If you’ve ever been to a big concert with a well-known popular celebrity inside a stadium, you know that you can’t get in without a ticket. You can get all dressed up, drive on over, walk up to the doors, and the bouncer will ask for your ticket. If your reply is, “ I don’t have one”, you better believe you’re not getting in there at all. Our brain has a similar mechanism to this, known as the blood brain barrier. It will prevent things such as viral infections from passing from the blood into the vertebrae brain. The brain builds up this “slightly” impenetrable wall to viruses, because neurons (cells of the brain) cannot be replaced as other cells are in the body. I say slightly, because in the instances that viruses may enter the cells of the brain (neurons) it will start a war. The brain will attempt to repair the issues without damaging the cell any further.
Like I’ve
been emphasizing, the brain is very picky in what it lets cross its barrier. I
compare it to when I was younger and some girl in class would throw a birthday
party and only if you were cool enough did you get an invitation. Well, the
brain hands out very little invitations. As helpful as the blood brain barrier
is, it keeps out many useful nutrients from entering. And if nutrients can’t enter,
well neither can certain medications! This can be a real risk for people who
have brain diseases. Individuals with brain cancer consistently run the risk of
never bouncing back because of this barrier.
With
science and technology advancing more and more each day; we can only look
forward to the day that a mechanism can be discovered to overcome the barrier
and get the essentials in. There are
some novel strategies such as Nanobiotechnology, in which researches are
looking to insert these nano particles into the blood in an attempt for passage
across the barrier. In addition to that method, there are researchers that are
working on converting RNA into a new form-siRNA, in order to sneak it past the
blood brain barrier and allow for therapeutic effects to take place. In the
following video an Irish biologist explains the method and its possible
benefits.
The new and innovative techniques
across the science world continue to amaze me all the time. If we can discover
a way to get past that security guard of the brain, we can heal billions of
people! I guess we better get to work!
That video reminds me of a video post I had on my very first blog post! The idea of infusing nanotechnology within the brain system to control for chemical brain passages is the same idea that Ray Kurzweil is supposing to happen in less than 30 years. He called this merging of human and artificial intelligence coexistence as the "singularity". However, your video was enlightening! Manipulating natural body processes, as Dr. Campbell was attempting to do with the BBB, is very wild. It just shows we know no limits. We just keep breaking barriers towards advancement!
ReplyDeleteI really en joyed the imagery from the first paragraph! As a musician, any reference you make to music automatically has the odds stacked forever in your favor. Puns are also a good thing. Everyone needs a laugh. The more positive we are about furthering our techniques in our fields, the easier it will be to reach our goals. I enjoyed this blog!
ReplyDelete