Jamie Thygerson- Curated Paper 2

 Curated Paper 2

The brain is divided into sections that are responsible for different things. The left side of the brain is responsible for things like speech, language, comprehension, arithmetic, writing, and movement of the right side of the body. The right side of the brain is responsible for creativity, emotions, rhythm, nonverbal cues, visualization, and movement of the left side of the body. The frontal lobe is for intellectual activities, judgment, attention span, behavior, and muscle movement. The Parietal lobe deals with pain, touch, and visual functions. The temporal lobe involves visual and auditory memory. The occipital lobe covers the recognition of color, words, and movements. Finally, the cerebellum controls balance, coordination, and posture. The brain is intricate and organized and without it we could not live. When something changes or prevents the function of the brain, anything could happen. 

A traumatic brain injury is caused by an external physical or chemical force to the brain and may cause a diminished state of consciousness. It also may result in an impairment of cognitive abilities, loss of physical functioning, change in mood or personality, impulsive aggression, impaired self regulatory behavior, difficulty recognizing facial expressions, and a risk in developing a psychiatric disorder (mainly major depression). Traumatic brain injuries have no clear route of healing and each case is entirely unique. The most common cause for traumatic brain injury is a motor vehicle accident, and the highest risk group of traumatic brain injuries is males ages 15-24.

Concussions are a possible form of traumatic brain injury and have been a major concern in competitive contact sports from high school to professional levels. They have received more attention in our modern day and as awareness has increased, so have the guidelines of how to respond when an athlete has a concussion. Sports programs have gone from almost 40% putting athletes back in on the same day and ignoring concussion symptoms, to almost all programs having up to a 12 day healing period, waiting for athletes to be asymptomatic before putting them back into play. This may show evidence of better guidelines, or of a society that cares more about individual health. Part of a society caring more for the individual's health has led to increased access and controversy of the use of drugs. 

Drugs resemble normal chemicals produced in the body and bind to receptors for those chemicals in the body. After binding they dissipate or are processed by the liver, and are then excreted. For example, cocaine will bind to dopamine uptake receptors, preventing the reuptake of dopamine, leaving dopamine to interact with the synapse longer than normal. Many drugs work in a similar manner. Many schools have anti drug programs that they teach to children, and we have laws against using certain drugs, but drugs also play a role in our everyday lives. We freely take things like ibuprofen with little to no guilt, but fight over the morality of using marijuana, even for medical reasons.

Drugs can be used in many settings for many different things, such as pain relief, saving someone’s life, spiritual revelations, cultural traditions, and recreational use. Almost any drug in any setting however, can lead to negative consequences, such as addiction. Addiction changes the structure and chemistry of the brain, resulting in the individual compulsively using the drug despite any cost to their health or relationships. Some new evidence shows that teenagers may be even more at risk for developing an addiction.

Brain scans show that teens use the amygdala, a part of the brain more attuned to reactions, to read their emotions, compared to adults, who use the frontal cortex, a part of the brain associated with rational thought. This evidence is thought to suggest that teens are more likely to exhibit impulsiveness and might need help to train their thoughts, emotions, and behaviors, through rational thoughts. The activities people do as children and teens is thought to greatly influence the shape and connections in the brain, meaning activities and thought processes a child or teen is not using will either be underdeveloped or nonexistent once their brain fully develops in adulthood.

Drugs on any person, not just teens, can have a few different long term effects on the brain, including Neuroadaptivity, Hypofrontality, and memory loss. Neuroadaptivity is the dulling of the pleasure center of the brain, hypofrontality is interference with the decision making area of the brain, and memory loss comes from damage to the hippocampus. Dopamine is the brain’s primary neurotransmitter and is released as a reward for achieving survival needs like food, water, sex, and nurturing young. Using drugs increases the brain’s release of dopamine, but overtime will reduce the brain’s overall production of dopamine as well as train the brain into thinking that drugs are a survival need, leading to the drug seeking behavior and dependence of an addiction. How long and how much a drug will affect a person depends on how it is administered or how big the dose is. 

Drugs and treatment of children in early years can have greater effects than just addiction, and can lead to things like personality disorders. Studies in antisocial personality disorder have shown that a genetic component (a polymorphism occurring in the gene within the neurotransmitter-metabolizing enzyme monoamine oxidase A (MAOA )) and an environmental component (maltreatment during developmental years) must both be present for the disorder to develop. Studies done with rhesus monkeys further show there might be a relationship between low 5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid (5-HIAA) concentration and aggressive, antisocial behavior. There is a polymorphism that has been shown to cause this low concentration, but it seems to only have an effect based on if the monkey was reared by peers or by their mother. Mother raised rhesus monkeys did not show the lowered level of 5-HIAA, or the same aggression and antisocial behaviors as the peer raised monkeys. It was also seen that rhesus monkeys that were peer reared and possessed low level/short allele 5-HIAA drank more alcohol than the mother reared monkeys did. This all goes to show that drug use, development, and brain function are all related, and how important it is to have healthy habits, as well as educating ourselves and others to improve our community and understanding of the world around us.