Brain and Drugs Paper 3

 I was surprised to learn about how multiple sclerosis can affect people younger than 15 and how significant the geographical distribution is. I noticed that the most high-risk areas were in very advanced countries (U.S., Canada, most of Europe) while countries that are not very advanced (third/second world) countries have much lower risk of the disease. I was in a sociology class and I’m sure there could be a lot of causes and factors (habits, culture, ect.) but considering the distribution seems to have lower and higher risk areas at the same latitudes I think this could be linked to our diet. Many people in advanced countries eat food that have lots of manmade chemicals attached that aren’t found normally in foods. Things like pesticides, preservatives, fillers, and other nonfood items are regular in our food in a advanced country. In places like Africa, South America, and Indonesia where most areas aren’t as advanced these things are much less common as they either are too expensive to put in foods or aren’t available at all. I think this could be a factor in many diseases that we don’t know the causes of but don’t occur as much in other countries.

 

I thought it was really cool that multiple sclerosis can be found by using visual evoked potentials (VEP). I am currently working to become and optometrist and its amazing what can be diagnosed by looking into someone’s eye. I currently intern at an optometrist clinic and one of the Dr’s correctly diagnosed a brain tumor in a young girl by looking at her optical nerve and the veins in the back of her eye. As she didn’t have any symptoms this could have been life saving. And many other things like diabetes and multiple sclerosis can have effects on your eye that are distinguishable. This goes to show how connected our bodies are and that an imbalance in one system can cause problems with others that may even allow the original problem to be discovered.

 

It was sad to learn about Tay Sachs disease. I had also heard of Tay-Sachs but never knew what is was but slightly remember it could occur in infants. This would be really hard for any parent or anyone with the disease. Due to the nature of the disease it seems there is little currently that we can do but I hope it is being researched to discover a cure or something to help. This is something that I would also hope awareness it built for to be able to support members of the community that have Tay-Sachs disease. My mother is an occupational therapist and has worked with many children that have these brain defects to try and help them develop/live more normal lives. I think that more resources in our government and communities could be devoted to helping these people. I also thought it was cool it could also be diagnosed by looking at the retina.

 

I had heard the story of Phineas Gage in my psychology class. I think this story is very interesting and it shows how important our brain health is and how our brain function affects our character. My wife and I have listened to podcasts by a neurologists talks about how out brain health attributes to our psychology and many things in our lives and what we can do to encourage brain health. He talks about many common mental diseases, depression, anxiety, ect., and says its not mental health its brain health. This shows how important studying brain psychology and nutrition together is. Because a lot of our habits can affect our overall and brain health these habits then can cause these problems. I think that many of these diseases could be avoided if we are more intentional about our health.

 

I wonder about how our brain development attributes to our character. And as well how if we treat our brain well or poorly what effects that can have on character. How we treat our bodies can definitely affect our brain functioning on a molecular level which then makes a difference in our psychology and brain function. It makes sense that if Gage personality changed after missing a part of his brain that maybe our personalities are affected by our brains development in certain areas. For example, maybe people who tend to be more punctual have more developed frontal lobes and less developed emotional areas. It also makes me wonder if we influence our character by having healthier brains. For example if someone who drank a lot of alcohol each day decided to stop and so his brain become healthier thus changing his mood and personality around people he is with.

 

TBI can affect various parts of our bodies and especially the brain. I really want to specialize in visual therapy as a eye doctor one of the major roles of vision therapists is helping patients with TBI’s. Many people after a TBI have vision loss but not because of eye damage. It is due to having to relearn how to use their eyes and their lens muscle relearning how to work in coordination with the person’s sight. I hope to be able to help these people and make a difference in their lives.

I was impressed how many people are affected by traumatic brain injuries in the Unites States. 5.3 million people are disabled due to TBI’s and I’m sure there are more people that sustain mental problems unknowingly due to TBI’s. It is incredible to see that 1.4 million people sustain a TBI each year. That is a really large amount of people and there must be more we can do to prevent these injuries. That many injuries each year has a large impact on our society as people who become disabled can no longer work to support themselves and others and then will need support from the healthcare/government systems. From an economic standpoint it may be worthwhile to have more strict safety laws that have a cost to maintain rather than pay for healthcare and missing labor costs. Over time with this occurring each year I’m sure it creates a large burden on the healthcare system and our society as a whole.

 

Most of the traumatic brain injuries occur from car crashes and most crashes occur due to drunk and distracted driving. I’m pretty sure all of us our guilty of using our phones or being distracted by other things while driving and this is 100% preventable. The sad thing is learning how much damage this can cause and how much it currently does cause in our country. This is something that I think would be easy to stop with stricter laws about distracted driving or using technology to stop people from using their phones in the car or driving drunk.

