Method of the Week
9/6/2023: The article I read and analyzed was a very interesting study regarding how coronavirus affects brain tissue in people with MS. One interesting fact about the article was that the experiment was performed in 2001 when an outbreak of the disease hadn't even occurred yet. In this experiment, brain tissue was obtained from 25 different patients who had chronic MS. After being kept at -70 degrees Celcius, RNA was extracted from the tissue to study. Researchers were looking for any diseases that directly affected the myelin, which is one of the main degeneracies for people with MS. After running all tests, about 11 patients had small traces of the coronavirus disease within their mRNA. Although the majority of the tests ran on patients didn't have the same results, it was interesting to see that coronavirus existed as a half-life, non-chronic abnormality in 11 out of the 25 patients.
Work Cited
Dessau, Ram B., et al. “Coronaviruses in Brain Tissue From Patients With Multiple Sclerosis - Acta Neuropathologica.” SpringerLink, Springer-Verlag, June 2001, link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s004010000331.
9/14/23: This week, I took a stab at learning about human imaging in drug addicts. This article highlighted test results from dopamine levels increasing/decreasing and how it affected the brain. This experiment aimed to find the most optimal way of helping addicts get off drugs while also finding the reason why drug users become addicted so quickly. They did this by watching brain scans after memory, vulnerability, control, and rewarding tests. The experiment results found that addiction starts when a drug gives a much stronger sense of reward. This makes the brain change how it works in areas related to reward, motivation, memory, and control. These changes make the drug seem super important, and it becomes hard to stop using it, leading to compulsive drug use. The most impactful test that I read from this study was the reward test. The results from this test indicate that people who are addicted to drugs might not feel as rewarded by happiness, and might also have reduced responsiveness to other drugs, not just the one they're addicted to. Overall, the study was beneficial to understanding what goes through a drug addict's head.
Work Cited
Volkow, Nora D., et al. “The Addicted Human Brain: Insights From Imaging Studies.” The Journal of Clinical Investigation, American Society for Clinical Investigation, 15 May 2003, www.jci.org/articles/view/18533.
9/21/23: Neuroanatomy is a comprehensive study of the nervous system. This week, I found an article that talked about the neuroanatomy of autobiographical memory. For those who don't know, autobiographical memories are systems of complex memories, past experiences, emotions, and much more. These episodes that many people experience can be nostalgic, embarrassing, or traumatizing. In this experiment, they use a fMRI to track how and where a person's autobiographical memory engages in the brain. After much research, they found that these episodic memories predominately come from left-lateralized and medial brain regions. This is a network located in the frontal, temporal, posterior cortices, and the cerebellum.
Work Cited
Svobota, Eva, et al. “The Functional Neuroanatomy of Autobiographical Memory: A Meta-Analysis.” Neuropsychologia, Pergamon, 27 June 2006, www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0028393206002090#preview-section-introduction.
10/19/23: This week I looked into a study on how a lesion location in stroke patients is important to someone's health and susceptibility. In the study I looked at, it was found that patients who have had a stroke and survived had more depression if their lesion was on the left hemisphere of their brain. Even when patients had bilateral lesions, those with left anterior lesions exhibited notably higher levels of depression compared to those with left posterior lesions. Also, when the lesion was closer to the left frontal lobe, this also raised depression scores. I found it very interesting that the exact location of the lesion on the brain in stroke patients made a significant difference in their mental health. Patients who went through this experience and test had no prior depression or anxiety pre-stroke.
Work Cited
Robinson, RG, et al. “Mood Changes in Stroke Patients: Relationship to Lesion Location.” Comprehensive Psychiatry, W.B. Saunders, 6 Apr. 2004, www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0010440X8390024X.
11/2/23: This week I found a study that looked into depression and anxiety in animal behavior, specifically in females. I read in the article that there are 3 main issues in animals when it comes to depression and anxiety, they include gender differences, sex differences, and animal social stress. Anxiety, depression, and stress are often interconnected and are usually a result of a disorder. The studies done relating to this topic on animal behavior like this one are difficult because they would have to be exposed to stressors while being measured on a day-to-day basis. In this study, male and female mice were exposed to a stressor. The goal of this experiment was to create a social stress model for female mice in comparison to males. The people involved studied how the housing environment's social context could act as a potential stress factor. The results from this experiment showed that individually, housed females had lower tendencies for exploration and a higher level of anxiety compared with group-housed females. As for the males, they showed the exact opposite, which proved the point that in mice, females are more prone to depression and anxiety.
Work Cited
Murray, C.J., et al. “Animal Models of Anxiety and Depression: How Are Females Different?” Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, Pergamon, 22 May 2001, www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0149763401000100.
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