Curated Paper #2 - The Brain

 Curated Paper #2 - The Brain

Have you ever heard the riddle, “It’s good to stretch me and push my limits. The more you use me, the stronger I get. When I am sharp, I am at my best. What am I?” At first, you may be thinking of some kind of muscle or something that stretches, maybe like a bow and arrow. The riddle may sound confusing but when you hear the answer it becomes obvious: your brain. Although our brain is not considered to be a “true” muscle, I feel like there are many times where I strain my brain! Am I the only one? Thinking too hard or being too stressed can make us feel overwhelmed and leave us exhausted. But take a minute to really think about the wonderful gift of having a brain, we can imagine anything we want and solve complex problems. We have memories to remember the good and bad times. All with the help of our brain.

The complexity of our brain blows me away. There are over 100 billion nerve cells that communicate with each other to help our brain function. Our brain is composed of different specialized parts such as the brain stem, basal ganglia, cerebellum, and cerebrum. Each one controls the different functions of our body. The cerebrum has four main lobes, the frontal, parietal, temporal, and occipital lobe. The frontal lobe is responsible for problem-solving, muscle movement, behavior, judgment, and intellectual activities. The parietal lobe senses pain, controls reading, and touch. The temporal lobe controls visual and auditory memory. The occipital lobe helps with color, movements, and words. The cerebellum is another part of the brain. It is referred to as the small brain. It has more neurons and controls essential body functions, such as balance, posture, and coordination. (LetsTute 2018)

A fun test that you can do that will test your brain skills is to watch this video on Youtube called, “Human Brain, Parts & functions” by LetsTute. In short, colored words will flash on the screen and the object of the game is to say what color the words were printed in and not say the actual word. It is challenging and confusing! This game is confusing to people because this introduces the left-right conflict of the brain. Basically, the left side of our brain tries to say the word while the right side tries to say the color in which the word was printed in. This game helps us understand the two different sides of the brain and how they are connected. The two sides are joined together by a bundle of nerves called the Corpus Callosum. (LetsTute 2018) 

As you may have deduced now, the brain is extremely complex and very fragile. Your brain is capable of so much in terms of helping us be able to function, but what if we look at the function of our personality? Is it possible that miscommunicated neurons could potentially change an individual’s personality and behavior? Absolutely. One unfortunate story is about a man named Phineas P. Gage. To summarize his experience, there was an explosion and a 13-pound tamping iron went through the head of Phineas Gage. The rod passed directly through his left frontal lobe. Miraculously, he made a full recovery. That is, except for his personality. After his accident, he became fitful, had little respect for others, became stubborn, abandoned plans, and engaged in profanity. From the previous paragraphs, we have seen that the frontal lobe is responsible for human behavior. In 1848, when scientists heard about the news and Phineas’s personality change this sparked the movement of neuroscience. "He was the first case where you could say fairly definitely that injury to the brain produced some kind of change in personality." (Hamilton 2017) This goes to show that personalities and behaviors can be affected by damages to our brains. The brain is really just a huge bundle of biological functions in a way. Neurons transmitting signals from one to another. How crucial it must be to our personalities to take care of our brains and to be healthy and to keep balance in our lives. 

Remember the concept of Ayurveda? It is imperative that we are doing everything we can to keep our brain healthy and happy. Part of Ayurveda is balance in the mind. The mind is directly related to the brain. One article I read addressed something that I have not thought much about. (Kalin 2019) It talked about the concept of mind and brain being separate entities and how it can be problematic to have that viewpoint. It discussed how the mind can be influenced by the biological processes in the brain. It mentioned that genes are influenced greatly by the environment so why should separate the idea of brain and mind? To me, this ultimately makes sense. Thinking back to Ayurveda, this idea of organisms living in balance in their environment is crucial. How more important is it then to make sure that our brain, the organ that controls basically everything we do, to be balanced. We need to make sure that our brains stay healthy and in balance because any off-balance in our brain can have detrimental results.

One topic that comes to my mind when the brain comes up is drugs. The reason why I tend to pair drugs with our brains is that drugs have an effect on the brain. The basic idea of drugs is that they are small molecules that can affect the pathways of cells, thereby causing some effect on the body. Drugs are a bunch of small molecules that have been modified to simulate a specific influence on our bodies. When drugs enter our body they interfere with the way that neurons send, receive, and process signals through neurotransmitters. And drugs are designed to mimic our body’s natural functions but do so in a normal way that produces a variant result. Thinking about Ayurveda, if we have too many drugs in our system that will most certainly throw off our balance and lead to complications in our health. Making sure that we are regulating what goes into our bodies is important for our health and our mind. 

My intention isn’t to be here to say that drugs are bad and that they are throwing us off balance, I’m here to say that we need to be conscious of what goes into our bodies and how they affect us. There are many drugs out there that are very helpful to us. Some that relieve pain, help us focus, help us be happier, help us get over a cold, the list goes on. Thinking about it, it is pretty amazing that scientists have been able to come up with drugs that mimic our natural body molecules. To dig more into this concept I came across a TedEd talk that was very informative. (Garofalo 2017) It talked specifically about how drugs alter the communication of cells in the brain. There are many methods of administering drugs but what I found to be interesting was that the slowest way of administering a drug before it has an effect is through oral digestion. Just something that I found to be interesting. Anyway, the talk also mentioned how a drug’s effectiveness is measured by its ability to manipulate synaptic transmissions at different phases of the process. It results in an increase or decreases in the neurotransmitters being spread. And ultimately, drugs have the potential to be able to rewire our brain, influencing our behaviors, our ability to think, make decisions, learn, and remember things. All for the worse or for the better. 

The brain is very delicate as you can imagine from what I have been discussing. Having a drug that could potentially change the way you think, act, and learn can be scary. But I see it as a huge opportunity for us as humans to learn and improve upon our scientific knowledge. As science continues to improve so will our medicines. Let’s think about traumatic brain injuries (TBI) for example. From my studies, I have learned that a traumatic brain injury can greatly influence personality. As I have discussed above, changing the way our brain functions, how our neurons communicate with one another could have a massive impact on an individual’s family, job, social, and community interaction. I just imagine what it would be like if I had a TBI and who would be affected by it. For one, my wife would be greatly affected. She would basically be married to another man. I wouldn’t be myself. I would have different behaviors, attitudes, and personality. But as medicine continues to progress, there may be an opportunity to research the potential of helping individuals with traumatic brain injuries to regain their personalities and their normal brain function, if you will.  

In conclusion, our brain is critical to our individual personalities. Your brain is what makes you, you! We need to do everything that we can to preserve ourselves by keeping our bodies healthy and regulated. Ayurveda seems to be intertwined with everything we do. The concept is true and you can see it everywhere you look. Balance is essential for life and especially for our brain.

Citations

Garofalo, Sara. TedEd “How do drugs affect the brain? - Sara Garofalo” Online video clip. Youtube. Youtube, 29 Jun. 2017. Web 15 Oct. 2020

Hamilton, Jon. “Why Brain Scientists Are Still Obsessed With The Curious Case Of Phineas Gage.” NPR, NPR, 21 May 2017, www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2017/05/21/528966102/why-brain-scientists-are-still-obsessed-with-the-curious-case-of-phineas-gage. 

Kalin, Ned H. American Journal of Psychiatry, 2019, ajp.psychiatryonline.org/. 

LetsTute. “Human Brain | Parts & Functions | Cerebrum & Cerebellum | Biology | LetsTute.” Online video clip. Youtube. Youtube, 27 Mar. 2018. Web 15 Oct. 2020