Cobbers on the Brain

Being wrong is… actually, perfectly okay 

Neurochemistry this semester has given me the not-so-fun, but very much needed opportunity to practice being okay with being wrong. Not going to lie, sitting in on the first exam humbled me. A lot. Maybe I was alone with this, but I felt more clueless than ever. Not confused, not surprised, not scared, simply just clueless. I knew I wasn’t supposed to know everything, given that we only received some small snippets of information from an academic paper along with factual data in the form of a list. But I had no idea “how wrong” I could be without appearing very dumb. But eventually, I realized that instead of wondering about which level of wrongness I should achieve, I could just take whatever I was given, carefully read it, and take whatever I DID understand to use it in my hypothesis. Even if I would have been wrong, if it was logical, that would have been a win for me. Leaving the exam, I could finally fill in the cracks, and get a better understanding of what exactly I was right or wrong about, then get the chance to correct myself along with explaining my own thought process. Admitting that we can be wrong at times is hard for everyone, but this class was a great way to practice that, and gain valuable social skills while communicating our own ideas to those who may have completely different ways of thinking. I am glad to have had the opportunity to practice being wrong, which I fully believe is a part of our social awareness, as well as being responsibly engaged in the world.

Engaged citizen

The blogposts of this semester have been an amazing way to learn how to effectively communicate science to those not in science. I enjoyed the way I got more and more comfortable writing my blogs as the semester progressed, and got to have some fun researching many interesting things going on around the world. With being allowed to expand on things I personally find the most enjoyable, and letting me pursue my interests I feel I could contribute to our weekly one-on-one chatting very effortlessly. I also enjoyed getting the chance to be a leader in group discussions and building some great skills to guide, and socialize with people in a respectful and inclusive way. Bringing a group together and offering a place where people can comfortably share their thoughts is never an easy task, but certainly can be a very rewarding one.

Future directions

It really is quite interesting how many different social skills I have gained from such a “sciency” class, but I believe it will be one of most valuable experiences at Concordia. In sending me off into the world, this class has ensured me that I would be okay, even when finding myself in the most unexpected situations where I might just simply be clueless. I am way more comfortable with myself, my knowledge, and the way I present myself while communicating with others. I truly believe this course will be part of the many ways I can potentially succeed in my future career.

What’s something that we all have in common, well we sleep. I’ll admit it, some of us get more than others, but at the end of the day our favorite activity is more than willing to greet us with open arms when we’ve had enough. We already know that sleep is crucial for memory formation, specifically long term memory consolidation. Since we already know that we might ask the question, “what happens if we don’t sleep?”

Before we jump into that, lets briefly discuss what we already know. The Calcium/cAMP/MAPK/CRE pathway is necessary for memory consolidation.  The MAPK pathway is especially important in the hippocampus where long term memory is formed. REM seems to increase the activity of the pathway listed above.

Now lets look at what happens when we don’t sleep, or more specifically when we are sleep deprived. We can’t really look at what happens when we don’t sleep at all because we would die without sleeping eventually.

1. You get sick much easier when you don’t sleep, your immune system is weakened leading to more illness.
2. Not sleep is very bad for your heart. You are at higher risks for heart disease and strokes.
3. Lack of sleep is associated with increased risk for developing cancer.
4. It is hard to think straight, we’ve all dealt with this one. When you’re tired all you can think about is sleep and not doing that homework that’s due tomorrow.
5. Your memory is impacted and you cannot recall things. This one we’ve already talked about so it shouldn’t really be a surprise to anyone.
6. This one might sound strange, but just bear with me. Sex drive is negatively impacted by a lack of sleep. Not sleeping lowers testosterone and other sex hormones by up to 15%.
7. You are more likely to gain weight… sad
8. Risk for diabetes goes up
9. Rates of accidents goes up, this goes along with lack of focus/thinking straight.
10. Your skin quality goes down; fine lines, wrinkles, uneven skin color, looseness of skin, etc.

If those things don’t sound bad enough, here’s a couple more shown in the figure below. Some of these things are repeats that we talked about already but some are new.

