Neuron Cake

Neuron cake? What does this even mean? Well, I’ll get to that in just a little bit. As the semester progressed, I was able to revise and improve my hypothesis stated in my first blog, “Asking the Right Questions.”

Since neurons transmit unique information through electrical and chemical signals, and we are constantly creating new synapses throughout our body, what if we track these impulses to find “healthy” patterns between not only the neurons themselves but within the connectum of neurons around a certain organ? What if we mimic the electrical and chemical pattern of a healthy organ in a dysfunctional organ? Will it become functional again?

To explain the new “cake hypothesis” I will use my favorite friend, the triple layered cake. But before I dive straight into the analogy, let me explain a little bit of what the “cake hypothesis” is. I believe that in any given sector of the brain that controls a function, there will be three different layers of neuron patterns: a base layer, an internal stimuli layer, and an external stimuli layer. Just like the triple layered cake, when one of the layers experiences a change, either in flavor or in patterns, then the overall flavor/pattern will be changed. The action of changing the flavor/pattern alters the overall function/ taste of the neuron cake.

In the base layer we should be able to observe a pattern that is universal among all humans. This layer controls the basic functions for whatever system that sector of the brain controls. If this pattern is altered, or simply not there, then we have a system that is inoperable. We may be able to control/regulate this pattern by stimulating the other two layers.

In the internal stimuli layer, we should be able to observe the different neurons firing according to the different bodily functions, such as hormones, pheromones, and bacteria. This pattern is unique to each person as it will alter its pattern according the internal stimuli of that individual. A lack of firing neurons in this layer would simply cause an irregularity in the system.  However, the system would still work to some degree.

Stimuli that occur on the outside will affect the external stimuli layer. These stimuli can be produced by using our senses. Basically anything that happens in the outside world that affects us in some way will alter the external stimuli layer pattern. Just as in the internal stimuli layer, a lack of firing neurons would simply cause an irregularity and not a completely dysfunctional system.

To mimic or reproduce these patterns, we could use two types of electrodes. One type of electrode will record the pattern of neurons firing, and the other will send in electrical pulses to stimulate other neurons into firing in order to reproduce the necessary pattern.

At this point I have only begun to write my proposal paper. A complete proposal paper includes a title page, an abstract, a literature review and summary, a history/preparation on the subject page, an objective page, a project outline, a timetable, a selective research bibliography page. I have only gotten as far as halfway through the literature review. After every sentence comes a in-text citation and hours of researching and synthesising information from books, magazines, and online articles. I hope to have a paper written up and ready to be sent out before the end of summer. Stay tuned!

~Gabryel

Asking the Right Questions

What if…? The question of many of our childhoods. Whenever that wild idea popped into our heads, the question that we asked our parents always started with “what if.” While this particular type of inquiry might have annoyed our parents to no end, it is truly the only way we, as humans, can make advances in our society. After all, we do not possess the ability to blue pencil all possibilities before we experiment through a process of  trial and error. This exact process is followed in all fields; however, the process may be more pronounced in the field of biology than in others, specifically in the area of human anatomy and physiology. Personally, for this project,  I asked, “What if we had new a new type of technology or technique that could improve our breathing?” To answer this I had to start at the beginning of the study of our respiratory system.

The ancient civilizations had myths and spiritual reasoning to explain respiration. They believed that anything having to do with the flow of air, breathing, wind, even birds, had a mystical power that enabled us to live. That is until we started to ask ourselves, “What if?”

Eristratus (300-250 B.C.E) was the first to put a name to respiration and the study of why and how we as humans breathe; he named it pneumatism. More famed people, including Leonardo da Vinci and Lavoisier, started to ask “what if” about the respiratory system, focusing on the physiology of the body as we inhale and exhale.

As to what they discovered, I’ll give you a quick run-down. First the air enters through either our nasal or oral cavities (mouth or nose), continues through the pharynx, then to the larynx, into the trachea, through the bronchioles, and finally to our alveoli. The alveoli is a permeable membrane which diffuses oxygen into capillaries that surround each alveoli. The oxygen diffuses into the hemoglobin in our red blood cells and becomes oxyhemoglobin (oxygenated blood). The oxygen is distributed throughout the rest of the body. The cells use the oxygen during a process, coined by Lavoisier, called metabolism. Carbon dioxide is produced as a byproduct of metabolism. The carbon dioxide diffuses back into the capillaries and heads to the lungs. The carbon dioxide diffuses back into the alveoli releasing certain chemicals that cause exhalation. The process is repeated for as long as we live.

Once the physiology of our respiratory system was understood, we have been able to do marvelous things to aid our respiratory system, ranging from the use of external ventilators to completely cutting out and regrowing our lungs in labs. As I look into how artificial lungs interact with our bodies, as well as how ventilators and mechanical lungs work in concert with our bodies, I continue to ask myself what I consider to be the most important question that we as humans can to advance - “What if…?” And so I leave you with my newly formed question which I plan to expand on in my project proposal paper that I will hopefully send to labs before the end of the school year. (Keep in mind that the question has potential to change as I further increase my understanding of the subject.)

Since neurons transmit unique information through electrical and chemical signals, and we are constantly creating new synapses throughout our body, what if we track these impulses to find “healthy” patterns between not only the neurons themselves but within the connectum of neurons around a certain organ? What if we mimic the electrical and chemical pattern of a healthy organ in a dysfunctional organ? Will it become functional again?

~Gabryel

Why We Don’t Know More About Sleep

The human brain is often called the most complicated thing in the universe. This is blatantly false on many levels. A human contains a brain, and other organs besides. Isn’t a human more complex than a brain? An ecosystem contains a multitude of organisms. Isn’t that more complex than a single human brain? The universe itself consists of everything in existence, so that would make the universe the most complicated thing in the universe, wouldn’t it? I understand that some people only mean that a human brain is incredibly hard to simulate, but the misuse and misunderstanding of that ‘fact’ annoys me.

Regardless, the human brain is incredibly complicated, and anything that has its roots in the brain is likewise difficult to understand. Sleep is a biological process that affects the whole body, and yet the systematic investigation of sleep has been going on for less than a century. There are obviously holes in our understanding of sleep. What many people do not seem to realize is how basic the understanding is in even the more well researched areas. It is fairly well known that sleep affects memory. How it does so is less well known, for a variety of reasons. What is memory? Today, memory is typically divided into categories, which most neurologists assume are taken care of by different sections of the brain. But to try and find the location of any category but the broadest is currently an exercise in frustration. An active human brain is so difficult to examine, even the best tools such as EEGs and imaging can only give rough pictures. Dissections of dead brains, while more thorough, reveal little, because the activity has ceased.

Despite difficulties, the field of sleep has advanced, and continues to advance. Modern imaging devices represent a huge technological leap. The funding for neurological research in general, as well as sleep research in particular, has gone up over the last several decades (although the REM research craze is still unmatched). Sleep is a rapidly expanding field of study. Today, much is still unknown. Next year, much will still be unknown, but a little bit more information will have been uncovered. And that process will continue, until, one day, people will stop asking questions about sleep that they cannot answer.

~Kaleb Johnson-Leung