Cobbers on the Brain

Throughout my years at Concordia BREWing (becoming responsibly engaged in the world) has been emphasized. In my capstone class, neurochemistry, we were supposed to tie everything together and finish learning how to BREW and fulfill Concordia’s goals for liberal learning which are:

1. Instill a love for learning
2. Develop foundational skills and transferable intellectual capacities
3. Develop an understanding of disciplinary, interdisciplinary and intercultural perspectives and their connections
4. Cultivate an examined cultural, ethical, physical and spiritual self-understanding
5. Encourage responsible participation in the world

So, did this happen? Yes. For me the capstone experience (as well as the rest of my education) has helped me BREW and fulfill all of these goals of liberal learning.
First, the love for learning. Although at various points through my education I have been extremely frustrated with the seemingly endless homework and studying, I somehow still like learning and want to continue learning new things in the future.
Next there is developing foundational skills and transferable intellectual capacities. I think I have successfully accomplished this. Throughout my classes I have learned a lot, and I will be able to apply a good portion to whatever I end up doing in life. As for neurochemistry, a good portion of this class was learning about research, discussions, teaching others, and working in groups. This (along with all the science) will be very valuable and easily transferable to whatever I do in the future.
Developing and understanding of disciplinary, interdisciplinary and intercultural perspectives and their connections is the next goal for liberal learning. Throughout my education, I have been exposed to a lot of different cultures and perspectives. I have also been exposed to a wide variety of different disciplines (everything from art, to religion, to physics). I have learned about an extremely large range of disciplines and throughout all these classes applying our knowledge to various disciplines. For neurochemistry specifically, I have also learned about a wide range of topics. For example, we have had discussions on: chemistry, biology, psychology, death and dying, medicine, and ethics. It has been a fun and educational experience and it has helped me learn to apply disciplinary and interdisciplinary knowledge.
Next is cultivating an examined cultural, ethical, physical and spiritual self-understanding. I think I have also accomplished this goal. Throughout my education I have been exposed to many cultural and spiritual perspectives and this has helped me develop my own examined understanding. In neurochemistry especially we have discussed ethics and morality in the context of disease. Having these discussions has helped me to develop the skills to discuss complicated ethical issues with a wide variety of people and helped me further develop an ethical self-understanding.
Finally we get back to BREW, encouraging responsible participation in the world. Being a responsible participant in the world can be interpreted in many different ways. I understand it as committing to never stop educating myself and to apply my education for the benefit other people and the environment. It is also a commitment to uphold my values and fight for what I think is right.
Overall, I have learned a lot throughout neurochemistry and in the rest of my college classes. There have been times it has been though and I thought I could never make it through, but overall I am glad I came to Concordia. Although I initially thought it was just a cheesy orientation slogan I will admit that I have fully embraced BREWing. I think it is everyone’s responsibility to be lifelong learners and to be responsibly engaged in the world, and I would like to thank Concordia and this capstone class for helping me each these goals.

First marketed in the 1970’s by the Clinton Corn Processing Company and reaching peak usage in the late 1990’s, High fructose corn syrup (HFCS), a sweetener made from corn, became a godsend to corporations such as Coca-Cola, Kellogg’s, Nabisco, Capri, Ocean Spray, Starbucks, Heinz, Yoplait, Ben & Jerry’s, Dreyer’s, and hundreds more. No longer did they have to rely heavily on costly sugar (Sucrose) imports from Mexico and the rest of South America, now they could get tap the never ending stream of US corn as a sugar source. HFCS comes in two primary compositions—HFCS-42 and HFCS-55. This means it is composed of either 42 percent or 55 percent fructose, with the remaining sugars being glucose. Similar to sucrose in monosaccharide composition, HFCS monosaccharide units are not bonded together, which results in a liquid sugar instead of crystalline. This characteristic is particularly significant because it allows the transportation of larger quantities, more precise control during alcoholic fermentation, and most importantly, allows the adjustment of the glucose to fructose proportion in HFCS.
For the sake of providing context, here are a few statistics on HFCS consumption.  According to Duke Health, 52 percent of adults consume between one and six sugary beverages per week, which are a primary source of high-fructose corn syrup in the average diet. The same source also estimates that about one-third of adults admit to having at least one sugary drink each day. According to Consumer Reports Organization, there was a 1,000 percent increase in the consumption of high-fructose corn syrup between 1970(introduction of HFCS) and 1990(peak usage of HFCS). In 2009, the average American consumed about 35.7 pounds of high-fructose corn syrup, while reports the Illinois Farm Bureau. Simply said, the ubiquitous composition of HFCS in typical diet of the average American is staggering!
Transitioning to the CNS’s role in energy metabolism, the schematic below shows arcuate nucleus (ARC), a region of the hypothalamus that contains neurons sensitive to insulin and leptin, hormones that regulate energy homeostasis.

