The Brain and the complex balance between structure, function, and neurotransmitter balances

    Athletes have been a prevalent part of popular culture since before the common era. Even before our modern interpretation of the Olympics, there were ancient civilizations that would organize great tournaments to exhibit individuals and their physical prowess. Among these historic sporting events were the Olympics from which the modern rendition takes its name, however, they were far from the only ancient sporting events to gain popularity. Rome held many contests in its Colosseum. Hurling was a common practice in Ireland. China played a game called cuju. The middle ages are practically characterized by jousting in the minds of every child who has ridden atop a broom pretending it to be a mount. Just as these activities draw participants, they also draw spectators. There is something exceptionally cathartic about watching another individual who has devoted a significant amount of time to honing the various musculoskeletal systems in their body to be able to outcompete those they contend with. However, there is another vital system that can often get overlooked by both spectators and athletes, as impressive displays of strength, speed, and coordination are performed during any particular race or match.

            A popular past time in America is American Football. The sport has seen countless memorable moments in the eyes of its adoring fans. With these memorable moments, many of the people that have helped to make them have received a great deal of fame, becoming icons in the world of the sport. One such player was Mike Webster, a center for the Pittsburgh Steelers for fourteen years. Over the course of his career, he was involved in countless collisions during each season, a good number of which took more of a toll on his body than many believed. After retiring, the consequences of his years of collisions began to manifest, as his memory began to fade, his body experienced sharp pains, and he sank into an emotional pit of despair. This saw him begin to exhibit out of character behavior, including living out of his car, despite having a host of people offer to host him.

It wasn’t until after he passed away owing to cardiovascular failure that those who were close to him began to understand the strange transformation that had overtaken this loved football player. Dr. Bennet Omalu was later able to observe Webster’s brain, which is when he diagnosed what had caused this character shift, Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy. It was the first documented case in an American football player. The discovery has since led to the progression of Neurological studies both through starting a project to create a brain bank to study and the NFL making changes to try and better protect its players. However, for those who knew Webster, this transformation, regardless of the cause, must have been difficult to watch.

Webster’s story illustrates several key concepts one should be aware of when they begin to explore the brain and the mysteries that exist beneath its soft folds. First, the human brain is an extraordinarily complex biological system. It is the keystone to so much of what makes us individuals. It is what allows us to store information, create solutions, perceive the information around us, and even allows us to interact with our world through the signals its transmits through neurons to the different muscle groups, resulting in the complex contractions we use for movement. It is this system and the advantages that has been attributed to humankinds’ great technological advances. The second crucial thing that one should take away from Webster’s diagnosis is how diverse ways in which Neurological illnesses can manifest itself.

Outside of things such as memory loss, there are a number of side effects that one could experience when the brain does not function as intended. These symptoms can include but are not limited to numbness, loss of motion, inability to recall or store further information, bodily pains, and personality changes. The reasons that such symptoms begin to manifest can be even more diverse than the symptoms themselves. In the case of numbness and loss of motion as they relate to brain illnesses, these can both be caused by multiple sclerosis. Memory loss can be caused by dementia and its various forms. Personality changes and disorders are symptoms of perhaps the most diverse category of illnesses. These can include things such as autism, schizophrenia, personality disorders, and more besides.

What makes many of the diseases described above all the more fascinating is there lack of a well-defined cause. In the causes of metabolic illnesses, there are a number of mechanisms that sciences has specifically illustrated that result in these illnesses, such as how insulin resistance can result in an excess of glucose in a person’s blood, resulting in the damage that type two diabetics experience. However, this is less true for many of the illnesses of the brain. In these cases, there have been a number of factors that have been correlated with these illnesses, including genetic component, environmental risks, and lifestyle. However, often these illnesses are not associated with distinct causes, but multifaceted issues that result in these issues. As such, the common model for predicting whether an individual will manifest with such illnesses is to look at their risk factors and see if they surpass a threshold that has been associated with such manifestations. For many individuals, including Doctors like Dr. Omalu, this presents an opportunity to explore such issues and the mechanisms at play. It is likely that there is more that can be uncovered about such illnesses through exploring the unique anomalies that are present within a diagnosed individuals brain and the mechanisms that might have caused such unique structures to form or fail to form.

These formations or lack thereof are part of what allow for the complexity found in this deeply personal bodily system. This complexity has emerged as evolution has built on the primitive model of the central nervous system that has begun to develop since the time of the first chordates. This complexity, while giving us many evolutionary advantages that have allowed us to be able to become the apex predators we are today, has also given rise to the diseases describe previously. While seemingly natural illnesses and severe injuries can impair how the human brain functions, they are not the only ways an individual’s central nervous system might malfunction.

