CE:s serious couch - Q&A on brains

jopperm2 · Post by **jopperm2** » Mon Apr 11, 2005 3:33 pm

Thanks for the offer CE, I'll start by checking the list of who is best covered by insurance and go from there.

Darth Zenemij · Post by **Darth Zenemij** » Mon Apr 11, 2005 5:28 pm

Thank you, CE. I really thought that I had an obsessive behavior as you said before, But thank you.

Cuchulain82 · Post by **Cuchulain82** » Fri Apr 29, 2005 9:11 am

Not brains, but still have questions...

Hi CE,

Do you know anything about Pheochromocytoma? I don't know if it is a brain problem per se, but I think it is when a tumor grows on a gland causing heart problems due to excess adreline release. I read something about it online, but I wanted to know if you knew anything more.

A close friend of my family just died rather suddenly, and an autopsy revealed Pheochromocytoma as the cause of death. The friend was a mid-40's woman with a 2 year old daughter. She seemed very healthy- thin, exercised, non smoker, etc. This is what my mother wrote about it:

"But she had very few of the symptoms they list, although she did have occasional heart palpitations and, recently, feelings of foreboding and doom, which a number of the websites list. But no one ever heard her say anything about high blood pressure. She may have told me she sweats a lot when she runs--that rings a bell--but who knew that could be a symptom of something? Jeez. We should all get checked out if that’s the case. "

I guess I am just trying to make heads or tails over what happened. It seems very arbitrary and unfair to me, and I want to know more about Pheochromocytoma.

C Elegans · Post by **C Elegans** » Fri Apr 29, 2005 9:39 am

Hello Cuchulain, Pheochromocytoma is not a brain disorder, but luckily, I share room with a physician who is an expert on endocrinology. You are absolutely right that Pheochromocytoma is a benign tumour that grows on the adrenal gland and cause extremly high amounts of adrenaline and norephinedrine to be released. Most people who die from it die from hypertension and usually very suddenly, but not all patients get hypertension. Some patients also die from heart arythmias that are caused by the high amounts of adrenaline and norephinedrine.

Symptoms vary a lot, hypertension is common as is sweating, feelings of strong heart pounding and feelings of anxiety. Some patients have very mild symptoms, and usually most in the evening. Luckily, it is a very rare disease, so there is little need to worry. It is easy to diagnose once there is a suspicion that a person has the disease, the problem is that like with many cancer forms, the symptoms are so vague so the patient may not notice until it is too late.

It is not known why some people get Pheochromocytoma. It is a little bit more common in males than in females, and it is sometimes heritable but not always. Try reading this patient information from NIH:
http://www.cc.nih.gov/ccc/patient_educa ... s/pheo.pdf

I am sorry to hear about your loss. I would think your friend was one of those unlucky people who get the disease but only have mild symptoms.

CM · Post by CM » Fri Apr 29, 2005 9:58 am

Not a question on the brain but rather on science. I am not so sure you may want to answer it here but your decision if you want me to open a new thread:

Basically scientists do alot of studies and do alot of work to explain our environment and its actions and how they affect us. I wanted to know is when is it that a study becomes accepted as legitimate? Ie: Some scientist do a study they have a control group and all. They follow the rules to the T but when does it become accepted as a good and logical piece of science. I am not sure i am making myself clear.

Basically i want to know how do you evaluate a scientific study as being correct?

Cuchulain82 · Post by **Cuchulain82** » Fri Apr 29, 2005 11:15 am

[QUOTE=C Elegans]I am sorry to hear about your loss. I would think your friend was one of those unlucky people who get the disease but only have mild symptoms.[/QUOTE]
Thanks for your condolences, CE

I do actually appreciate them. I think she was just one of those unlucky people...

jopperm2 · Post by **jopperm2** » Mon Jun 13, 2005 4:39 pm

I did it!

Way before planned, but I was in the emergency room last night because that's the only place in Florida with a stinkin pulmonologist on sunday and I had blood drawn from my arm for the first time in my 23 year life!

Aren't you all so proud of me???

It wasn't too bad either! The Phlebotomist was really nice too. I'm going to write a letter to the hospital and let them know because I'm sure that if I had had a bad experience I would be dreading needles forever!

I'm thinking about trying to donate blood as my next step but I'm not sure if I'm elligible. There are a lot of chances here, my job has the red cross blood bus come by like once a month.

