Saturday, February 29, 2020

Alzheimer’s disease Essay Example for Free (#3)

Alzheimer’s disease Essay What causes Alzheimer’s disease neurologically? This question came to my mind when I was watching the movie ‘The Notebook’ for the fifth time. Unusual for a guy, I love romantic genre movies and I was wondering why Alzheimer causes short and long term memory loss. I also had an interest on the Alzheimer’s disease after watching the movie ‘Rise of the Planet of the Apes’ where the protagonist tries to fix the neurology nerve system to heal his father’s Alzheimer. What causes Alzheimer’s disease neurologically? I think the core reason of the Alzheimer’s disease lie on the nerve pathway signal transmission. I think the nerve pathway signal transmission system is same as all of the body functional system and as it grows older and older, the functioning of the specific nerve pathway signal transmission for memories weakens and decreases. #4 Making predictions based on this model If the problem of the Alzheimer’s disease is in the nerve pathway signal transmission, then the Alzheimer’s disease is indeed a neurological problem. If we can find out the way to re-ignite the signal or heal the receiving or sending parts of the neurological nerve signal system, then we will be able to delay the process of the disease or even fix it permanently. I do not know the system of the central neurological nerve system of the human nor the treatment of the Alzheimer’s disease. However, to find out numerous people with and without the disease should complete the cause of the Alzheimer’s disease. Run a MRI test on brain of the participants and compare the MRI results with the people with and without the Alzheimer’s disease. If it shows some difference showing the weakening or decreasing of the nerve pathway signal transmission then we can conclude that the neurological nerve pathway signal transmission is the cause of the Alzheimer’s disease. However, we can’t be sure that that is the only causes of the Alzheimer’s disease so we will have to create more experiments. Alzheimer disease is a neurological disease and it is one of the many forms of dementia. The researches says that the Alzheimer’s disease is the most common form of dementia since its percentage is over half of the total dementia cases. My question was ‘what causes the Alzheimer’s disease neurologically?’ so I decided to first go research about the neuroscience of the human body since the Alzheimer’s disease is primarily the degenerating of the signal pathway system in the brain. The human have a special cell called the neurons in the nervous system and these cells communicate with other cells by synapses. This is the most basic difference between a normal cell and a neuron. Synapses signal can be either chemical or electrical and they are just membrane-to-membrane junctions with such molecular machinery that produces rapid transmission of signals. There isn’t just one neuron in human. In fact, there are hundreds of different types with differ ent functions and shapes. So all these information led me to an another question of ‘what kind of neurons are related to the Alzheimer’s disease?’ I found out that Alzheimer’s kills neurons due to the accumulation of proteins in the brain. That is why the Alzheimer’s diseases are called the neurodegenerative diseases. I couldn’t specifically find the exact neurons that are related to the Alzheimer’s disease but I found out that the Alzheimer’s kills these neurons in the brain by proteinaceous plaques. An article by ‘Journal of Neuroscience’ did a research on A-beta, a peptide that surrounds the dying neurons in certain regions of the brain. The research said they weren’t sure if the A-Beta is the protein that kills the neurons. A-Beta becomes toxic when it forms an oligomer. Oligomer means a molecule that consists of a few monomer units. A-Beta oligomers are bad for neurons because it causes the neurons to re-enter the cell cycle. This is bad because once the brain neurons become adult cells, these are not supposed to divide. This is why neuronal cancers are very rare because the neurons cells don’t divide once it reaches adulthood. Then the articles went into deeper matters with mouse models so I stopped my research of A-Beta here. It says that the cause for the Alzheimer’s disease is essentially unknown and all of these researches are part of the hypotheses. There are many hypotheses including the cholinergic and the amyloid hypotheses. But the A-Beta is the most recent hypotheses in the field of  science since the A-Beta theory was updated in 2009. Then, I took my TA’s advice and went to find the biology behind the transmission of nerve impulses. Neurons have a part called the