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
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