Cobbers on the Brain

How to sum up my semester of Neurochemistry? I’m not exactly sure… There needs to be more research done… My understanding of it is…

This class was unlike any other that I’ve taken so far. Being a science major you mostly get to learn what other people have already discovered. Theories and laws that have been researched and proven for years. Even in lab I do experiments that I already know what I should be getting.

Neuroscience is a very new field. There is a lot of knowledge about it, but there is so much more that we don’t know. Many of the papers we read and theories we looked at were very recent. A lot of times we found ourselves at a roadblock where we really couldn’t find any more information because it wasn’t out there. There wasn’t enough research on the topic to solidify any facts. There could be a lot of theories or potential, but wasn’t proven yet.

That was another cool part of all the research that we did, we got to hypothesize our own ideas. We could look at a broad spectrum of possibilities and make our own connections. Were they always correct? Maybe not. The words, “My understanding” or “I think” were never frowned upon in this class, they were encouraged. If the best scientists in the world couldn’t figure it out exactly, then why couldn’t we at least take a stab at it?

If you read a lot of articles in science you know how difficult it is to follow sometimes. There are a lot of acronyms and a lot of words that you don’t really know. There were many times I would read a paragraph, stop to think about it, and have no idea what I just read. Even walking into class I’d have paragraphs highlighted with things I didn’t understand. I became so thankful for the people in my class. 

I got to meet an almost entirely new group of people. At a small school like Concordia there isn’t a ton of opportunity to take classes with people who aren’t the same age other than the core credits. Neurochemistry is a capstone class that is taken senior year, considering I am at “senior status” even though I am a junior, I got to take a class with the people I normally just see around the science building.

There were so many different minds and personalities in our small, 14 person class. It was very interesting to hear other people’s perspectives, depending on how they grew up. Every Friday we discussed the issues surrounding our topic that week. For example, what is the cause of Alzheimer’s? Is there a better way to treat it? It seemed that every week it came back to the culture of the busy American’s.

 If only we would slow down, take some time to look around. This was something we all had in common. Being very driven, success seeking Cobbers we are pretty much always on the go. FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) is a real thing, fear of missing opportunities, fear of missing fun, and even fear of missing points. A lot of the damage came from oxidative stress. As we are always on the search for the next best thing, the next best cure, maybe it could all be solved by slowing down?

We talked a lot about death and sick people, but not in a sad way. We thought about spending more time with family and friends, making the years count instead of counting the years. As great as finding a cure would be all of us are a few years from being able to be the one who does that, so instead it was mostly about prevention and how to deal with the disease.

So what did I do in my semester of neurochemistry? I got a lot better at reading and communicating science. I figured out how to break down pictures and diagrams into an understandable way. I spent a lot of time listening and understanding other’s opinions. The most valuable lesson I learned from neurochemistry though didn’t have a lot to do with science. This course was rigorous and difficult, but take the time to slow down. The busy life style is a part of our culture and if you don’t keep up you might not make it, but it is important to make time for more than just work. It may save you in the end.

Concordia College implements a capstone course into student’s coursework. It is stated to reinforce the connection between liberal learning and various academic disciplines. Neurochemistry was my capstone course, and I felt it met or exceeded all the exceptions to be called a capstone class.
Instill a love for learning
By taking neurochemistry, it has increased my interest in different areas of study. When I first signed up for the class, I thought it would be another class where the teacher teaches and the student take notes and listen. It was also interesting how it did not have a lab, since every chemistry course I took here had a lab with the lecture.
On day 1, my exceptions were completely thrown out. The class was orientated to helping each other learn. The beginning few weeks had students post on different synapse and signaling molecules. We each had to contribute something to our course wiki page. The fun part was when we got into reading different neurological disease. Mondays had us talk about the paper, and figure what we did not know for “speed dating” on Wednesdays. Friday had us just talk about anything related to the topic of the week. This classroom format was unique and installed a new way for me to learn.
The love of learning also comes from how each of us had to help one another to be able to succeed in this class. The collection of ideas from each other helped pushed thinking into a new aspect, in ways I would never have thought of.
Develop foundational skills and transferable intellectual capacities
Most articles we read each week was a hot topic in health. They included Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s, autism, concussions, and obesity. All of these topics have real world application due to the increase of them in recent years. Concussions have become relevant due to Will Smith’s movie “Concussion” and how retired NFL stars have been seen with chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). All of the topics were known previously before reading the articles, but the science behind how these topics were not uncovered until taking this class.
The knowledge we learned was also transferred to our weekly blog posts on the topic. We were able to condense the article and spread it to the public. Our public service announcement (PSA), also helped spread awareness of a hot topic of our choosing. Both activities helped reinforce our thinking and to be able to tell the public about it.
Develop an understanding of disciplinary, interdisciplinary and intercultural perspectives and their connections
Even though this class was a chemistry class, it was relatable to other disciplinary fields too. Some articles had biological pathways, psychology with animal studies, and English with the blogs. This class presented ideas from different fields in connection with chemistry. This class being neurochemistry was related to neuroscience as well. The study of the central nervous system was always relevant due to these diseases being in the brain.
 
