Drugs and The Human Brain

    When I think of the brain, mystery and wonder comes to mind. Even in 2022, we do not know everything about the human brain. For myself, every time I learn about the brain, the more I realize how little I know about one of the most important organs inside of our bodies. Inherit to the anatomy of the brain itself, demonstrates the challenges of studying this important organ. The brain’s natural sensitivity makes observing and studying it while inside a living human difficult. 

    While in biomedical ethics class last semester, I was able to learn about the horrible experiments Nazi doctors performed on living people to better understand the brain. These doctors would literally torture and kill Jewish men and women to gather data about the brain. While these were awful experiments that should never be repeated, Nazi doctors felt they were doing the world a favor by learning more about the brain. They learned more about the brain’s anatomy, adaptive abilities, and physiology from their poor patients. While these doctors were eventually charged with war crimes for their experiments, I feel that it is important to not hide their experimental findings in honor of the thousands of patients who died in pursuit of this knowledge. 

    While our brains help monitor the rest of our bodies, our brain also is responsible for giving us our personality and consciousness. It is common now-a-days to hear about brain/mental disorders that plague many people worldwide. I have several people in my family that have been diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. Multiple Sclerosis or MS is a terrible neurological disease where the myelin sheath covering neurons begins to break down. I get the opportunity to see these family members once a year and it is amazing how fast this disease progresses throughout the years. For example, my aunt started having problems with her grip strength a few years ago and now the disease has made it difficult for her to walk or talk. It is sad how such a small problem dealing with the myelin sheath can cause huge physiological problems. 

    Another neurological disease that I saw in my family was seen in my grandfather with Parkinson disease. Parkinson's disease is caused by low dopamine levels produced in the brain. Dopamine is responsible for creating smooth skeletal muscle movements, memory, and the pleasure and reward system in the brain. When my grandfather was diagnosed with this disease, he constantly shook and had tremors throughout his body. In addition, he slurred his speech and had memory loss. These terrible symptoms were all caused by a lack of a simple molecule produced in his brain.

    Thankfully, with human advancements in medicine and drugs, physicians have several tools that he or she can use to treat these serious brain diseases seen in my family. Drugs have an amazing ability to heal our bodies and treat our ailments, but they also have a remarkable ability to wreck our lives and the lives of the people around us if they are misused. It is of no surprise that in our country in 2022, medications and drugs are everywhere. From pharmaceutical companies advertisements on TV to the slew of problems that can be fixed with a pill, Americans rely on drugs for many of their health and wellness problems. While taking medication according to the package directions is relatively safe, misusing or using illicit drugs can cause major health issues and death to the individual. When an individual takes an illicit drug, the chemicals inside that drug are meant to resemble natural chemicals produced in the body. Commonly, this can alter the brain’s neurotransmitters and alter mood or behavior. For example, cocaine blocks the dopamine reuptake transporter in the brain which prevents dopamine from being reabsorbed back to the axon terminal. This sustains levels of dopamine in the body, leading to feelings of pleasure and reward.    

    Unfortunately, while drugs may seem to have a positive effect in the short term, sustained use can cause long-term damage. Prolonged use of illicit drugs can lead to dulling of the pleasure center of the brain, interfere with one’s decision making capacity, and lead to memory loss. Since the immediate effect of drug use usually involves an increase in dopamine, continued use of a drug reduces the brain’s dopamine production resulting in an individual having a craving for more dopamine and thus take more drugs. 

    A few months ago I was able to watch this interesting series on Hulu called Dopesick. I highly recommend it. This docuseries was about the explosive use of OxyContin and its role in the opioid epidemic in the United States. From this series I learned just how bad of an impact a drug/pharmaceutical company can have on a country. Essentially, Purdue Pharma was giving large kickbacks to different physicians who over-prescribed their medication. To get these physicians to prescribe large amounts of these pills, Perdue Pharma was lying about the risks of these patients taking this drug and their role in patients getting addicted to painkillers. People in the United States suffered while Perdue made billions of dollars. 

    One interesting role of OxyContin in a community was the massive uptick in crime correlated with the amount of people taking the pain killer. When people were addicted to OxyContin but didn’t have enough money to support their addiction, they often turned to crime to get the money for their prescriptions. In fact, this uptick in crime associated with OxyContin was one of the first identifiers for the drug's harm. Communities that were test markets for this new pill were found to have some of the highest growing rates of crime in the country.

    Unfortunately, with the opioid epidemic in today’s society, it is not that difficult for one to know a person who has struggled with an addiction to drugs. In fact, according to a survey done in 2019 according to www.cdc.gov, over 13% of people over the age of 12 in the United states had used illicit drugs in the past 30 days. That is a remarkably high percentage of the population that undoubtedly is causing harm to our society. Just like the OxyContin innocent, the more people who abuse drugs, the higher the likelihood there is for illegal crime in our communities. Commonly, especially for opioids, people only become addicted after the prolonged use of legally prescribed medication.

    While many people thankfully do not have neurological disorders and as such do not need to take a variety of medications, another neurological disorder: concussions, are quite popular among today's athletes. Concussions are caused by jolts or blows to one’s head. These blows cause the brain to bounce back and forth in the skull, damaging the brain. Even though concussions are relatively common, they can cause permanent damage to an athlete's brain. I like to watch NFL games and it is amazing to witness how far the NFL concussion protocols have gone. Sadly, players are still getting concussions in the league and the inherent unknowns about concussions sometimes leads to players receiving permanent brain damage. 

    Thankfully, while the rate of concussions among amateur and professional athletes are not decreasing, their treatments are rapidly improving. From the article Frequency and Outcomes of a Symptom-Free Waiting Period After Sport-Related Concussion, researchers have learned how a period of symptom free waiting time before returning back to activity is helping today’s athletes. This symptom's free waiting time helps ensure the player is truly healed from his or her concussions and ensures it is safe for them to return back to play. I support these and other concussion protocols that help minimize potential brain injuries to today's athletes.  

    As mentioned previously, the devastating consequences of a traumatic brain injury is the result of the brain’s complex anatomy. I did not know that the number of folds in one’s brain corresponds to their intelligence. According to the video Human Brain, Parts and Functions, the more folds in a brain allows for more surface area to be created. As a result, more neurons are able to grow in these folds which corresponds to a person’s intelligence. Damage to these folds or other to other parts of the brain can result in serious, lifelong consequences to the person affected. 

    In the future, I plan on becoming a physician. While I do not fully know what type of medical specialty I would like to pursue, the brain and related medications will still be an integral part of my patients' lives. The brain’s job as an executive control center for the body makes it a crucial organ that should be researched and studied. In addition, it is my hope that the medications I prescribe as a physician will be used and managed in an appropriate way. I am excited to learn more about the human brain in the future and its job in maintaining and controlling our lives.

 

Sources 

“FastStats - Illegal Drug Use.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 20 Oct. 2022, https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/drug-use-illicit.htm. 

 

Pfaller AY, Nelson LD, Apps JN, Walter KD, McCrea MA. Frequency and Outcomes of a Symptom-Free Waiting Period After Sport-Related Concussion. Am J Sports Med. 2016 Nov;44(11):2941-2946. doi: 10.1177/0363546516651821. Epub 2016 Jul 1. PMID: 27371548; PMCID: PMC6589833.