Good Bye Histology :(

My final week of Histology. I can't believe it. It's very saddening because it was a very enjoyable class.I'm really going to miss it.

As I reflect on this past semester, it's amazing how far I've come. When it first started, I was very scared of this class. I never knew what histology was and what it entailed. The first couple of weeks were hard. I had to learn how to adjust to the new teaching style and how to adjust my studying for this class. Eventually I got the hang of it. 

I brought my laptop to class look at the corresponding Powerpoints and take notes on them. Interaction was key for my understanding. I generally remained quiet unless I did not understand something. For exams, I figured that rewriting everything in a notebook along with highlighting key points and looking at pictures brought me a long way. With each exam, I got a higher score than before. I was learning and retaining the information.

A lot of the information I was learning was overlapping with classes I took or was taking at the time. A lot of it was like Animal Physiology and some of it from Biochemistry. Honestly, I would have never done as well on my Biochemistry exams if it weren't for Histology. It was so awesome. This was the best semester I've ever had just because of Biochemistry and Histology. These two classes have really reinforced my love of science and learning. I have no doubt in my mind that I've exactly where I need to be. 

Hugh Jackman and Basal Cell Carcinoma

Have you ever seen The Wolverine? Or any of the X-Men movies? How about Les Miserables? Hugh Jackman was in all of those movies and gave outstanding performances. I bet you're wondering why I'm talking about him. Well, I was driving to school one day when I heard that Hugh Jackman had basal cell carcinoma. That shocked me, and I felt sympathy for him.

But what is basal cell carcinoma? From what I've learned so far in histology, I was able to infer that it is cancer in the basal cells of the epidermis. That is just the general definition. From research, there can be a better explanation.

Basal cell carcinoma is when the basal cells in the stratum basal of the epidermis undergo uncontrollable growth. This can be caused by excessive exposure to UV rays. You see, melanocytes reside in this layer. Their function is to produce melanin to protect the skin from the UV rays. Luckily in carcinoma, the cancer isn't due to the melanocytes, so it is a nonmelanoma cancer. It is instead due to the uncontrolled growth of the tissue itself.

There are many forms of treatment such as medication, excision, electrodesiccation, cyrosurgery and many other options. He should be fine after he is treated. He needs to protect his skin from excessive UV ray exposure.


Reference: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/000824.htm

Digestive System Terms

Cholecystokinin - This is abbreviated as CCK. It is secreted from the mucosa of the duodenum. It's function is to stimulated the release of bile from the gallbladder and pancreatic enzymes. It also suppresses hunger.

Gastric Inhibitory Protein (GIP) - This protein induces insulin secretion from the pancreas. 

Somatostatin - This peptide is secreted in three places in the body: the stomach, the small intestine, and the pancreas. It reduces the secretion of HCl from the parietal cells in the stomach. It also prevents the release of gastrin, secretin, insulin and histamine.

Brunner's Glands - These are the glands found in the submucosa layer of the duodenum. It produces an alkaline secretion in the duodenum to protect it from the low pH of the chyme coming from the stomach along with neutralize it, activate the intestinal enzymes, and to lubricate the walls.

Progressive Mulitfocal Leukoencephalopathy

As a biology major, the mechanism of this disease is so fascinating! Just thinking about it has my mind stuck in awe.

Progressive Multifocal Leukoencephalopathy is where the nerves in the brain become demyelinated, a disease caused by the JC virus. It is a rare disease. Even though it is a rare disease, this virus is found in about 85% of the adult population. How scary is that? The small silver lining in that is this virus remains dormant in the kidney, lymph nodes, and bone marrow (if you can call that a silver lining).

So then how does this virus cause this disease? Well, this virus is nicknamed the "opportunistic virus". This is because it waits until the body in under severe immunosuppression from HIV, drugs, or other diseases. When the body is at its weakest, this virus leaves its dormant state, travels to the brain, and destroys the myelination on the nerves by undergoing its lytic reproductive cycle.  This prevents signals from being sent to and from the brain. This can occur in many part of the brain, hence multifocal.  It is such a devastating disease with no cure or effective treatment.

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Falcó, V. (2013). Progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy, a rare but devastating disease in AIDS patients. Indian Journal Of Medical Research, 138(1), 13-15.

Progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy - a rare but serious disease. (2013). Australian Prescriber, 36(1), 24-25.

My Progress in Histology... and the Semester

I love love LOVE my histology class! It is such an engaging class. There have honestly been a few classes that I have been excited to go to; this class is one of them. By the grace of God, I have been improving my study habits and it shows in this class. To be honest, I did not think I would do as well I am now. Praise God!