Its hard to get enough sleep when we live in a world that prioritizes productivity and working long hours. There never seems to be enough time in our day to do everything that we need to. But take this into consideration, don’t sleep just because its good for you, although that is a pretty good reason to do just that. Sleep because it will make you far better at doing those things in your day to day life that you never seem to have enough time to do. You’ll be more productive, have better quality work, and be much happier doing so. Although you might not feel like you have the time to sleep, it will be better for you in the long run if you close your eyes and get some rest.

Lets diverge a little bit into some serious material, I might be reaching here but stick with me.

“Being awake for at least 18 hours is the same as someone having  blood alcohol content of 0.05%”-the CDC

“Being awake for 24 hours is equal to having a blood alcohol content of 0.10%”- the CDC

Why do I include these two quotes from the CDC? Simple, get some sleep or your essentially drunk, we all disagree with drunk driving and doing important things while under the influence. But we should also have a similar mindset when it comes to doing things while being tired, its the same thing. I suppose the moral of the story is you could either drink a strawberry daiquiri or stay awake for 18+ hours, which is worse? Should we allow people who are that tired to drive and do other crucial things in our daily life, or should sleep deprivation be equivalent to being drunk? For example, surgeons work extremely long shifts and they are performing potentially dangerous procedures on their patient. Their shifts can be 12-28 hours long, that’s more than enough to have a BAC above the legal range. Our society needs to accept sleep rather than demonize those of us who just want to perform at our best. Don’t let your surgeon be Patrick, although he seems like a nice guy he’s not entirely in the right mindset for surgery.

References

https://www.cdc.gov/sleep/about_sleep/drowsy_driving.html

https://www.healthline.com/health/healthy-sleep/what-happens-to-your-body-when-you-lose-sleep#accidentprone

https://www.verywellhealth.com/what-are-the-symptoms-of-sleep-deprivation-3015161

The drug Benadryl (diphenhydramine) is an OTC antihistamine used to treat symptoms allergies. The drug itself is not supposed to be used for easy sleep, but it has a sedative effect when taken, which is what causes some people to repeatedly take advantage of this medication. While many associate over-the-counter drugs with little to no abuse potential, Benadryl comes with various risks when overused (all of which the FDA has identified).

Continue reading →

Our paper for this topic talked a lot about the dysregulation and harm that can come from improperly functioning cannabinoid receptors. But for fun, lets look at one of the ways that cannabis can be used in a medical fashion, specifically PTSD. The two major contributing chemical structures in marijuana are tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabidiol (CBD). THC is responsible for the euphoric effects of marijuana while CBD is generally considered to be medicinal. CB1 receptors play a large role in our response to fear and anxiety, THC is an agonist for the CB1 receptors on GABAergic nerve terminals which actually helps regulate and prevent fear and anxiety which induces stress. Fear, anxiety, and stress are all important and high in those that suffer from PTSD. Additionally, CB1 activation also impairs the ability to retrieve aversive (negative) memories and blocks nightmares. PTSD is associated with flashbacks, nightmare, and the improper retrieval of aversive memories.  This essentially means that marijuana is a very effective method of treating PTSD as a disorder. Additionally, if you give mice (test subjects) marijuana you can prevent PTSD behaviors from ever occurring, meaning that marijuana could be used after a stressful event to prevent PTSD from ever manifesting.

The downside of marijuana in PTSD. Essentially to much THC can actually induce anxiety and psychotic disorders like PTSD. This occurs because marijuana over activates CB1 receptors in glutamatergic rather than GABAergic nerve terminals. This would mean that instead of an influx of inhibitory neurotransmitters, an influx of excitatory neurotransmitters is occurring instead, leading to anxiety and psychotic symptoms. This is especially problematic when you consider the fact that THC concentrations have increased significantly throughout the years. THC in “street marijuana” used to be at 4%, now its more than 15%. Dispensaries sell marijuana with a THC concentration of 22% and people are buying THC concentrate now instead of “normal” marijuana. With increasing THC marijuana might lose its potential to do good instead of bad. It might go from being able to treat PTSD to making PTSD far worse. Researchers are worried that the potential for psychosis and substance abuse might make marijuana a method for treatment that has more concerns and problems than benefits. There is also a potential for the development of comorbidities linked with PTSD, such as depression and anxiety. With improper regulation of THC, CB1 receptors might overstimulate the wrong neurons and lead to a bigger problem than originally was expected. There is also a lot of talk in the provided first reference about the need for increased trials and research on both the positives and negatives of marijuana. It is hard to determine exactly how beneficial something is when it has been an illegal substance for so long and has been limited to studies on lab animals rather than humans due to its illegal nature.