Chanak · Post by **Chanak** » Mon Jun 13, 2005 5:12 pm

@CE: Interesting thread. It brings some questions to mind, which I'll post here in the hopes you'll have time to respond.

Firstly - what do you know about the studies done which seem to indicate that lowering the core temperature of a stroke victim can actually prevent injury to the brain? The same article also mentions that this "freezing", if you will, can benefit the heart and other organs of the body during other related massive trauma. I saw this article on msn.com approx. a week ago. The sources in the article stressed that the freezing is most beneficial when executed as soon as humanly possible after the event (ie, the stroke) occurs. Researchers have devised a specialized apparatus which is applied to the body, using a rather ingenious multi-layered membraneous system to maximize the cooling effect, which is achieved by circulating cooled water constantly over the body. It's rather intriguing, but I'm not one to trust what I read by a reporter in a tabloid sort of format. I would rather hear things from a scientist's perspective, in just this sort of setting.

Secondly - how much is understood regarding the ability of birds to regenerate neurons in their brains? This was something I caught a glimpse of in National Geographic magazine quite some time ago (a brief article concerning this appeared in the magazine). My layman's grasp of biology brings to mind the phenomenon of regeneration in lifeforms, which is more prevalent in the lower life forms (such as invertebrates), and more rarified in higher lifeforms. I know that we as humans are able to regenerate certain kinds of tissue in a limited fashion, such as muscle tissue, but as a rule nerves are not included in the "can-do list." As far as I know, other vertebrates are included in this category as well. Yet birds seem to defy that. I realize that the avian brain is simplistic compared to the mammalian, yet I am still astounded that birds can regenerate brain matter. Are you aware of any research into this?

Craig · Post by **Craig** » Tue Jun 14, 2005 1:21 pm

Hey! CE!

I once heard that whatever the emotion the same chemicals are released in the brain. Is that true?

Magrus · Post by **Magrus** » Tue Jun 14, 2005 1:36 pm

I'm fairly certain there's at least one general chemical, like something of a nervous system "lubricant" type thing, and then different chemicals depending on the emotions involved. Then again, it's been about 5 years since I had it all explained to me by a doctor so I don't remember much and I could have mixed something up.

I believe the chemical seratonin is involved with that somehow.

Craig · Post by **Craig** » Thu Jun 16, 2005 9:50 am

I heard it was endorphine... I dunno though.

C Elegans · Post by **C Elegans** » Thu Jun 16, 2005 10:01 am

Sorry for my delay, work is killing me right now.

[QUOTE=Chanak]Firstly - what do you know about the studies done which seem to indicate that lowering the core temperature of a stroke victim can actually prevent injury to the brain? The same article also mentions that this "freezing", if you will, can benefit the heart and other organs of the body during other related massive trauma.[/quote]

Studies are ongoing, but look very promising, at least from what I've heard. Previously, lowering of the body temperature, hypothermia, has been used often for patients who had a cardic arrest and arrive to the hospital in an acute condition where the brain gets more and more ischemic (lack of oxygen) every second. In these patients, hypothermia has proven efficient for limiting brain damage caused by ischemia. (Exactly how cooling prevents brain damage is complicated, but some important reasons are that it protects against edema and it decreases the intensity of the release of neurotoxins that kill surrounding tissue.)
However, experience from brain ischemia in cardiac patients and animal experiments predicts that hypothermia should be efficient also in ischemic strokes and some other types of brain injuries, and it is. The problems are that 1. cooling the patient is associated with some adverse events such as pnemonia, which can be highly dangerous especially for elderly stroke patients and 2. the usual, hypothermia is a work-intensive and expensive treatment.

Currently, the most commonly used methods for hypothermia is to lower the body temperature to about 32-35 C, using cold blankets or a cannula inserted directly in the blood stream. A newer method that reduces the risk for adverse events, is local brain cooling. So, in summary: hypothermia is effective for reducing brain damage caused by some types of stroke, but it remains to find out exactly what is the optimal temperature, time and method to achive the cooling with.

That was the easier of your two question, I'll come back to the neuron-regenerating birds later, and to Craig's question.

@Magrus: serotonin, it's a monoamine and one of major transmitters (chemical messengers used by neurons to communicate with each other) in the human brain. The name serotonin comes from the 1930's, when scientists only knew it in blood serum and affecting muscle tonus.

