.
While millions of Americans use alcohol as a social lubricant, many cross the line of recreation use to addiction. Whether we like it or not alcohol is a drug, but because it is so socially acceptable, its reputation and regulation is much different compared to other drugs. The negative effect it has on society is overshadowed by the positive stigma it carries today. In moderation it can be a good thing, but from an early age kids are taught that alcohol is bad, but kids are never taught how to properly and responsibly use alcohol. So instead, teenagers want to be rebellious (imagine that), and try something they have always been told to stay away from. This can lead to abuse of alcohol because they don’t know how to use in moderation. By abusing alcohol at such a young age, teenagers manipulate their growing brain to be used to binge drinking, which can develop into dependency later in life.
When ethanol is present in the brain, it alters the communication processes that are happening between nerves and within the nerves by interacting with receptors and altering intracellular signal cascades. It does this by inhibiting excitatory activity and increases inhibitory neurotransmissions. The pathways that are affected from the presence of ethanol can provide and underlying mechanism for the addiction that the chronic use of alcohol can lead to. The primary effect of alcohol in the brain is the increase of the stimulation of the GABA receptors, which cause a depression in the central nervous system. As alcohol abuse continues, these receptors are desensitized and down regulated. Which results in tolerance to alcohol and also physical dependence. Starting this cycle at an earlier age, along with irresponsible consumption may lead to a higher potential for physical dependence.
Too Much of a Good Thing
Obesity – It’s not just for the Wealthy Anymore
I don’t need any statistics to convince you that obesity is a problem in America. On evening news shows there are frequent segments concerned with the recent rise of obesity, often focusing on the growing rate of childhood obesity. In 2003, the surgeon general named obesity “the fastest-growing cause of disease and death in America,” and it hasn’t slowed down any since then. The article we read in class called it an urgent health issue and hoped that some of the research it presented and hypotheses it put forward might lead to further research leading to more effective and practical forms of obesity treatment.
Insulin and Leptin – the Dynamic Duo
After eating a large meal, there are a number of processes that should begin to properly utilize and store the food that was just consumed. Many of these processes are directed by the action of leptin and insulin acting cooperatively. Insulin signals cells to take up glucose from the bloodstream and either use it as energy or store it as glycogen. Leptin, on the other hand, plays a crucial role in telling the brain that enough food has been consumed and acts as an indicator of energy balance. When insulin control fails the result is diabetes, which prevent effective insulin signaling and allows blood-glucose levels to increase to toxic levels. A failure in leptin signaling leads to uncontrolled appetite and usually obesity.
Insulin and leptin act in part by activating neurons in the hypothalamus that express proopiomelanocortin, which release a neuropeptide that tells the brain to reduce food intake and increase energy expenditure. Alternatively, they prevent the activation of another type of neuron in the hypothalamus that signals the body to promote food intake and decrease energy expenditure.
Too Much of a Good Thing
Why are these hormones failing in the modern diet? In the modern world the cheapest food, which often also tastes pretty good because of high-fructose corn syrup, is highly processed. This means it is packed full of calories, fat and plenty of other nonsense, literally (read the ingredients on a pack of candy or a bag of chips and tell me how many food products you recognize from your kitchen). The types and the amounts of the foods we eat are stupefying our bodies ability to sense satiation and undergo properly metabolism. Studies described in our article have shown that high fat diets can lead to insulin-resistance, while consistently high levels of leptin, likely from overeating three times a day and filling in the meantime with snacks, leads to leptin-resistance. When the body becomes resistant to these hormones it no longer realizes when enough food has been eaten and has a hard time properly utilizing normal quantities of food, much less the extra portions added on from the lacking brain-to-body signals. Fructose, a sugar that makes up about half of high-fructose corn syrup, has also been blamed for leptin resistance.
The Frosting on the Cake
Maybe in this case I should say the low-fat ranch dressing on the baby-carrots. Although obesity is a huge problem it is also largely preventable. Reducing food intake and exercise are old standbys to combat obesity. The article mentions that keeping a low calorie diet can increase levels of leptin in the blood thus helping the body to be satiated after less food. This means that if a diet is stuck with long enough it should become easier and easier as time passes. However, diet and exercise are not easy in a fast paced world like the one we currently find ourselves in. This is where further research into the action of leptin and insulin may come to the rescue. By better understanding how these hormones affect appetite and metabolism, new treatments may become available to help get the jump on obesity and create a healthier modern world.
