The case of disease

Diseases scare us, the moment we think about them, we think death. We are afraid of death, yet it is inevitable. However, the way you die might be totally unexpected.

Cadavers provide an interesting model for understanding the body. An interesting phenomenon is that the cadavers tend to have other pathologies or problems going on with them that weren't the cause of their death. A hypothetical example (for the sake of confidentiality) is, the cause of death was throat cancer, however, when looking at the cadaver; there were other illnesses such as liver damage.

It is interesting to see what other things are wrong with the body; very very interesting!

Inspiration from Nature

Today, I had a lecture regarding the Basal Ganglia (BG). It is a structure in the brain that chooses where to move the limbs (ex. to get the water or to finish H/W). As a result of this system, vertebrates show complex behaviour. The interesting thing is that, the micro-architecture of the BG is identical; however, the BG is separated into different units that perform specific function (ex. hunger, threat response etc.).

This aspect of Nature, where complex functions occur as a result of simple repeating structures is conserved throughout the body. It is seen in cell movement with microtubule assembly and spinal cord development where it involves a small number of transcription factors.

The same approach should be used when manufacturing items/units. We should try to uncover the most simplest and generic structure that can be used across the boards.

Simplicity is the key!

artherosclerosis

Atherosclerosis is the build up of fatty substances on the inner blood vessel lining. This later causes the blood vessel to become clogged up and the fat can detach and block smaller vessels.

Problem:
Smaller blood vessel, especially the coronary arteries, when blocked have large consequences on the BP and transport of oxygen to tissues. A possible solution could be to put a nano-tracer, that circulates the blood vessels and maps out the diameter of the vessels. Any abnormal diameters or changes in it, will be detected and lead to a better diagnosis of heart attack.

The related problem is to develop a nano-tracer, that will do such a thing!

Rheumatoid arthritis

Rheumatoid arthritis is an auto-immune disease, where the body views and attacks the cartilage as a pathogen. It is really harmful and there are no distinct causes, however, there are genetic correlations. There is no solution to treating this disease. The patient will be given drugs that reduce the increase of immune cells in joints.

A possible solution could be to cover the MHC (a protein identifies a cell of an individual) with other accepted MHC. this would reduce the target of the immune cells and at the same time drugs should be given to reduce the effect.

water

This is a short one, but very far fetched (at least I think so)

Will it be possible to obtain water from air...this would solve lots of problem (obviously)...

identifying the citizens of a cell

Is there a way of identifying all the proteins active in a cell and how they interact with one another?

What is the perfect method of understanding intracellular protein-to-protein interaction? The best method so far lies in knock-outs/in experimentation, where mutation is induced. However, this method takes a longer time and even though the exact mechanism of interactions unknown.

What we need is a way of taking one cell and identifying the proteins involved, then tagging the proteins and observing how they interact with one another. The important question is HOW can this  be done??

Parkinson's disease

The limitation in Parkinson's disease is a problem with the dopaminergic neurons in the the substantia nigra.

Now a days, there is a process of implanting specific ion channels that open/close up when a specific wave length is shined onto them. This would be useful in increasing the dopamine secretion on the brain. however, these studies have not been experimented on humans.

Eyeborg

A person who was born with a greyscale sight, can hear color! Well, this was all linked to the eyepiece, that is now recognized as part of his body, where it has a specific sound for each color.

Since each color had a specific sound, each sound he heard was linked to a specific color. This is an interesting phenomenon. Maybe it can be translated to people who have hearing disorders. where the sound detected by the equipment directly activates the auditory area in the brain or translates into color.

This is an interesting phenomenon and has the potential to be applied to any field.

Nerve regeneration

News of spinal nerve regeneration was splashed across the news.

It was a breakthrough, especially when the patient could achieve some of the lower limb movement. However, as our lecturer stated, the problem is: can it be replicable?

If it can be replicable, will it be possible to use it on Alzheimer's or Parkinson's patients?

Or maybe the same phenomenon can be achieved in regenerating the heart. transplant a myocyte...? Apparently, they have a variety of procedures to induce heart regeneration including sending growth factors etc. in nano particle capsules that either induces differentiation into muscle cells or stops the toxic effect of fibroblasts.

Reference

Hastings et al. 2014 Aug 27. Drug and cell delivery for cardiac regeneration. Adv Drug Deliv Rev. 

Sleeping and memory

I came across a very interesting paper talking about the link between sleep and memory consolidation.

Sleep increases the retrieval of learnt information, especially information learnt before sleeping. Apparently, memory consolidation during sleep is common phenomenon among the animal kingdom. bees can remember their way to the hive better after they slept. The same is observed in birds and rats etc.

Any aspect that is conserved between species indicates that the aspect is successful.

During sleep the pathways that extend from the hippocampus and to the neocortex becomes active and memory becomes consolidated. this can be picked up from an electroencephalogram [ECG] as short wave sleep [non-REM]. There must be a specific pathway, that switches on specific genes that increases consolidation during sleep.


How can we switch on this pathway? We first need to know the specific proteins expressed and how changes in these leads to better consolidation?

Reference:

Vorster AP and Born J. 2014 Oct 7. Sleep and memory in mammals, birds and invertebrates. Neurosci Biobehav Rev.

How does memory work

There are 2 main theories on how we remember: those that fire together, wire together and bell theory.

Lets take a scenario. You see a mango, just by looking at that mango, another picture comes in your head, and you see your classmate on a mango branch extending her hand to reach for a ripe green mango. Along with this picture comes the feeling of excitement and giddiness, yes, she can almost reach it! yes! and she got it!!! The interesting thing is how can just one mango link to the picture that you saw in your head. There is a huge difference between the 2 scenes, both temporally and spatially.

the code would most likely be:
mango here, mango in Tanzania, mango from tree, [link?], my friend taking the mango from the tree, she got the mango, i am excited she got the mango.

Whatever the case, there is a similarity between one point and the next. It seems like there is a flow chart of memories.

I come to the conclusion that remembering something depends on a trigger, that will cause the memory to resurface. However, how is it that the nerves are organised that will bring about a complex phenomenon as remembering? Maybe, the wiring of memory is just a simple command that just happens to produce a complex behaviour? if so, what is the simple command??? How can it be beneficial to increase our memory?