Understanding our Brains

 A few years ago I remember taking my new car to one of the most reputable auto dealers in the State of Connecticut after breaking down on the highway.  Comforted by knowing that my service man was this dealer’s most seasoned veteran, I began to tell my story of how the car just stopped working.  

As I recall, the expert was so intoned with my signs and symptoms that I never even questioned his diagnosis:  “You will need a new transmission, but at least you have the assurance that it is still under warranty.”  

Five-days later I received the call from the dealer. “We changed out the transmission, but the car still won’t start.”  After much silence, I asked, “can you hook the car up to the computer to see where the trouble is.”   

After a drawn out discussion of why this wouldn’t tell us where the problem was, they gave in and proceeded to prove me wrong. The end result… the computer analyzed the problem and determined that all I needed was a new battery. Eighty-five dollars and a few minutes later I was on my way.

In many ways, I feel that as physicians we are guilty of the same thing. Giving our best guess at a diagnosis, when we have the available diagnostic tools to objectively analyze the problem. In my experience it is the synergy of the two modalities that gets to the root of most problems.

The purpose of this article is to bring awareness of what neurotransmitters are, how they relate to disease in our bodies and how we can go about diagnosis and treating these imbalances with targeted natural therapies.

I often hear the term “alternative therapy” when treating patients with natural substances; yet I truly believe that conventional wisdoms states the following: 

• • If you were dehydrated, you would receive an IV of water.
• • If you had Scurvy, you would be prescribed vitamin C, and
• • If you had Ricketts, you would be told by you physician to take vitamin D, and on and on.

Get the point. Treat the body with what is missing and it will heal itself.   

Let’s take a look at how we can treat common disorders such as depression, attention deficit disorder, anxiety, insomnia, weight gain, hyperactivity and so on, with the catalysts and sparkplugs the body requires to replenish imbalances that may exist in these conditions.

What are neurotransmitters?

In the brain we have a complicated network made up of 100 billion neurons connected to various organs within the body.  

To over-simplify this network, we will pretend for a moment that the neurons are merely the wires between the walls of your house. Just looking at the maize of wires prior to putting up the walls is enough to make your head spin.  

To harness the power of electricity sent throughout those wires the electrician provides switches that will turn the lights on and off. Some will turn on your computer, and some the TV. Other switches will turn on the air conditioning when your house gets too warm or warm it when it gets too cold. Get the picture?

Neurotransmitters are chemical switches placed strategically at the end of every “wire” in the brain to harness the erratic power of electricity passing through each neuron. 

Neurotransmitters are the switches that tell the brain’s electrical current how to behave. Simply speaking, these switches serve to control the millions of electrical messages and processes carried out on a daily basis by the brain.  

For example, the perception of danger “turns on” circuits in the brain that induce a fear response, which may communicate to the body different messages such as “tense up muscles”, “palms sweat”, “increase heart rate”, and “breathe faster”.

Of course, the brain is a bit more complicated than the switches of a house. For example, the chemical switches are numerous and vary in name and function and are divided into two categories, namely “excitatory” and “inhibitory.”  

Over simplifying once again, let’s just say that when its time to wake up in the morning, we will require the excitatory switches, epinephrine (adrenaline), norepinephrine and dopamine to be activated to be motivated enough to get out of bed. We would also require the inhibitory neurotransmitters that were activated at night to be subdued so that we won’t continue to hit that snooze button on our alarm.

Now suppose in your house, (the brain), the switches begin to undergo wear and tear, stress and strain, poor nutrition, toxic overload, and genetic faultiness. Soon you begin to notice that one or more of your “lights” have stopped working properly. Your once upon a time bright and happy home is now dull and lacks the excitement it was so proud of.  

What is the solution?

Drugs such as Celexa, Zoloft, and Lexapro are considered SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors). They act to maintain remaining switches by recycling what is remaining in the brain rather than by increasing them.  

Drugs like Zyprexa affect different neurotransmitters in the brain such as Dopamine, Serotonin, Norepinephrine, Histamine, GABA and Acetylcholine.

So in a way, these drugs do target different neurotransmitters.  

The problem with a pharmaceutical approach, however, is two-fold. First, no one objectively checks what neurotransmitter imbalances you have. There are hundreds of neurotransmitter imbalance combinations that can manifest with the same symptom. For example, depression can occur with an imbalance of Serotonin, Dopamine, Epinephrine and many others.  

The current conventional approach however, usually goes after one neurotransmitter as the culprit (Serotonin) and fails to analyze others that might be suspect. This approach is no better than changing my transmission, to later find out that it was my battery that was the problem.

As a laboratory physician and clinician, I recognize that only a few laboratories are able to measure neurotransmitter levels and their metabolites.

With this in mind, my approach to uncovering issues of the brain, is similar to how I balance the rest of the body. I listen to the patient, decide what to test, then target any imbalance with what the body requires to balance the defect.

For the brain, it is targeted amino-acid precursors, vitamins, proper nutrition, chelation and any other modalities necessary to correct the imbalance. This is conventional biochemistry and makes the most sense for me.

That is my conventional approach to treating all my patients: Give them only what is needed to fix the problem and their body will heal itself.