Opinions of sciences
When you see this picture what do you think of? This is the molecule thimerosal, a mercury containing compound that is a central in the mercury vs. autism debate. I will admit that I am a new to this controversy, but that doesn’t mean I can’t have an opinion. As Jeffrey P. Baker points out in his paper Mercury, Vaccines, and Autism (2008) the current mercury debate is heavily intertwined with historical opinions. To be honest I also rely on these historical opinions which are often incorrect and based off of pseudo science. This can be dangerous because pseudo science spreads like wild fire. The difficult part with this is that most current events are curent events because they are not understood. This means often scientists are still trying to figure what is right and what is wrong, so there will not be unified positions. Scientists can also be quite opinionated when it comes to what is right, and generally it biased in terms of their research.
How is the general public suppose to know what is right and wrong then? Medicine may be destroying our babies, birds now have a flu that could kill everybody, neutrinos now go faster then the speed of light. We live in a world of pseudo science, and a lightning fast information system. I think we need to slow down. We want instant results for everything including research. But we all have to realize it takes time. Once a professor told me “However long you expect an chemical experiment/research to take, multiply that by 6”. It takes time, it takes time. So my advice would be, if some sort of scientific breakthrough is announced take it with a grain of salt, scientists can sometimes over-exaggerate the implications of their work.
So it has been a while since the peak of the moms against mercury, it could be said that the smoke has cleared. So what is the scientific opinion on thimerosal at the moment? Aforementioned Jeffrey P. Baker has written a paper on thimerosal, and he does a very good job taking a holistic look. First he mentions that people not lived through the disasters that these vaccines are preventing. Just keeping the terribleness of these diseases in mind it may be enough to give vaccines another chance. He first looks at why mercury was included in the vaccines. Mercury was seen as a way of destroying the risk of contaminated vaccines which in one instance killed as many as 21 children.
Baker then goes on to mention that another problem in the misunderstanding of thimerosal is “the convergence of the history of ethylmercury with the parallel history of methylmercury in the mid-1990s.” Methelmercury being proven to be somewhat toxic which people are comparing to the ethylmercury which is found in thimerosal.
These molecules may look very simular there are only one methyl (CH3) group apart. This may be part of the reason the opposition groups get confused. It would seem that two molecules that are so close in structure must have simular effects. Aka because methylmercurys are bad for you ethylmercurys must be too. The funny comparison I would suggest would be the methlymercury/ethylmercury relation compared to the testosterone/esteriol (male and female hormones respectively) relation. Just as methylmercury/ethylmercury differ by one methly group so do testosterone/esteriol showing that the difference in methly group can create quite different results.
As always the body is much to complicated for me to talk about, let alone understand. Take the scientific world with a grain of salt.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2376879/?tool=pmcentrez
Things I learned…
The final blog. I can’t believe the semester is over. It doesn’t seem real – there isn’t even snow on the ground. I would like to end my semester with one last blog about some things I learned in neurochem.
The brain is cool.
This semester, our class delved into the complexities of the human brain. As a biology/chemistry student who had never had a neuroscience class, a class about the brain seemed pretty daunting. However, after doing much research, reading many papers, and being taught by my neuroscience-loving classmates, I feel much more comfortable talking about this crazy organ. It seems completely unfathomable and amazing to me that our brains can do the complex things they do – using chemistry. It’s awesome.
Scientists are cool.
This leads me to another thing Neurochemistry has taught me – it’s fun to get together with scientists and talk about science. We are nerdy and awesome people. This class was especially interesting because people from so many areas took this class – neuroscience, psychology, biology, chemistry, philosophy. I think our different backgrounds really brought a diversity of information and topics to the table which really enriched my experience. Getting together and talking about science is fun.
The brain is an unsolved mystery.
Who knew that so many disorders and diseases concerning the brain are still uncharted territory?! Before this class, I would have thought that scientists would have already figured out the exact mechanisms of things like autism, Alzheimer’s, ADHD, bipolar, smoking, schizophrenia, Parkinson’s, migraines, and the effects of drugs like opioids and alcohol. However, this isn’t the case! There are still so many mysteries concerning the brain which makes reading papers in Neurochemistry so exciting.