Neurons in the ARC that contain neuropeptide Y (NPY), agouti-related protein (AGRP), and gamma-amino butyric acid (GABA) increase appetite; while neurons that contain pro-opiomelanocortin (POMC), alpha-melanocyte stimulating hormone, beta-endorphin, acetylcholine, and cocaine-and-amphetamine-regulating transcript  (CART) decrease appetite. When circulating in the blood, insulin, leptin, and ghrelin modulate both the anorexigenic and orexigenic neurons, in addition to the higher order neurons too. One can imagine this hormonal control of energy homeostasis to be like see-saw action between food intake and food expenditure, effected by NPY/AGRP and POMC neurons. One interesting point to make is that the blood brain barrier in the ARC is relatively less developed, so more permeable, hence it allows agonist and antagonistic species into the ARC. This results in signal initiation and propagation when those substances bind to receptors on the many neurons. The ease of permeability also presents an opportunity for intranasal administration of therapeutic agents.
So what really is the big deal with HFCS? After all, regular sugar contains both glucose and fructose… you might be wondering. Well, both HFCS and sucrose are empty calories, they have hardly any nutritional value and our bodies get all the sugar it needs from a regular nutritional meal anyway. The real issue with HFCS lies in its metabolism to prepare for entrance into the Citric Acid Cycle. Below is a diagram of glycolysis. Major regulatory points of glucose homeostasis are steps 1, 3, and 10. Fructose enters glycolysis as shown in the diagram below. It bypasses the regulation at step 3, and is metabolized as fatty acids would be. This results in high blood sugar levels, disrupts the balance in the control of NPY/AGRP and POMC neurons, leading to weight gain, as the extra sugar becomes stored as fat. Subsisting on a diet high in HFCS results in increased hunger due to an insufficient supply of nutrients present in such foods. This then leads to over nutrition, which leads to weight gain and hyperinsulinemia.  Oxidative stress, and endoplasmic reticulum stress then results in hypothalamic neurons, resulting in protein misfolding and inflammation through the NFkB pathway, the latter of which leads to apoptosis of neurons in the hypothalamus concerned with energy metabolism. Insulin resistance (type II diabetes) then results. Thanks HFCS – Yours truly!

Concordia College has five goals for liberal learning in which most academic courses are based on. In each one of the courses I have taken over my years at Concordia these goals were introduced and addressed each in their unique way. However, it was not until this semester when I took my Capstone Course that I truly made the connection between what we were learning and doing in class and these goals.
Below are Concordia’s five goals for liberal learning with a brief description of how my Capstone Course addressed these goals.

• Instill a love for learning

My love for learning peaked in this course, as it was an absolutely essential part of the course. With very few assignments and no real exams testing our memorization of the information, there was not necessarily an incentive to learn. This course challenged me then, to make myself learn. However, it was much easier than I expected. Each week I found myself preparing for class days before, reading extra information on each topic for the week. After class discussions I often found myself continuing research on the topic, hoping to find answers to all the questions running through my head. With little pressure to learn and memorize information, I found myself loving to learn even more. I realized that learning should not be something that I force myself to do so I can get good grades and a better job in the future. Instead, learning is something that I believe to be instilled in all of us, and once reached, is something easily loved.

