Hippocampus I: Memories, Maps, and More
Posted by N P in Neuroscience on June 26th, 2010
What’s the most important region of your brain?
Most popular science-savvy folks would argue it’s your frontal lobe, because that’s “what makes us human.” After all, it is much larger in us than in our close cousins, the chimps and apes, and many language functions are believed to have some key residence there. Others might say it’s the limbic system which is supposedly responsible for our emotions (many of which are actually quite primitive such as hunger and physical attraction), and perhaps the occasionally less region-committed scholarly sort of person might argue that it’s not one region but a series of regions and the connections between them that make us human, like our mirror-neuron system which may allow us to get the gist of social situations and act accordingly.
Drawn in 1911 by Ramon y Cajal.
Many researchers will simply tell you that the region they’ve studied the most is – of course – the most important. So, if you asked me – based on my experiences and observations in neuroscience – I would say that it seems to be the hippocampus. I would venture that funding from the NIH for this tiny region – barely the size of a walnut on either side – outstrips the rest by far. So the question is, why?
A Food Revolution in WV
What’s the best way to solve our nation’s obesity problem?
Jamie Oliver, a British chef gone hands-on food activist has recently started a show on ABC entitled Food Revolution. The goal? Revamp America’s eating habits so that obesity, heart disease, and all those other deliciously disgusting metabolic ailments with modifiable risk factors are reduced. His first challenge? Huntington, West Virginia. The impetus? A report on CDC statistics interpreted by the AP which showed Huntington as the nation’s (and probably the world’s) unhealthiest city. In a nutshell:
This nascent revolution caught my attention for a very personal reason. Not only am I a physician in training encountering obesity and diabetes on a regular basis, but I grew up thirty minutes away from Huntington in Charleston, West Virginia and experienced first-hand what it’s like to have rampant obesity and poor eating standards as the norm.
From Physics to Chemistry to Biochemistry to Cells to Systems to Behavior
Posted by N P in Neuroscience on August 2nd, 2009
I present to you a simple argument I’ve heard before.
Everything humans do can be explained as a combination of behaviors they exhibit. These behaviors in turn are caused by the interaction of various systems in the body such as the endocrine, nervous, and reproductive systems. These systems function due to the interaction of the cells which form them. Cellular physiology is determined by a set of biochemical pathways which respond to stimuli from the environment. These biochemical pathways have certain kinetics and thermodynamics which can be elucidated by chemistry. Chemistry is just applied physics.
The Changing Landscape of Medicine
I think the word “cure” is used far too casually in the media.
I especially find this to be the case when discussing neurological disease and cancer. Upon thinking some more about neurological disease and how it is often oversimplified and misunderstood, I thought it might be worthwhile to talk a little about how I think medicine has dealt with major challenges in the past, and how it will have to change to deal with future challenges. This is just a brisk overview with overlapping major points. I will skip over details and perhaps omit things others would consider significant, but it will convey the point that there are different challenges for which one approach alone is not necessarily appropriate.
I find that medicine can be divided into eras with the following major goals: tackling acute diseases and curing infections, managing chronic diseases and keeping degenerative processes at bay, and learning to delay the effects of aging and other (sometimes iatrogenic) byproducts of our medical successes. Each of these challenges is further complicated for both detection and treatment must be made accessible to an ever increasing and changing populations that might be affected by a disease.
Figure 1: Change in causes of mortality throughout the 20th century.
HBO’s Alzheimer’s Project
A former co-worker introduced me to this compilation of documentaries on the HBO website that centered around Alzheimer’s disease. HBO has put together some amazing images with an excellent introduction to what Alzheimer’s is and what scientists are doing in order to study the disease and either halt or reverse it’s progress. The films go from the personal aspects of living and caring for someone with Alzheimer’s to the academic scientific advances. HBO took a very realistic view of disease with this, it exemplifies how a most disease is not a one-dimensional problem to solve, but rather a multifaceted set of challenges that sometimes have no permanent solutoin for those involved with it.
Coverage of this sort would ideally be more common for diseases such as Alzheimer’s, for the media all too often portrays these diseases as having a cure just around the corner. The current sort of exposure unnecessarily romantizes the disease and the science behind it in unrealistic ways and eventually desensitizes the public as no real cure is found time and time again.
There is also a brief yet insightful TED talk on the upcoming neurological epidemic, which brings to light how neurodegenerative diseases will be the next “scientific frontier” in medicine. Ultimately the problems we are fighting are all linked to aging, but that shall be left for another post.
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