It's my favorite chemical substance

C Elegans · Post by **C Elegans** » Thu Jun 16, 2005 10:05 am

[QUOTE=craig]
I once heard that whatever the emotion the same chemicals are released in the brain. Is that true?
<snip>
I heard it was endorphine... I dunno though.[/QUOTE]

Not true. Well over 100 different neurotransmitters are known to exist in the human brain. It is likely that most of those are associated in different ways to emotions, since emotions are basic and extremely important for survival. I'll write more later, must work now, but off hand I could mention at least 10 different chemicals that are released in the brain and elsewhere when we have an emotional response. It is likely that each emotion has it's own chemical pattern.

C Elegans · Post by **C Elegans** » Thu Jun 16, 2005 4:54 pm

[QUOTE=Chanak]Secondly - how much is understood regarding the ability of birds to regenerate neurons in their brains? [/QUOTE]

Ah, the issue of adult neurogenesis (regeneration of neurons and other nerve cells in adults) is a vast topic, and in humans it is a hot subject indeed. To start from the beginning, I think (this is not my specialist area) neurogenesis in vertabrates was first discovered in salamanders. In 1992, it was reported in living song birds, and also demonstrated to be possible in striatal brain cells from rat.

As you know, stem cells are undifferented, "immature" cells that has the potential to develop into many different type of cells, ie they are multipotent. It was long believed that neuronal stem cells did not exist in adult creatures, but then it was found that they do indeed exist, and especially in the areas around the ventricles (the "hollow" areas in the brain that are filled with cerebrospinal fluid) and the hippocampus (a subcortical region that is very important for encoding of memory in many species including birds, rats and humans).

In song birds, neuronal stem cells are found in the walls of the lateral ventricles. These stem cells migrate to other areas, and mature to cells that are connected to areas involved in learning new songs. It has been shown that new cells replace old neurons that have died, and that this replacement is seasonal and probably related to hormonal responses to seasonal changes.

In 1999, the prescence of neuronal stem cells in the human brain was first reported by a colleague of mine. He and his group identified neuronal stem cells in the same areas in the human brain as have been found in birds, mouse and rat: the lateral ventricles and the hippocampus. In vitro (in glass, ie in cell cultivations as opposed to in vivo, in life, the brain is inside a living person) he and his group could show that these human neuronal stem cells could divide and proliferate. Thus, the potential use of human neuronal stem cells for treatment of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease and ALS is a hot topic in neuroscience. It has not been shown whether these adult human stem cells actually can divide and generate new neurons under natural circumstances, and it is unknown what their function is.

If you want to know more, I can send you some 50 articles by mail!

[quote="Craig]I once heard that whatever the emotion the same chemicals are released in the brain. Is that true?[/quote]

To come back to your question in a more elaborated way"]endorphins[/b], they are a group of opiod peptides that binds to the opium receptors in the brain and, among other things, has the effect of relieving pain. This is why endorphines are sometimes called the body's natural morphin, or pain killer.

[quote="Magrus]I'm fairly certain there's at least one general chemical"]

There are two neurotransmitters that are the most commonly found in the human brain, and known to have a general function and that is glutamate and GABA. Glutamate has a generally exciting effect on neurons, and GABA has a generally inhibitory effect on neurons. Most of the commonly used sedative psychopharmaca like diazepam (Valium), acts on the GABA system. Probably, you can't even blink your eye without glutamate and GABA being involved!

Magrus · Post by **Magrus** » Thu Jun 16, 2005 5:15 pm

@Magrus: serotonin, it's a monoamine and one of major transmitters (chemical messengers used by neurons to communicate with each other) in the human brain. The name serotonin comes from the 1930's, when scientists only knew it in blood serum and affecting muscle tonus.

It's my favorite chemical substance

Thanks for the spelling correction, I thought I had it off, but wasn't sure.

And neurotransmitters, that's the word I was grasping for with the "chemical lubricant's" thing. Mine doesn't quite work as well.

A friend of mine has a serotonin imbalance I know, he tried describing it to me one night, but we were both drunk and it wasn't all that coherant of a discussion.

Basically, he mentioned that without a medication he'd been taking he went effectively "emotionally numb". He mentioned this because I commented on him being a complete and total prick for about a week or so, and he said that was why. He just couldn't bring himself to think on an emotional level, so when he became critical of another person, he was very cold and never brought into his thought process his comments might hurt someone.

