Stroke is brain disease where in the there is no oxygen supply to some part of brain, and affects the brain which could be temporary or even get permanent. There are warning signs which actually are clues which the body sends for showing that brain is not able to get sufficient oxygen or nutrients. When the brain doesn’t get enough of the nutrients and oxygen then it may cause up permanents damage.

Knowing the warning signs is very helpful indeed, as you will know when to call for the emergency number right away. Early signs are to be considered as emergency and that also means you need to call for medical attentions.

Early warning signs are:

Severe Headache: When suddenly without any known cause person experiences headache, then it becomes a concern. Headaches happen in our daily life, that is normal but they do have cause, here the cause is unknown and its sudden. And if they have history of hypertension or person has already suffered from stroke then it is thing to wary.

Trouble in vision: There is problem in vision that is in seeing in any of the one eye or both. Vision could get blur or there may be case of double vision or even there could be blindness. This are the indications that optic nerve of the brain is getting affected and there are chances of inflammation, or their being clot, or their might be bleeding in that area of brain.

Brain’s signals of it not getting sufficient oxygen are:

• Drowsiness
• Dizziness
• Vomiting
• Lightheadedness
• Sudden confusion
• Problems in understanding speech and also in talking, this indicates that area of brain which facilitates languages is getting affected.
• Feeling numbness and even weakness in one’s face, arm, leg, or in hand, which is particular to only one side of body that is left or right indicating problem in area of brain responsible for body’s motion.
• Seizures- This are rare happenings but have happened in some cases.

These are early warning signs, and if these symptoms go early then too its important to give attention and call for medical attention. When the above mention symptoms stay for few minutes then this is known as the mini stroke or as medically known as the Transient Ischemic Attack (TIA). In typical case of stroke, symptoms are known to last for minimum of twenty four hours while in case of TIA it improves in thirty minutes. TIA also happens when the part of the brain is not getting sufficient nutrients and oxygen.

All stroke like symptoms are signals for emergency. Quick evaluation is needed in first hour and in order to find cause of stroke and thereafter decide on right therapy.  TIA doesn’t go without the medical assistance. TIA is also indicator of risk to stroke. Medically TIA is viewed as warning sign for risk of serious debilitating stroke. Knowing the risk factors helps in prevention of strokes in future.

In the study conducted, mice were made to have high fat diet, that is bred to make them obese, and researchers thereafter found that this affected early and causing lasting injury to a specific part of Hypothalamus.

Obesity appears to be strongly linked to structural changes in the brains of rats and humans, according to new research. Then researchers used the technique of brain imaging on the humans who were obese and they found that there were signs of similar kind of damage in brain’s same area of obese humans, as seen the mice.

The study which was conducted by Dr. Michael W. Schwartz who is a professor of the medicine in University f Washington, has given a statement explaining about the link between the obesity and the structural changes in the brain “Obese individuals are biologically defending their elevated body weight”. Adding further he explained that how the obesity results in changes in the neurocircuits of the brain which controls the energy balance. He said that “To explain a biologically elevated body weight ‘set-point,’ investigators in the field have speculated about the existence of fundamental changes to brain neurocircuits that control energy balance.” Further adding about the findings about the study he added that “Our findings are the first to offer direct evidence of such a structural change, and they include evidence in humans, as well as in mice and rats.”

Though in this study and research there was no proving in cause and effect of the hypothalamic neuron injuries and defense of the elevated body’s weight. Thereafter the Dr. Michael W. Schwartz explaining further about this study and its future prospects he said that “That comes next, But this amounts to solid evidence of a change affecting the key hypothalamic area for body weight control with the potential to explain the problem.” The research though is definitely pin pointing about obesity is though related to changes in brain, be it in the Hypothalamus area. Body’s weight increase is known to have link with the changes in the brain. Investigations has been done on mice and rodents but with using of other advance technologies like brain imaging the study can be applied to humans as well.

The whole research and the study conducted will be published as paper titled as “Obesity Is Associated with Hypothalamic Injury in Rodents and Humans,” in the January 3rd issue of the Journal of the Investigation.