dendrites and this is where the neuron fires a correct impulse to another neuron through the axon. Axon is a long projection that connects nerve cells. Just like a normal cell, the neurons have cell membranes as well. When the neuron is not transmitting impulse, the reason is in its cell membrane. When the neuron cell is polarized, that is when the neuron is inactive. The outside of the cell contains excess sodium ions and the inside of the cell contains excess potassium ions. However, the inside of the cell is negative due to other negatively charged protein and nucleic acid molecules inside the cell. There are Na+/K+ pumps on the membranes and it is permeable! When the neuron gets stimulated, the sodium ions flow in to the cell and the neuron gets depolarized. When the neuron reaches the complete depolarization, impulse is transmitted through the axon and thus makes the cell active. When the impulse fires from a neuron, the other neuron at the end of the axon depolarizes and calcium ions are allowed to enter the cell. Then a chemical called a neurotransmitter is released into the synapse. The neurotransmitter then binds to proteins on the neuron membrane to receive the impulse. The proteins are the receptors of the many different neurotransmitter and the neurotransmitters does have specific receptor proteins. It is logical that when the neurons die from proteins of the Alzheimer’s disease, the synapses and impulse decreases and decreases. Therefore, I began to have questions about the effect and the symptoms of the Alzheimer’s disease due to the death of many neurons. Alzheimer’s disease equals the loss of neurons and synapses in the cerebral cortex. The most common effect and symptom of the Alzheimer’s disease is the loss of memory and mental skills. The chance of getting an Alzheimer’s disease is higher for older populations. The symptoms advance as the time passes. The speed of the progress of the disorder differs from person to person but most of them start with forgetfulness. It is probably the neuron transmission failure. As the brain neuron dies, the mental state of the human weakens and decreases. When the Alzheimer’s disease attacks the frontal lobe of the brain, the person’s mood swing can be dangerously unstable. It is because the frontal lobe controls the feeling and the behavior of a person. The person can also have problems  with washing and cleaning him/herself because another function of the frontal lobe of the brain is to plan things based on what is wrong and what is right. Also 40% of the Alzheimer’s patients have low appetite in food and have significant weight loss because as the neuron dies, the olfactory and taste nerves fails. All of these symptoms are all directly connected to the problems with the brain neurons. So my first starting question of ‘what causes Alzheimer’s disease neurologically?’ was answered. A simple but sophisticated disruption of a tiny neuron cells in the brain causes the Alzheimer’s disease. Then I began to think if there are any treatment researches going on in the field of biology. I found one research that caught my eyes and it was stem cells. Professor Kim of the Chung-Ang University in South Korea successfully restored a mouse’s brain function by transplanting a human nerve stem cell. He was able to transplant a stem cell containing acetylcholine, a neurotransmitter, and the articles said that the mouse restored its brain function to a normal state. Professor Kim’s work is also announced in an international journal called ‘Cell Transplantation.’ #7 Repeat (Modify, extend or reject) ‘What is the specific molecule (possibly a protein) that affects the neuron of the brains so it causes the Alzheimer’s disease neurologically?’ and ‘How will transplanting stem cell containing a neurotransmitter called ‘Acetycholine’ affect the human Alzheimer’s disease?’ These are my two refined questions after my exploration of the Alzheimer’s disease. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nervous_system#Neurons http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alzheimer’s_disease http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/understanding-the-transmission-of-nerve-impulses.html http://scienceblogs.com/purepedantry/2009/02/12/how-does-alzheimers-kill-neuro/ (Authors: N.H. Varvel, K. Bhaskar, A.R. Patil, S.W. Pimplikar, K. Herrup, B.T. Lamb) http://voices.yahoo.com/the-dreadful-effects-alzheimers-disease-116725.html?cat=70 (Publisher: Carl Kolchack, freelance article writer) http://blog.naver.com/vitaminmd?Redirect=Log&logNo=110133967592 (Publisher: Vitamin MD) http://www.medworld.co.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=63612 (Youn Sang Yong Reporter) Alzheimer’s disease. (2016, Jun 14).

