Every year about 1.5 million people in the United States
have some type of brain injury. There are two types of brain injury: Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) ex. blow to the head
and Acquired Brain Injury (ABI) ex. stroke
Let's take Natasha Richardson for example. She was a known
actress of movies such as “The Parent Trap” co staring with Lindsay Lohan, “Maid
in Manhattan,” “The White Countess” and a number of more movies. She was
married to actor Liam Neeson and was mother of two. It happens that Natasha
Richardson was at a Canadian ski resort where she was taking a skiing lesson
without wearing a helmet. The accident
happened while she was on a beginners’ slope at the Mont Tremblant resort where
she “tumbled’ down a hill. At first she claimed she was doing okay and said she
didn’t need to be seen by a doctor when approached by ski patrol. Approximately a few hours after her fall she started
having severe headaches that lead her to seeking help. Shortly after being taken
into a local hospital she fell into critical condition therefore translating
her to a Hospital in Montreal where she was put on life support. She didn’t regain
consciousness so she was taken to her home town, New York, so friends and
family could say their goodbyes. She died two days after the accident, she was 45. Her cause of death was an epidural haematoma due
to blunt impact to her head. At that time wearing a helmet was up to the people
if they wanted to wear it or not. After Ms. Richardson’s accident it became
official that the sales of ski safety helmets in UK increased significantly. It
was argued whether a safety helmet could have saved Ms. Richardson and in my
opinion it could have saved her. Safety helmets reduce head injuries by a 35%
in adults and 59% in children.
This story is important so that we can all know that brain
injury can happen to anyone. We should always be careful when doing activities
that are dangerous since injuries of this type can be avoided. On the other
hand, situations like being a victim of assault or having a car accident are
not foreseen so it is more difficult to avoid or predict brain injuries.Bottom line is always seeking help if you
fall and hit your head for example or if your head collides with an object
harshly even if you might feel okay. Brain injuries can develop bleeding,
bruising and swelling even after a few hours of the initial impact.
The following video is about how the brain is damaged after a collision. (it doesn't have any sound, but it is not long and it explains it with little notes quite well.)
It is not the first time that I've heard that one drink of
alcohol per day can actually help prevent heart attacks in older people. It was
hard for me to believe that because I thought "well, alcohol is bad and a
lot of people become alcoholics that may lose everything in this world just as
long as they have an alcoholic drink in their hands." I thought they just
meant whichever form of alcohol instead in the book I read that 'a glass of
certain wines can help prevent heart attacks in older people.' This made more
sense for me, of course. Alcohol is known to be the most abused drug by many
people. Alcohol in very big quantities impairs judgment leading to unwanted
pregnancies, STD's, problems with the law, car accidents, loosing of homes,
families and even jobs. I never knew my grandfather but my grandmother always
told me stories of how much he drank and smoked on a regular basis. This of
course lead to a very unsuccessful marriage for my grandmother and hard times
for my mom and her brother, since my grandfather wouldn't stop his drinking,
smoking. He drank day and night. When he was less than 50 years old he died
because of lung cancer. According to my grandmother, he had begun smoking since
he was 11 years old and began drinking at 12 years old because of problems he
had at home with his family (or so, I've been told). He was diagnosed with
cancer and died just 3 months after that. My grandmother always told me how his
lungs were extremely dark and how much agony he went through for 3 months. She
also told me, that even when he was diagnosed he still managed to hide a
cigarette box in his truck and would still smoke even after he knew he was
going to die. I guess this relates to what a drug can do. No matter how much
pain and problems one may encounter, their drug is always the solution. Going
back to alcohol, even though my grandfather didn't die because he drank too
much, I still know that his body probably showed some signs of alcoholism. I
also want to point out that his father was a heavy drinker as well. So this
leads me to genetics, which probably had a lot to do with the fact that he
began drinking at such a young age. It must have been pretty hard to have a dad
as a heavy drinker and how random it was that they drank together since he was
the only boy in the family. Anyways, I still think that each person decides if
they want to follow other people's footsteps or not. My mother witnessed my
grandfather's heavy drinking and smoking, and I can say that my mother has
never smoked before and has never liked to drink alcohol. She did not inherit
my grandfather's tolerance for drinks because when she drinks one glass of wine
that is more than enough for her. My uncle on the other side doesn't smoke at
all either, but drinks at family events at times without getting drunk or
anything. With this said, drug abuse varies from person to person, bottom-line
it never has good outcomes, especially when abused.
