The Biology Blogger

A lesson to be reminded of is that biology comes hand in hand with behavior.  Biology influences behavior, and behavior also can influence a person’s biology.  This is an important facet in the mental health world.  It is without a doubt that there is a biological perspective on most mental disorders; which is why so many have the impulse to treat such disorders with medication.  At times, breakthroughs in the mental health world have to do with “backwards science;” realizing the biology of a disorder AFTER a drug is administered due to the effects of the drug.  However, there are also breakthroughs in how to treat a mental disorder due to the discovery of a biological nature.  This happened to be the case in which Rainer K. Reinscheid1 and his associates from the University of California Irvine found exciting implementations of Neuropeptide S.

Neuropeptide S (NPS) is a transmitter that has been recently identified in 2002.  Its main function in the brain is to modulate arousal and anxiety.  Therefore, a person’s experience of any sort of stimulus that may cause them to experience a sense of panic or fear is regulated by this neuropeptide.  What the researchers found was the expression of NPS in the amygdala at a high level.  This allowed them to draw the conclusion that NPS plays a role in emotional behavior.

When NPS is given to rats while they are experiencing anxiety-like behavior, it was found that it can have effects that seem to relieve the anxiety.

NPS increases the time mice spend exploring the less protected or brighter areas of their test environments (e.g., open field, light-dark box, elevated plus maze). On the other hand, NPS administration reduces the time mice spend burying unfamiliar objects (i.e., marbles), demonstrating an overall anxiolytic profile for the peptide.

The implications of this research are promising.  Drugs that modulate the function of this neuropeptide can be applicable for a variety of disorders, even insomnia.  Panic attacks and post traumatic stress disorder, in which the brain is actually biologically changed as a result of some stimulus, could be examples of where this treatment can be used.  It is not so much that it is a memory eraser of any fear producing event, but rather a mechanism for regulating your arousal states in those conditions in which you view traumatic.

Sources: PychCentral, Reinscheid et al. (2005)

Barbara is a recent graduate with a BA in Social Work and Psychology.  She runs her own blog called The You Movement.

For so long, it was believed that brain cells and nerves did not ever regenerate.  If you damaged a nerve, that nerve was forever destroyed.  If you had brain damage, whatever cells were damaged were gone for good.  This was definitely a frustrating thing for so long until stem cells came along.  The hope was that by using these stem cells, they could recreate brain cells and thus help cure diseases such as Parkinsons as well as those that had brain damage.

What scientists found was even more exciting recently.  They found a different place where adult stem cells originate in the brain.  What they found was that these dormant cells could, if stimulated and activated, actually begin to make new brain cells.  That’s exciting news because patients who have Parkinsons could get these cells activated and thus get brain cells back that were otherwise lost for good.

The brain is made up of these hollow ventricles.  And, lining these ventricles are cells called ependymal.  Some scientists believe that trying to target these ependymal cells is too difficult, but others believe that each ependymal cell is actually its own stem cell.  These cells lay dormant, but with a little activation, they would start replicating and that is where a person could get new cells.  But, is it really possible?  Scientists are not sure yet, but they are excited.  The only other therapy is implantation.  These are your OWN cells…That could lead to great things.

So…What do you think?  Do you see this working or do you think that scientists are just getting way too excited?

Source.

Epilepsy is a neurological disorder that can be characterized by repeat, unprovoked seizures.  It is a common disorder with over 50,000 people having it at one point or another.  Unfortunately, it can not be cured and therefore, must be treated with a constant use of different medications.  One of those medications is topiramate.  Topiramate is an epilepsy drug that doubles as a migraine medication.  What scientists found, though, disturbed them.

A study was conducted on women who got pregnant while on topiramate both on its own or along with another drug.  What they found was incredibly upsetting.  Out of 178 babies born, 16 of them had severe birth defects.  Three of these babies came from mothers who only took topiramate.  The other thirteen came from mothers who took topiramate and other epilepsy drugs.  Four babies had cleft lips in this study which was eleven times more than what normally would happen.  And four of the boys had genital birth defects.

Researchers, though, understand that they need to do more research to really determine just how horrible the effects of topiramate are on babies.  Furthermore, since topiramate is used for both epilepsy and migraines, the question that pops into their heads is whether there is a difference in birth defects if it is used for migraine purposes rather than for epilepsy purposes.  Regardless, if it is causing these birth defects, researchers need to get more information so it can be taken off the market.

If a drug causes harm such as this, it needs to be removed from the market.  We need to stop letting these pharmaceutical companies put out these harmful drugs just because their bottom lines are important.  If this drug does do harm, it needs to be removed from the market.  But, what do you think?  Looking at the results, do you think that it was some freak accident or do you think that topiramate really is causing this?  Regardless of what you feel, I do think that more research should be done on a larger scale.  Rather than under 200 woman, try one thousand or even more.  If there is a bigger study group, the results will be better.

Source.