• Develop foundational skills and transferable intellectual capacities

This course was definitely a challenge for me as I was coming into the course with little chemistry background. However, within only a semester I was able to grasp basic chemistry topics and apply them to more difficult, in-depth topics. I not only able to understood the topics, but I was able to master certain topics and teach them to other students in my class. I finally was able to view other student’s knowledge as a tool and resource to help me, instead of something to be intimidated by or jealous of. We all have our strengths and weaknesses, and if we know how transfer/communicate them, then one person’s strengths can become a resources for another person’s weakness.

• Develop an understanding of disciplinary, interdisciplinary and intercultural perspectives and their connections

In a class of almost all pre-med students I felt as though this goal really applied to me. As a one of the only psychology majors in the class, I felt as though I was often the one to bring the interdisciplinary perspective. Other times though, I felt challenged to realize that my perspective sometimes lacked understanding of other disciplines and cultures. Through group discussions in this class, I was able to learn how to have my own opinion based on my discipline, but also how to apply my beliefs to other perspectives. I was forced to open my eyes to complicated issues that cannot be solved or explained using just one perspective.

• Cultivate an examined cultural, ethical, physical and spiritual self-understanding

There were many times during this course where I was frustrated. I wanted simple answers to some of the world’s most challenging topics, but in the end, I found no answer. However, as we discussed topics such as end-of-life care, I realized that in my search for answers, I understood more about my beliefs. Each discussion challenged my ideas of what I thought was ethical or spiritually right, and I learned so much from my peers as they both agreed and disagreed with my opinions.

• Encourage responsible participation in the world

One of the major assignments in this class was a community action project in which Neurochemistry and Social Work students teamed together on a popular issues affecting the world we live in today. For this project, we were asked to develop, plan, and carry-out a community action projected addressing this issue and problems that surround it. My team focused on Mental Health on our college campus, as we tried to bring awareness and decrease the stigmatization of mental health to the study body. This one just one of the ways that this course, specifically our professors, encouraged us to become actively engaged in our world.
Overall, this course exceeded my expectations, as I truly believe that ending my undergraduate college career without this class would have been an incredible loss. After almost four years of rigorous academics, I find that just now I am understanding the real mission of Concordia College.

Concordia has five goals for liberal learning:

1. Instill a love for learning
2. Develop foundational skills and transferable intellectual capacities
3. Develop an understanding of disciplinary and intercultural perspectives and their connections
4. Cultivate an examined cultural, ethical, physical, and spiritual self-understanding
5. Encourage responsible participation in the world

Walking in on the first day to Dr. Mach’s neurochemistry course, I was quite nervous. First, she let us know that there will be a lot of independent work and what we learn outside of class needs to be spoken on in class. We all were a team, benefitting one another even literally like when we did partner teaching on Wednesdays. Second, this is my capstone class, and with that, it should essentially encompass everything I have learned here at my four years are Concordia. With that, I want to briefly mention how each of the five goals Concordia has for liberal learning were met in my capstone experience.
Instill a love for learning
I have no doubt in my mind Concordia has instilled a love for learning inside of me. This goes back even to my freshman year, but this neurochemistry course really was the cap to all of it. This class wasn’t the normal class you can take at Concordia, it wasn’t even that similar necessarily even compared to other science courses. This class was treated as a job, attendance was a must, you get evaluated twice, and you don’t really have “true” homework. That is where the love for learning comes into play because I throughout my four years and especially in this course, I only keep wanting to gain knowledge especially in my area of study, but even beyond that in other areas of study. I simply love to learn.
Develop foundational kills and transferable intellectual capacities
Dr. Mach was our professor, and she always had great knowledge to spread and help break the ice when needed because as she stated in the beginning of the course, a lot of work and knowledge earned would come from yourself. I gained some skills over time, especially how to present information to one other person in a short but sweet manor but at a 400-level college course. I would also argue I gained a higher level of critical thinking because some of the articles we read in class were very difficult and on Mondays we had to brainstorm and basically pick apart primary research articles—truly trying to understand what the science was, how it was done, and what this means for neuroscience now and the future.
Develop an understanding of disciplinary and intercultural perspectives and their connections
This class wasn’t just neuroscience students, like me. For the most part, all of us had a science type of major or area of focus, but we even gain perspectives and connections through the social majors. We did a combined project with them which was done outside of class to impact our local community in some way. Our group created an Alzheimer’s prevention and information panel discussion in Fargo back in November. Throughout the semester, I gained a better understanding of how people think and why they think the way they do. As scientists, we always like to be right and usually opinions are held strong, but when it comes to neuroscience, there isn’t one care for one neurological disease. And I would argue our whole class sees how much we and the future generations need to work together and ignore who is right first or wrong and start to work and cure some of the most dreaded diseases known to man.
Cultivate an examined cultural, ethical, physical, and spiritual self-understanding
Every week was a different research article with a different disease or disorder, and with that came multiple opinions. For example, when we read on the endocannabinoid system and marijuana, some of us had completely different views. Whether it’s your cultural, ethical, physical or your spiritual views, we all weren’t the same and that caused some havoc but also it generated great discussion. It opened up critical thinking at the molecular level of these diseases, but also a broader view and maybe how society or science should be handling some certain situations with law or health.
Encourage responsible participation in the world
I can’t wait to take my knowledge and energy in the classroom and apply it to the real world. Don’t get me wrong, I like college and especially Concordia, but I am ready to move on to bigger and better things and that’s all thanks to Concordia. Beyond my neuroscience, I am excited to work on being more sustainable as well as spread the knowledge of climate change because I believe that is one the most important issues to date and many people still today don’t understand its real or they deny it and that would be very irresponsible for us now to ignore it and let the future generations deal with it because scientists today are saying we are already too late in combating this real crisis.