A new study has suggested, that people whose diet is high on trans fats that is the artery damaging fats are more likely to have the brain shrinkage which is associated with the Alzheimer’s disease. The study has also shown that people whose diet is rich in Vitamin C, Vitamin B complex and the Vitamin D, appears to have large brains then people who are low in these nutrients in their diet.

The Omega 3 fatty acid are very beneficial, they seem to benefit small blood vessels of brain, and affects the thinking ability related to those vessels. One of the leading investigator Dr Gene Bowman has suggested this.

People with diets high in trans fats are more likely to experience the kind of brain shrinkage associated with Alzheimer’s disease than people who consume less of the artery-damaging fats, the new study suggests.

Those with diets high in vitamins C and E, the B vitamins and vitamin D, meanwhile, appear to have larger brains than people with diets low in these nutrients.

And diets high in omega 3 fatty acids seemed to benefit the small blood vessels of the brain — “and the thinking abilities related to those vessels,” said lead investigator Dr. Gene Bowman.

In the research people had to fill out questionnaires which asked about the food and its quantity and frequency they ate. Also age as that affects the body as how it absorbs nutrients. Researchers check blood samples for the marked thirty different nutrients. Thereafter raft neuropsychological tests were done along with MRI scans of the subjects brain as well. Team was doing research on three things that is the total brain’s volume, cognitive functions and white matter change thought, that is the sign of small vessel disease of brain.

Small Vessel disease which is called as the cerebral small vessel disease, in this there is accumulation of the plaque deposits in small blood vessel in brain which can lead to stroke.

Bowman is a naturopathic doctor, who is in department of the neurology center at Oregon Health and Science University which is in Portland. As in words of Bowman he said “We know in Alzheimer’s disease that total brain atrophy (or shrinkage) is accelerated compared to people of the same age and same gender that don’t have Alzheimer’s disease,”.

The key findings has suggested that Vitamin B, Vitamin C and Vitamin D are associated with great brain volume. And people who had high level of trans fats have less brain volume. This also affects the memory, language, processing speed, attention and many other skills.

The trans fats can exist naturally in some food products are all right but trans fats in the study were hidden in potato chips, fried food, cakes, or processed foods. The trans fats are known to affect heart conditions and increase cholesterol and makes person risk for cardiac arrest. This study was done to study the relation of trans fats and brain. Bowman said . “I think our study is one of the first to look at blood levels of trans fats related to brain health. And when that occurs it changes the structure and chemical properties of the cell in an unfavorable way, “Trans fats are known to be bad for cardiovascular health, It makes sense that they’re probably bad for the brain, too.”

Thus fast food is bad not only for heart but also for brain.

When we observe something like a new event, then our brain encodes memory by altering connections existing between the neurons. This need turns on many gene in the regarding neurons.

In the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), neuroscientists have been able to identify a gene, which is known as the Npas4, that is active in brain’s hippocampus- that brain structure which is critical in forming of the long term memories.

This research, which has been described in journal science, could be the breakthrough which will help in indicating and identifying the location of memories in brain. Also it may also open up new possibilities and ways through which altering and may be creating memory could also be done.

Kartik Ramamoorthi has given a statement regarding the study that “We think of Npas4 as the initial trigger that comes on, and then in turn, in the right spot in the brain, it activates all these other downstream targets.” He is graduated from the MIT institute.  Further adding he said “Eventually they are going to modify synapses in a way that`s likely changing synaptic inhibition or some other process that we are trying to figure out.”

Research has been conducted on mice, in which the research found Npas4 is responsible for turning on series of different genes, which modifies brain’s internal neurons that by adjusting in strength of the synapses, that is the connections between the neurons.

McGovern Institute for Brain Research is where the study was conducted in MIT. One of the member Yingxi Lin said “This is a gene that can connect from experience to the eventual changing of the circuit,”.

In the research conducted, mice were given mild shock when mice enters specific chamber. And thereafter in some minutes mice learned to fear chamber and when they entered next time mice entered they then freeze. Thus it was founded that Npas4 was turned on early during the condition. As explained by another researcher Lin said . “This sets Npas4 apart from many other activity-regulated genes. A lot of them are ubiquitously induced by all these different kinds of stimulations; they are not really learning-specific,”

Only some of the genes have been identified which are under the regulation of the Npas4, but the researchers believe that hundreds more also could be. The experiment conducted showed Npas4 binding it to activation sites of the specific genes and directing the enzymes which are called as the to RNA polymerase II to start to copy them.

