Sorry again for the dearth of posts. The first exams of the new term are on Monday (barring a fantastically well-timed potential snowstorm), so learning took precedent over writing about learning. So, without further ado:
FridayIL: Morphine has the same high potential for abuse as other strong opiod medications like oxycodone. The reason you don't hear about rampant morphine addiction is that morphine undergoes extensive first pass metabolism in the liver. If a drug is taken orally, it's absorbed in the GI tract and passes through the liver en route to the rest of the body. The liver detoxifies our blood and if its enzymes are able to breakdown a drug, the amount of drug available to have an effect on the body is dramatically reduced. So, though morphine is the active ingredient in opium and is the breakdown product of other drugs like codeine, it isn't typically abused itself since it can't be effectively given orally.
Monday: SNOW DAY!
TuesdayIL: Ketamine is a N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor antagonist used as a chemical restraint. It is part of a class of drugs called dissociative anesthetics because people under their effects are "dissociated" from the world.
WednesdayIL: Louis Pasteur created the first rabies vaccine by blending up the spinal cord of rabbits infected with rabies.
Osmotic demyelination syndrome (aka central pontine myelinolysis) sucks. This is a form of brain damage caused by too rapidly correcting hyponatremia (low sodium). This scenario usually unfolds as an ER doctor treating a chronic alcoholic and accidentally causing permanent paralysis, locked-in syndrome or death.
Marchiafava-Bignami disease is necrosis of the central third of the corpus callosum caused by drinking crappy red wine. It's probably not actually due to the wine (which was noted in the first described cases in Italy) but the associated vitamin deficiencies seen in chronic alcoholics. So always drink in moderation and, just to be safe, drink good wine. (Not quite) doctor's orders!
Germinal matrix hemorrhage is a common brain injury found in severely premature infants. The brain is normally very good at regulating the volume of blood in its vessels. If the brain vasculature is not fully developed, the sudden increase in blood pressure when the placenta is cut off (no pun intended) from the peripheral circulation can cause the brain blood vessels to burst.
TIL: ...a wonderfully inappropriate mnemonic (aren't all the best ones?) for the structures of the cerebellum:
Lovers can't cum? Don't fret! Try prayer, U novice.
Cerebellar structures: Lingula, culmen, cline, decline, folium, trigone, pulvinar, uvula, nodulus.
No comments:
Post a Comment