This is such a relevant class. It feels like it is connecting a lot of the random knowledge I've been learning in college. It is also clarifying topics that I had trouble grasping. For example, it has helped me understand the nervous system so much better. In fact, I was assisting a professor with her class on Tuesday because she had trouble seeing. She was teaching her students about a part of the nervous system so she had be draw out pathways and terms on the board for her. It was so awesome because I understood everything she was saying! Histology has  really clarified and solidified so many concepts for me.

This is my second Reflection post. My final post will be a reflection on the class as a whole and its impact on my personal life and future career.

Arteriosclerosis

Atherosclerosis is defined as paste and hardening in the arteries as athero means “paste” while scleroisis means “hardening”. Arteries are endothelium-lined blood vessels that transport oxygen- and nutrient-rich blood to the different organs and tissues of the body. These veins should be very flexible, sturdy, and elastic. As a person ages, they start to lose this elasticity and flexibility due to hardening of the endothelium and plaque accumulation, so the arteries stiffen and narrow to a degree which of course is inevitable. But this can also be influenced by many more factors aside from age such as diet, exercise, smoking, diabetes, high cholesterol, high blood pressure and presence of free radicals. This damages the endothelium and promotes further hardening and narrowing, which has adverse physiological effects in the body, particularly in the heart, brain, and peripheral regions like the legs.

The aforementioned factors that cause damage to the epithelium are by lifestyle and/or genetics. They cause an immune response that leads to an inflammatory response of plaque formation and impair the epithelium’s function of proper blood flow. This plaque is mainly composed of low-density lipoproteins (LDL) cholesterol because as the monocytes try to attack and engulf the cholesterol, they actually fuse and form larger cells called foam cells. These cells enlarge through mitosis and further accumulation of fat and cholesterol. This eventually hardens the epithelium and narrows the artery thus limiting the amount of blood that can flow through the artery. 

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Boamponsem, A.G., and L.K. Boamponsem. "The Role of Inflammation in Atherosclerosis." Advances in Applied Science Research 2.4 (2008): 194-207. Pelagia Research Library. 

Ulbricht, Catherine, ed. "Atherosclerosis: An Integrative Approach: A Natural Standard Monograph." Alternative and Complementary Theories 17.5 (2011): 287-93. Print.

Cardiologist Shadowing

I finally started my shadowing! Woo hoo!

My primary care doctor is both a general practitioner and a cardiologist. He mostly sees patients with referrals for stress tests or ECGs. It was pretty monotonous at times because he asked the same questions, and say a lot of the same things. One patient, though, sure made things interesting.

This patient had an ECG done that indicated he had suffered from a myocardial infarction. The machine detected it and so did the doctor. What was really odd is that the patient never experienced the pain of a heat attack. The doctor explained that it must have been a very minor heart attack. I was just standing there in awe of the situation. The patient then wanted to know what happened to the heart after the heart attack, so the doctor responded by saying that the heart forms scar tissue where the dead muscle cells are, making the heart less efficient.

All of this was just so cool to me. After seeing that patient, I told the doctor that I had just learned what happens when a person suffers a heart attack. When a person suffers a heart attack, some of the muscle cells die. In response, the fibroblasts in the heart muscle make collagen to fill in that area, which is the scar tissue formed on the heart. Since it isn't muscle tissue, it doesn't have any contractile abilities so it makes the heart less efficient in working as a whole and transmitting the electrical signal across the whole heart.

This encounter was so awesome!

"Don't Ever Drive When You're Sleepy..."

The title are the words that were said to me by a woman who was in a severe car accident.

Just yesterday, Thursday night, I decided to walk over to the hospital for dinner before my Physics class. As I was getting some frozen yogurt, I woman with a walker was walking towards the register when she noticed my skirt. She complimented it, and we engaged in some small talk. They lady kept insisting that I go ahead her in line, but I stood my ground that she goes before me. When she walked in front of me, I noticed that tell-tale curve in her back. She had scoliosis.

Instead of taking her food to go, she was eating there in the cafeteria. I helped her put her tray on the table and adjust her chair so she was comfortable. She thanked me profusely for my help. It's the next part that made me so sad and curious at the same time.

"Don't ever drive when you're sleepy. "She said. "This was caused me to be like this today. If you ever feel sleepy, at least take a 5 minute nap before you drive."

