_{A foetus}

Well, I don't think anyone has ever thought of this in recent times, the link between viral infections in a fetus and a heart disease when he grows up. For a clearer understanding, by fetal infection, I mean infections or inflammation of a baby in the womb. In most cases, the baby is born prematurely. The University of Washington found out the infection of a fetus can cause an alteration in the activities of the genes needed for the formation of a good heart by the fetus.

^[1] Doctors of Medicine had been aware that preterm births and fetal infection could lead to a lot of long-term health risk like brain injury, lung injury, kidney problems, hearing issues but were still in the dark as to its effect on the heart. Now, it's another case entirely. They have been able to connect the fetal infections and inflammations to heart disease in adulthood, breaking down the genes networks altered by the infections.

As we know, nothing becomes accepted into the world of science until it has been properly tested and confirmed to be true. ^[2] In a bid to meet up with this requirement, scientists studied a species of monkey, the pigtail macaque monkey (a monkey that has a lot of similarities with human pregnancies). They exposed the monkey to infections through the uterus and found out a compromisation in the genes of the fetus after the exposure.

So, the inability to program genes correctly can lead to an incomplete cardiac development which can branch into heart failure or arrhythmia as the baby ages Cardiovascular business

^[3] Streptococcus and Escherichia coli have always been the most common infections associated with the human pregnancies so, it became the scientists' choice for experiment as no other bacteria would have been more perfect for the job and you might need to know that once a pregnant woman gets infected by these two infectors, they often give birth to preterm babies.

Further investigation showed that ^[1] inflammation is triggered almost immediately after the infection, ^[2] the inflammation spreads from the heart tissues to the inflammatory protein, and ^[3] a lot of things including the formation of blood vessels, the growth of cardiomyocyte, relocation of the endothelial cells, and most importantly, the gene networks of the heart were altered.

Well, am done with that but that's not enough for a stem post so I'm adding something else.

Hunger and our decision making.

_{Hunger boosts the memory?}

Since the first post is too short, I think it's best I give you guys something extra to make it worthwhile. So, on what else to add I chose to unveil the link between hunger and decision making.

First, let me be sure we know we don't just get hungry for no reason and when we are hungry, it's as a result of the actions of our hunger hormones and yes, we have hormones responsible for our hunger and they determine if we get hungry or not. Don't be surprised if you don't eat for a day and you're perfectly okay and the next day, you're eating like a demon, lol. I must confess that yesterday, I was just eating uncontrollably, feeling hungry just after every meal and today I've just been drinking water. I think I ate it all yesterday, lol. These hormones include ghrelin, leptin, neuropeptide Y and so on.

^[4] Scientists found out that hunger is good for decision making at times. The ability to adapt to one's environment is one very important thing in the animal kingdom. Scientists at the University of Exeter discovered that animals are able to adapt more in areas with less food availability. You might be wondering what must have been the reason for this. No stress! It's because of the different schools of survival: ^[1] The assessment of your current energy levels which happens to be the gut instinct and ^[2] The evaluation of your actions using your intelligence.

^[5] The gut instinct help animals survive for a longer period without food which is the reason scientists tried to see the correlation between it and the hunger experience. In a condition called hangry which means being angry due to hunger, your stomach signals to you that there's need to get food as you have no food left in the safe, lol. In this condition, it's easier for you to think of a place to get good food in a short time because your gut instinct is at work and it's processing data from your memory to get a good place you've visited in the past, unlike the usual way you think before you figure out a place to get good food.

Let me end today's digest with a quote....

If it costs a lot of resources to be so clever then natural selection will have found a cheaper way to make decisions. The ability to use internal states such as hunger as a memory will have reduced the need to evolve big brains Prof. John McNamara

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Image sources

• Fetal infection
• Hunger

References

^{[4] Hunger, ood for decision making}

^{[5] The gut instinct}