Microorganisms and our Brains!!!

Microorganisms, these versatile organisms are everyone, in our bodies, the things we consume, where we move and walk, even the air we breathe in. So one crucial thing that we must ask ourselves; do they influence the way we act and feel, do they impact the people we grow up to be today. The article already when you open it intrigues the intellectuals with this cool brain pictures, with a thesis to back it up and a quote from a M.D immediately with a link taking you to a website that introduces his credentials. After listing these you are bombarded with different studies done to prove whether gut bacteria impacts our brain. Among those studies are human verses animal studies. In humans comparing different brain structures and activity due to the different bacteria present in their bodies. It was found that the brain structure as well as movement was different.;

So what if we were able to manipulate that, the next study done on mice multiple time did that. Injecting mice with different probiotics, and bacteria. In one example they would inject an aggressive or anxious mice with a bacteria that relaxes or calms the body, it was found to impact the brain exponentially. The article is inefficient however, it seems like the idea of microorganisms impacting the brain is a unique concept. Where it is lacking however it does the unexpected by opening your mind to the possibilities of the unknown. He introduces such things like curing mental disorders with bacteria. He introduces a patient that is beginning to test with probiotic introduction. But the results of hers aren't necessarily needed, it is already known with a study they did with yogurt, by ingesting yogurt it was found to lower your amount of anxiety. All of this information is fascinating, could we cure serious crippling mental illnesses by simply injecting the patients with microorganisms, if we could do that could we cure such devastating things like cancer with them.

Citations

Stein,Rob Gut Bacteria Might Guide the Workings of our minds. November 18,2013, Retrieved from http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/11/18/244526773/gut-bacteria-might-guide-the-workings-of-our-minds on January 29,2013

Microbial Ecosystems

http://www.ted.com/talks/jessica_green_good_germs_make_healthy_buildings.html

Microbes; “tiny little organisms living in in air, soil, rock, and water. Some live happily in searing heat,” National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, 2010. These highly diverse organisms vast and intelligent, causing us humans great pain, or could save billions of lives. Not only could they impact the way we live our lives, but they impact our careers, could architecture impact the different types of microbial ecosystems present in different buildings? The video I watched was an episode of ted talks hosted by Jessica Green, explaining why or why not we should build our communities around ecosystems.

http://www.ufz.de/export/data/1/23691_UFZ_CMS__do_not_use_this_in_another_pages__.jpg

Jessica green takes a unique aspect on microbial ecosystems, and whether they should impact our building construction. Explain facts with constant references to their field trip on a college campus, this was extremely useful. Among her data she introduced interested ideas of ecosystems among separate areas of the building. For example, the bathrooms had a completely different type of organelles then an office area, or hallways. This concept isn’t a new thought, we all know that different germs are present in different areas, but to know that the minute you completely walk out the ecosystem separates. It’s like an invisible barrier blocking different access and denials to different microbes. If we were to impact the way buildings are made, for say more windows, light, different types of walls it would house a completely separate ecosystem. If you were to think about this in a larger scale, the week after visiting someone in the hospital you get sick the next week. What if we could change that, in her data it is stated patients immediately contract infections, if we could change that by increased the presence of more defensive microbes we could save millions of life’s, save trillions of dollars and decrease hospital visits tenfold.

Microbes and Eng FLC

I chose this course because it sounded so fascinating, I think anything relating to biology is so cool. In the description it talked about disease, viruses and all involving tiny little organisms, who doesn't want to learn about that? Then we talked about going to field trips like carlsbad caverns, a treatment plant, that all sounds so fascinating.

http://thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/3d-microbes-1361845.jpg