Everyone is a little messed up.
What is normal anymore? Neurochemistry class taught me that the “normal” brain seems to be nonexistent. We asked repeatedly every week – what if we knew everything about the brain so that we could just give everyone their set of drugs and everyone would be perfect? Would we all be the same? Would you want to change? We also learned that our environment is important and that our parents probably had a hand in messing us up a little bit. Thanks Mom and Dad.
That’s about it. Neurochemistry has been a really awesome class. Merry Christmas!
Backward Logic and Bipolar
FLASHBACK!!!
Five years ago you would find a 17-year-old version of myself sitting in my high school chemistry room. I felt like the king of the world, I thought I knew everything there was to know about chemistry and the world around me. In all honesty I thought the noble prize in chemistry just a reward for chemists who found some new use for chemistry. And there is no way I could have been anymore wrong. I think there is more unknown then there is known, and this weeks article on bipolar disorder brings this to light. The Article is titled “Bipolar disorder and the mechanisms of action of mood stabilizers”
This article looks at four different drugs called mood stabilizers that are used to “treat” bipolar disorder. In todays world researchers study chemical pathways of a disorder and decide where they should “attack” the disorder to stop it. They then create the medicine that does just that! Problem solved. Bipolar is different, over time we have found medication that accomplishes what we want (kind of). These drugs are termed mood stabilizers. The odd thing is we know that these drugs work, we just don’t know how. So the thought is that researchers are going to work backwards. The “cure” is known so we just need to find out what exactly it “cures”.
To quote S. Sobo “How can we argue that we are treating […bipolar disorder…] at a fundamental, etiological level of the illness when we don’t know what the chemical problem is?
So researchers have ideas on how bipolar disorder may happen, but it is still very hypothetical. A few years ago there was a hypotheses called Myo-Inositol Depletion, which was believed to explain bipolar disorder. But in just 5 years researchers have discovered that this hypothesis isn’t probable. This weeks article we read instead focused on the arachidonic acid cascade.
To go into specifics a bit more there are 4 main drugs used to null bipolar symptoms: Lithium, Carbamazepine, Valproic acid, and Lamotrigine. So when we look at a system like the arachidonic acid cascade we try to find how this causes the problem (bi-polar) and then how the drugs prevent this from happening. One way this can be done is by finding specific points in the chemical cascade and finding how drugs affect that point. After all this data is collected we can step back and try to take a holistic view of the disease.
So it can be seen that the arachidonic acid (AA) cascade can cause neuronal damage in quite a few ways. So if we can at what points the drugs stop the AA pathway from proceeding forward we can understand how bipolar disease works. The paper the class was assigned to read actually has a nice spreadsheet breaking down all of the elements of the AA pathway and how the drugs affect these specific elements. On complication to this process is that some of these drugs help some people but not others, at the same time these drugs have different effects on the specific parts to the pathway. For example all four drugs lower COX-2 levels. Whereas COX-1 levels are only lowered by Sodium valproate, the other drugs having no effect. Everything is so complicated…
Take home message the body is complicated, and it is even more complicated finding out why things go wrong. Also I think the general public should know that doctors/humans just don’t know everything.
Addiction or Pain?
Severe pain affects approximately 6% of the population at any given time. This pain can come from nearly any source and may be dealt with in various ways. One way in which severe pain is moderated is through the use of opioids. Opioids are analgesics (painkillers) which decrease the perception of pain, decrease reaction to pain and increase pain tolerance. However, opioids are also commonly taken recreationally due to their ability to produce feelings of euphoria.
Although the significant pain relieving effects, and maybe even the euphoria, sound great there are many issues with opioid use. Chronic use of opioids is associated with tolerance as well as both physical and psychological dependence. Due to this, medicinal opioid use is quite limited and much research has been conducted to explore the negative effects of the drug.
Addictive drugs, such as opioids, act via dopamine pathways and more recently have been associated with glutamate as well. Both of these neurotransmitters are found in various regions throughout the brain and play various roles in the process of addiction. Dopamine is largely related to the reward system which tells a drug user that the drug is ‘good’. Glutamate has been linked to the seeking behavior of a drug addict and withdrawal behaviors which may result in relapse. When opioids bind to receptors in the brain they activate the reward pathways and their effects as well as cause the release of glutamate and activate its receptors. This then initiates the addiction process after continuous use.