To be honest, I didn't know how to respond. I became incredibly sad and wanted to cry. I was able to muster up some words to express my happiness that she was able to survive that accident and my gratitude for her valuable advice.

As I walked to another table to sit down, I contemplated the encounter. How was a car accident able to cause scoliosis? Wasn't it only congenital? It turned out that it can be caused by accidents. The trauma caused from an accident can cause an injury to the spinal cord. This damages the neuromuscular interaction, resulting in the loss of muscle control. The spine then gradually curves, the formation of scoliosis.

Honestly, this encounter of histology is very sad. I just pray that this woman can at least be relieved of the pain.

Absence of Color Blood Cells

So this week in class, we learned about blood. I have encountered a lot of the words before, but I was definitely learning a lot of new terms. I also looked ahead in the notes and I'm encountering many unfamiliar words.





Granulocytes - these are white blood cells that have granules in their cytoplasm. Examples of these are eosinophils, basophils, and neutrophils.

Agranulocytes - these are white blood cells that do not have granules in their cytoplasm. Examples of these are lymphocytes and monocytes.








Sinusoid - These are unique blood vessels that are actually classified as open pore capillaries. They are commonly found in the bone and spleen.








Megakaryoblast - this cell is involved in hematopoiesis. It develops into a promegakaryocyte and then a megakaryocyte.

Mesenchyme: Unchained

I've encountered A LOT of words this week outside of class. Thank you, disease paper! Sarcoma is the development of cancer from the mesenchyme, as I've mentioned in my first post. Now this is looking at a few of the different kinds of sarcoma.






Liposarcoma - This is cancer in the adipose tissue.

i.e. On the show My 600-lb Life, it follows a woman who is morbidly obese and has a heightened chance of developing liposarcoma.

Kaposi's Sarcoma - This is cancer that is associated with HIV and other forms of immunospression that causes nodules in the skin, even the mouth.

i.e. Melanie was unfortunately told that she developed Kaposi's sarcoma due her having AIDS.

Leiomyosarcoma - This is cancer of the smooth muscle, which causes the brain to lose control over contraction.

i.e. When a female is complaining about her uterus painfully contracting randomly even when she isn't ovulating, on her period or pregnant, it can lead the doctor to believe that she has leiomyosarcoma.






Rhabdomyosarcoma - This is cancer in the skeletal muscle, which may cause the loss of voluntary control of the muscle.

i.e. Some people that develop rhabdomyosarcoma are restricted from operating heavy machinery because the jerking movements of their body can cause an accident to occur.

Yay, Overlap!

Today was such a stressful day. I had two exams. :( Now, these two exams were in Animal Diversity and Biochemistry. I focused about 99% of my time on studying Biochemistry, so you can imagine how poorly my other exam may suffer. Or maybe not.

I actually encountered histology on both of my exams. Yay, overlap! On the Animal Diversity exam, there were questions about connective tissue and epithelial tissue. It even asked what the term is for the study of tissues was (Psst....it's histology)! What I've been learning is histology so far has significantly benefit me. On the Biochemistry exam, I was was trying to explain the important of proteins. I'll have you know, I said that it is important in forming collagen found in connective tissue. This is a piece of information that I learned when we covered chapter 6 about connective tissue.

Even though it is challenging to manage 4 science classes at ones, it really is cool and relieving to see information overlapping between classes. That definitely makes the learning process a bit easier.

Mesenchyme? What is it?!

Mesenchyme.

If you're like a lot of people, your response when you see this word is, "Huh"? I'm a biology major that should supposedly know science-y things like the back of my hand, but when I came across this word my mind went blank.

I first encountered this word on my first Histology quiz. Just reading it sent my mind into a world wind of thoughts from, 'Oh my gosh, Cherriese! How could you not have learned this word for this quiz?!' to 'Hehe, mesenchyme rhymes with time. Oh, and it rhymes with rhyme!'. I regained my focus (eventually) and kind of deduced what it was to help  lead to me to the correct answer.

But what is mesenchyme? It turns out that it is a connective tissue that is undifferentiated and derived from the mesoderm. Their elongated cells form a network of processes in the cytoplasm. What is so cool about these cells is that these are stem cells that you retain from when you're born into your adulthood. They can form into many tissues like ones found in the lymphatic system or the circulatory system or can develop into bone or cartilage. When there is uncontolled division in these cells, it can lead to a form of cancer that most people have heard about: sarcoma.

Mesenchymal Cell Differentiation

Mesenchyme doesn't follow time by staying neutral and not being claimed as "mine". That was corny. I'll just stop this rhyme.