Cultivate an examined cultural, ethical, physical and spiritual self-understanding
From taking this class, I learned how diverse chemistry can be. With the combination of different disciplinary fields in this course, I learned how they might be able to correlate together to find cures for different diseases. By understanding different pathways from articles in previous weeks, I was able to understand better how they relate to pathways in future articles. It showed me how my area of study could be used in different aspects of the learning.
 
Encourage responsible participation in the world (BREW)
By taking this class, it helped me think critically in other areas besides chemistry. I also learned how different areas of study can correlate with each other to do good. It made me think more critically about the topics we discussed. Marijuana, which is a schedule 1 drug, has shown to be effective in treating different diseases. The stigma of it still clouds people’s ideas on it.
This class has helped me engage with different aspects of studies, which I would have never known about, or would have thought about.
 
 

As an international student, I had no idea what a capstone course means. When I first heard the word “capstone”, I thought it was just a word that I did not know. And well, I knew nothing about a capstone course. At first, when I registered, I expected that the Neurochemistry class would be just hard, with a lot of memorization and reading.
I am glad that I was wrong.
Even before the semester begin, the professor invited the students to explain what we should expect of the capstone course. I got really excited, because it would be a chance to not just learn about Neuroscience, but to TALK and DISCUSS about it.
Reading through Concordia goals for liberal learning, I just thought that Neuroscience is the perfect scientific area to put all of them into practice.

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

I mean, who would not love learn more about what is going on in the brain and how it works? (Ok, maybe some people would not, but I know I love it)
With the schema that the professor created, where every week all the students had to present more information about some small part of a topic, I believe that we all improved our skills in transferring intellectual capacities. We were not only students, we ended up being teachers, sharing what we learned with the whole class.
Neuroscience, a scientific area that involves biology, psychology, data processing, chemistry, nutrition, and so on. Learning about the brain instigates you to make the connections between all these subjects. It is an interdisciplinary course, and I dare say that is the most interdisciplinary of all.
I believe that we have to unite all the disciplines in order to better understand the complex structure that the brain is.
Understanding and learning about the brain is to understand and learn about ourselves. It is to unveil our behaviors and beliefs, seeking out a way to improve our society.
Responsible participation in the world is what neuroscience is about. In our class, we discussed every week how brain diseases affect our society and how we could treat them. Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, Schizophrenia, Bulimia, Obesity, Autism, Alcohol and Nicotine addiction. All these diseases and even more were discussed in each week, what made me realize how much neuroscientists are working in order to understand how we could help people that are suffering with brain diseases.
I am glad that I took this capstone course as a part of my year in Concordia. I would never have the chance to do such a different and exciting class back in Brazil. In the end, it was not just a class, it was an opportunity to learn and appreciate science, improving my communication and research skills. I will leave Concordia proud and happy to have participated in this great experience that was Neurochemistry class.

