What I Learnt For The Week #1: Microglia, Ophidiophobia, Imposter Syndrome, Hyperthymesia And The Invasive Asian Toad

Hello steemians and friends, welcome to my first edition of What I learnt for this week. Special thanks to @mobbs for creating this great initiative and also to @samminator for getting me interested with his awesome editions.

I made a lot of amazing discoveries last week (27th May - 1st June), which I'm so happy to be sharing with you guys. Enjoy!!!

Monday: Microglia - A Defender Against Prion Diseases

I guess you would want to know what Prion diseases means first. Prion diseases are slow chronic disease of the brain that occurs in both humans and animals. This disease is caused by a type of protein called Prion, which triggers the normal proteins in the brain to fold abnormally. The most common prion disease that affects us, humans is the Creutzfeldt - Jakob Disease (CJD). There have been no vaccine nor treatment to this disease until some weeks ago, when some scientists discovered some evidence which can act as a protective immune response to this disease, and it is known as Microglia.

You guys need to also know what Microglia means, before understanding how it can act as a defender against Prion diseases. Microglia are a type of neuroglia that is located throughout the brain and the spinal cord which helps to remove damaged neurons and also helps in maintaining the health of the Central Nervous System. Scientists believe that the microglia possess the ability of trapping and destroying the prion protein that causes brain damages or prion diseases, after using the experiment drug called PLX5622.

This is a major breakthrough for neuroscientists i.e scientists that study the brain, as this(microglia) does not only help to fight against the prion disease but other forms of brain diseases such as the Alzheimer's disease and the Parkinson's disease.

To know more, click here

Tuesday: Ophidiophobia (Fear of Snakes)

I won't say we all are suffering from Ophidiophobia, but it is a known fact that 1 out of 3 people are suffering from this phobia. It is known as the second most common phobia in the world, reason being that, a lot of people fear snake, I mean a lot, smiles.

I like writing on Venomous Creatures and among the top 20 venomous creatures in the world, they are at least 5 different species in the list, thus making these creatures one of the most feared creatures in the world, hereby, making a lot of people suffer from the phobia.

Although, most people with this phobia can live a normal life as long as they do not get confronted by this creature, But there are some people that suffer from a severe ophidiophobia, that even the mention or an image of a snake either on TV or in books can lead to a severe reaction which can cause heart attack and death to such people.

^{[Source: Pixabay. CCO Licensed]}

The causes of having a fear of snake(ophidiophobia) may be the fear an individual got when seeing a close friend or family member got bitten or hissed at by a snake or medical reports and TV shows can also make an individual fear these creatures even more leading to Ophidiophobia, or because the individual has been bitten or hissed at by a snake in the past, which makes you fear snakes, or because of the individual's family history of a ophidiophobic person can also make such an individual and other of his/her family members fear snakes.

The signs or symptoms which indicate that an individual maybe suffering from ophidiophobia are: the individual may be expressing an extreme anxiety when exposed to snakes or the individual may shout, have breathing difficulties, or even cry when he/she encounter snakes, images on TV or in books, or the individual may have a feeling of doing anything within his/her powers to avoid snakes or the individual may experience great anxiety when taken to locations where snakes may be at.

You can overcome Ophidiophobia by looking at images of snakes and even visiting the zoo to look at a caged snake. This would help in overcoming the fear of snakes.

To read more, click here

Wednesday: Imposter Syndrome

Have you ever felt that you didn't deserve your admission, your promotion, your success, and so on, and someday you won't be able to be as good as people think and the fame and attention would all go away. If you have felt or still feeling that way, then my friend you are suffering from Imposter Syndrome.

The imposter syndrome is also known as the fraud syndrome, which makes an individual feel that he/she is not worthy of all the success or accomplishment made, and that people would soon know that, they are just fake and not as much as an achiever that they believed. Funny enough, they are really true achievers, but they don't see it that way. They most times have these thoughts; "I didn't merit this award", "I don't belong to these class of people", "I must not fail" and so on. They are regularly convincing themselves, that they are not as good as people think they are, and that one day, they would be discovered and be publicly shamed. This syndrome was very common to women in the late 1970s and early 1980s, because many women were striving in their jobs, which was something that hadn't happened before. So the women were having the thoughts that; "they didn't deserve their success", " they need not fail" and so on. You must note that this syndrome exists in both males and females equally now.

