STRESS COULD BE DESTROYING YOUR BRAIN .

Stress destroys brain leading to memory loss,according to a research published in journal of neuroscience. Long-term stress can have lots of effects on the body—it can cause chronic muscle tension, heart problems, and fertility issues in both men and women. Now researchers have performed a new study in mice that they believe reveals another effect of chronic stress on the brain: Inflammation, which can lead to memory loss and depression. In the study, the researchers stressed out several mice by periodically putting a much more aggressive mouse into their cage. After six days of exposure, the stressed mice could no longer recall the location of a hole to escape a maze, which they remembered easily before the stressful period began. "The stressed mice didn't recall it. The mice that weren't stressed, they really remembered it," said Jonathan Godbout, a neuroscience professor at Ohio State University and one of the study authors in a press release. For four weeks after the trauma, the mice continued to cower in corners, the mouse equivalent of social avoidance, a major symptom of depression. The researchers suspected that the stress was affecting the mice’s hippocampi, a part of the brain key to memory and spatial navigation. They found cells from mice’s immune system, called macrophages, in the hippocampus, and the macrophages were preventing the growth of more brain cells. The stress, it seemed, was causing the mice’s immune systems to attack their own brains, causing inflammation. The researchers dosed the mice a drug known to reduce inflammation to see how they would respond. Though their social avoidance and brain cell deficit persisted, the mice had fewer macrophages in their brains and their memories returned to normal, indicating to the researchers that inflammation was behind the neurological effects of chronic stress. This study points out the connection between chronic stress and memory loss, or between inflammation and depression. It provides a new, promising link between all four. That could help doctors prescribe more immune-focused treatments for conditions like anxiety and depression, some of which are being tested now, as the New Scientist reports. read more here;http://www.popsci.com/chronic-stress-causes-inflammation-in-brain.

THE THREAT OF LYME DISEASE.

Lyme disease, a tick-borne illness that in its most serious form can result in chronic fatigue, pain, confusion, depression-like symptoms and memory loss. The number of cases appear to be rising include a growing number of ticks in some weather conditions; more wild mammals that host them; an increase in the number of visitors to areas where they live; and greater awareness leading to more diagnosis. The disease is spreading through the population of ticks and animals are picking it up thus so more and more people are contracting the disease. Britain has recorded a rise this summer , a case scenario; Laura ;One patient who had to wait more than three years for treatment was Laura, who has asked that only her first name be used.In January 2012 she noticed a red bullseye rash on her right shin. The rash is the most distinctive feature of Lyme disease, but Laura was not aware of that. A couple of months later, she said, she began to feel “foggy, confused, forgetful”, and it was “hard to make decisions, hard to think, hard to read, hard – pretty much – to use my brain”.Despite living close to Richmond Park in west London, where Lyme disease is known to exist, Doctors thought the most likely cause was chronic fatigue. Months passed during which Laura gave up her job as a civil servant to focus what energy she had on her two primary school age children.The turning point was when Laura read an article about Lyme disease and recognized a picture of the erythema migrans rash. A blood test came back negative, but this was not decisive: medics test not for the bacterial infection but for the anti-bodies that the body makes to fight it, so patients tested too soon or too late will often not record a positive result. A specialist was “confident” it was Lyme disease, though cautioned it was too late to treat it with antibiotics. Laura pressed for a lumbar puncture, which showed she had an inflamation of the brain - another indicator she possibly had the illness.This summer she was finally given antibiotics, which she said “seemed to help”. She is now working in a local school. story credit; the guardian.