So the question is, is it really that bad to be addicted to opioids if it relieves your pain? Well, unfortunately chronic opioid use has many adverse side effects outside of addiction such as depression, confusion, hallucinations, bradycardia and tachycardia. For those who do suffer chronic, severe pain however, these side effects may seem like a simple trade off compared to what they are currently experiencing.
The Growing Spectrum: Why is Autism on the Rise?
Considering the personal relationships I have with members of the educational community, I often hear teachers refer to children that are “on the spectrum”, the autism spectrum that is. However, the descriptions of difficulties teachers experience with these kids- social ineptitude, tantrums, breakdowns, and sometimes harmless quirks lead me to believe that the autism spectrum generalization perhaps sheds less light on understanding these students than if their cases were treated individually. My primary concern is the generalized comparison between students said to exhibit Asperger’s or highly functioning-autism and students exhibiting general autistic symptoms such as cognitive deficits and total communicative disconnect. My concern arose from a research article our Neurochemistry class read on autism and its likely environmental causes. After investigating the article I found among the most prominent holes exhibited in the hypothesis was whether or not the autistic group under evaluation was of the general autistic class or of an Asperger’s type.
The makes a few key observations, some social and many biological, and comes to a seemingly straightforward conclusion that heavy-metal pollution and other environmental factors have led to a drastic increase in the presence of autistic cases throughout the past few decades. Indeed, as the article states there has been a drastic increase in the number of reported autistic patients, however there are other factors surrounding the increase in autistic cases than strictly the biological repercussions of pollution. Namely, the diagnosis of mental disorders in general has greatly increased for social and biological reasons. The social rational for diagnosing mental disorders at an early age is that subjects exhibiting such a disorder may be able to receive supplemental help at an early age, which will likely increase their chances of leading a more successful and independent life in the future. Biologically, many disorders worsen if untreated with medications or other forms of treatment, thus the subject is likely to lead a more healthy life if medical intervention occurs at a young age. Lastly, psychology and psychiatry has developed extensively over the past few decades, which has lead to more extensive diagnostic recognition of disorders. So, regarding the validity of environmental factors being the primary cause of increasing autism cases is a debatable issue.
Now that a little skepticism has been offered to level the autism-causation playing field a few interesting points regarding the hypothesis offered in the article should be brought to attention.
The researchers attribute heavy metal consumption to lead to the development of autism; this however is not the whole of the story. They suggest that heavy metals interfere with biological processes, which further interfere with other biological processes, which have been shown to have a correlation with abnormal neurological development, which finally has been correlated to the types of neurological deficits exhibited by autistic subjects. Well this doesn’t exactly seem to obey the law of parsimony, but with a system as complex as the human body, perhaps this is the most logical reasoning behind the increase in autistic diagnoses.
I am curious as to whether the increase in autism diagnoses is in reference to Asperger’s syndrome subjects or general autism, and can the two types be compared. While patients suffering from general autism often exhibit significant cognitive deficits, those with Asperger’s often show normal and even high levels of cognitive function. If the mental conditions under consideration reflect such different symptoms, scientific rational would suggest that the origins/progressions concomitantly different. In addition, if we consider the use of heavy metals and the environmental policies, which have been extensively restricting their use over the past few decades, it is reasonable to believe that heavy environmental heavy metal levels have receded, thus weakening the hypothesis of the article. In order to gain further insight on this topic, extensive research needs to be done on the environmental levels of toxic heavy metals, as well as their relation to different types of autism and how these factors successfully or unsuccessfully explain current trends in the prevalence of autism.
I'm not thinking my thoughts!
I want to discuss something that does not directly deal with neuroscience, at least not immediately. It’s something that has been on my mind lately and I ask myself, “Why not blog about it?” What I’ve been thinking about is the idea of thought insertion. In psychiatry, thought insertion is a symptom where the patient reports feeling like certain thoughts are not their thoughts. For them, it feels like the thought is being inserted into their mind against their will. This is common in some cases of OCD, other mental disorders involving some sort of psychosis, and less known about disorders involving thought disturbances. These thoughts are nonvolitional and can supposedly be contrasted with the volitional thinking we do otherwise.