I know myself, everyone who's gotten to be in a close and intimate relationship with me finds me to be passionate in the extreme. I'm either giggly and excited, apathetic, or pissed off. There's no middle grounds, it's full tilt or nothing for every emotion I have. I don't get a little sad, I get horribly depressed, I don't get a little mad, I get wickedly pissed off. If something amuses me, I'll laugh and chuckle at it for quite some time. I've yet to figure out the why of that one. Bi-polar has never cut it as a reason, as every treatment thrown at me to fix it has made things worse, and frankly I don't act in the same kinds of ways as those friends I have who are Bi-polar do. Granted, everyone's different, but there are pattern's common to that kind of "problem".

Whatever it is, an ex of mine once said something relating me to a fire. I'm fine if you don't get to close to me, I can amuse you or make you comfortable, or if you aggrivate me, you can back away. Once you get too close though, pushing me one way or the other too far, you seem like you'll be burned and consumed in the sheer intensity of emotions. I found that to be apt in a description looking back at certain isolated incidents. My emotion's just don't work like anyone else I've ever dealt with or related to for some odd reason. I've dealt with Bi-Polar's, those with extreme emotional disorder's, people with the Borderline disorder, schitzophrenic's, just about anything you can think of. I don't "fit" with any of those, yet I happen to be the most emotionally sensative and passionate person anyone around me has ever known.

Not only that, laughing for a while can quite literally make me "high" like I've done pot or something akin to that. I'm not talking just giddy and giggling, I'm talking high, as in hallucinations and ecstatic.

Given all of that has made me curious as to how emotion's and the chemical's involved work within the brain and nervous system. I'm assuming there's some sort of excess in chemical production, as it's all emotion's, not just one or two. No doctor's been willing to get into the detail's with it, and I can't blame them as I've done a bit of research and I'd need to take a few classes in biology and different sciences to understand what I found I do believe.

C Elegans · Post by **C Elegans** » Fri Jun 17, 2005 5:25 pm

Magrus wrote: Mine doesn't quite work as well.

Or too well

Basically, he mentioned that without a medication he'd been taking he went effectively "emotionally numb".

All neurotransmitters have several receptors, ie sites on the cell that receive the transmitter. The function of a neurotransmitter is not decided by the transmitter itself, but by the receptor. So for instance, serotonin has 15 known receptor types in the human brain, and all these receptor types have different functions in the brain. Some are more involved in mood, others in memory function, yet others more in sexual functions and some even have more or less opposing effects. Not much is known yet, but it is clear that serotonin turn-over in the brain is related to some basic emotions like fear, anxiety and aggression, and also to impulse control. Serotonin also ha s a regulating effect on many other important neurotransmitters such as dopamine, norephinedrine and acetylcholin, so if you have malfunctioning parts of your serotonin system, it is likely to have serious consequences.

Bi-polar has never cut it as a reason, as every treatment thrown at me to fix it has made things worse, and frankly I don't act in the same kinds of ways as those friends I have who are Bi-polar do. Granted, everyone's different, but there are pattern's common to that kind of "problem".

From what you have posted here at SYM, I cannot see you fit conveniently into any of the existing diagnosis in the DSM-IV (the internationally used diagnosis manual for psychiatric and neuropsychiatric conditions and disorders). This is however not surprising, seeing that the current diagnosis systems lacks in so many aspects so I don't know where to start, but two major problems is that different types of diagnosis overlap each other and that many diagnosis are heterogenous, ie they group patients together that are very dissimilar. But I could rant forever about this.

My emotion's just don't work like anyone else I've ever dealt with or related to for some odd reason. I've dealt with Bi-Polar's, those with extreme emotional disorder's, people with the Borderline disorder, schitzophrenic's, just about anything you can think of. I don't "fit" with any of those, yet I happen to be the most emotionally sensative and passionate person anyone around me has ever known.

I feature that Bipolar, Borderline and Schizophrenia share, is that problem behaviours go in periods. If you are always highly emotionally responsive and intense and have been that way since you were a child, it may be more related to your personality traits than to a specific diagnosis.

Given all of that has made me curious as to how emotion's and the chemical's involved work within the brain and nervous system. I'm assuming there's some sort of excess in chemical production, as it's all emotion's, not just one or two. No doctor's been willing to get into the detail's with it, and I can't blame them as I've done a bit of research and I'd need to take a few classes in biology and different sciences to understand what I found I do believe.