Many people do not consider obesity a disease—in fact, I am a skeptic myself. It seems so clear to me how obesity can be resolved if people simply modified their eating behaviors. For example, when are you eating, how much are you eating, what kinds of foods are you eating, these are all questions that could allow eating behaviors to change to be more healthy based on what nutritionists and dietician have discovered.
However, when I compare obesity to addiction, I understand how it can be seen as a disease. Addiction might start with inappropriate drug-using behaviors. However, it escalates when it becomes abused, and that substance abuse or chemical dependency illustrates malfunctioning neural transmission. Food can also be a substance that becomes abused when processes in the brain no longer work like they should.
A related disease to obesity is Binge Eating Disorder (BED). BED is a medical condition characterized by ingestion of large amounts of food due to loss of control while eating.  According to Ginger Nicol, MD, weight gain and obesity can result in 40% of individuals with BED, because it does not involve compensatory behaviors.
Why do only 40% of all who meet criteria for BED weight gain and obesity? Perhaps it is due to an individuals neurochemistry and how it is different from another’s. For example, an non-obese individual with BED may experience more weight gain than another non-obese individual with BED, because that person has a genetic predisposition for weight gain to due their parents’ obesity.
It is also worth noting the metabolic mechanisms BED:

• Exacerbate hunger
• Prevent satiety
• Drive food preferences

So how do these mechanisms become malfunctioning in people with obesity and BED?
A 2013 journal article by Vogt and Bruning in Trends in Endocrinology and Metabolism explain how abnormal insulin and leptin signaling lead to obesity. Insulin and leptin are both released in the PNS and CNS to regulate food intake. Both substances work to maintain energy homeostasis by signaling fullness to the hypothalamus when food intake can cease.
Leptin and insulin levels actually rise with increased for intake, and this rising levels contribute to resistance. Leptin and insulin resistance leads to lack of satiety excessive food intake.
The endocannabinoid system also plays a role in obesity and BED. According to a 2015 study by Fattore, the endocannabinoid system is critical in changing energy balance by modulating food intake. In fact, it is commonly known that administration of cannabis increases appetite. Various human and animal studies have shown that CB1R agonists increase total food intake, particularly consumption of palatable foods. As a result, the a current treatment drug for obesity and BED is rimonabant, a endocannabinoid receptor blocker.
In addition, there is a connection between the endocannabinoid system and the endocrine system. Leptin inhibits endocannabinoid production by the hypothalamus. In the case of leptin resistance, endocannabinoids would be overproduced and food intake will increase.
All in all, there is much still to be discovered on the topic of obesity, and studying BED in conjunction may provide additional insights to the investigation.