Curated Paper

Curated Paper 2

The brain has been studied for a long time in various fields, but still, there are many things we don’t know. We get information about the external environment by seeing, touching, tasting, smelling, and hearing things, and process them in the cerebrum to think, feel, and react to them. I am not a multitasker at all, but my brain is an amazing multitasker. The brain controls everything we do. It makes me move my body to do things, see what is around me, memorize things, plan the next move, talk to people around me, listen to them, and express emotions at the same time. Also, I can feel my stomach empty while I am doing all of these!

This complicated thing is unique to all different people in the world. For example, when someone asks you “What are you thinking?” and you answer “Nothing”, are you indeed thinking nothing, being zoned out? Or you are thinking too many things and too fast so that it is even hard for you to realize what you are thinking? I am the ‘zero-thinking’ person. And two of my previous roommates were the ‘million thinkers’. But of course, they both are thinking different things. One thinks about “why are we here, and where are we going”, and the other thinks about random things like “What can I do in a falling airplane?” Like this, brains work very differently in people. This is why I think it is hard to study one’s mind and how exactly the brain works. We can’t make a concrete statement since everyone’s psychological process is different. Also, I think our minds keep changing as we experience things.

Our mind and brain are connected but not the same. I feel like the mind can be established after you are born through experiences, but the brain is intrinsic. We can study the brain like the different types of lobes, and their functions. But it is hard to study the mind because it is all different depending on the experience one has had. And treatment for the mind requires people to talk and share thoughts, and get help to change some inappropriate thoughts, but treatment for the brain is like surgery or medications that solely rely on science.

I think the brain is the most interesting part of the body. It is interesting because of its possibility to do things and the fact that we don’t understand how exactly it works. Our brain can do abstract things such as imagining, memorizing, feeling, or even dreaming. Brains can create things that do not exist in our minds. I can create images of things that are not in front of me. Also, I’ve always been curious about what sleep is. We still don’t have a concrete reason why we sleep and how we dream. Dreaming is the mental activity where the brain creates images and stories during certain stages of sleep. We see, eat, run, feel happy or sad, or suffer in dreams. Even though we did not experience those things in real life, we can even remember those dreams and tell friends about dreams. Last but not least, we still don’t know how the brain processes the received information and orders the reaction.

Even though we still don’t fully understand the brain, many researchers are studying diseases related to the brain. Since the brain is a part of our body, if there is an imbalance, it can be sick or get a disease psychologically and physiologically. For example, the biological model of psychology explains depression as a low level of serotonin, norepinephrine, and dopamine. One interesting fact is that people back then did not know this. They found that medications for high blood pressure caused depression and observed that some lowered serotonin and others lowered norepinephrine. With that fact, researchers found that depression is related to low levels of those neurotransmitters and made antidepressants that are monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAO inhibitors). Some antidepressants (SSRIs) prevent the reabsorption of serotonin.

We use drugs that control the behavior of the neurons or neurotransmitters for treatment. However, not all the drugs are used for treatment. While some are used to treat mental disorders, other chemicals can ruin the behavior of our brains. Information signals in the nervous system are transmitted as both electrical and chemical signals. Some drugs interfere with those signals via neurotransmitters in a variety of ways.

A lot of drugs mimic natural neurotransmitters. But they don’t work as natural neurotransmitters do. Some activate neurons but they might send an abnormal message to the body or the brain. Some cause neurons to release large amounts of natural neurotransmitters and the brain or body can react abnormally. When I went to Vancouver, Canada, I first saw people on drugs. I have watched videos about drug addicts, but it was scary and shocking to see people on drugs. They were not functioning well. They could not even stand straight. I thought that they would not be able to eat or sleep which can cause another problem on their bodies.

Some drugs prevent the normal recycling of brain chemicals, interfering with transporters. This causes an imbalance of brain chemistry. Since those drugs are relatively new, we don’t know what the long-term effects of those drugs are, we should be aware of are known consequences of taking those medications and need to study more about how they interact with the body.

When the brain remains imbalanced for a prolonged period, it can lead to brain damage or diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease. One reason that causes Alzheimer’s disease is the accumulation of beta-amyloid plaques. The resulting beta-amyloid peptides aggregate and form plaques in the brain, disrupting neural communication. Amyloids are misfolded proteins that tend to aggregate, forming highly stable structures that are resistant to denaturation and refolding into their native forms. This stability makes it challenging to reverse the process which makes it hard to treat or prevent Alzheimer’s disease.

 Also, the brains of Alzheimer's patients shrink. I thought it was interesting that the size of the brain is indeed proportionally related to the capacity of the brain. Alzheimer's disease causes a gradual decline in memory, behavior, and thinking. Patients with Alzheimer's disease experience memory loss which is dementia. In my opinion, Alzheimer’s disease is a sad disease. The person is alive, but people around can see that they are progressively losing their loved ones.

There is an album called Everywhere at the End of Time by The Caretakers. It is about the progression of memory loss of Alzheimer's disease or dementia. It is a 6-hour and 30-minute-long album with 6 stages, but it would be great for you to listen to understand what memory loss looks or feels like. I recommend you listen to it if you have enough time. You don’t have to focus on the music. However, if you don’t pay attention, you will feel that something is going wrong at some point. And then at the end of the album, you would think ‘What is this noise?’. I think that is what memory loss sounds like and what people who suffer Alzheimer's disease are going through.