brain and drugs

 The brain is one of the most important parts of our body and is responsible for all of our actions. Our brains send signals to our body allowing it to function. There are neurons in the brain that send the signals to the nervous system leading to the actions. This adds to our personality because it makes us act the way we do. Then there are damages to the brain, it affects the signals then affecting our personality. 

Brian damages often cause changes in our actions. Maybe you do or say something that isn’t normal for you or your personality begins to change. This can be because of brain and mental disorders. There are a lot of types of brain diseases, many which alter your motor functions or personality. Some brain disorders don’t have a treatment or cure so once a person is diagnosed they just have to live with the disorder. 

Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is an example of a brain disease that is slowly progressive damage to the brain and spinal cord affecting only oligodendrocytes. The disease has an unknown cause and usually affects women more than men. MS normally onset around the age of 20-40 and found in clusters throughout the world, depending on environmental factors. A lot of high risks are in the northern half of North America and Canada. There are some high risks in the UK and central Europe while the central parts of the world have the lowest risks for MS. Early symptoms of MS are weakness in arms and legs, vertigo, difficulty speaking, emotional and visual disturbances and neuropathic pain. Advanced symptoms are more severe, for example there is pronounced difficulty moving, severe visual impairment or blindness, severe neuropathic pain and cognitive and emotional disturbance. The diagnosis consists of neurological exams and MRIs to find the lesions around demyelinated neurons and the treatment consists of remission, corticosteroids and beta interferon.  This is an obvious way that a disease affects the balance of life. Ayurveda would be difficult in this case, since there is neurological damage and lesions around the neurons. 

Another neurological disease is Huntington’s disease. This disease is rapid and often leads to dementia, which is a deterioration of intellectual abilities, like memory loss and lack of judgment. Huntington’s disease alters a person’s personality and mood while also affecting their memory. This disorder also affects movement, making a person make involuntary actions. Huntington’s disease is a result of genotypes and phenotypes making it autosomal. Because of this, a single abnormal copy of a gene will clinically have Huntington’s disease. The gene is large with nearly 170,000 base pairs, and is located on chromosome 4. The 67 exons are spliced in the long mRNA template. The error happens due to a sequence error causing a repeat, and the expansion of the repeat causes the disease. The function of the Huntingtin protein isn’t known, but it’s thought to be the neurological damage caused. There is a 50% chance of a child having this disease from a parent with Huntington’s, but it isn't apparent in a patient until they are about 30 years old . 

Alzheimer’s disease is similar to dementia, but we are not aware of the cause. There is no consistent pattern in this disease, but some patients have a specific genetic problem. This problem can cause early-onset and make the disease more severe. It also makes the disease a risk to be heritable. Plaques are common in most Alzheimer patient’s brains. The plaques are proteins clumped together inside of the neurons, leading to them dying off because they are not functioning properly. In early diagnosis, this occurs in the medial temporal lobe and cortex, and in late diagnosis, it occurs in many areas. Another problem with neurons are tangles. The microtubules break and collapse into tangles making the neurons die off. Although there are no cures, there are some treatments of dementias. They are inhibitors that improve daily living and delay the progression of disease. This isn’t a guarantee to work, as it works in small percentages of patients. 

Tay-Sachs disease is another disease that damages the whole nervous system. It’s a rare genetic disease caused by progressive deterioration of nerve cells. It has mental and physical abilities that can start very early in a child’s life and results in early death as well. Tay-Sachs early on set can start at 6 months old and die by 4 years old. This disease is caused by gangliosides built up in nerve cells due to Hexosaminidase missing. This leads to genes being frame-shifted causing a mutation and the cell dies. When the disease is present in children, symptoms show the baby being deaf, blind, decreased muscle tone, increased startle response, paralysis, seizures and delayed mental and social development. These symptoms can be seen in juvenile diagnosis in children between the ages of 2 and 10 years old. These people often develop cognitive and motor skill deterioration. The child then usually dies between 5 to 15 years old. These symptoms are not the case for later onset diagnosis. If a first experience is around 30-40 years old, a patient can still live. Their symptoms are difficulty speaking and swallowing and psychiatric illness. This results in the possibility of a person becoming dependent on a wheelchair.

Not only can diseases in the brain affect a person's personality, but traumatic brain injuries can also alter the personality. There are a lot of cases where brain injuries are so intense and draining that it can traumatize the person and change their outlook on life. The typical brain injury is often caused by an external force and can impair cognitive abilities or physical functioning. TBI are very dangerous because they do not heal like regular injuries and there's no real way to heal them. It is possible to be at higher risk of brain injuries, and that group can be males from 15-24 years old, substance abusers, infants, elderly and someone who has already experienced a previous brain injury. Motor vehicle accidents are the highest major cause of TBIs. Sports and recreation are the fourth major cause, and this is surprising to me considering how many people play sports and how many head or nerve injuries happen. It is very common for athletes to get concussions and even multiple concussions in their duration of playing a sport. Other causes of brain injury include falls, hypoxia, tumors, chemicals, infections, strokes, etc. 

