An Advance in Protecting the Brain from Dementia

Mitochondria is an organelle (tiny organ) inside our cells. One of the vital roles of it plays in the biological community is to produce a molecule we use as energy. It is like a central bank of our cells. It produces the currency by which things get done. The energy molecule is called ATP. (adenosine triphosphate) A loss of function in mitochondria can negatively impact our biological systems in a number of ways. ATP is not the only role of mitochondria. They also produce many other things by way of their own DNA. Among these biologically meaningful structures is a peptide called humanin.

Mitochondria communicate back to the cell and actively engage in determining major cellular policies in that larger context through signals communicated through structures like humanin. (these are called retrograde signals) Humanin, and many other signals are encoded in the nuclear genome of the organelle and play a crucial “voice in the choir” role in making sure the whole relationship economy functions. Humanin in particular plays a protector role in the cell against damage. (This is called a cytoprotective role). When the population of humanin, and other peptides that together provide for proper function of cells like ours (eukaryotic cells) becomes disproportionate the cellular needs, we suffer degradation of the systems we depend on. This can include dementia when it comes to brain function. Here’s a closer look at how the understanding of these roles can lead us to forming effective treatments.

𝗠𝗶𝘁𝗼𝗰𝗵𝗼𝗻𝗱𝗿𝗶𝗮𝗹 𝗣𝗲𝗽𝘁𝗶𝗱𝗲 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝘁𝗲𝗰𝘁𝘀 𝗔𝗴𝗮𝗶𝗻𝘀𝘁 𝗗𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗮

“…researchers to believe that humanin levels play an important function in the aging process and the onset of diseases linked to older age… Because of the beneficial effects of humanin, a decrease in circulating levels could lead to an increase in several different diseases of aging, particularly in dementia”

https://www.technologynetworks.com/neuroscience/news/mitochondrial-peptide-protects-against-dementia

The Art of Communication Has A Long Tradition

Collections of cells working together as a unified body, producing specialized behaviors that lend adaptive advantage on a group scale which include some sacrificial acts that benefit that larger community is not unique to complex multicellular organisms like ourselves. It is more of a relationship theme that that has been threaded into biology long before multicellularity as we know it emerged. It involves perceiving necessities, and communicating these necessities across a biological domain so that effective behavioral responses can take place. This community principle, complete with communication across a wide biological landscape has been present, and conserved throughout our biological history – a unified purpose among different biological entities that arose out of necessity long before multicellular (metazoic) creatures emerged. Here is an example of how this takes place among microbes:

How Microbes Communicate Over Long Distances

“…Percolation is familiar to anyone who brews coffee, and it helped researchers at the University of California San Diego understand how bacteria communicate with one another over long distances. Communities of bacteria, sometimes called biofilms, aren’t just a clump of bacterial cells. It seems they can send signals to one another with ion channels, promoting the survival of the community and protecting it from attacks. New findings on that communication have been reported in Cell Systems.”

 

Link to full article:

https://www.labroots.com/trending/microbiology/12216/microbes-communicate-distance

The Ties that Bind Us

There are any number of relationships, which transcend species lines, that are nonetheless vital for the proper functioning of the individual organisms within that biological relational field. These groups of organisms, or sometimes specific processes within these organisms, can form obligate (necessary) bonds that have the same characteristics as the relationships between the collection of vital organs in a singular body.

 

The relationships that define the integrity and continuing function of any single organism extends far beyond that singular organism’s membrane. Each organism exists by way of an extended network of mutually nourishing and defensive relationships that collectively nourish and defend the integrity of that community. This relational lens is far more useful to see the foundational principles of biology than is a reductionist, organism-centric lens.

 

The same community principle is what defines the strength and integrity of any complex adaptive system from a single cell, to organ, to the larger relationship economy we see expressed through ecosystems is also true of interpersonal relationships, families, groups, society and civilization itself. This is the underlying message communicated through the processes that define the biological economy – that forging mutualistic nourishing bonds, and by extension, a common defense, defines the level of adaptation any complex adaptive system will have to negotiate the environment.

