HOMEOSTATIC MED4U

  Been more than a year since I posted here, because of my hectic schedules, but yes, now I'm back again with a topic that is hopefully insightful and interesting to ponder on..! We all have days waking up feeling mentally foggy, groggy, or like our brain just couldn't hit the reset button the past night. Now what if I told you that the quality and duration of your sleep might not just be affecting your mood or productivity, but also your brain health- potentially laying the foundation for cognitive decline and diseases like Alzheimer's? While we all know that good sleep is essential to feeling rested, productive and happier the next day, recent past and ongoing researches uncover a connection between sleep disruptions in duration/quality and the buildup of toxic proteins in the neurons of the brain, like beta amyloid plaques, that are believed to drive Alzheimer's disease. So, from now on, start thinking of sleep as your brain's nightly clean-up squad, sweeping awa...

Source: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Recognition-of-music-in-brain_fig1_357920499 For most of us here, music is something that simply makes our life better. For all the music lovers, this post is especially for you all! Imagine a day without music- a world where melodies don't grace our ears, and rhythms don't resonate within our souls. From the soothing cadence of a lullaby to the pulsating beats of an adrenaline-filled anthem, music has an unparalleled ability to mold our emotional landscapes and shape our mental well-being. Even some nearly non-communicative people with Alzheimer's disease sing along and engage in conversations when the music they have listened to the most, during their childhood days, is played.  Let's actually explore the reason why and how music moves us so much! When you listen to music, it is basically like a power-up for your brain! It's like a surge of energy zipping through your mind. When you tune in, your brain gets a boost- the ...

Image Source: https://movingscience.dk/infographic-about-the-adolescent-brain-development/ It really doesn't matter how smart an adolescent is, or how well they scored in NEET/JEE/SAT or whatever. Adolescence is a remarkable phase of human development, often marked by a unique blend of curiosity and self-discovery. I know it's been really long since I have posted here, and one of my friends wanted me to write on how an adolescent's brain behaves so distinctly compared to kids and adults- and so this is for her and for everyone else sitting with their curious caps on! The adolescent brain is a dynamic landscape of neuroplasticity, where synapses are pruned and rewired to optimize cognitive function. This plasticity not only facilitates learning, but also paves the way for development of higher-order thinking and decision making. A rapid increase in the connections between the brain cells also occurs, which makes the neural pathways more effective.  For both boys and girls, a...

Have you actually thought of integrating your sustainable nature of composting your food wastes into your actual recipe? Although not all food remnants are going to complement your baking, bakers - there's still one ingredient that may actually be worth looking into: yes, banana peels!! Actually, to be more precise, its banana peel flour haha! Might sound funny, because sure enough, you might have probably heard of oat or almond flour, but a new study actually revealed that using banana peels along with traditional flour can actually provide you with an array of nutritional benefits. Compared to cookies without any banana additions, cookies that had 15% wheat flour substituted with banana peel flour had the highest level of moisture, which is quite a matter of concern for cookie consistency, and high levels of micronutrient content as well, along with a significant increase in antioxidant properties without changing the appearance or flavour of the cookie. Banana flour is mostly ma...

Ahhh the feeling - you've been cramming for a test or presentation all day, when suddenly you can't remember the simplest of things that happened during the day - like that one topic you prepared so well but can't remember now or just as simple as not remembering what you had for breakfast that morning. Why do we get so unraveled after hours of hard mental labour? We get so unraveled after hours of hard mental labour just because of a toxic buildup of glutamate, which is the brain's most abundant chemical signal. Of course, this comes up with a controversy too. It was thought by some researchers that doing difficult mental tasks used up more energy than easy tasks, exhausting the brain, just like how exercise does to the muscles. Some even suggested that drinking a sugary milkshake would make you more mentally sharper than an artificially sweetened one.  This research on the toxic buildup of glutamate is one of the most recent ones where researchers had looked at whethe...

Hello everyone! It's been so many months since I've posted here, and my sincere apologies for keeping my wonderful readers on wait for so long! Had my exams going on, but now I'm finally done with all the exams and yes, finally free and back again! Human bonding - good topic to resume with, right? I hope this post interests you all :) Whether you decide to actually meet your loved ones after a long time, stay in for a night of Netflix with your friends, or just simply call your bestie to have that silly gossip or tell everything that happened in your life recently - all these are just beautiful opportunities to appreciate the bonds and love we have for each other as fellow Homo sapiens. The bonds we form over the course of our lives, however, just don't begin with us - human bonding is as old as humanity itself. A psychology professor once quoted - "We're social animals because we need other people to survive" and I think this statement perfectly makes sen...

We all know that for nearly a century, Drosophila melanogaster has been on the focal point of genetics and developmental biology - genetically diverse, can be easily cultured in laboratory conditions, they produce large numbers of externally laid embryos, and of course the major reason being them having a much shorter life cycle. Though humans and fruit flies don't possess similar morphological/anatomical characteristics, it became pretty much well known that most of the fundamental biological processes and pathways that control survival and development are conserved across evolution between these species.  Drosophila genome is 60% homologous to that of humans, and about 75% of the genes responsible for human diseases have homologues in these fruit flies.  Research on Drosophila melanogaster already points to a new anti - cancer breakthrough different from the conventional goal of destroying a tumor. Tumors in fruit flies release a specific chemical that encompass the blood -...