Npas4 gene when was knocked out, researchers found that mice cannot remember that fearful conditions. Also this kind of effect was also been seen when the Npas4 gene was knocked out in CA3 region of the hippocampus. Though also knocking out the gene in another parts of brain didn’t had any effect. In study the focus was on contextual fear conditioning, researchers do believe Npas4 would also be critical in other forms of learning. Ramamoorthi said “We`re hunting for the memory, and we think we can use Npas4 to mark where it is, That`s because it`s turned on specifically and now we can label the cells and maybe fish out where in the brain the memory is sitting.”

The brain is like jelly, mass which is made up of fats and proteins, weighs approx. of three pounds or some 1.4 kilograms. Brain is one of the body’s bigger organs which is consist some hundred billion nerve cells which basically coordinates our physical actions, gives us thoughts, regulates our unconscious processes like the breathing, digestion etc.

The cells which makes the brain and its nerves is made from the cell which are called as neuron. It makes brain’s gray matter, neurons which is plural of neuron these gathers and transmits the electrochemical signals via the network formed of the nerves through dendrites and axons which are part of neuron. Dendrites and axons are known as the white matters.

Brain’s largest part is the cerebrum whose weight is eighty five percent of the brain’s weight. The outer surface of the brain is cerebral cortex which is deeply wrinkled consists of the gray matter. Beneath the gray matter cerebral cortex lays the white matter. Animals have brains but what makes human stands out in them is the cerebrum. Animals like the dolphins, elephants, whales they have larger brains then humans but humans are formidable, making humans human is humans have well developed cerebrum. Cerebrum is such, packed as the capacity inside the human skull, enveloping rest of brain, with deep fold that maximizes brain’s cortex area.

The brain is divided into two halves, cerebrum is rather divided into two hemispheres and into four lobes. The two hemisphere is the left hemisphere and right hemisphere, and into four regions which are known as the frontal lobe, the Parietal lobe, occipital love and temporal lobe. All these lobes have their associations with the brain’s fucntions:

Frontal Lobes: This is located behind the forehead; its involvement is in thought, speech, movement, emotion, learning etc.

Parietal lobes: located behind the frontal lobes, function is to process sensory information: touch, smell, pain, temperature

Occipital lobes: located at the rare of the brain, its primary and main function is vision

Temporal lobes: located near the temples its many functions are related to hearing and the memory

Brain second largest part is cerebellum, its located back of the cerebrum. Main function is to do coordination of muscles movement and controls our balance. Also it transmits information between brain and the spinal cord.

There is diencephalon which is located at core of brain, its size of an apricot and has two major sections which are called as thalamus and hypothalamus. Thalamus is the center of brain through which the incoming nerve impulses from the body is transferred to appropriate part of the brain for processing it. Hypothalamus is structure whose main function is control the hormone secretion in the body along with the pituitary gland which is next to hypothalamus and is also known as the master gland. Hormones govern body’s growth, instinctual behavior. There is brain stem which controls once reflexes ad crucial functions like breathing, heart rate, blood pressure, regulates the sleep.

Brain is the most important, sensitive and delicate which requires the maximum protection, and that’s provided by the skull along with three membranes which are called as the meninges. There is space between the membranes which is filled with fluids that helps as cushion and keeps safe from the damage.

• Infection
• Trauma
• Seizures
• Auto immune conditions
• Vascular conditions
• Stroke
• Tumors

Sharing with you a brief overview about some of the diseases which can affect the brains under these categories:

Brain Diseases: Infections

Meningitis: In this disease there is inflammation which happens to the lining of the brain, or spinal cord and it’s caused by infection. Headache, neck pain and confusion are the common symptoms in this.

Encephalitis: Swelling in the brain’s tissue because of some infection. Encephalitis and the Meningitis can occur together also which is known as the meningoencephalitis.

Brain abscess: An area in the brain gets infected and it is because of the bacteria. For treating the pocket of the infection surgical drainage is done in the area and also antibiotics are given.

Brain Diseases: Seizures

The brain disease in this category of seizures is epilepsy. Epilepsy causes are yet unknown though it’s believed that strokes and head injuries also can cause the epilepsy.