Thursday, February 13, 2020

Societal Implications of the USA Patriot Act and How It Limits Daily Essay

Societal Implications of the USA Patriot Act and How It Limits Daily Life - Essay Example It is evidently clear from the discussion that one of the main ways the patriotic act limited people’s daily lives is by making them accept the unreasonable casual violation of their basic rights. For instance, the act made Americans accept without question that security agencies can subject them to unreasonable searches and seizures when they are traveling. The patriotic act limits the rights of Americans by increasing the capabilities of government to carry out surveillance in four areas. The act gives the government the power to conduct record searches. It does this by expanding the ability of the government to examine records indicating a person’s activity that are in third-party possession. The Patriotic act also authorizes secret searches that enable the government to search private property without issuing a notice. The Patriotic act also authorizes the government to conduct intelligence searches by extending an exception to the fourth amendment that was made to enable the government to gather foreign intelligence. The act also allows the government to engage in trap and trace searches by enabling the government to track the source and targets of communications and the content. The provisions of the patriotic act limit daily life by violating individual privacy. The act gives the government unchecked power to examine a person’s internet usage, medical history, library usage, and any other activity that leaves a record of some kind. This not only violates individual right to privacy protected in the fourth amend but may make people refrain from certain activities for fear of being watched by the government.

Saturday, February 1, 2020

Benefits of TV media Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Benefits of TV media - Essay Example Learning about different cultures is very important in the present age because today we live in a multicultural society. We have to frequently interact with people from different parts of the world both in the workplace and otherwise. TV helps a lot in promoting our relations with people from other cultures by making us aware of their norms, values and traditions. In the present age, when all of us are extremely busy and do not often get much time to spend with our family members, shared viewing of TV programs provides us with one big opportunity to be together. This strengthens the bond between family members and inculcates a sense of unity in the family members. TV programs promote learning by enabling children to see what they read about in their books. Without a visual image of the subject in mind, children are not able to develop the concepts as objectively as they do when they know what the subjects of discussion in the book look like. For example, Harry Potter series has been included in the English literature curriculum in a lot of elementary schools worldwide. Children are better able to learn the story when they can relate the incidents to individual characters they see in the Harry Potter movies. What authors take pages to explain is conveyed to the audience in one image. There is a lot of difference between imagining what quidditch looks like and actually view it being played in the movie. A vast majority of TV shows and dramas revolve around a central message that is of huge moral significance. Many people do not follow the advice of their elders because they do not realize how important it is, but when they see how their actions and words can impact others’ as well as their own lives, they tend to learn the lesson for good. TV shows and dramas not only create awareness, but also provide people with useful advice that benefits them in practical life when they act upon it. There has recently been a lot of debate about whether or not to offer sex education in public schools. This and several other topics like sex education are very controversial and are often not discussed with children. The resulting lack of awareness has its own consequences. TV programs are playing a fundamental role in doing their bit to make people aware of the sensitivity of these issues. Many people would not have been of the view to have their children provided with sex education in school had they not seen TV programs to convince them for the same. In addition to this, TV programs themselves are a very strong means of education for people regarding all sorts of controversial topics. In the contemporary age, people have a greater understanding of local and international political issues. The fundamental reason behind this is the TV news and talk shows. These days, one can see talk shows on a daily basis on the TV. Everyday, these talk shows are prepared for totally new and innovative topics. Most of the times, they discuss most recent issues of n ational or international political significance. Thus, people are able to not only know what is happening in their country and across the globe, but also they can critically analyze these events and happenings by listening to the commentary and criticism of the anchors and experts. Concluding, TV is an extremely important source of education, entertainment and rapport building in the present age. Modern age is characterized by increased awareness and TV happens to be the fundamental promoter of the same. Parents can draw optimum