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Recommended: Autoimmune disease
The human immune system is an amazing system that is constantly on the alert protecting us from sicknesses. Thousands of white blood cells travel in our circulatory system destroying all foreign substances that could cause harm to our body or to any of the millions of processes going on inside. Now imagine a condition where this awesome system turns against the most complex organ in the human body, the brain. Deadly as it is, this condition is known as Rasmussen’s encephalitis. The meaningful research on Rasmussen’s encephalitis was begun (unintentionally) by Scott Rogers and Lorise Gahring, two neurologists, who were at the time measuring the distribution of glutamate receptors in the brain. Later on when more provocative information was found they enlisted the help of James McNamara and Ian Andrews, epilepsy experts at Duke University Medical Center. The details on Rasmussen’s encephalitis were very bleak at the time when the men began their research. All that was known is that Rasmussen’s encephalitis was a degenerative disease of the brain that caused seizures, hemiparesis, and dementia normally in the first ten years of life. The seizures that were caused by Rasmussen’s encephalitis were unstoppable by normal anti-seizure drugs used conventionally. What the worst part of the disease was that the pathogenesis for it were not known and even worse was how it developed. The first clue was delivered when Rogers and Gahring were trying to register the distribution of the glutamate receptors using antibodies, that tag on to the receptor itself. The proteins that make up the glutamate receptors(GluR) are only found inside the blood brain barrier(BBB). Glutamate and a few related amino acids are the dominant form of excitatory neurotransmitter in the central nervous system of mammals. If one of these GluRs happens to wander into the actual bloodstream, that is outside the BBB, it would be considered an outsider and destroyed immediately. So if these GluRs were put into the normal blood stream then the immune system would produce antibodies which could then be used in the searching for the glutamate receptors. In order to test this theory the researchers injected the GluRs into the blood stream of a normal healthy rabbit hoping to produce good results. At this point the experiment took a dramatic turn, after receiving a few doses of the protein two of the three rabbits began to twitch, as though they were suffering the pain of an epileptic seizure.
Walton, Sir John. Brain's Diseases of the Nervous System. Oxford University Press. New York, 1955, pp. 365.
This lead to the demise of the population when the disease was transported through the heart of an infected man. Once the doctors completed the heart transplant, the man came to life with the generic grey blood and he was much more hostile.... ... middle of paper ... ...
Chamberlin, Stacey L., and Brigham Narins. The Gale Encyclopedia of Neurological Disorders. Detroit: Thomson Gale, 2005. Print.
difficile in fact played the pathogenic role in the disease. Lastly the discovery of the
‘No that’s ok I'm conducting an experiment to see if she eats like a rabbit as well!"
NMDA receptors are vital to learning, memory, and behavior. Located on neurons all over the brain, they receive instructions from neurotransmitters, either exciting a cell, encouraging it to fire an electrical impulse, or inhibiting it. These neuronal conversations are at the root of everything we do.
Neurotransmitters, like glutamate, are messengers that pass signals from one neuron to another, thereby communicating to receiving neurons whether to fire off its own neurotransmitters, or not. If a neuron has a prolonged excitatory period from excessive glutamate, the results can be lethal (ALS Association, 2016). Glutamate, an excitatory neurotransmitter, becomes harmful when neuron’s messages become unusual and overwhelming e.g. in the case of a stroke. Responsibility of concentrating glutamate equally around the neurons falls to molecules called transporters. When it is not properly concentrated and causing an overflow of excitatory responses, glutamate is an issue. Nevertheless, excessive glutamate can be problematic in ALS patients and treatment involves being able to deliver glutamate transporters to ALS affected
An experiment was now required to figure out the agent responsible for the disease. First, scientists did intensive testing on specimen from patients and tissues taken from autopsies. Epidemiologists were able to learn that the cause of the agent was not any known microbial agent, so they hypothesized that the disease was probably caused by some unknown organism that
The body is made up of many different systems. Each contribute to help how the body works.
Neurotransmitters can be thought as the chemical messengers specialized in communication between neurons. These chemical messages are wrapped up in synaptic vesicles that facilitate the travel across one neuron to another. These synaptic vesicles also provide protection when crossing to the synaptic cleft located on the receiving neuron. Once these neurotransmitters reach to the receiving end of the neuron, their synaptic vesicles release the neurotransmitter's inner-molecules into
neurological disorder that is centralized in the brain. It can be caused by fever, infection, and
This disease is named after Dr. Alois Alzheimer, in 1906, who noticed changes in brain tissue of a woman who had died of a usual mental illness. After the woman had died, Dr. Alzheimer examined her brain and found many abnormal clumps (now called amyloid plagues) and tangled bundles of fibers (now called neurofibrillary or Tau, tangles). With his examination he under covered that the patient experienced memory loss, language
Its role is to induce relaxation, sleep and decrease brain activity. When GABA levels are low the neurons become overexcited resulting in unwarranted muscle contraction, creating a sense of agitation and anxiety (Olsen & DeLorey, 1999). Glutamate is the excitatory neurotransmitter, 80% of neurons in the brain release only glutamate (Meldrum, 2000). Its main role is to stimulate brain cells to pay attention and process information. High levels of glutamate receptors have previously been correlated with superior abilities in learning and memory (Riedel, Platt & Micheau,
We all are at risk of invisible threats, they’re everywhere. The goal is to minimize the risk as much as we can by increasing our immunity, naturally. Just the simple things like hand washing which saved millions of infants from mortality, keeping a clean environment and healthy habits which all boost up our natural defences. You don’t need all these toxins and poisons which do more harm than good if any at all.
These harmful substances have proteins called antigens coating their surfaces. As soon as these antigens enter the body, the immune system recognizes that they are not from that person's body and that they are "foreign," and attacks them.