Brain Diseases: Trauma

Concussion: Because of some brain injury there are chances of the concussion that is there is sought of temporary disturbance in the functioning of the brain at times leading to confusion. It also happens when there person gets unconscious. A concussion also happens in the case of traumatic injury to head.

Traumatic brain injury: In this there is brain damage which is permanent that is not like concussion which is temporary. This damage results in mental impairment and leads into change in personality and mood.

Intracerebral hemorrhage: In this there is bleeding inside the brain, which can be due to traumatic injury to head also it happens to people who have high blood pressure condition.

Brain Diseases: Tumors

Under this category of the brains diseases it includes the infections caused due to increased pressure and masses.

Brain tumor: Any anomalous tissues growing inside one’s brain. This could be brain cancer or just plain tumor, depends whether the tumor is malignant which is cancer or it could be benign. The tumor causes pressure on normal brain.

Glioblastoma: This is malignant tumor which is aggressive, as it rapidly progresses and tends to be difficult to cure.

Hydrocephalus: There is a fluid inside the brain that is called cerebrospinal. When there is abnormal increase of this fluid inside skull it causes the Hydrocephalus. This is because the circulation of fluid is not proper.

Normal pressure hydrocephalus: This is a different type of the hydrocephalus which causes problems to person in walking also happens with dementia and causes urinary incontinence. The pressure in brain is normal even though there is increase of the cerebrospinal fluid inside the skull.

Pseudotumor cerebri: In this brain disease increase in pressure in the skull area without any cause which affects the vision causing headache, nausea and dizziness, are its common symptoms.

This study has been researched in the RIKEN Brains Science Institute (BSI) which has provided for valuable insights regarding brains function of focusing and how these focus can be disrupted and suggestions about the new ways of representing the information is such a manner which can augment the capacities of brain for focusing.

Focusing of the attention by the brain is the natural ability which is because of the two distinct processes that is the Sensitivity enhancement and the efficient selection.

Sensitivity enhancement works with neurons of the cortex in representing the sensory stimulations and information like light, sound etc. basically it is a reception of the stimuli through our sensory system of ears, nose, eyes, skin and tongue.

Efficient Selection does the work of filtering. Its basic process where in it routers the important information from sensory organs stimuli to the perceptual areas of, along with doing the process of supressing the disruptions from the irrelevant information,

In the research done by Justin Gardner and his colleagues, they set to put these processes to the hypotheses to test and as to determine which of the following two distinct processes plays role which is dominant in the perception.

The research and experiments were conducted in which the subjects were exposed to pay attention to single visual stimulation or to the multiple attention seeking stimuli. For measurement of the brains activity they used the functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). For evaluating the results, the computational models were used, observing and recording data as how the brain signals should be changing based on in what way human subjects were able to focus their attention.

In the experiment it was noted that in computational model which best captured brain’s activity in subjects was that one where the sensory stimuli were proficiently selected.

The model was able to predict which stimuli disrupts the ability of brain to focus such as the signals which could evoke high neural activity are passed to the perceptual area of brain for example stimuli high in contrast evoking large sensory response like loud noise, flash lights, these can disrupt the ability to focus.

The results hinted thus ways of representing information in such a manner that can enhance the neural activity thus helping our brain to do focus and also promise applications for the development of the critical information displays technologies. This has shed light on the origin of the perceptions. The findings of the study is also offering the insight in the causes of the many common disorders which are related to attention like the Attention deficit hyper disorder (ADHD).

The causes

Specialists say that the people who rely too much are the people who consume more than two doses per week. Such people who take pain killers at even the slightest headaches need to reduce their doses. These people don’t realize that the main cause of their headache is the over consumption of such drugs. If the drugs start giving rebound headaches, then no other drug out there will be successful to cure this migraine. It is best advised to reduce eating such medicines.

Treatment

The only way to get rid of any rebound headaches is to quit the consumption of these pain allaying medicines. But there are several scenarios where in you don’t see any improvement for about two months.

Butabital is an abused form of the barbiturate forms. Alterations or moods seen both mentally and behaviorally are seen in the people who are addicted to barbiturate. Butalbital is often used to relieve stress but using it extensively can make some one psychically dependant on it and hence he might get withdrawal headache which is also known as butalbital headache when its use is halted.

