Conquest of Pain: Analgesics: From Morphine to Lyrica

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jie Jack Li
Keyword(s):  
18Th Century ◽  
The Body ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Philosophical Perspective ◽  
Hua Tuo ◽  
Postoperative Dental Pain ◽  
Pain Analgesics ◽  
Great Culture ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Surgical Operations

To live is to endure pain has been understood by almost everybody who is mature enough to gain some philosophical perspective on life. C’est la vie! as the French would say. Indeed, pain existed before the dawn of humanity—some research suggests that even plants respond to pain. According to ancient Greek myth, Prometheus stole fire from Olympus to give it to mortals. Zeus punished him by chaining him to a rock and having a great eagle feast on his liver daily, inflicting unbearable agony. Zeus also sent Pandora to Earth, unleashing pain (one of the items in Pandora’s box) and many evils as a vengeance to mankind. Without an understanding of pain, our ancestors resorted to many measures to ease pain; some were successful to some extent, and some were completely futile. Witches and shamans were sought out to exorcise pain from the body. From a psychological perspective, they might be effective for some believers. The hypnotizing technique reached its crescendo in the 18th century in France when Monsieur Anton Mesmer “mesmerized” many French citizens, liberating them from their pains. As civilization progressed, alcohol became more and more a universal painkiller after it was observed that drunkards were oblivious to pain. Chinese surgeon Hua Tuo (115–205 ad) gave his patients an effervescent powder (possibly cannabis) in wine that produced numbness and insensibility before surgical operations. Another ancient invention in Chinese medicine was the use of acupuncture to ease pain. Acupuncture, now an increasingly popular treatment for persistent as well as intermittent pain, is thought to work by increasing the release of endorphins, chemicals that block pain signals from reaching the brain. A recent survey by the National Institute of Health (NIH) indicated that acupuncture showed efficacy in adult postoperative pain, chemotherapy nausea and vomiting, and postoperative dental pain. There is no doubt that acupuncture works for some patients’ minor pain, through either physiological or psychological means, or both. or both. During the hype of the Great Culture Revolution (1966–1976), it was even claimed that major operations were carried out using acupuncture without any other anesthetics.

scholarly journals Cerebral localization of the mind and higher functions The beginnings

2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 321-325 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eliasz Engelhardt
Keyword(s):  
Nervous Tissue ◽  
The Body ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Mental Functions ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Cerebral Localization ◽  
Ancient Times ◽  
Higher Mental Functions ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Brain

Abstract The debates about the mind and its higher functions, and attempts to locate them in the body, have represented a subject of interest of innumerable sages since ancient times. The doubt concerning the part of the body that housed these functions, the heart (cardiocentric doctrine) or the brain (cephalocentric doctrine), drove the search. The Egyptians, millennia ago, held a cardiocentric view. A very long time later, ancient Greek scholars took up the theme anew, but remained undecided between the heart and the brain, a controversy that lasted for centuries. The cephalocentric view prevailed, and a new inquiry ensued about the location of these functions within the brain, the ventricles or the nervous tissue, which also continued for centuries. The latter localization, although initially inaccurate, gained traction. However, it represented only a beginning, as further studies in the centuries that followed revealed more precise definitions and localizations of the higher mental functions.

Ancient Greek Spermatology

Mnemosyne ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 73 (4) ◽  
pp. 529-552
Author(s):  
Jacqueline König
Keyword(s):  
Fifth Century ◽  
The Body ◽  
Human Biology ◽  
Basic Question ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Material Part ◽  
Place Of Origin ◽  
Medical Historian ◽  
The Brain

Abstract From the fifth century bc onwards, the scientific interests of the ancient Greeks—already traceable in the earliest remaining sources—expanded to include zoology and related matters. The first philosopher known to have written a book about human biology was Alcmaeon of Croton, who is described as a pupil of Pythagoras. One important basic question in his research concerned the origin and nature of semen. According to the Viennese medical historian Erna Lesky, Alcmaeon held merely that semen has its origin in the brain. My suggestions are that Alcmaeon saw the abdomen as the place of origin of the material part of semen and that in his theory all (or at least more) parts of the body were present in the semen, while the brain functioned as a necessary transit port through which life entered.