Children ages 0-14 experience 475,000 TBIs in a year in the US alone. 1.4 million people experience a TBI, and nearly 50,000 die from TBIs in a year in the US. 62-67% of TBI injuries experience behavioral changes post injury and 60-80% experience personality changes post injury. 38% of people have impaired judgment and 38% experience aggression or rage outbursts post injury. These statistics are surprising to me because so many people are affected by brain injuries. Something as casual as falling can lead to a traumatic experience that can alter your mood, behavior and personality. The symptoms of brain injuries are very intense and rapid. Borderline personality disorder is also a form of traumatic brain injury, but with the trauma coming from early abuse or neglect. This impacts the hippocampus and left and right hemispheres of the brain. The basal ganglia has a connection with the body’ habit formation, using less brain activity. 

Neurodevelopmental disorders affect processing, attention, basic social behaviors, interactions with the environment and learning. 1 in 68 children have an autism spectrum disorder, and African American and Latino groups are more likely to be later diagnosed. It is not proven, but cases are related to genetic risk and environmental factors that influence early brain development. There is a large range of different types of ASD and it can look different in every case. Some are mild forms while others are a lot more severe. 

After reading the article on concussions, it makes me realize all of the different rules against concussions. The NFL recently had to change their protocol because of the quarterback that got hurt on the Dolphins. It was two weeks in a row that he got hit and he was in back condition the second time around. The first week he was hit, he was stumbling around the field, trying to gain control of his body, and the second week, his hands were stuck and he was down for a long period of time. In soccer we never really had rules against concussions. We had a certain limit where we could raise out legs to avoid hitting heads, but that was all. I began playing around 4 years old and never had safety precautions. Now my niece plays and she is not allowed to head the ball until about 13 years old. This claims to be a rule set for control but i think of it more as precautions for concussions. 

Drugs make the brain interact with neurons differently than the normal reactions with neurotransmitters. The brain sends, receives and processes signals differently through the neurotransmitters when drugs are involved. Some drugs are capable of activating neurons and mimic the brain's chemicals but send abnormal messages because it’s not the same neurotransmitter. Some drugs are also capable of releasing very large amounts of natural neurotransmitters and can potentially prevent the normal recycling of the brain chemicals. Other drugs are capable of blocking pathways in the brain instead of helping the pathway function better. This can affect the balance in the brain that can mess up the Ayurveda. The brain controls most of our balance in life, as it controls most of our mechanics. When this is disrupted it is difficult to regain that balance, and drugs can sometimes cause more disturbance to the balance that equilibrium. 

Because the drugs are so similar to the chemicals we produce in our body, they are able to work. Drugs can be consumed, smoked or injected, but have the same system to be broken down. It starts once the drug is taken, then begins to circulate the bloodstream. It then can attach itself to specific receptor sites and is broken down in the liver. The drug then dissipates at the site and the lungs, bowels, skin and kidney excrete chemicals that are metabolized by the liver. 

Addiction is a dangerous effect that can result from drugs. People can abuse drugs and change the structure and chemistry of their own brain. It’s a form of compulsion in the brain that makes a person consume large amounts of drugs no matter the later effects. Most of the time addiction of drugs is because of the way the drug makes them feel. It instantly releases dopamine that our brain’s reward system needs for survival. They crave the feeling and the craving becomes so intense that they get used to the regular dosage and have to up the dosage every so often. This is because when the drug is constantly being consumed, it reduces the brain’s dopamine levels, leading to cravings. Taking more than one drug at a time can lead to different results than taking a single type of drug alone. Some drugs are antagonistic and synergistic. Drug antagonism is when a drug’s effect is canceled out or reduced by the other drug. Drug synergism is when drugs can interact together to produce effects greater than the effect a drug would have alone. A drug impurity can occur and the drug can react completely differently in the body. It may sometimes be minor but it can also lead to death. This is very common when drugs are bought illegally from a supplier not licensed to sell. There are many times that drug addicts die from drug impurities because they are more focused on getting the drugs for a lower price to try the same effect. 

There are different types of drugs such as prescription, over the counter, recreational, herbal, and illicit. Each of these drugs can have the same effects such as physiological changes, mental dependence, conflicts in interpersonal relationships, loss of individual productivity, treatment of medical complications and more. I remember my grandpa had to take a lot of medication for his health and became very dependent on the pills. The second it was time for him to take medication, he was taking them. He was very specific about the medicine and couldn’t do anything until he took the medicine. Along with that, my aunt would abuse prescription drugs. Any minor injury she had, she was in the doctor’s offices requesting pain medicine. She would oftentimes go to multiple doctors offices to get the most amount of medicine as possible. When I broke my leg she tried to take my medication and my parents had to find all the medication in the house. She would steal medicine from my grandpa because she was so addicted. It was difficult growing up around having to always keep an eye on her, but taught me to avoid addiction and see how bad it can get and negatively affect your life.