A post about synapses

You can try to identify the structures

"SynapseSchematic lines" by Thomas Splettstoesser (www.scistyle.com) - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons.


Synapses resemble a basic conversation between two individuals and of course, leave room for other people to enter. Person A tells something to Person B and because they speak the same language and the two are healthy individuals, the message is delivered to the receptor who may say the same thing to Person C or something as a result of the previously received information. But for our brains, the two persons are representations of two neurons and the language is

Tears are made of this

I found out one interesting fact about our tears this week. 

There was one patient awaiting consultation in the ophthalmology department and whilst he was doing so, he also had to undergo a quantitative assessment of tear production. In other words, testing to see if his lacrimal glands produced enough lacrimal fluid. The action was taken because he was complaining of dryness in his eyes. The Schirmer method was used and the scores that result from taking the test actually represent the length of a paper strip that was crossed by the lacrimal fluid. Turns out, that was the reason his eyes felt dry- his tear production accounted for a low score.

Yet, that was not exactly the most interesting thing that came out of that consultation (and why I won't insist on that matter for now).                                                                                                  

I learnt that while you can assess the quantity of tears secreted, you can also assess the lacrimal fluid in terms of

Journal Refresh

I read some awesome articles in the past few months that I think are worth mentioning in a post. This is also a good way for me to keep track of pieces of writing that I really enjoyed reading and I thought I might as well share them with you even if they're going to make a small post.

-In no particular order-

• Deng B.,(2015): The robot's dilemma, Nature 523, No.7558, 24-26       

                                           

• Hilton D.,(2015):Practical policies can combat gender inequality, Nature 523, No.7558,  7   

• Scientific American Board of Editors: A last right for dying patients, Scientific American       312 ,No.6, 7    

                                                                                                                                  

• Gould J.,(2015):Genie in a vector, Nature 515, No. 7528 Suppl.,6-7 (the supplement is Nature Outlook Haemophilia)                                                                                                                     

• Stix G.,Lifting the curse of Alzheimer's, Scientific American 312, No.5 , 

These articles are really interesting ranging from artificial intelligence and gender equality in science to research into treatments for haemophilia and hereditary Alzheimer's. If you do read them do tell me which one you liked the most and why.

                                Cristina

About vaccines

We live in a world that is changing as we speak. Apart from the technological breakthroughs that this era is associated with, we must be aware of the other factors in our lives that are also changing. Social life is changing, the way we see things is probably changing as well. In short, everything changes at a given rate. Everything includes medicine and health care- we have seen incredible advances that have saved lives or at least were a sign that we are going to get to that point. Getting people to act and benefit from such things seems, in theory, easy and even unnecessary-who wouldn’t want to benefit? In real life, that question does have long answers that can be viewed from different points –some people don’t want to and others would want but cannot (again, due to a variety of reasons).

When talking about advances in medicine and healthcare of the past century we have to consider vaccines. Whatever views you may have you can’t say that the science and the work behind developing a vaccine are not important. Yet, no medical procedure is in theory unable to lead to

A measurement of time

On an everyday basis we look at the clock(-maybe not the best way to start a post to get you interested but nothing else comes out of my mind at a very late hour),we look at our watches and always ask "What time is it?" as we always find ourselves in between activities.With such rush we hardly ever ask ourselves "what's the deal with time?" or even "what is time?" to be more  exact.And the thing is,it's quite hard to define the term.It's soo familiar to us in soo many ways as it practically dictates our lives yet when we try answering questions about it,most of what we know or we think we do, seems very close to a blur.

It looks like a much easier question to answer is

Look closer

When you see something as a whole it's easy to overlook soo many interesting things and details.

Cells are the perfect unity designed to work in the easiest or most efficient way while displaying complexity.That basic structure that you see in school books is one of an ideal cell that might as well not exist-cells are different,most of them are specialised so that they can only carry out certain roles in an organism and that is reflected in their structure(their membrane,organelles and enzymes and so on) or they are the very start of anything-stem cells-cells that can grow into almost every type of cell(I'm planning on doing a separate post on this so I won't go into details now).

Nowadays,with the help of technology we have been able to see beyond that 'simple'.With the use of stains,fixatives and types of microscopes(just to name a few) the picture of cell has evolved and still has a long way to go.Besides human or animal cells ,in general,now there are pictures of bacteria and viruses that look better than ever before.

Here are a few very interesting pictures I found:

RUB, LS Zellmorphologie und Molekulare Neurobiologie (Department of Cell Morphology and Molecular Neurobiology)

source of image
This image shows the neuron from a mouse's hippocampus surrounded by a special structure of the extracellular matrix.Perineuronal net in blue and various structures of a synapse are shown in red,green and yellow.
The hippocampus is a primitive component of the brain that is very important in short-term and long-term memory.A synapse is the connection between a neuron and another cell(neuronal or not) that allows information in the form of electrical signal to be transmitted.

by Muthugapatti K. Kandasamy from The University of Georgia

source of image

   In this image you can see bovine pulmonary artery endothelial cells*-stained for actin* in pink,mitochondria* in green and DNA* in yellow.

source for image

The endothelial cells line the inside of the circulatory system and actin is a structural protein.Mitochondria are important organelles as they are the site of ATP(adenosine triphospate) production-the energy currency of the cell.DNA-deoxyribonucleic acid-is a molecule that contains the genetic information of a cell and is very important for all aspects of a cell's function.

Wei Li, National Eye Institute, National Institutes of Health

            source of image

You can see here the layers of cells in the retina.The layer at the top(coloured in green) is made of photoreceptors-that actually convert the light into electrical signals that will go to the brain.There are 2 best-known types of photoreceptors in the retina-one of which helps us with coloured vision.A key word here is rhodopsin.Rhodopsin is a molecule that's responsible for starting the process of converting light into electrical signals-it changes shape when light hits.The molecule is embedded in the cell membrane of a photoreceptor-in the image;the very first part of the green layer(if you look at that layer as it might be cut into 2 parts-it's not but just for the sake of understanding).The information is transmitted deeper from neuron to neuron until it reaches the optical nerve->brain.

Heinz Feldmann, Peter Jahrling, Elizabeth Fischer and Anita Mora, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health

                                                                     source of image

The Ebola virus.There are 5 types of this virus,each,after multiplying in a host cell emerges to infect again.Viruses like this ones do not really destroy cells-they 'convert' them into a virus-factory-cell.The virus can infect the lining of blood vessels which would lead to excessive bleeding and eventually death-through decreased blood volume.

Seth Pincus, Elizabeth Fischer and Austin Athman, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health

                                                                  source of image

Here you can see in yellow the HIV virus-the Human Immunodeficiency Virus.This virus attacks cells(especially T cells-a common target-in blue) and takes over the normal machinery so that it can replicate.As the immunity system is affected,people infected become susceptible to a lot of diseases which the body is not able to fight off,The virus causes AIDS and can be detected.

These are just a few interesting examples I found on the Internet,you can check out more about them if you want(I put the link to the source of every photo).It's amazing how everything is so special and different,don't you think?

Cristina

These pictures are not mine and I do not take credit for them.Each has a link directing to the original source.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to every single one of you!!!I hope you have the best of times during this time of the year,whether you celebrate Christmas or not(or any other holiday).

I know I haven't posted on this blog for a while as I haven't had any time to write a good article(a.k.a. one that I'd be happy with).Sooooo,these following weeks(at least 2) I'm going to post more frequently-I hope you'll enjoy reading and maybe even leave a comment if you really liked that particular post/subject.

Happy holidays!!!

Cristina