The following video is pretty straight forward about the effects of alcohol and smoking on the human body:
After Marian Diamond became fascinated with the term of another type of brain cell known as the glia cell or neuroglia, she tried to explain it more into detail rather than just being known as ‘the glue that holds the neurons of the brain together.’ It is now known that glia is greater in number than neuron cells. I am really interested in knowing more about glia cells, since I’ve been reading that a large amount of glia cells were found in Albert Einstein’s brain. Diamond and colleagues found a significant amount of glia cells in the cerebral cortex, which deal with reasoning, mathematics and imagery. A great scientist known as a genius had been the reason to explore glia cells more into depth. Glia cells are known to communicate with each other without electricity! The biggest question has always been, what made Albert Einstein so smart? so genius? What was in his brain different that other people’s that distinguished it from being a genius?
In the video below, Dr. Fields talks about the importance of
glia and the new discoveries made. With all the research it is true that glia
are a very essential part of our brain. This video explains how they use laser
and video microscopes and other technologies to test the importance of glial
cells in our brain.
Supportive Cells: Astrocytes (star shaped), whose functions are the nutrition and structure of neurotransmitters serve to clean up, transport nutrients to neurons, hold them in place and digest dead neurons. As for oligodendocytes, they produce fatty proteins known as myelin. The third known as, microglia are the active immune cells. As for these types of glia cells, they all play an important role in the brain, still it is known that these cells cannot transmit information over long distances compared to neurons.
I became fascinated with this topic because it has always caught my attention to know how someone can be as smart and be known as a genius by the population. Some of these terms seem very difficult to me and I have to read the same information a couple of times in order to understand the concept. Wouldn’t we all want to know how the brain of a genius differs from that of a regular human being? I know I would. As I saw in a video, many scientists try to explain this possible new theory of finding ‘genius cells’ in the brain. Others disapprove of such new findings. Not everything can be explained by science, and maybe environmental factors as well as hereditary traits shape our brain.
I am a strong believer in that no animal should be treated
badly, they have feelings and they should be respected, loved and well taken
care of. Even with this in my head, I can't help but still be thankful for all
the accomplishments medicine has undergone with the help of animal testing. I
have seen the effects of Alzheimer’s in a member of my family. It is
devastating to see someone slowly forget things until getting to the point
where they are not self-sufficient anymore. With this said, I would really be
thankful if one day the cure for Alzheimer’s existed. It may be too late for
the member of my family, but there will be hope for others in the future. It is
so interesting that there are activists that are willing to go to the extreme
to fight in what they believe is right. As I had previously seen on a video, some
scientists even had to give up on animal testing because they felt threatened
by activists as well as felt they were putting their families in possible danger. I am not
100% agreeing that animal testing is good, I have seen many documentaries that
are very eye opening and it makes me reconsider my opinion on animal testing. As I mentioned before no one wants to see an
animal suffer, and of course I do not like the idea of them being injected such things to come up with a possible cure or to sutdy the evolution of behavior on animals, but we have to realize we have come a long way with animal
testing (in my opinion, of course).
Would it be better and more acceptable if it was done on
humans?
I am not too sure of my feelings to this question. Animals
have feelings as well as humans, but who would dare to volunteer to be tested
in order to find a possible cure?
The responses to the questions made sense to me, but there
are some answers that I do not fully agree with. Clearly, Dr. Simon Festing is
in favor of animal testing since he believes it is used to help humans. I liked
that he answered everything without hesitating and sincerely even if I do not
agree with some things he said. This video answers questions such as "why
do we use animals for research purposes?"