 

Here is an example of one such inter-species relational bond that illustrates the type of bond that nourishes and protects a body of life, the same way organs in a multicellular creature relate to each other:

 

𝗡𝗲𝘄 𝗿𝗲𝗰𝗲𝗽𝘁𝗼𝗿 𝗶𝗻𝘃𝗼𝗹𝘃𝗲𝗱 𝗶𝗻 𝘀𝘆𝗺𝗯𝗶𝗼𝘀𝗶𝘀 𝗯𝗲𝘁𝘄𝗲𝗲𝗻 𝗹𝗲𝗴𝘂𝗺𝗲𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗻𝗶𝘁𝗿𝗼𝗴𝗲𝗻-𝗳𝗶𝘅𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗿𝗵𝗶𝘇𝗼𝗯𝗶𝗮 𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗳𝗶𝗲𝗱

 

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/07/180705100421.htm

Cultivating Adaptive Relationships: A Key to Survival

Relationships that can form between organisms that generate adaptive traits that would otherwise not exist, traits which are sometimes crucial in the context of the environmental conditions, can mean the difference between continuing forward through time and extinction. When these adaptive capabilities emerge in the context of environmental pressures, long term mutually beneficial relationships can then be conserved meaning maintained over time. This “forging of mutually beneficial relationships” that nourish or protect a local biological economy in the context of the environmental pressures is another form of what we call natural selection.

 

At one time these relationships formed by chance, and accumulated as a result of how they contributed to adaptation. Understanding how to cultivate these relationships, along with actively facilitating them where they can serve that adaptive purpose in the context of the larger body of life we live in and depend on in a constructive way is part of the technological lever we have as humans to influence our present and our future. Here is an example of this emerging application of evolution that may make a crucial difference in our continuing survival.

Biology is a Symphony of Variations Built on a Coherent Theme

 

Any coherent system in nature has some combination of self similarity with other systems as well as some unique points of differentiation. In other words; nature has themes, and variations on the theme. Biology is no exception to this rule. When we consider the mind boggling complexity with which the relationship economy we call biology is expressed on many scales, we can easily get lost in the complexity. In order to understand it with a maximally useful perspective we must be able to tell the difference between the self similar themes and the mind boggling variations on those themes.

With an understanding of the difference between theme and variation, we can then identify the key leverage points which influence various systems more intentionally and effectively. As we ferret out the principle axioms on which complex systems rely – the simple rules behind the complexity – the global properties threaded through the biological economy – we then have tools to more rapidly see the many variations on the theme, and with this clarified vision, we are also poised to more effectively influence the nature of the processes and by extension our experience of life.

The heartbeat of the integrity on which biological systems rely is a relationship economy built on a cultivated harmony of mutually nourishing relationships, along with a proportional attendance to defending that nourishing relationship field from antagonists. This two stroke relational engine is facilitated by various means of perception structures that are aimed at identifying nourishment from antagonist, as well as a repertoire of corresponding behaviors that relate appropriately with each type of perception.

Biological systems must acquire information and act appropriately on that information – information related to acquiring nourishment while avoiding and or destroying antagonists. Acquiring nourishment in service of the mutually nourishing relationship field that defines its continuing coherency, along with an immune system to protect that nourishing social economy is the theme. Acquiring and sharing information to this “nourish and protect” end, along with manufacturing structures that facilitate a proportional response, is how biological systems are “expressed”.

Biology can be viewed as a collection of structures that must perceive and share information across the network of mutually nourishing bodies, as well as structures that can act on these perceptions. We see this theme at the cellular level, between cells, at the organ level, between organs, and at the species level, and between species. The same way varied expressions of musical communication can be generated from a basic theme of 7 notes, the overarching theme of the biological economy is variously expressed by way of simple thematic foundations – variations on the theme.

This “perception and response” theme that facilitates the axiomatic core of “nourish and protect” behavior is itself the thematic nucleus of biology. If information needs to be shared, it is accomplished by way of structures purposed toward a specific “meaning” that fits into this thematic core. If a defense requirement is perceived by way of structure, it is also expressed behaviorally by way of structure. Structures in the context of biology convey meaning.

These meaningful structures from which biology is composed also have self similar themes. Many established structures are variations on the theme; “perceive and respond to nourish and protect” – established structures are frequently repurposed to accomplish many different things in service of the perceiving and communication engine in service of nourishing and protecting.

With all of this in mind, we can then see that the way communication is facilitated by way of certain structures in the brain may be an expression of an isomorphic theme – a representation of the way organisms communicate between each other in the form of viral “communications” in the brain may also be seen as the means of carrying out the functions of perceiving, nourishing and defending in the larger biological body of life. Bacteria share information by way of structures, and viruses are certainly worthy of being considered as a potential means by which perceiving, nourishing and defending goes on in an ecosystem. The reason this may be worth consideration is because “thoughts” in the form of viral like structures is the the physical form of the information economy within the brain. When we consider this pathway for information sharing, we might ponder how this same structural process might play out in the larger body of life, using viral like particles as the means of sharing information, nourishing and or protecting integrity.

