The area that is black or dark purple are not dead cells or non active cells, there is just low brain activity.
PET images show what is happening at the given time, not over a period of time.
When students see the two images they should respond to the fact that the brain actually changes after stimulation.
Ask students what is happening with image 2?
Ecole Edward Schreyer School

11. Activity 3 – Conclusion
Mental illness actually changes something about how the brain works.
PET images of a person who has a mental illness show that the activity in the brain is different.
Some areas may be higher while others are lower as that compared to a healthy brain.
Ecole Edward Schreyer School

12. Assignment
You are required to keep a journal for this module. This journal will become part of your portfolio. Be sure to indicate Module C – Lesson 1 – Date in your journal as well as writing out the question below.
Question #1
Write a paragraph to summarize what you believe are the major ideas conveyed in the activities in this lesson.
Ecole Edward Schreyer School