BIOL 4500 - Curated Paper 2

Riley Williams

Karpel

BIOL 4500 

Curated Paper 2

It is a defining characteristic of humans to want to fit in and be accepted. Throughout our lives we try to fit into society and make sure that we are not that different from most other people. While it is true that there are some people who value societal acceptance more than others, everyone to a degree wants to feel like they belong. Diseases affect how we function, and in a similar sense, drugs do the same things to humans as well. When our normal state is altered, we might not be able to still fit into what society deems normal. This can have drastic effects on a person’s mental and emotional state, which is why it is important to look at how these things can impact a person. 

Even though bacteria are microscopic, they create one of our most important biological systems, our microbiome. Our microbiome is all of the microbes that live in and on us. We have only recently researched the effects our microbiome, especially our gut microbiome, has on our overall health and behavior. Since the knowledge of our gut microbiota is so new, a vast amount of research has come out in the last few years. One of these new findings is the ability of our gut microbes to communicate with the brain. This is very important to understand because that means that our behavior is influenced by the microbes we have in our microbiome. Even though everyone has their own distinct microbiome, there are some microbes that are shown to be more beneficial than others. If someone has many undesirable microbes then problems can arise in their gastrointestinal, neuroendocrine, or immune relationships which can eventually lead to a disease or a problem. By performing research on mice, we have come to the conclusion that by altering what bacteria someone has in their gut, we can improve not only diseases that affect the gastrointestinal tract, but stress related diseases too. This goes to show that if someone’s gut microbiota is not in balance, then they can have elevated stress levels. Prolonged stress can lead to numerous different issues, but one of the main ones is depression which definitely puts a major toll on someone’s mental health and makes it so they feel like they might not fit in. 

An imbalance in our gut microbiota can not only cause us to have prolonged periods of stress, but it can also cause gastrointestinal cancers. Evidence shows that intestinal bacteria have an effect on oncogenes, tumor progression, and how people respond to therapy. Cancer is a very prevalent issue in our society, and whenever we can find new links about the different causes, it is important to try and understand them. When someone is diagnosed with cancer, they not only have to deal with the disease, but the social and emotional side effects of it as well. Once again, a side effect of cancer is also depression. According to the National Cancer Institute, about every 2 in 10 people with cancer will suffer from depression. Not only is depression a major side effect, but people with cancer also sometimes feel a sense of loneliness and have trouble finding meaning in their life. Both of these effects have big impacts on someone’s state of being. If they feel like they are separated from the rest of society and cannot find ways to reconnect, they can greatly suffer since humans are meant to find connections with others. 

Furthermore, another major thing that can greatly impact someone’s mental and emotional state are mental disorders. There are so many mental disorders that exist. The brain is very intricate, and small changes such as just one misfolded protein can drastically affect someone’s cognitive function. People can be living their normal life until one day they recognize a new symptom, and then their entire lifestyle will have to change. A lot of my family members have mental disorders, such as Alzheimer’s and dementia. My mom is really worried about having early onset Alzheimer’s and she went through a period of time where she was doing memory training in order to help improve her brain function. Now wherever she forgets something she worries that it is Alzheimer’s. If only the thought of having one of these diseases affects someone’s mental state that much, I can only imagine how much someone who actually is suffering from the disease is affected. Alzheimer’s causes someone to suffer from many different cognitive difficulties, which can directly lead to people feeling numerous different emotions such as anger, depression, fear, and loneliness. This loss of cognitive ability and the effects that accompany it can cause someone to find it exponentially harder to be able to fit in with the rest of society because how they lived their life for decades now has to change. 

There are numerous types of traumatic brain disorders, and each one of them has detrimental effects on a person. However, mental disorders are not the only thing that can affect someone’s brain and therefore their behavior and thinking. Drugs are another thing that does this since they work by changing how our brain cells interact with each other. When drugs enter our bloodstream, they make their way towards our brain to produce their desired effects. Drugs can actually change our neural network and how our brain is wired, which changes how a person thinks and acts. This is especially dangerous since this can cause addiction due to how humans function biologically. Our bodies are based off of a reward system, and the primary neurotransmitter that is responsible for us feeling this reward is dopamine. Some drugs work by increasing dopamine. This would then cause our brains to begin to decrease our natural dopamine if there is continued use of the drug. Our brain is then tricked into thinking that the drug is necessary for our survival because it is the only thing left supplying our brain with dopamine. This causes cravings of the drug to occur and eventually dependence and addiction. Addiction is tied greatly to a myriad of negative emotions such as depression, anger, and loneliness. These effects are an even bigger issue for people who suffer from addiction because in some cases, people revert back to the drugs to overcome these emotions, which just in turn leads to a vicious cycle of them continuing to use drugs. 

 If someone uses a drug for a long period of time, this would also change their neural network which affects learning. This is a big issue for adolescents because how their brains develop during adolescence is crucial in determining the overall structure of their brain. Therefore, if teens are using drugs for long periods of time they can drastically change the wiring of their brain. This can create numerous developmental issues, such as problems learning and handling impulses and emotion. If these adolescents are altering how their brain functions early on in development, they can create a big gap between how they think and function versus how the rest of society does. This can further separate them from the rest of society which would cause them to also feel negative emotions, such as depression, which could also cause them to increase their drug usage. Therefore, whenever someone takes drugs, especially adolescents, they need to carefully monitor themselves and make sure they do not become dependent on those drugs. 

Overall, it is important to understand what things can cause people to feel separated from society. Things such as mental disorders, imbalances, cancer, and drug use are all things that can cause this. Humans need to feel a sense of community and when their lives are impacted by one of these things, it can cause a multitude of different mental and emotional effects. These mental and emotional side effects put a great toll on a person’s overall well being, which is why it is very important to understand all of these concepts.