References

Steenkamp, M. M., Blessing, E. M., Galatzer-Levy, I. R., Hollahan, L. C., & Anderson, W. T. (2017). Marijuana and other cannabinoids as a treatment for posttraumatic stress disorder: a literature review. Depression and Anxiety, 34(3), 207–216. https://doi.org/10.1002/da.22596

https://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/research-reports/marijuana/marijuana-addictive

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         It’s finals week everyone, we made it to the end of the semester and are nearing the finish line. Because it’s finals week, and motivation is at an all time low I will be providing you relatable, and hopefully something you’ll find funny throughout the rest of this blog. I hope my efforts make your finals week just a little brighter. The question at hand is “how did this class allow you to integrate and apply the skills and competencies you gained throughout your education at Concordia.” Because as you have already realized after nearly completing this class,  did more than simply learn what an action potential was and how ions flow in and out of the cell, huge win.

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         Let’s start with the Peak project shall we? If we’re being completely honest with ourselves almost none of us like group projects, unless we’re the one being pulled along throughout the entire process. But if we think about it for a minute, Concordia has put our group skills to the test from day one. We’ve had group projects throughout our entire collegiate career, some examples: working on a combined research paper, working on a danio rerio (zebrafish) project, working with those annoying little things in biology class with people who never came to class, etc.

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Whether we’d like to admit it or not, we’ve been doing group projects this entire time, theoretically this has prepared us for the real world. Because, like class, we will not always get along with our coworkers. We might have an annoying individual in our group, we might have to carry the entire workload and receive no extra credit or praise for doing so, it’s part of life and the real world that awaits us. As Forest Gump would say, “life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re gonna get,” the same goes for coworkers in the real world. Our PEAK project allowed us to see the accumulation of our hard work throughout college, allowing us to see not only how far we’ve come in terms of improving our collaboration skills, but also how much we can still improve in the future after graduation. Not one group would say that the work was equally distributed, that they didn’t have at least one LAZY group member, or that everything went perfectly. And that’s alright, that’s real life and this class has helped us see and deal with that reality. The PEAK project encompasses the last three goals of Concordia’s liberal learning. I’ll paraphrase them but you theoretically all know what they are already; responsible participation in the world, understanding of interdisciplinary connections, and cultivating understanding. I will speak in terms of what my PEAK group accomplished because I don’t know what each of you did just yet. 

Image 4; just remember, when you’re explaining the brain to someone who doesn’t know much about it, you can often overwhelm them

         During our groups time working with Prairie St. Johns in Fargo, we were able to participate in the world, the real world, and not just some hypothetical setting in a classroom surrounded by sleeping students at 8 a.m. I will be perfectly blunt here, my group had MANY obstacles and challenges when it came to interdisciplinary perspectives and connections. The social work majors did not always see eye to eye with the neurochemistry students, and certainly the same can be said the other way around. But at the end of the day we figured out our differences and managed to deliver 160 meals to the local community, mental health de-stigmatization information, and information about local resources and shelters. We gave 140 of the 160 meals to the local homeless shelters, 5 shelters each received just under 30 meals each, some even got chicken wild rice soup hot out of the pot. And you know what the best part about the entire experience was? It wouldn’t have been possible without the help of all 8 members of the group. Sure not everyone carried their weight equally, but at the end of the day if those that did the bare minimum didn’t even do that much, those that did the most would have had to do even more. The entire experience gave all those who contributed a sense of self-understanding and some perspective in life. Let me explain, when we presented the shelters with the meals that we had prepared they showed us a level of gratefulness that was pure and heartfelt. It was as if we had just given them a new car or a new home, it was a moment that put everything into context and showed us as students that the problems that we face on a daily basis may not be as bad as we originally thought, essentially it gave us perspective. I realized that it is hard to compare my problems as a college student, eating 3 (or more) meals a day, to the hardships of those who live without proper housing. It was a humbling experience.