Brain Cells Share Information With Virus-Like Capsules

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/01/brain-cells-can-share-information-using-a-gene-that-came-from-viruses/550403/

Sharing is the Recipe for a More Intentional Life

We humans have the advantage of knowing a greater swath of nature’s inherent proposition; that our position as a continuing entity is frail and precarious and that we must either tend to the blended duties that service our remaining coherent over time, or we cease to remain coherent.

As we push the envelope on drawing this map of understanding the relationship economy we depend on, we also unlock the corresponding opportunities that come from it. We do so by way of sharing our discoveries of the relational economy that defines our experience of life with each other. It becomes the catalyst for our ability to move more intentionally in a nourishing direction toward our full potential. Like the many droplets of rain that can ultimately collect into a massive lake, each small discovery, and the sharing of it, contributes to our strengthening potential to more effectively steer what we experience. Without this wealth, we are prone to be carried by the whims of circumstance, rather than be able to steer toward intentional places.

Among the recent discoveries we are beginning to map with more clarity – and that has shown much promise in giving us the ability to effective steer these relational waters we exist in – is the increasing awareness that individual organisms are inseparably networked to many other biological and physical entities in an interdependent relationship economy, and that nourishing or disrupting this relationship economy has a powerful defining influence on the experience of life of the participants in that biological economy. Our microbiome (the many organisms that live in and on us) is one of the the first tiers of influence in that wider biological relationship economy that we are mutually dependent on.

These microbial creatures we share the ride with in our local biological economy are a prime example of the extended interdependency that defines our experience of life. (and theirs) Our individual potential for a vibrant and dynamic life, or an impoverished one, is directly tied to how we negotiate the biological and physical economy we are baptized in. Here is an example of one of the potential ways we can now steer our experience more intentionally because of the exploration, discovery, and sharing of these finds with each other. What would have once been a situation we had to negotiate with little more than hope and complaint can now be intentionally influenced.

Precision editing of gut bacteria: Potential way to treat colitis

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2018-01-precision-gut-bacteria-potential-colitis.html

A Few Thoughts on Evolution

 

A few thoughts on evolution as a whole:

It is sometimes thought that evolution by way of natural selection happens due to happenstance mutations in genes that happen to offer some adaptive advantage, and are therefore more likely to be passed on to the next generation, thus preserving them through the generations. While this passive collection of traits is part of the evolutionary change process, natural selection is a much larger umbrella of influences, both passive and active, that have the capacity to shape the traits that contribute to an organism’s or ecosystem’s adaptive profile. The various behaviors and structures that ultimately remain coherent within an organism or ecosystem over time are those that enable the local biological field to negotiate the dynamic demands of the environment that they are continuously baptized in while also satisfying the structural hungers that must also be attended to in order to remain coherent. The relational environment contains both nourishing and antagonistic agents and is composed of both organic and inorganic influences that must be dynamically negotiated. This is no small task.

Biology is not just a relationship between organism and environment, it is also a relationship between and among organisms. It is also not solely a passive capture of traits by way of happenstance alone. Once an adaptive trait is “discovered” and embodied by various means, biology also develops various active means to pass the trait along. Biology also arguably searches out these traits and passing them along as well. Our human trait of being explorers in search of opportunity might be one of the ways this active search is facilitated. One illustration of this non genetic kind of trait is the way an animal can develop what are called “Fixed Action Patterns. A squirrel does not have to be told how to store nuts to negotiate the winter. That behavioral repertoire is embodied within the species and passed along through the generations. It was captured and stored at some level which may involve genes, but probably also entails other factors such as epigenetics as well.

Another important distinction to remember in order to see the larger landscape of biological evolution is that evolution is not a process that happens in the context of a species alone. Ecosystems also evolve as a whole body of life and there is a dynamic connection between the organisms within a species in that context. This relationship between organisms also means that organisms convey adaptive traits one to another through various means, both by way of the meaningful structured transmission of information and by way of happenstantial relational communications that confer adaptive traits. These information sources get captured at an organism or ecosystem level and actively spread the same way that the environmental trigger of a mutation in a sperm or egg that confers an advantage is more likely to get passed on.