What is Schizophrenia?
Schizophrenia is a developmental brain disorder in which people interpret reality differently than normal. This can result in hallucinations, delusions and disordered thinking and behavior.
What causes Schizophrenia?
A recent review article cites the Glutamate signaling system within the brain. This is the main excitatory pathway in the brain and it is believed to be overactive in the brain of people with schizophrenia. This over excitation causes normal stimuli to often be too much for people with schizophrenia to handle.
What is Sarcosine and what does it do?
Sarcosine is actually an amino acid that is naturally found within the human body. But besides just being an amino acid it also blocks glycine transporters in the brain. You see one of the main receptors in the Glutamate signaling system is the NMDA receptor. This receptor needs not only glutamate to fire but also needs to be in the presence of glycine. Without a transporter to bring the glycine to the NMDA receptor it cannot do its job. However in the case of schizophrenia the NMDA receptors appear to be working overtime and blocking the glycine transporter helps the receptors  get on a regular schedule. On paper one would think that sarcosine would help the symptoms of schizophrenia and studies also agree. The cool thing about sarcosine is that it treats negative symptoms. Schizophrenia symptoms are broken up in to positive and negative symptoms. The positive symptoms are the hallucination type and the negative symptoms are essentially the cognitive decline part of schizophrenia. Until recently most treatments only treated the positive symptoms but studies show that taking sarcosine along with normal treatment can improve negative symptoms as well.
 

There is no doubt about it – alcohol is a big part of our society. Whether someone drinks or not is actually, partly a defining characteristic about them. Maybe that’s purely form the perspective of a college student, but I think there’s some merit in saying that. And being in college, I have definitely seen the effects of drinking, whether they are positive or negative. Obviously, drinking is mostly a harmless event that is usually enjoyed with a group of friends, but there are significant dangers as well. Through my experiences with drinking, however, there is a commonly asked question: when did you start drinking? In high school? Freshman year? Never?

Usually these groups are split. Some people started drinking and partying in high school with their high school friends, usually behind the backs of their parents. Some didn’t drink until college. And some have never had a drink before. Whatever group a person belongs in, I’ve noticed a trend – those that drank in high school have tended to binge drink at a dangerous rate less often in college. Seems crazy and obviously secluded to the small sample size that is Concordia, but it’s my observation nonetheless. So, should that be encouraged? Have a drink or two with your parents before coming to college? Or even party a couple times with your high school friends before you get to college? It’s an interesting concept, that’s for sure.
Why exactly would it make sense to “condition” someone to drinking before they get to college where it is so prevalent? Well, as I mentioned before, binge drinking is common in college. And obviously harmful. However, if someone is used to drinking or has done it before, binge drinking becomes less prevalent. That would mean the effects of binge drinking on the brain would also decrease if an incoming freshman had experienced drinking before.
What exactly are those effects? Well, it’s well defined that alcohol has a direct impact on certain parts of the brain that involve movement, speech, judgment, and memory. The impact causes impairment, which results in the typical drunken behavior such as slurred speech, difficulty walking, blacking out, and impulsive behavior. In the case of a binge drinking session, these effects are amplified significantly.
The question becomes, should parents drink with their kids before they go off to college? In my experience, it seems that there would be advantages to this thought process. However, it is completely dependent on the parents.
 
 
 

What is Autism?
Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder that is characterized by impaired social interaction. Other symptoms include restricted repetitive behaviors, interests and activities. These symptoms often lead to impairment in social and occupational functioning. The cause of ASD is still not completely understood, however a recent review article summed up much of what we know so far about the pathology of ASD. This article essentially tells us that there are a number of genes that are linked to ASD a number of them code for proteins that impact the growth and development of neurons and synapses. One way I like to think of what is going on with the neurons is that they are not communicating very well. Now the brain has multiple regions to it that each has a specific function and for each of these brain regions to work properly it must be connected to other parts of the brain. One symptom we see in ASD is over-connectivity of neurons within a certain region but under-connectivity between the brain regions. Because ASD is a  spectrum we see a wide array of symptoms and a wide array of severity of those functions.
Is there a diet suggested for people with ASD?
Many parents of children with ASD report that their child’s behavior improves when they eat a dairy and gluten free diet.
Does this diet actually work?
In 2009 a review of research concluded that there was not enough evidence to say empirically that a gluten and dairy free diet helped with autistic behaviors. However there has been more recent research into the topic and two different studies (One from Denmark and one from Penn state) both showed that if the diet was stuck to very strictly for at least 6 months or more, patients showed improvements in behavior. Improvements meaning less hyperactivity, temper tantrums and speech skills.
How hard is the diet to implement?
It can be difficult to very strictly watch the diet of any child and perhaps especially one with autism so the Autism Research Institute issued a couple helpful tips to parents about implementing this diet. The full article can be found here. But to sum up they essentially said that taking “cheat” days can be a bad idea and to really watch out for foods that could be hiding gluten or dairy.