“Neuro Note 2”
I’m doing this neuro note over the Ted Talk “Can the Damaged
Brain Repair Itself’. I chose this topic because I am very passionate about the
brain, and am fascinated by the way it works. I was born 3 months premature,
and had many cognitive issues growing up, and often found myself at the bottom
of the class until college. My story is much longer and detailed than this, but
I wanted you to understand where my passion for neurological study comes from.
This Ted Talk was interesting and gives a lot of people hope
about stem cell research, and the positive direction that stem cell research is
going. Dr. Chandran discussed the topic, and brought up several important facts
that leads us to believe that the damaged brain can repair itself, it just
needs some “help”. Dr. Chandran first mentioned that 35 million individuals are
living with brain injuries, and that as a nation it has cost our healthcare
system 700 billion dollars. He then went on to explain how neurons work in the
brain, and that the main issue with a specific brain injury, like multiple sclerosis,
is that the axons of the cells become unmyelinated, which in simple terms
means, slows them down or completely hinders their function. Dr. Chandran then
began to explain the importance of stem cells, and how they would compare
damaged cells to newly made stem cells. Their research concluded that the
damaged cells were 2.5 times more likely
to die. Dr. Chandran then posed the question, “how do we get these cells to
stop dying”? After doing further research, Dr. Chandran and his team decided to
take stem cells from bone marrow (which is obviously regenitive), and place the
bone marrown stem cells into the brain. The results were fascinating. Using the
optic nerve for measurement (because the optic nerve is very measurable/important
in brain damage), Dr. Chandran and his team discovered that the myelination was
beginning to work again, Dr. Chandran believes that the stem cells that were
placed in the brain woke the damaged cells and allowed them to do their job
again. Obviously, there is still much research to be done, but this gives us insight
on how to put a healing touch on these awful brain injuries.
Reflecting on this topic, I certainly learned some valuable
information. This Ted Talk was aired in 2013, so a lot has changed since then,
and I can only imagine how far the research has come. As a future OT I,
obviously can’t tell every patient dealing with brain injuries that they are
going to be 100 percent healed, but I can show them what research has to say,
and explain to them that every day we are a step closer to healing the brain.
Going through neurological aspects and neurobiology as a student made this Ted
Talk very understandable and relatable. I look forward to continuing my studies
in neurology.
Reference
Chandran, S. (n.d.). Can the damaged brain
repair itself? Retrieved from
https://www.ted.com/talks/siddharthan_chandran_can_the_damaged_brain_repair_itself
Great post, Eric!
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