Blood-brain barrier

Drugs are chemicals that affect the brain by tapping into its communication system and interfering with the way neurons normally send, receive, and process information. Some drugs, such as marijuana and heroin, can activate neurons because their chemical structure mimics that of a natural neurotransmitter. Drugs that enter the blood stream have faster and definitely more intense effects. The more directly the drug enters the bloodstream determines how fast and intense the drug will take effect.…

adjunctive therapy. Much like Huntington’s Disease chorea, Parkinson’s disease can not be cured. Treatment for symptoms mostly consist of drugs that can pass the blood-brain barrier and then can convert into dopamine. Patients with Parkinson’s disease have low dopamine in the brain, but straight dopamine can not pass into the brain. Other treatments for Parkinson’s disease consist of drugs that help to stop the breakdown of dopamine in the…

neurons when placed on the slides because they penetrated and bound only to the structures in neuron cell bodies. There are two uses for the Nissl stain method when looked at through high and low magnification. Under low magnification you can see the brain structure by selectively staining groups of cell bodies whereas under high magnification, when using the Nissl stain, it allowed them to get a good indication of how many neural cell bodies were in an area because they could now count the…

An addiction can be stated as either a biopsychosocial disease or in severe cases a brain disorder. An addiction holds the power to dictate many aspects of people’s lives, and can turn into a solid form of suffering. In the past, an addiction was only classified as substances that crossed the blood-brain barrier, and then temporarily alter the chemical balance of the brain. These kinds of substances would include alcohol, tobacco and some drugs. But more recently a considerable number of…

caused by the swelling of the membranes that encircles around the spinal cord and brain. The disease is generally triggered by infection of parasites, fungi, bacteria, viruses, and particular organisms. Weak immune systems may be also connected to recurrent bacterial meningitis although most meningitis cases are caused by viruses. The disease mainly affects the central nervous system which consists of the brain, nerves and the spinal cord. Symptoms such as the fever may be the first sign of…

work by Stevens et al, in which the authors performed an excellent work showing intestinal barrier permeability biomarkers, e.g., zonulin and FABP2, have a closely relationship with endotoxin lipopolysaccharide (LPS) and abnormal composition of gut microbiota in patients with anxiety or depression. This directly suggests that abnormalities in gut, especially intestinal barrier, are of great importance for brain function. We appreciate this finding and would like to discuss several issues that…

primarily characterized by neuronal loss, formation of intraneuronal neurofibrillary tangles (NFTs) and accumulation of β-amyloid peptides (Aβ), as plaques in brain parenchyma or as cerebral amyloid angiopathy (CAA) in blood vessels (Reitz and Mayeux 2014). Additionally, structural brain abnormalities, blood-brain-barrier (BBB) dysfunction, brain atrophy, and neuroinflammation have been associated with AD pathology, correlated with a gradual decline in cognition (Querfurth and LaFerla 2010). To…

the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD) and European Association for the Study of the Liver (EASL) published a new set of practice guidelines for Hepatic Encephalopathy (Vistrup et al., 2014). These guidelines define Hepatic Encephalopathy (HE) as “a brain dysfunction caused by liver insufficiency and/or portosystemic shunting, and manifests as a wide spectrum of neurological/psychiatric abnormalities ranging from subclinical alterations to coma” (Vistrup et al.). Until recently, there had been…

most notable and widespread neurological diseases that involves the degeneration of the myelin sheath surrounding the nerve cells (Kira 2006). The demyelination of these nerve cells can lead to nerve damage that can hinder communication between the brain and the body, thus ultimately resulting in slowed and impaired motor, sensory, and cognitive function (Chiaravalloti and DeLuca 2008). The deterioration of the myelin sheaths results from an immune response against the central nervous system…

interaction between the CNS and the systemic immune system is delicate, being limited by the presence of the blood brain barrier (BBB), which renders the CNS immune homeostasis in a dormant self-tolerant state (1). Selective permeability of the BBB plays a crucial role in regulating the entry of specific molecules into the CNS and excluding most macromolecules from passing into the brain (2, 3). This unique feature of the BBB also prevents leakage of neurotransmitters into the circulation. After…