  It's been really long since I've posted here, as I've been busy with my committee, Youth Leaders in Medicine - Bangalore chapter, boards and ah I'm finally back. I'm back again to quench your scientific thirst with yet another amusing topic for today!  Uncertainty clouds everything and Omicron adds on!  The current data on Omicron is still insufficient to make clear assumptions on the exact nature of this new variant, but some things are pretty much clear about this new strain to analyse and understand its essential meaning. This new strain is sending out a message, loud and clear - this virus is capable of far more variations than what was thought possible and it will keep coming back to haunt us again and again. If we see from an evolutionary perspective, Omicron was something which was expected and not anything unexpected. We all know that coronaviruses have adapted to develop several strategies to continue their replication and to infect and reinfect several s...

  Well, this is a very interesting topic to discuss about - How did they anaesthetise people before anaesthesia? I was just wondering about this since a few days, and after research and deep thinking, I'm here for you with yet another interesting episode write up on the mind blowing medical era before anaesthesia ! From my perspective, of all the milestones and achievements, conquering pain must be one of the very few that has potentially affected every human being in the world. One name that stands out amongst all the others when the topic of discovery of modern anaesthesia comes into play is William T.G. Mortan. Dr. Morton, a young dentist had been in search for a better agent used by many dentists - nitrous oxide. Dr. Mortan along with John Collins Warren, a renowned surgeon, made history on October 16, 1846 with the first successful surgical procedure performed with anaesthesia. Dr. Mortan had single handedly proven to the world that ether is a gas that when inhaled in the prop...

  So, one of my friends asked me this brilliant curious question one day - Instead of a sperm fertilising an egg, can an egg fertilise another egg? So, this post is mainly for her and many other inquisitive people out there wondering similar things. I have been having so many thoughts on this and the following is a small gist of my thoughts penned down.  So let's say one were to take an egg, insert the DNA from another egg, and then insert centrosomes from another cell, is it possible for the cell to divide? Well, probably we might have to give it a mild electric shock. This is what is done in some cloning techniques. I mean, of course, there is no guarantee that this method is bound to work, but probably it might work?  Replication can be done in the lab too but the issue is that there is not much understanding about gene regulation and reproduction. Most of us know about Dolly, the sheep which was the first mammal to be cloned, using the diploid nucleus from an adult ti...

There are so many misconceptions about blood cancer. It is usually thought that blood cancers are very rare, which can occur only in old people, are incurable and are always fatal, etc. This isn't what it is and today, May 28th 2021, I take up this wonderful opportunity to clear some of the common misconceptions about blood cancer. Firstly, any cancer, here blood cancer, is not a single entity but one that comprises a wide group of cancers. Now coming to the most common misconception that it can occur only in old people. No, this isn't true. Blood cancers can occur in all age groups from newborns to the weak and elderly. Well, genetics also can play an important role in the inheritance of these cancers. It's not directly that these cancers have the capability of getting inherited from one generation to the next. Some genetically inherited diseases increase the risk of blood cancers, especially in the younger ages. There is no exact cause in most cases for such cancers. Chil...

  We all very well know that the second wave of COVID - 19 with its double/triple mutants (not only these but many more variants are being reported) are evolving with a motive of evading human immune responses, spreading like wildfire today, with few cases being asymptomatic to cases having totally different symptoms than the ones which the first wave taught us. The public are understandably eager to know what the future will hold with the cases surging in rapid fire. So first of all what is a mutation? A mutation is a change in a genetic sequence. Mutations occur in nucleotides, which are the basic substances that make up RNA and DNA. The amino acid sequence is determined by the sequence of these nucleotides in RNA and DNA. The mutations in a particular viral genome can change these amino acid sequences, which further can change the structure of the protein produced by the life form.  Well, these mutations can be of 2 types - deletion and substitution. Deletions are those whi...

Well, I have seen many people having astounding memories.  So this is how the thought of writing about photographic memory struck me. But there is not exactly any verified case where the memory works like a camera. Even though there's no such thing as a photographic memory, there are indeed, some people who are very gifted. Basically, this is more like a special ability that some people have, which helps them capture visual images momentarily, and recall a past scene in detail with great accuracy.  Usually, it's easier to remember the things that we see more easily than the things we hear. So what could possibly be the reason behind this photographic memory? What is the science behind photographic memory? Does it actually exist? There is a condition called Highly Superior Autographic Memory (HSAM) which is present in some people. These people with HSAM can recall past scenarios with great detail, including the exact dates on which the scenarios occurred. Of course having such ...

 Many of us keep cracking our knuckles when we are worried/ stressed/ anxious/etc., so I have always wondered why this cracking happens. So I just took a bit of time to sit down and pen down my possible thoughts of why this knuckle cracking takes place, and the following is the context behind it, according to me, after coming across a few studies. There aren't any awards to be won for solving the most minor science mysteries - like why yawning and laughing are contagious - but that doesn't mean we don't want the answers anyway. Add to those everyday puzzles the mystery of knuckle cracking. Why exactly does this cracker burst occur from some of the body's smallest joints? The type of joints that you can most easily 'crack' or 'pop' are the diarthrodial joints. These are the most typical joints. They consist of two bones that are in contact with each other at their cartilage surfaces; the cartilage surfaces are surrounded by a joint capsule.  Inside the jo...