Brain Damage

Football and the Brain

            The brain is the most outstanding organ in our body.  It is the primary control source of our entire body!  It controls our emotions, sensations, vision, hearing, movement, and many other voluntary as well as involuntary functions.  Have you ever stopped to wonder what would happen if damage occurred to your brain?  Well, I had never put some thought into it until recently. 

            Who knew the all American sport of football could be harmful to the brain.  It has been calculated that in the United States there is roughly around 1 million high-school football players, out of these football players about 67,000 reported concussions.  Researchers determined that on average one football player suffers around 150 head impacts per week throughout football season! Can you imagine having your head hit 150 times in a week? Some of these hits did not cause a concussion, however they did cause a change in brain function, similar to people who have brain damage.  The areas of the brain affected are the frontal lobe, temporal lobe, and occipital lobe.  These areas are responsible for memory, emotions, vision, and hearing.  Those football players who did report concussions are at risk of having another one, with a longer recovery period.

            Constant head trauma to the brain is currently being studied, since it is becoming more common for NFL football players to commit suicide.  Former NFL player Dave Duerson commited suicide, after seeing the autopsy report it was confirmed that there was advanced brain damage, known as chronic traumatic encephalopathy.

How Does Alcohol Affect the Brain

Alcoholism

            Alcohol is the most common abused drug.  It affects a neurons synapse by altering neuron membranes, ion channels, enzymes, and receptors.  It binds directly to gamma aminobutyric acid causing neuron activity to diminish.   Drinking alcohol as an adolescent can have harmful long term, irreversible effects, since the frontal lobe develops until the age of sixteen and a high rate of energy is used in the brain until the age of twenty.

            There are two types of alcoholism.   Type I Alcoholism usually develops after the age of twenty-five gradually and is not determined genetically. What usually triggers people to become a type I alcoholic is setbacks in life. Type II alcoholism usually occurs before the age of twenty five and is usually genetic.  Type II alcoholism is more severe than type I since victims usually drink regardless of what’s happening in their lives.   Genes can influence alcoholism by producing less sensitive dopamine receptor.

            Many people do not realize the damage alcohol does to the brain.  The brain is a very unique part of our body, and most damage that occurs in the brain is irreversible.  For example, excessive drinking over a certain amount of time can cause serious cognitive and memory problems. 

 The video below gives more of an explanation as to how alcohol affects the parts of the brain from doing their usual tasks.  This video also explains why you might act a certain way when you have had a glass of an alcoholic beverage.

Motor Neurons

          Motor neurons are efferent neurons.  They originate in the spinal chord and synapse with muscle fibers to produce muscle contraction.   Motor neurons are needed in order to walk, talk, breath, and etc.  When motor neurons signals are disrupted as a result, muscle weakening can occur.  There are several types of diseases caused by a disruption in motor neuron signals, one of which is called Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis also known as “Lou Gehrig's Disease”. ALS is a disease in the nerve cells of the brain and spinal chord in which motor neurons die or waste away and are no longer capable to send messages to the muscles.  Due to the inability to send signals to the muscles twitching, muscle weakening, and the inability to move arms, legs, and body occurs. This disease only affects your motor skills, it does not affect your senses.   There is no cure for ALS, so the condition slowly begins to worsen, causing muscles in the chest area to stop working making it difficult or impossible to breathe on your own. Approximately 5 out of every 100,000 people are affected with ALS worldwide.  There are no known risk factors for this disease other than people having a 5 to 10 percent chance of inheriting the disease.  This disease mainly affects people between the ages of 40 and 60 years old. Men are more likely to develop this disease than women.

Below is a video that demonstrates how motor neurons are intertwined with ALS.

I chose this video because it shows you how the motor neurons are affected by ALS. It is also a very informative video since it also states the symptoms, treatments, causes and other informative things about ALS.

Introduction to Physiological Psychology

        A major debate occurring in science is animal research.  Since I am a biology major, I might view medical research a bit different than others. I am against unnecessary animal testing, such as using animals for cosmetic purposes.  However, when it comes to animal research being used to help come up with a cure for a certain disease I am all for it!  I believe animal testing is good, but only to a certain extent.  For example, using animals to help prevent or treat life threatening diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes, and AIDS is worth it since scientist are developing healthcare advantages for us.  Thanks to medical testing, the field of science has accomplished so many cures as well as vaccines to prevent detrimental diseases.  One of the top diseases being currently researched is Alzheimer’s disease.  Many abolitionists might be against animals being used to treat this disease however, this might be because most abolitionists do not know someone who has the disease or has never spent a whole day with someone who has Alzheimer’s disease. My grandfather has stage three Alzheimer’s, it is difficult for me to see him lost at times, not know what day it is, and sometimes repeat himself constantly.  Therefore, one major form of medical research I am for is Alzheimer’s research.  The cure for Alzheimer’s is closer than ever, since it was recently discovered that the degu, which is a relative of the guinea pig, shares a 97.5 percent homology with humans who have Alzheimer’s.  It is the only rodent to have been found to have similar neural Alzheimer’s markers to those in humans.  Animal testing is cruel to a certain extent, however without it many diseases would still be incurable today.  In my opinion, instead of abolitionists threatening scientists that are using animals to help benefit the world from infectious diseases, they should be protesting outside of cosmetic companies, since these companies are not curing diseases.

Below is a video that states why animal research is necessary in the development of lifesaving treatments.

I chose this video because I believe it makes an excellent point as to why animal research is necessary in the development of certain vaccines and treatments.  It states the comparisons of the amount of animals used for food in this country and the amount used for medical research, it states the 3R's, the minimal amount of pain animals suffer, and other great key points in animal testing.