Fetal Alcohol Syndrome

I think we all know the importance and impact that brain development can have on us and the importance of staying drug free during pregnancy. But exactly how bad is it for an expectant mother, to have a drink or two?

Fetal alcohol syndrome is a condition which children of mothers who drink heavily during pregnancy are born with. Children with this syndrome tend to have the following problems: hyperactivity, impulsiveness, difficulty maintaining attention, varying degrees of mental retardation, motor problems, heart defects, and facial abnormalities.

FAS is a term coined over 30 years ago, despite the efforts to decrease alcohol during pregnancy through public awareness, FAS remains the leading known preventable cause of mental retardation.

How Alcohol Affects the Brain

Alcohol suppresses the release of glutamate, the brain’s main excitatory transmitter, and enhances activity of GABA, the main inhibitory transmitter. Subsequently, many neurons obtain less excitation and neurotrophins than normal, and they undergo apoptosis, which triggers cells to basically auto destroy themselves.

Impact of Alcohol on Physical Abnormalities

FAS children may be identified by their dysmorphic facial features. Know that features are not always present. As you can see in the image below their facial features can include the following: Underdeveloped jaw, thin upper lip, short nose, small eye opening, flat midface, and smooth philtrum.

 

Statistics

*        12.2% of pregnant women (about 1 in 8) reported any alcohol use in the past 30 days. This rate has remained stable over the 15 year period.

*        Pregnant women most likely to report any alcohol use were:

o   35-44 years of age (17.7%), College graduates (14.4%), Employed (13.7%), Unmarried (13.4%

 

 I am writing this blog today in an effort to raise awareness over this topic. In addition to the brief description of FAS I gave you today, the two videos below shows what life is like for a person with FAS, the second video is a a more severe case of FAS, and I wanted to give you guys something to compare. I encourage you all to take a glance at them because they are a great eye opener, and I just hope it will encourage you guys to stand up for such an important cause.

 

Resources:

http://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/FASDFactsheet/FASD.pdf

http://www.niaaa.nih.gov/alcohol-health/fetal-alcohol-exposure

http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/fasd/data.html

 

Ad-dic-tion

So we are back to new topic Thursday! I really wanted to talk about something interesting today so I chose the following topic; Addiction. This topic actually hits close to home since I know, first hand, what it is like to have a relative undergo a drug addiction and I know exactly how hard it can be on the family and how much people around them are hurt by the addiction.

Definitions of Addiction

Ad-dic-tion

Noun. A strong or harmful need to have something or do something.

Synonyms; dependency, habit, problem

Addiction is a primary, chronic disease of brain reward, motivation, memory and related circuitry. Dysfunction in these circuits leads to characteristic biological, social and spiritual manifestations.

 

So what do YOU think when you hear the word addiction? People tend to think about drug and alcohol addiction only, when hearing that word, but addiction actually covers whole lot more than that. Like the first definition states, an addiction can be a strong need to have something, such as a drug, at the same time it can be a strong need to do something such as gambling, or surfing the internet constantly. Oddly enough people who have an addiction usually know that their addiction is harmful yet they are unable to quit it. Some theorists have tried to explain addiction by stating that in a way it’s an attempt to avoid withdrawal symptoms. Which leads us to what is a withdrawal symptom? Withdrawal symptoms are the way our body reacts when a drug which it is used to have, is absent.

As addiction persists people with addictions become more tolerant of the drug they use. In other words they need to consume a larger amount of the drug in order to fulfill or satisfy their need for it. This is what can sometimes lead to overdoses and, and also makes it a whole lot more complicated for people to simply quit drugs.

An interesting fact I'd actually like to share with you is that believe it or not genetic does play a role in the likelihood that an individual will develope an addiction. Obviously this is not the only contributing factor but it is definitely something I didn't know before. These are a couple of other contributing factors:

-The repeated engagement in drug use or other addictive behaviors
-Exposure to trauma or stressors
-Cognitive and affective distortions

Addictions don't just hurt the individual but those around them as well. The clip below shows how drug addictions can negatively affect someone physically.

What can you do to help someone with an addiction? Well below are a couple of links of centers that help people with addiction problems. In my family's case we found that rehabilitation centers can be VERY helpful but at the end it is through family support that you can help a loved one get through such a tough time in life.

http://www.thetreatmentcenter.com/lp/drug-and-alcohol-addiction-info-lp/?mm_campaign=8dce91bb9eaf191799b730525ae912e9&keyword=addiction&search&&utm_source=Google&utm_medium=CPC&utm_campaign=DrugAb=arch&ad_type=e&creative=26176103829&position=1t1&gclid=CPLYzYT3ybwCFRNp7AodnXgAow


If you  want more information over addiction, I personally found this website to be very helpful.
http://www.asam.org/for-the-public/definition-of-addiction

Neurons

And we are back for the week with a complete new topic that I’m hoping will not bore you all. This week’s topic is... Neurons and their function!

So first question, what is a neuron? Well it is actually a cell that receives information and transmits it to other cells throughout our body. What makes neurons super cool is that there are approximately 100 billion of them in our brain! Even though, there’s billions of them and you’d think that they all look the same, guess what!? They don’t! Neurons vary enormously in size, shape and function. I’ll be talking more in depth about these differences later. There is actually two types of neurons; motor and sensory neurons. Motor neurons have their soma in the spinal cord (Which you can see in the first image). They receive excitation and conduct impulses along their axon to other organs which is why they are efferent from the nervous system. We also have the sensory neurons which are afferent to the rest of the nervous system.

Large neurons have dendrites, a soma, an axon, and presynaptic terminals while smaller neurons may lack an axon and well defined dendrites.

Dendrites are branching fibers that receive information from other neurons. The soma which is the cell body contains the nucleus, ribosomes, and mitochondria; this is actually where most of the metabolic work takes place. We then have the axon, which is the information sender to other neurons, organs, and muscles. Humans actually have axons running from our spinal cord to our feet. Something I find to be fascinating is the fact that axons can actually be a meter or even longer!

On the following image you can see the differences between a motor neuron and a sensory  neuron.

Information is sent from neuron to neuron through synapses, which is basically impulses. Interesting enough neurons never physically touch to exchange information. Information is actually exchanged

through a presynaptic terminal. In the following image you can see the events occurring at a synapse. 

As I mentioned earlier there is a variety of shapes of neurons. A lot of the times it is this diversity that determines the function of the cells and their contribution to the nervous system. The following is an image of the different shaped neurons that can be found throughout our bodies. For example the Pukinje cell (which you can see in the image below) can only be found in the cerebellum and are responsible for most of the electrochemical signaling in the cerebellum.