Organisms exist in the context of many other organisms and this relational environment between organisms adds to the influential factors that shape the evolutionary process as a whole. It is this crucible that includes the deliberate transmission of traits as well as the acquisition of accidental occurrences that leads to the acquisition of adaptive traits that collectively drive the evolutionary process – this process that builds a hedge of coherency against the chaotic forces that would otherwise consume and disintegrate the body of relationships we call an organism, or ecosystem.

There are a number of ways that biological systems communicate adaptive traits one to another. This communication process that enables the passing along of adaptive traits can take the form of cooperative behaviors for instance. When we think about the wealth of adaptive capacities within our species we must consider the debt of gratitude we owe to our ability to share and cooperate. Not one of the words that are being used to communicate this idea for instance, would be understood if it were not for their structure and meaning having been shared with us at some point in time. This cooperative sharing platform has enabled humans to form our civilization.

Words are not the only way traits are transmitted between organisms. Our ability to capture and accumulate knowledge in a verbal net and transmit that knowledge one to another is synonymous with the way nature passes along of meaningful structural traits such as DNA and epigenetic information as well. Among these meaningful structural traits are sounds and behaviors such as postures or ritual sequences of behavior that convey meaning, as well as the passing of influential structures that serve as information one to another. This meaningful structural type of communication can take the form of molecules that we produce and perceive as scents, some of which, like hormones can meaningfully trigger massive behavioral shifts within and between organisms that serve various purposes like reproduction, establishment of adaptive hierarchies of social status, or the avoidance of danger etc. Still other forms of structural communication include the transmission of genetic information within and between organisms. This can happen by way of sexual reproduction, but in some cases can also occur through such methods as viruses, which can stitch genetic segments into already established DNA strands that can subsequently alter the organism in significant ways, some of which offer adaptive advantage.

Here is an article that takes a look at how viruses swap genes with a variety of cellular organisms and become part of that dynamic relational community that produced the fruit of adaptation in some cases.. In other words, viruses are also “agents of [adaptive] diversity” in certain cases:

https://dailyaccord.com/viruses-share-genes-organisms-across-tree-life/

A Life Well Lived

The measure of a life well lived is arguably one that was at least aimed at rendering something constructive in the wake of the numerous sacrifices that the larger community of life has had to make for us to have lived at all. This delivery of something more than what is taken from the community that we collectively depend on to nourish us is the very essence of “bearing fruit”. This lesson is well crafted and clearly communicated through the structure of nature in so many ways – that we can count the seeds in an apple, but not the apples in a seed, as long as those seeds are cultivated in a nourishing environment to their mature potential. Fruit, in many forms, including social, can pay endless dividends that are greater than the sacrificial investment that must be made to bring them to fruition. Recognizing, and tending to these opportunities is the essence of life.

Some few of us humans get recognized as monuments of constructive contribution (whether deserved or not). Still others of us are also well known, but for another reason; because we have left a notorious wave of destruction in our wake. The overwhelming majority of us also get to express significance, either fruitful or notorious, in another way – not as individuals, but by way of participating in something greater than ourselves – by being part of some collective effort that either strengthens our chances to remain coherent and to thrive as a community going forward, or that threatens that hedge against chaos we must maintain so that we do not get swallowed by the antagonists that would destroy the ordered economy of relationships that renders integrity that we all depend on.

The significance of what we do in these larger bodies of influence, and the fruit they bear upon maturity, is not necessarily understood by those of us that participate in them as individuals. We may be completely oblivious to the significance and power of our contributions, constructive or destructive, yet we still play our roles. We can be an example of one of these collective efforts that has the capacity to pay constructive dividends, if we passionately search out and cultivate that opportunity over time. We can also be thankful for thousands and millions who have played roles in making our potential future little more fruitful by way of discovering and cultivating these opportunities.

Our preparedness, and in some cases, our willingness to bravely face and adapt to the challenges the environment places upon us as a species will determine whether or not it will endure, or sink beneath the threshold required by nature to maintain our integrity over time. Part of nature’s inherent demand is that we we find and cultivate the routines that produce the fruit that nourishes us. Part of facing this challenge is a willingness to face the unknown – to be explorers, and make this effort part of what drives our flexibility to turn the formerly unknown to an advantage, rather than continue to fear and avoid it until it devours us in our ignorance. It is this blend of flexibility and rigidity that we are best prepared to endure the waves of chaos that would otherwise erode our integrity.

We owe a committed debt of gratitude to those of us who make the sacrificial effort to illuminate the darkness and make it part of where we can dwell – those willing to search for and cultivate these undiscovered fruits. This ode to the many unsung heroes among us that are the lifeblood of our strength and vitality may not be praised in song often enough, but they nonetheless deserving of our thanks. Thank you to all you who are out there doing things to give back to this community we share and depend on for life.