Coming Off Drugs

2016 ◽  
Vol 43 (4) ◽  
pp. 381-396 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian Walmsley
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Emotional State ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
The Body ◽  
Heroin User ◽  
Critical Perspective ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Heroin Users ◽  
Negative Emotional State ◽  
The Brain

Heroin withdrawal is perhaps one of the most taken-for-granted components of the addiction framework. Heroin users as well as researchers, policy makers, and practitioners have become dependent on it for thinking about and acting upon the process of heroin leaving the body. It is thought to be among the most challenging aspects of the recovery journey and has been linked to a range of public health, legal, and social problems. The taken-for-granted nature of heroin withdrawal has arguably limited its scrutiny in sociological and historical analyses. This article offers an alternative and critical perspective that draws attention to the heterogeneity of historical events and strategies that have left their mark on the withdrawing body of the heroin user. It maps changes in the discourse from the 18th century to the present and closes with developments in the neuroscience of addiction, which have relocated withdrawal from the body to the neurocircuitry of the brain and reframed it as a negative emotional state. This new language suggests the future of the discourse of withdrawal might be relatively short. The analysis moves beyond existing understandings of withdrawal as the simple absence of drugs from the body.

scholarly journals An Early History of Neuroglial Research: Personalities

Neuroglia ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 245-281 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexandr Chvátal ◽  
Alexei Verkhratsky
Keyword(s):  
Brain Function ◽  
Nervous Tissue ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Cell Types ◽  
The Body ◽  
Hellenistic World ◽  
Multiple Cell ◽  
The 19Th Century ◽  
The Brain

Neuroscience, like most other divisions of natural philosophy, emerged in the Hellenistic world following the first experimental discoveries of the nerves connecting the brain with the body. The first fundamental doctrine on brain function highlighted the role for a specific substance, pneuma, which appeared as a substrate for brain function and, being transported through the hollow nerves, operated the peripheral organs. A paradigm shift occurred in 17th century when brain function was relocated to the grey matter. Beginning from the end of the 18th century, the existence of active and passive portions of the nervous tissue were postulated. The passive part of the nervous tissue has been further conceptualised by Rudolf Virchow, who introduced the notion of neuroglia as a connective tissue of the brain and the spinal cord. During the second half of the 19th century, the cellular architecture of the brain was been extensively studied, which led to an in-depth morphological characterisation of multiple cell types, including a detailed description of the neuroglia. Here, we present the views and discoveries of the main personalities of early neuroglial research.

scholarly journals A középkori arab orvoslás alapjai: A vérrendszerek Avicenna leírásában a Kánon első könyvéből egy részlet fordításával

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (22) ◽  
pp. 8-28
Author(s):  
Zsuzsanna Kutasi
Keyword(s):  
Blood Vessel ◽  
Blood Vessels ◽  
The Body ◽  
Whole Body ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Ibn Sina ◽  
The Right ◽  
And Function ◽  
Different Origins ◽  
The Brain