Image 5; I mean, this one doesn’t need any explanation, come on

         What other skills has this class allowed us to foster? Well for me at least this class allowed me to better understand research papers and scientific writing in general. We as a class probably take this for granted, but hand one of our readings to someone who doesn’t have a background in scientific writings and see just how confused they are by the MAPK pathway. I can promise you this, no matter how confused you are by that gobbly gook, they are 10x more confused. Unlike them you know that if you had to you could figure out every detail of that paper. Whether through additional research, breaking down the paper into individual categories like we do on Wednesdays, or extremely careful and slow reading of every detail in a piece of literature, at the end of the day you have the capacity to figure it out on your own. I unironically showed my dad what I was reading the other day and he damn near had a stroke, give yourself some credit you’ve come a long way. You probably see a piece of literature now and say to yourself, “I could figure that out, it might take me a week (or a semester) but I could do it.” These concepts relate directly to Concordia’s first two goals for liberal learning. Our love of learning has improved, whether you think you can or not you certainly have the capacity to read that paper on the MAPK pathway, and your intellectual capacity has grown significantly. I’m not just talking about this class, sure you picked some things up and honed your skills in new ways, but this class is the accumulation of your entire college experience, it is a way to see just how far you’ve come.

Image 6; the only thing my neurons can seem to remember come test day

         That’s it everyone, that’s my final blog post. One thing I’d like to comment on, I know that my posts can be a little goofy and light hearted, but that’s because I want to explain information effectively but also in a way that entertains the reader. I hope that you can all appreciate that I am trying to make this a good time, not only for me as the writer, but also for you as the reader. It is important that we as “scientists” explain complex information in  a way that our audience can understand. I will need to be able to do this in my near future, if I as the doctor cannot explain to my patient what is wrong with them in an effective manner, I am doing my job incorrectly. Thank you all for a great semester, best of luck in your future and ROLL COBBS.

Neurochemistry has allowed me to integrate and apply the skills and competencies I have gained throughout my time at Concordia in the following ways. It caused me to test my knowledge thus far in Neurochemistry and beyond, and contribute, communicate, and deliver it effectively to my peers. While scientists are often able to understand and conceptualize material for themselves, they often lack the ability to communicate it effectively and cohesively to others. This course challenged and tested me in this area, as we were tested on our ability to not only know the science, but also effectively communicate it as well.

Neurochemistry has allowed me to take my love for learning, especially learning neuroscience, and excel in it. The course dove deep in the mechanisms and signaling in many different disorders, and I was able to practice and deepen my love for learning by examining and broadening my scope of understanding around these disorders, which helped me to become even more passionate about the ability to heal or change the signaling mechanisms.

Throughout all of my educational career, I have taken courses all over the “science spectrum.” Courses that include biology, chemistry, neuroscience, morality, ethics, math, etc. All of these courses feel combined and put to the test in Neurochemistry. All of these different types of courses matter when it comes to neurochemistry and background in all of them was very important. This knowledge allowed me to have a firm foundation in my education as a whole, and transfer this knowledge into the Neurochemistry course.

The course itself integrates all areas of learning. Educationally, personally, and professionally, by testing your knowledge and ability to apply that to a classroom setting, and in the community as well. This integration is important for “BREWing” as it allows a student to take the skills and knowledge they have learned and apply it in the real world. I think the course was a set and up and reflective of this very idea, as it allows the students to engage with others and share their insight and knowledge, as well as personal experiences with the class. This was great to see as we all have different backgrounds and insights to offer, and we can all learn something from one another through sharing and collaborating together. Since the course was based on discussion and communicating the science, this is a perfect example of the skills that can be applied to real world situations when we as students BREW. We will need to effectively communicate and collaborate with others about the science, about our own experiences and perspectives as well as justify and reason, which the course design allowed for. Overall, the Neurochemistry course allowed me to grow in my knowledge of science, and ability to effectively communicate this knowledge with others.