Miguatemala Health Blog

Archive for the ‘Brain’ Category

Is the connection between mobile phones and cancer controversial. Years of study have yielded results found. But there is no consensus on the level of cancer risk caused by the use of mobile phones.

The main concern seems to development of brain tumors associated with the use of mobile phones. Several studies have shown a slight increase in the rate of brain tumors since the 70s, but this increase may be related to subtle factors, such as greater access to the medical system and improvement of diagnostic imaging, and a slight increase from the real brain lymphoma due in part to HIV and disease others that affect the immune system. In fact, it is impossible for a mobile phone causes brain tumors is increasing at 70 because in those years were not used.

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What is it?

The cerebral or intracranial tumor is usually defined as tumoral expansive process anyone having origins in any of the structures containing the cranial cavity and brain parenchyma, meninges, blood vessels, cranial nerves, glands, bones and remains embryonic. In other words, this is an abnormal mass of emerging, growing and having origins in those structures. We can deduce that a tumor can damage the brain in two ways: by invading neighboring tissues (malignant tumor) or by pressing other areas of the brain due to its own growth.

Symptoms of Brain Tumors

Symptoms of intracranial tumors occur when brain tissue has been destroyed or when pressure increases in the brain. We shall see that this can happen in both malignant and in benign tumors. General symptoms begin with the alteration of certain mental functions, especially slowing and apathy, headache, vomiting, nausea, unsteadiness, generalized seizures and papilledema (swelling of the optic nerve due to pressure on the brain), the majority of these symptoms are caused by the presence of intracranial hypertension. There are more serious symptoms that causes tumor growth it self and depend on the topographical location of the lesion.

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The nematode worms have no more than a few hundreds of neurons throughout the nervous system, when the human being has about 20 billion just in the neocortex. Among mammals, Homo sapiens is an animal in which the ratio of brain mass and body mass is higher (brain mass / body mass 1/46-48 for man, but 1 / 31 to mouse for example). Other animals have a larger brain, like the dolphin or an elephant. From the point of view of phylogenetic evolution the human brain has undergone a major expansion of the cortex. But this expansion was not uniform: some areas have increased in size more than others, for example the case of the prefrontal cortex.

The brain is the principal organ of the central nervous system of animals. The brain processes information from the senses, controls many body functions, including voluntary movement, and is the seat of cognitive functions. In] vertebrates, the brain is located in the head to protect the skull. By analogy, in invertebrates, we talk to designate certain brain nerve centers. Consisting of a variable number of neurons connected to each other and cells called “support” that allow the metabolism, brain size varies greatly from one species to another. The study of brain tissue, the cytoarchitectonic shows a complex by the richness of connections between neurons but homogeneous histologically. The human brain contains about 100 billion neurons and weighs about 1300 g-1400 g.

From a neuroanatomical viewpoint, the brain is the set of neural structures forming the diencephalon and telencephalon, but in common parlance, we use the term to designate the entire brain, including the cerebellum, this which is imprecise.

Scientific progress on happiness – The happiness trend depends on the size and feature a small structure – a kind of chip – stay at the center of the brain, according to a study by researchers at the Institute of Montreal Douglas published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry.

This discovery opens the way for faster detection of some mental illnesses and in the future to regulate one of the most important challenges of human beings across time and space, find meaning in life simply enjoying it. Read the rest of this entry »