Based on the knowledge of ancient Greek philosophers, medieval Arabic theoretical anatomy describes the organs, their roles and function as well as their mutual relationships on a philosophical basis wherever there are organs with higher and subordinate roles. According to Ibn Sīnā Abū ‘Alī al-Ḥusayn b. ‘Alī (Avicenna) (370-428 AH or 980-1037 AD), everything in nature is connected with everything else, and the main operator of the body is the immortal divine soul (rūḥ). While breathing, a part of the divine soul enters the lungs, and then the heart as its mixture with blood where 'pneuma' is formed, which spreads out along the arteries throughout the body. The soul part of the inhaled air (al-hawāʼ) regulates the heat of the heart and nourishes it. According to Ibn Sīna, the heart has three cavities: one on the right side, one on the left side, and the third in the middle, which serves as a kind of blood store. The liver governs the right side, the spleen governs the left one. The heart is located in the middle of the chest maintaining a kind of balance between the two vascular systems. The left side has been exalted by the fact that the divine soul comes from the air to the left side of the heart, and from here it floods the whole body through the arteries. The right side of the body is dedicated to bodily functions like turning food into blood, nourishing the organs, and removing the excess. The right half of the body is operated by the left half through nerves originating from the brain. In the brain, the two sides merge. The source of the veins in the liver, while the arteries originate from the heart. As part of a close reading of the text, I created a diagram of branches of the blood vessels to facilitate their identification. In many passages of the anatomical description, we only learn that the vessel in question branches in three, four or five directions and travels in a certain direction or towards certain parts of the body. There is always a branch among them, indeed the largest one, and by connecting these largest branches, we get the full path of a given blood vessel from the beginning to the end. Such as the route v. cava superior from the right ventricle (branches in two directions) - v. brachiocephalica (branches to five) - v. subclavia (branches towards 4) - v. axillaris (branches towards 3) - v. basilica (2 branches branch to 4 at the forearm) - v. mediana cubiti (branches towards 2) - v. salvatella from the heart to fingers. In some cases, erroneous conclusions can be identified in Ibn Sīna's description wherever he connects blood vessels with different origins. Sometimes Ibn Sīna begins to describe a route of a blood vessel and then continues to describe another blood vessel as if it were a continuation of the previous one. Alternatively, he also assigns branches belonging to one blood vessel to branches belonging to another one, such as the v. jugularis interna in the description of branches of the v. jugularis externa.

EXPERIMENTAL ASSESSMENT OF THE NANOPARTICLES TOXICITY OF NICKEL OXIDE IN TWO SIZES IN THE SUBCHRONIC EXPERIMENT

2018 ◽  
pp. 30-35
Author(s):  
M.P. Sutunkova ◽  
B.A. Katsnelson ◽  
L.I. Privalova ◽  
S.N. Solovjeva ◽  
V.B. Gurvich ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Nickel Oxide ◽  
Nervous Activity ◽  
Equal Mass ◽  
The Body ◽  
Subchronic Toxicity ◽  
Physiological Mechanisms ◽  
Nickel Oxide Nanoparticles ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Nanoparticles Toxicity

We conducted a comparative assessment of the nickel oxide nanoparticles toxicity (NiO) of two sizes (11 and 25 nm) according to a number of indicators of the body state after repeated intraperitoneal injections of these particles suspensions. At equal mass doses, NiO nanoparticles have been found to cause various manifestations of systemic subchronic toxicity with a particularly pronounced effect on liver, kidney function, the body’s antioxidant system, lipid metabolism, white and red blood, redox metabolism, spleen damage, and some disorders of nervous activity allegedly related to the possibility of nickel penetration into the brain from the blood. The relationship between the diameter and toxicity of particles is ambiguous, which may be due to differences in toxicokinetics, which is controlled by both physiological mechanisms and direct penetration of nanoparticles through biological barriers and, finally, unequal solubility.

The musculature and nervous system of the plerocercoid larva of Dibothriorhynchus grossum (Rud.)

Parasitology ◽  
1941 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
pp. 373-389 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gwendolen Rees
Keyword(s):  
Nervous System ◽  
Muscle Mass ◽  
Nerve Cells ◽  
The Body ◽  
Lateral Nerve ◽  
Posterior Median ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Ventral Muscle ◽  
Nerve Cords ◽  
Extrinsic Muscles

1. The structure of the proboscides of the larva of Dibothriorhynchus grossum (Rud.) is described. Each proboscis is provided with four sets of extrinsic muscles, and there is an anterior dorso-ventral muscle mass connected to all four proboscides.2. The musculature of the body and scolex is described.3. The nervous system consists of a brain, two lateral nerve cords, two outer and inner anterior nerves on each side, twenty-five pairs of bothridial nerves to each bothridium, four longitudinal bothridial nerves connecting these latter before their entry into the bothridia, four proboscis nerves arising from the brain, and a series of lateral nerves supplying the lateral regions of the body.4. The so-called ganglia contain no nerve cells, these are present only in the posterior median commissure which is therefore the nerve centre.

scholarly journals The brain dynamics of architectural affordances during transition