What is the difference between a nonvolitional and a volitional thought? The answer might at first appear obvious. Well, in the former case the thought occurs without our willing it, and in the later case the thought is willed. How do we know this? Let us take a look at what each thought consists of. Say I have the thought, “The Yankees are based out of New York City.” And then later I have the thought, “chicken, chicken, cow, disease, dirt.” I report the first thought as volitional. It arose spontaneously in my mind. It caused no anxiety or any kind of emotional response. Most importantly, although probably not as salient, I, upon thinking the thought, also had the intuition that this was my thought and I willed it. The later thought was not reported as volitional. The later thought also arose spontaneously in my mind. But this thought caused me marked anxiety (only hypothetically. I didn’t actually have either of these thoughts. Although I could easily think both right now.) It also did not come with the corresponding intuition that it was indeed my thought. Where do both of these intuitions come from? Why do I intuit the first thought as volitional and the second thought as nonvolitional?
If we strip away the intuition from the content of each thought what is left? The thoughts’ spontaneity and the emotion that each involves or causes. Would it be too bold to suggest that neither thought is volitional? Would it be too audacious to suggest that the only reason we have the experience of a free thought at all is because usually, baring any psychological illness, our thoughts are not accompanied by great anxiety? I think some of the diagnostic tools we used, the concepts we use, need to be more thoroughly examined. I also think that, given the recent assault on free will by neuroscience, what we consider volitional and nonvolitional needs to be considered more carefully. Next time you think a thought, ask yourself, “Was that me thinking that or someone else?”
How Far is too Far?
Throughout the course of the semester in neurochemistry we have learned how to dissect, interpret, and form opinions on research articles dealing the neurological problems. Taking this knowledge and expanding it to broader “big picture” ideas has put both scientific and social issues into context. A common theme present in the papers we have read is the expansion of knowledge. As a society, it’s safe to say that America is a busy country; we are constantly striving for success, working more, harder and pushing the limit further. This “theme” is a general component of science and few fields have exhibited as rapid of expansion. Fifty years ago we discovered DNA, now we are manipulating it to make mice that grow in the dark. We’ve come a long ways as a scientific community in a very short amount of time. The following videos offer some perspective on how science is being applied to deep, philosophical issues.
Free Will and the Brain
Is everything determined for us?
Aliens Exist
As a scientific community we are constantly concerned with gaining more knowledge. We want to know if there are aliens, how to beat every disease, and improve the quality of life in every way possible. At what point does this become counterproductive and even destructive? I have a hard time arguing that cancer research should not take place to develop a cure for such a terrible illness. I also believe that an enjoyable part of life is not knowing everything. It would be interesting to see if there ever comes a time when we know everything. This seems like a ridiculous proposition, but think of how far we have come in the last one hundred years. The more we know, the more complicated things become, and the more complicated things become the less we seem to be able to sit back and enjoy life.
The Balance of Autism
Autism is a neurodevelopmental which presents in early in childhood. While the symptoms vary, it is characterized by a general in ability to effectively communicate and interact with other people. The causes of autism are currently unknown. Autism is diagnosed off of behavioral, communicative, and social observation. Genetics have been suggested to play a role due to the increased chances of risk when a family history of autism is present Due to the recent increases in the number of diagnosis made, it has been said that an environmental factor may be involved. The following video presents a further introduction to autism.
Introdu
The argument that an environmental factor being the cause behind autism is an interesting one because, if proven true the resolution proves difficult. The environmental hypothesis is that heavy metal exposure leads to autism. Heavy metals bind to proteins leading to their activation and disruption of key cellular pathways. The disruption of these pathways leads to autism. We are exposed to heavy metals through various sources; preservatives in foods, body cleansing products, and the crops we eat. If there is a link found between the food we eat and autism how will we deal with this problem? We can stop eating canned foods loaded with preservatives. This means living off of fresh produce. Produce that is grown in fields, which are sprayed with fertilizers and pesticides, contain heavy metals. If we stop using fertilizers and pesticides, crops are going to grow less efficiently. With the rising world population and growing hunger problem where do we find the balance? The link between heavy metals in our crops and autism has not been made, however the correlation has been suggested for other health issues outside of autism. This issue raises a general problem between science and social issues of where to find the correct “balance”.
ction to Autism