If you have used butalbital for a long time and if you stop using it suddenly, then it might lead to life menacing seizure attacks and things might get delirious. Phenobarbital loading can be administered orally and it is prescribed as effectual and simple means to manage butalbital headache. Treatment mostly comprises of re intoxication by administering small barbiturate doses. Mostly it starts with Phenobarbital and then the dose is lowered with concluding therapy phase which surpasses the tolerable limits of the patients.

Phenobarbital level employed in this approach can be employed as a scientific and able marker of the extent of the patient’s dependence on butalbital. At the concluding phase, there are no more doses given for avoiding reoccurrence of butalbital headache. This method is safe and efficient to treat headache.

The preventative strategies –

To prevent headache because of over use of medication, the pain allaying medications should be used less than twice a week. Apart from that, it is important that you stay hydrated and get a lot of rest. You can learn proper ways to manage time and stress; they are necessary for thwarting headaches.

In simple terms, this condition can be described as affective disorder which can lead a person to manic and deep depression on one hand and elation on other. This definition might mislead you because it isn’t a simple condition. It affects other aspects of ones like too like perceptions, thoughts, and feelings.

Mitochondria and bipolar disorder

You might have heard about mitochondria in your biology class. Studies say that these organelles are the ones which cause bipolar disorder. Mitochondria are organ like components which make up the human body cells. They help to provide energy to your cells during conversion process of glucose to energy. They are of different sizes, numbers, and shapes and are found in nearly all cytoplasm of cells which occur in plants, fungi, and animals. They are also seen sometimes in the unicellular organisms. Apart from their role of providing energy, mitochondria also have other responsibilities like steroid synthesis, cellular reproduction, and heat production to name some. These tiny structures are quite vital to the functioning of human body.

In the year 2004, there was a story published which was the first one to say that there was a link between bipolar disorder and mitochondria. The research said that there might be something which goes wrong during the entire process of energy conversion and this causes bipolar disorder. The study also says that genes that are involved during the proteins production which make up for the energy transfer are know to be down regulated in people who suffer from bipolar disorder.

One of leading researchers in the entire ordeal called Dr. Christine had published the report and said that there was a notable reduction in genes and this indicated the fact that there weren’t enough for mitochondria or ‘power plants’ in the individuals that were suffering from this disorder. Also, it could be possible that there were power plants but they weren’t functioning effectively.

Another study seen in journal Molecular Psychiatry said that there was a link between bipolar disorder and mitochondria. Team that was working on this study had engineered mice genetically and made them as carriers of the dysfunctioning mitochondria. Results said that the mice having dysfunctioning mitochondria displayed behavior that was similar to people who were suffering from bipolar disorder.

Brain’s anatomy – the divisions of brain

Forebrain : This part of the brain is responsible for the following functions –

• Reception and processing of sensory information
• Perception, thinking, and production and also understanding the language
• Controlling the motor skills and the functions

Forebrain can also be divided further into telencephalon and diencephalon. The latter is subdivided in to thalamus and hypothalamus. They are responsible for the motor skills functioning, to the relay sensory information, and for controlling of other automatic functions. On the other hand telencephalon houses the biggest and most important part of the brain – cerebral cortex. This is where all the processing of the brain takes place.

Midbrain : This part along with hindbrain makes up from brainstream. Midbrain is the portion of brain stem which connects the hind brain to the fore brain just like a bridge. This brain part is involved in the different visual and auditory responses. It is responsible for motor function.

Brain stem contains parts of hindbrain and midbrain. As its name suggests, brain stem looks just like the branch stem. The stem’s upper part is connected to forebrain. Brain stem sends and receives all kinds of information. Data from the different parts of the body is sent here and from here it gets directed to forebrain.

Hindbrain : This is the part of the brain which goes out and extends to the spinal cord. It is made of metencephalon and myelencephalon. The former contains structures which contains pons and cerebellum. These are regions which play a role maintaining balance and equilibrium, movement co-ordination, and even the conduction of the different types of sensory information. On the other hand, the latter is made up of medulla oblongata and it is responsible for the automatic functions of the body like digestion, breathing, and heart beats.