My general impression is that you have a highly responsive emotional and perceptual system, perhaps overly reactive. This does not necessarily mean you have an overactivity in your brain chemistry - for instance excess release of GABA-A or GABA-B would make you calm and probably dull - but it probably means there is at least some kind of imbalance in one or more global system. The best clinical psychiatrists I know are masters when it comes to mixing low doses of different types of drugs rather than using high doses of one or two drugs (which I know is very common in the US and in Japan). By using this strategy, you can achive a much more individualised treatment for each patient, and still have a minimum of side effects. In research, we talk about "tailor made" medicine as the future for pharmacological treatment for neuropsychiatric conditions, but it's a long way to go.

A pity you are not in Sweden, then we could check your neuroreceptors!

Magrus · Post by **Magrus** » Fri Jun 17, 2005 5:28 pm

I think I'd get in trouble in Sweden with all those enlightened Swedish girls.

I've always simply assumed it was my personality of some sort, that or as I said above, an excess of certain chemicals or something along those lines. *shrugs* I've sworn off medications considering what they've done to me so I won't get into that mess again. I've just been curious why it is I work differently than those around me emotionally since no one's been able to explain it.

I'd LOVE to get my hands on my medical files from when I had my EKG and EEG. One of the two, cannot recall which was done to see whether I got migraines or not and the neurologist refused to explain what they meant by "interesting irregularities" in my brain.

C Elegans · Post by **C Elegans** » Fri Jun 17, 2005 5:47 pm

Magrus wrote:I've always simply assumed it was my personality of some sort, that or as I said above, an excess of certain chemicals or something along those lines.

That could well be one and the same thing. The amount of certain types of receptors for serotonin and dopamine have been shown to be related to basic personality traits.

I'd LOVE to get my hands on my medical files from when I had my EKG and EEG. One of the two, cannot recall which was done to see whether I got migraines or not and the neurologist refused to explain what they meant by "interesting irregularities" in my brain.

Must be the EEG (electro encephalogram, encephalon=the brain), the ECG is for the heart (electo cardiogram, cardiac=heart). EEG is a very unspecific measurement, it measures general activation patterns in the brain, but you can see if a person has unusual wave-patterns and such. People with migraine and epilepsia often have deviating patterns. Some but not all people with schizophrenia may also have irregular or deviating patterns.

C Elegans · Post by **C Elegans** » Fri Jun 17, 2005 5:52 pm

Sorry CM and JopperM, for some reason I missed your posts previously.

jopperm2 wrote:Way before planned, but I was in the emergency room last night because that's the only place in Florida with a stinkin pulmonologist on sunday and I had blood drawn from my arm for the first time in my 23 year life!

Aren't you all so proud of me???

Extremly so!

Congrats!

I'm thinking about trying to donate blood as my next step but I'm not sure if I'm elligible. There are a lot of chances here, my job has the red cross blood bus come by like once a month.

It's an excellent idea, constant exposure will allow you to not build up a phobic reaction again. Becoming a blood or plasma donator often part of the routine treatment for blood-injection phobia here in Sweden. (If the patient is eligible that is, otherwise it's recommended that the patient buys injections used by diabetics, and inject a little saline him/herself every now and then)

Chanak · Post by **Chanak** » Fri Jun 17, 2005 6:10 pm

[QUOTE=C Elegans]If you want to know more, I can send you some 50 articles by mail[/QUOTE]

I'll PM you my e-mail address. I'm interested.

That was very informative - thank you! The presence of those stem stells could explain how some victims of brain injury either partially, or sometimes even completely, recover. I understand that this is very rare to begin with...the statistics are often against recovery at all. But learning more about this might help explain how this can "miraculously" occur in the very rare instances that it has. Nerves are strange to begin with. I look to myself as an example. In 1984, I underwent major surgery to remove a benign growth from the bone below my left knee (this was perhaps related to the orthopedic condition I had at the time). For years after the surgery, the area immediately surrounding the incision site (basically most of my left shin and calf) was partially numb, with very little sensation at all. During surgery, they may have damaged nerves since they had to clamp muscle tissue back to clear the area of the growth on the bone. However, at some point late last year in 2004, something changed. It suddenly dawned on me that all feeling had returned to that area, completely. I was quite amazed.

Contrast this with my left index finger. Approximately seven years ago during my stint as a carpenter, I grazed it with a waffle-headed framing hammer while framing a new house. Mind you, it was a very light tap of the hammer to set a nail before driving it in, and it brushed against my finger along the way. Nevertheless, the area where I grazed it hurt like mad for weeks. I had my finger x-rayed, but to no avail: no visible damage was discernable. To this day, if I press a fingertip on that spot (directly above the second joint), I feel pain there. Odd.