Outside of illness and injury, certain chemical compounds have the ability to alter how a person’s nervous system responds. Though it might seem strange that chemicals, including a number of naturally occurring ones, are able to alter an individual’s cognitive ability. However, the seeming strangeness of this fact diminishes significantly when it is understood that these molecules are similar enough in shape and function that they bind to the same receptors everyone uses to communicate information throughout the body. Binding to these receptors often either stimulates or represses the response these receptors would ordinarily produce, oftentimes resulting in altered mood, behavior, and perception.

In many instances, we find ourselves grateful for the fact that these molecules are able to utilize our natural signaling pathways to achieve the effects that we experience whenever we have need of them. In the case of those with pain, they are grateful whenever pain relievers bind to their nociceptors. Dementia patients are grateful that drugs like Phencyclidine and others like it inhibit the reuptake of acetylcholine, slowing the progression of their illness. In the case of people with depression, SRI’s are used to help moderate their mood. Modern medicine has capitalized on the propensity for these compounds to utilize our internal signaling to treat many conditions. However, it is for this same reason that there has been a growing epidemic within America where such medications are misused.

Among the issues that America has had to face in recent years, it has been noted that America is experiencing an epidemic as more and more people find themselves addicted to opioids. Having been prescribed these drugs that mimic the human body’s reward system, these drugs can be misused when a person seeks to elicit the sense of catharsis that comes from activating this same reward system, in spite of the fact that their purpose for using this medication is not to relieve pain. Such behavior is habit forming, and can lead a person to alter their behavior, become dependent, and—in an increasing number of unfortunate instances—overdose.

Opioids are just one of the drugs that people have a tendency to abuse. However, they are far from the only ones that are abused. One need only look at the trends in America to know that the use of illicit substances and abuse medicinal substances extends far beyond opioids. Seeing such trends tends to raise the question of what is really driving such actions, particularly when these habits can have negative consequences that manifest in their behavior and overall wellbeing. For many users, this drive comes from the way these chemicals are able to imitate dopamine. At first, such a reaction causes the body to want to reproduce it, as the brain has been fooled into thinking that the drug is essential for survival. However, continued use of such a substance results in the brain producing less dopamine naturally, resulting in the formation of cravings.

From this understanding of how these dopamine mimics affect the physiology of an individual, it is understandable that addictive tendencies are seen in those who repeatedly used such drugs. However, one might be wise in asking how such habits start, particularly as overdoes have skyrocketed in the past decade alone. From reviewing self-reporting reasons, research has highlighted that significant life stressors, socioeconomic status, and mental health issues are social components that can contribute to an individual starting to use any of these drugs. Outside of this, there are other social factors that play a fact in this seemingly personal decision. In the case of men and women, there is a slight bias that men are more likely to take drugs. Certain demographics also find themselves more likely to participate in illicit drug use than other demographics. If one were to look at the psychology behind such decisions, one might see that such factors are influenced by in-groups, reference groups, groupthink, and more social factors besides. In many cases, such decisions may in fact be influenced by the motor neurons we as people so often take for granted.

In addition to considering the influences that cause one to make choices that can potentially negatively affect their health, one should also consider the classifications that these drugs fall under. There are three types of categorical drugs, each with their own effects. Stimulants are known to increase heart rate, blood pressure, sugar levels, and more besides. Depressants are known for causing the opposite effect as stimulates, characterized by how they slow responses in the central nervous system. Psychedelics and hallucinogens are known to alter perceptions, moods, sensations, and have even been associated with anxiety attacks.

While these drugs have specific physiological effects, it is curious to observe that there are those who have mental disorders will sometimes utilize drugs as a way of regulating their condition. In the case of those with ADD, it was found that there was a connection between those whose conditions were treated medically and those who weren’t. The connection binding these two demographics together was how likely it was that they would participate in substance abuse. Those who were untreated had over an 80% greater chance of substance abuse. When one looks at the neurological causes for ADD, it might not be surprising to see why substance abuse was more present in those that went untreated. Patients with ADD have been shown to have lower neuron activity than those who do not suffer from ADD. When considering that stimulants might help to mitigate this physical side effect, it is not unreasonable to think that indulging in substances that help to counteract this issue is not uncommon and might even have a biological drive behind it. It is perhaps why those whose ADD was treated were less likely to abuse substances than their untreated counterparts.

In looking at the relatedness of mental illnesses in this light, one might postulate that individuals are using these substances to correct imbalances or accommodate for ways in which brain function deviates from the norm. This would again be indicative of how the philosophy behind Ayurveda can prove to be beneficial in medicine. For individuals like Webster, changes in behavior and attitude are closely associated with the changes in his brain structure that occurred because of the number of concussions he suffered. The deviation from what one might consider normal brain function in people with ADD is potentially what drives their decision to use substances like alcohol and other drugs. Perhaps this is why, when this deviation is alleviated through medication, there is a decrease in the number of users. It is why were we able to alleviate abnormal formations within the neurons of a patient with dementia, we might see their conditions improve, rather than keep it from deteriorating by preventing future formations. It again comes down to finding balance in an individual system if one is to maintain health throughout their body.