 

It was cool to read about the different people who suffered diseases/injury to the brain and the different symptoms that it caused. It seems that this is a major way we learn about brain function especially in very specific parts of the brain and when they are damaged. I really would like to research more about which specific parts of the brain are responsible for certain activities.

 

It was interesting to read about the disparities in diagnosis of autism disorders among different ethnic groups. I mentioned this earlier but my mother is an occupational therapist and has worked with people with autism her whole career and I have been able to help and know many people with autism. My wife and I also serve in an activities program for special needs adults and many have autism disorders as well. It is amazing to see how capable they are in the activities we do and when given a chance. Many of them seem to be better than normal people at certain things but lack in other areas. But it is important they are helped and the earlier the better. Which likely makes it hard for certain ethnic groups where it is diagnosed later in life.

 

It was also interesting to learn that many brain disorders can happen with maltreatment and abuse early in life. I know that many autism spectrum disorders can be related to mothers smoking/drug use during

pregnancy. In the paper Mind, Brain and Personality Disorders, they studied 1000 children up to age 26 and 4% had social disorders and 8% had severe maltreatment as children. They also studied monkeys and found that monkeys reared by mothers (vs reared by peers) were much more stable and the effects of maternal parenting buffered metabolism problems that would have occurred and likely caused behavioral issues. This goes to show how important good parenting is and the large effect it can have on children’s lives.

 

I thought the quote by Giedd was very interesting when he said parents need to be like frontal lobes to their teenagers while their brains develop. It goes to show how important good parenting is in our society today. My wife and I have two children and I know we are responsible for helping and teaching them while they are within our influence. It is good to know that for a while they are more connected to their amygdala and emotional responses than their logical frontal lobes. I think its important we learn and set good examples so we are able to teach them what how to avoid these problems and be able to choose them for themselves when they are older.

 

The slide about pruning was also very interesting. It was cool to learn about how important it is that children/teens spend their time well as it forms their brain what they will do for the rest of their lives. Parents play a large role in this and family history and parents were in the top factors for drug abuse in people. I believe a majority of drug problems from what I have read and heard starts in broken/hard families where it can be hard to get away from and then accentuates the problem even more. I think putting emphasis in teaching families and parents would be very important in solving this problem in our community.

 

I was sad to see how many people have or do use illicit drugs over the age of 12. This causes a very large burden in our society in time, money and effort. Almost 2 million hospital visits in 2009 were due to pharmaceutical drug abuse/illicit drug use and I am sure there are much more now then 10 years ago. I was surprised to learn about all the financial burden this places on our country as I had never thought about the cost of medical care/treatment facilities and law enforcements costs that drug abuse creates. I think that a solution starts with helping children either by their families or by government/community help if needed to not start drugs or get away from them as soon as they can. Without their frontal lobes being developed and being very susceptible to other pressures I’m sure children/teens are much more likely to have drug problems for their whole lives rather than adults choosing to start drugs later in adulthood.

 

I liked reading the intro and the notion that we really don’t know the effect of most drugs on our body and brain. Our bodies are very complex with systems that affect each other and millions of different compounds, hormones, and proteins. I don’t think it is possible to know the effect of a drug on all the parts of our body especially over long time periods as we can’t measure or see what the drugs effect are with so many variables and factors in our bodies. This is why drugs are constantly being made and then retracted for causing to much problems. Purified/synthetic drugs definitely can disturb our brains and bodies sometimes more than the problems they solve. This is why many drugs have a long list of possible side effects ranging from headaches to death while trying to stop diseases.

 

I really liked the paper Ayurveda and natural products drug discovery. The paper talked about how we discover drugs today and better ways to do it with natural products or “naturaceuticals”. The paper mentioned how many drugs have been discovered by learning from ancient wisdom/tradition medicine and its use of natural remedies from plants and other materials. The paper also talked about how this is much more effective and less expensive to search natural compounds for medicinal use than to create new compounds. My wife and I use herbal medicines/tinctures for most ailments and it is amazing what they can do. I believe many herbs are on earth to be able to help with diseases and they can be more effective and less harmful than commercial/processed drugs.

 

The paper ayurveda and natural products drug discovery and many lists of natural compounds and the plants they were isolated from and their helpful effects in medicine. I wonder how many remedy’s and helpful medications there are that are still undiscovered in many herbs/natural materials in the world. My mother-in-law is a master herbalist and its been really cool to learn about the many different properties of herbs and see the effects of natural remedies that can often be more effective than pharmaceuticals without the side effects. I think this is something that should be researched more like the paper suggested as some of the most effective drugs are natural compounds and there are many that we don’t know their effects yet.