Curated Paper 2 - Jessica Munro

The brain is a very complex and intricate organ because it maintains an extremely delicate balance between external and internal influences on the body. When this balance is disturbed, brain diseases can develop as a result. Neurological disorders encompass those diseases specific to the nervous system, which have the potential to cause devastating effects due to their highly impactful nature, limited curability, and virtual irreversibility. Some common examples of neurological disorders include Hungtington’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, myasthenia gravis, and many others. Often permanent side effects can range from decreased or impaired motor function, to impacts on psychological, mental, and emotional health. 

While I do not have much exposure to neurological disorders in a direct personal sense, I have experienced the effects of disease through people in my life. A family friend was concerned when her son seemed to be developing more slowly than those his age, but she was reassured by the pediatrician that she was merely overreacting and he would soon catch up. She later found out with genetic testing that her son has a genetic neurological disorder called PMD, which directly impacts the central nervous system because the disease is characterized by a significant decrease in myelin production. As a result, her son experiences difficulty with muscle and neurological functioning, including walking, balancing, swallowing, and speaking, among other things. He, unfortunately, also has a limited life expectancy and will not be independent.

In addition to the severe neurological impacts resulting from his PMD condition, his condition has also changed their lives in many other countless ways. Hearing about PMD and learning about their experiences has really opened my eyes to the impacts of slight imbalances in the body. Ayurveda suggests that a connection exists between a shift in the body’s balance and a subsequent development of illness or disease. A decrease in something as small and seemingly insignificant as myelin can affect just about every system in the body, nearly debilitating function and completely changing the life of a person and those around them. I agree with the ayurveda mindset in this case, and having the opportunity to take a closer look at neurological disorders, both as a whole and from a personal perspective, has shown me the importance of understanding this fundamental connection.

Drugs are generally defined in a broad sense, where the word encompasses all the compounds whose introduction into the body is meant to influence the pathways of cells and thus elicit some desirable, or suppress an undesirable, response in the body. Drugs have particularly interesting interactions with the brain because the physical and chemical changes they impart on neurons actually impact the thinking and behavioral patterns of a person at the organism level. Because of this unique influence, drugs and the brain can be viewed from the perspective of ayurveda, which suggests that any imbalance in the body can lead to a dysfunctionality that ultimately causes disease.

Drugs that are able to interact with the brain directly impact the activity of neurons, thus affecting how they send, receive, and process signals. Neurotransmitters act across the gaps between neurons to transmit signals from one cell to the next in a chain-like fashion. A neuron’s axon terminal will release neurotransmitter molecules into the synapse space between cells, where the neurotransmitters diffuse across the gap and reach receptors on a dendrite of the neighboring neuron cell. This reception of the neurotransmitter furthers the intercellular communication and is processed as an electrical signal that is acted upon by the receiving neuron with either a response of further transmittance. Drugs have the potential to either mimic or inhibit the functionality of these neurotransmitter molecules, which changes the way the brain behaves as a result. 

Drugs not only have the potential to powerfully impact those who use them abusively, but they also have wide beneficial applications in many different areas of medicine. I believe drugs have such a unique connection to people and ayurveda because everyone has encountered or benefited from a drug at some point in their life. Personally, an experience with one of my old coworkers stands out to me. Her mother-in-law was experiencing symptoms of dementia with escalating severity and increasing frequency, and she relayed to me her discouragement in finding a medication that could limit the disease’s progression without suppressing her mother-in-law’s normal behavior or personality. They went through multiple rounds of various medications before settling on one that seemed to benefit her the most, and I can remember my coworker finding an immense amount of relief when they were finally able to help her mother-in-law. 

The idea of ayurveda takes on an interesting perspective of drugs, coming from the mindset that an imbalance in the body caused by internal or external influences can impact the body’s functioning and lead to the development of illness. Drugs are a great example of this imbalance and its effects on the body because the presence of these molecules shifts the amount of neurotransmitters in the neural network. Such a small imbalance has drastic effects on the body as a whole, from physical and physiological changes, to cognitive, psychological, and behavioral changes exhibited on an outward level. Because of this, I think that ayurveda represents a valid way of analyzing the interactions between drugs and the brain. 

While disease can often result from an imbalance within the body’s own systems or metabolic processes, it can also arise from external factors that impede or disrupt the body’s normal functioning. A pathogen is any microbe or invasive organism that negatively impacts its host and can cause disease as a result. Pathogenicity is a word that describes the amount of harm that a pathogen can impart on its host. The effects of that pathogenicity vary depending on the defense of the host, and the ability of the pathogen to find success in the host’s environment. The idea of ayurveda views disease from the perspective of dysfunctionalities arising due to some imbalance in the body, though external influences can also impact the body’s balance and harm functionality within.

Microbes are found in significant abundance within organisms, inhabiting almost every area of the body and often providing some benefit to the host. In other cases, microbes inhabiting an organism exhibit a parasitic relationship with the host, taking nutrients and resources from their environment and causing great harm to the host organism if not treated. The pathogens responsible for parasitic habitation often coevolve in a relationship with the host organisms to maximize their success and reproductive capabilities in that environment, without limiting their host’s supportive resources too quickly. While the host often does exhibit an immune response to the presence of parasitic pathogens, the parasite can still impart imbalances in the body. These imbalances ultimately lead to a dysfunctionality that results in disease in the host. 

While parasitic pathogens are more commonly associated with animals, insects, and other organisms, plants can often be overlooked for their susceptibility to parasitic infection. The greatest concern for successful plant production and health usually surfaces in the context of agriculture. Because food production is heavily reliant on the agriculture industry, any disturbance to crops or livestock can have devastating impacts on society and the economy on a larger scale. Being from rural Utah, I went to school with quite a few friends who either raised livestock, worked on farm land, or both. I can remember how my friends would stress the importance of raising their livestock to be as healthy as possible, so they could maximize their profit return and demonstrate effective agriculture skills. Even just the health of one sheep, or the success of a small acreage of crops, impacts the lives of families in our communities, and the effects of pathogen infection in industrial agriculture are even greater and further spread.

Ayurveda offers a useful perspective for analyzing pathogens and their impacts on the host organism. The idea of ayurveda suggests that disease begins with an imbalance, which may arise due to the presence of an organism in the body that would not normally inhabit that space. Because of this, the body’s functionality is disturbed, whether limited by the resource extraction of the parasitic pathogen or hindered by the overpowering microbial presence. Disease often forms as a result, depending on the effectiveness of the host’s immune response and the virulence of the pathogen itself. The parasitic infection may result in behavioral changes or debilitating functional decline, and can lead to death in some cases. Ayurveda thinking is unique in this case because its approach to diagnosing disease encompasses these parasitic relationships and describes them from the simple perspective of imbalance.