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Zakaria Djebbara ◽  
Lars Brorson Fich ◽  
Klaus Gramann
Keyword(s):  
Occipital Cortex ◽  
The Body ◽  
Brain Dynamics ◽  
Alpha Band ◽  
Time Frequency ◽  
Posterior Cingulate ◽  
Sensory Signals ◽  
Event Related Desynchronization ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Attentional Mechanisms

AbstractAction is a medium of collecting sensory information about the environment, which in turn is shaped by architectural affordances. Affordances characterize the fit between the physical structure of the body and capacities for movement and interaction with the environment, thus relying on sensorimotor processes associated with exploring the surroundings. Central to sensorimotor brain dynamics, the attentional mechanisms directing the gating function of sensory signals share neuronal resources with motor-related processes necessary to inferring the external causes of sensory signals. Such a predictive coding approach suggests that sensorimotor dynamics are sensitive to architectural affordances that support or suppress specific kinds of actions for an individual. However, how architectural affordances relate to the attentional mechanisms underlying the gating function for sensory signals remains unknown. Here we demonstrate that event-related desynchronization of alpha-band oscillations in parieto-occipital and medio-temporal regions covary with the architectural affordances. Source-level time–frequency analysis of data recorded in a motor-priming Mobile Brain/Body Imaging experiment revealed strong event-related desynchronization of the alpha band to originate from the posterior cingulate complex, the parahippocampal region as well as the occipital cortex. Our results firstly contribute to the understanding of how the brain resolves architectural affordances relevant to behaviour. Second, our results indicate that the alpha-band originating from the occipital cortex and parahippocampal region covaries with the architectural affordances before participants interact with the environment, whereas during the interaction, the posterior cingulate cortex and motor areas dynamically reflect the affordable behaviour. We conclude that the sensorimotor dynamics reflect behaviour-relevant features in the designed environment.

scholarly journals SARS-CoV-2: is there neuroinvasion?

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Conor McQuaid ◽  
Molly Brady ◽  
Rashid Deane
Keyword(s):  
Respiratory Distress ◽  
Vascular Dysfunction ◽  
Multiorgan Failure ◽  
Neurological Complications ◽  
Wide Distribution ◽  
The Body ◽  
Health Conditions ◽  
Main Body ◽  
Beneficial Effects ◽  
The Brain

Abstract Background SARS-CoV-2, a coronavirus (CoV), is known to cause acute respiratory distress syndrome, and a number of non-respiratory complications, particularly in older male patients with prior health conditions, such as obesity, diabetes and hypertension. These prior health conditions are associated with vascular dysfunction, and the CoV disease 2019 (COVID-19) complications include multiorgan failure and neurological problems. While the main route of entry into the body is inhalation, this virus has been found in many tissues, including the choroid plexus and meningeal vessels, and in neurons and CSF. Main body We reviewed SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19, ACE2 distribution and beneficial effects, the CNS vascular barriers, possible mechanisms by which the virus enters the brain, outlined prior health conditions (obesity, hypertension and diabetes), neurological COVID-19 manifestation and the aging cerebrovascualture. The overall aim is to provide the general reader with a breadth of information on this type of virus and the wide distribution of its main receptor so as to better understand the significance of neurological complications, uniqueness of the brain, and the pre-existing medical conditions that affect brain. The main issue is that there is no sound evidence for large flux of SARS-CoV-2 into brain, at present, compared to its invasion of the inhalation pathways. Conclusions While SARS-CoV-2 is detected in brains from severely infected patients, it is unclear on how it gets there. There is no sound evidence of SARS-CoV-2 flux into brain to significantly contribute to the overall outcomes once the respiratory system is invaded by the virus. The consensus, based on the normal route of infection and presence of SARS-CoV-2 in severely infected patients, is that the olfactory mucosa is a possible route into brain. Studies are needed to demonstrate flux of SARS-CoV-2 into brain, and its replication in the parenchyma to demonstrate neuroinvasion. It is possible that the neurological manifestations of COVID-19 are a consequence of mainly cardio-respiratory distress and multiorgan failure. Understanding potential SARS-CoV-2 neuroinvasion pathways could help to better define the non-respiratory neurological manifestation of COVID-19.

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