The Nature of Biological Systems

The basic nature expressed through biological systems all the way from the atoms and molecules that flit about in our cellular cytoplasm, through the organelles that serve as the institutional expressions of stability, producing and installing the various proteins we need, through the organs which have different capabilities that are dovetailed with each other, to the way we fit as species in the context of an ecosystem which we are part of and depend on for life must operate by the principle of nourishing and defending the continuing coherency of that entire system in order to remain coherent over time.

Whenever we focus at any level in a coherent biological system, we see the principle of the nourishment and the defense of coherency in the context of an environment with both nourishing and antagonistic agents at work. The coherent community of relationships of which we are composed dynamically differentiates friend from foe, and uses that perception to either call to service that which nourishes or defends itself against antagonists to remain coherent as a system over time.

Out of this fantastically complex blend of relationships, biology brings order to relative chaos. As biological creatures we are destined to engage in this process of nourishing and defending the coherency we depend on to continue. In this relational community we see the emergence of an implied purpose etched into all biological systems, whether or not these systems are at odds with each other. We call this global purpose expressed through biology by many names like survival instinct, nature, and so on, but the overarching unified purpose is that of nourishing and maintaining coherency over time. As byproducts of this theme we see acts of kindness, fruitful relationships as well as sacrifice in the mix. These various characters are the agents of balance and growth we depend on to realize our potential.

One of the prime necessary defenders in a local biological system like our own are the immune cells called “killer cells”. These cells target bacteria that are perceived as a threat and eradicate them so that they do not destroy the cooperative nourishing bonds that we depend on to remain coherent as a biological entity. Here is a closer look at how these soldiers of coherency that work and sacrifice on our behalf do their part in the tapestry of characters in this biological community that works to nourish and defend itself over time.

Microbial murder mystery solved

From the article: “…for the first time, researchers have caught killer cells red-handed in the act of microbial murder, observing them as they systematically killed three strains of microbes: E. coli and the bacteria responsible for causing Listeria infection and tuberculosis. The process inflicts bacterial cell death regardless of whether the environment contains oxygen or not… [The] findings… reveal that killer cells act methodically, shooting deadly enzymes into bacteria to “program” a complete internal breakdown and cell death.”

https://phys.org/news/2017-11-microbial-mystery.html

Nature Echoes Nourish and Defend Behaviors on Many Scales

When our immune system sees a pathogen, something it perceives as harmful, it establishes ways to effectively neutralize or destroy that destructive agent. In doing this, it uses weapons (destructive agents), and vectors (vehicles) to carry the weapons it uses in defend to their appropriate location.

On a broader scale, this same defense of integrity through an “immune response strategy” may be what is going on at a larger scale in biological ecosystems. Since nature establishes defenses (things which destroy perceived pathogens) by establishing defensive weapons and looking for vectors to carry these destructive agents to their appropriate location in order to effect the “immune response”, why would we not expect to see this happening on different scales, from cell to body, to larger bodies of life?

The only difference in this relational dynamic that happens in a cell or single multicellular organisms that also may be happening in ecosystems may be the scale. This “immune response” may be also happening between larger bodies of life – bodies of life which transcend single organisms, and are constructed of networked metabolic structures that are stitched together through a vast array of species and subsystems within species – bodies of life that, although composed of many kinds of organisms, have a need to nourish itself, as well as protective skins and other defenses to protect itself, in addition to porous biological boundaries, the same way an individual cell or a larger organism does.

These larger bodies of life, which sometimes clash as a result of the existential debt nature demands for any coherent biological body – to nourish and protect itself, and to mount defenses against antagonists to that coherency. This may be the legend of the map that defines relationship landscape we see in biological ecosystems. It may also explain why, when there is less need for these defensive weapons to be carried to and fro to perceived pathogens in these larger bodies of life, that we also see these vectors less populated with these transgenic weapons, as we see in the case of mosquitoes in the rain forest, which tend to be less populated with the weapons of defense. Just a thought…

Disease-carrying mosquitoes rare in undisturbed tropical forests

From the article: “We found that fewer mosquito species known to carry disease-causing pathogens live in forested areas compared to disturbed ones… Mosquito species from altered forest sites are more likely to transmit disease than mosquitoes native to an area of mature tropical forest.”

Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2017-08-disease-carrying-mosquitoes-rare-undisturbed-tropical.html