There are some common traits of people suffering from this syndrome which are; the sufferers may go overboard on doing a particular task because they are afraid of failing. They may get over anxious about getting a task done i.e they like things to done perfectly 100%. They always reject praises and keep saying that they do not deserve any praise and so on.

It is believed that about 70% of people have experienced this syndrome at some point in lives. You must know that this is not a life syndrome, a lot of people tend to overcome it with time. Once a sufferer have some level of consistency with success, he/she tends start having self confidence and over time he/she would overcome the syndrome.

Many successful people are suffering from this syndrome, especially celebrities such as movie stars, musicians, footballs, etc. Like in a movie called Nothing Hill, where the movie star always felt that a day would come when people would see that she wasn't as good as they thought she was, and her fame would die. A cool romantic comedy movie(smiles).

If you want to read more, click here

Thursaday: Hyperthymesia

Can you remember what you wore on 7th of June, 2006, or what you ate for diner on 19th May, 2001?, the answer would most definitely be a NO, but people with hyperthymesia can tell you exactly what they wore and ate for diner in those dates mentioned. For instance if their diner had 5 plantains and 2 eggs, they would tell you, they would even tell you if it rained that day or not, I mean they would tell you in full details of any activities they have had in their life.

Hyperthymesia is a neurological disorder i.e it is a nervous system disorder that enables an individual remember his/her life experiences abnormally. The word was gotten from two Ancient Greek words which are; hyper, which means excessive and thymesis which means remembering, therefore the word hyperthymesia means excessive remembering.

People with hyperthymesia remember almost every single details of their past without any effort. As soon as they are asked about their past they just remember it as if it was few minutes ago, without cracking their head to remember it. Although, people with hyperthymesia are different from people with other forms of incredible memory such as the autistic savants, mnemonist and so on. Hyperthymesiac people can not memorize anything at all, but can only remember their past vividly. They can not use their ability for school activities or apply them in their work place. Let me give you guys an illustration to make it clearer. For instance, imagine a classroom with a teacher in it, teaching the students multiplications, an individual with hyperthymesia would be able to remember what cloth the teacher wore that day, what he/she ate for lunch, any cool stuff that happened in class that day but he/she won't be able to remember the techniques of multiplication that the teacher taught them that day.

People with hyerthymesia tend to have difficulty being in the present, as they are always living in their past. They tend to spend more time thinking about their past than living in their present, They easily get distracted by memories of their past and would lose focus of their present. According to one of the most known hyperthymesiac, AJ, who believed that hyperthymesia is not a gift but a burden. She described her memory as a

Running movie that never stops. Source

Enjoy this video

If you want to know more, click here

Friday: The Invasive Toxic Asian Toad Threatens Madagascar's Biodiversity

The Asian toad(Duttaphrynus melanostictus) known as Radaka Boka(Leprous toad) by the local natives of Madagascar, is an invasive specie and it is known that, after habitat loss which causes creatures to go extinct, the second known cause for creatures extinction are the Invasive species. It has been confirmed that these toads possess toxins which are capable of killing any creature that eats them.

These toads are not brightly colored like the Poison Dart Frog, as that would have been a warning to predators not to eat them, making them more dangerous to their predators. The presence of these creatures in Madagascar is causing a big upset to the balance of the local diversity and for the native animals. In less than 10 years after their arrival on the inland, their population is already running above 5 million, and that's because they are rapid breeders that produce up to 40,000 eggs yearly.

The arrival of these toads is threatening to many species and may cause the extinction of some creatures. The situation was so alarming, that scientists from Australia and other parts of the world came to carry out some research on the native animals of Madagascar to know how many are resistant to the toxins of these toads. After the research was carried on 77 different creatures only 1 creature(a rodent called the white-tailed antsangy) is capable of resisting their toxins, making the effects of these toads on Madagascar's biodiversity very bad.

Failure to control and contain these invasive toads would not only cause great disaster on the biodiversity but also would have some economic impact. For instance, the 2017 plague outbreak is believed to have been caused by these toads indirectly, in the sense that, the black rats were the cause of the plague outbreak, and ever since the arrival of these toads , the black rats have been increasing in numbers because the main predators of these black rats are snakes, and the snakes are one the major victims of these toads.

To know more, click here.

These are the amazing discoveries I made this week, I hope you enjoyed reading through.
Till next time !!!

Thank you for reading

References

Ref 1 | Ref 2 | Ref 3 | Ref 4 | Ref 5 | Ref 6

All images used in this article are free source licensed under the Creative Commons and are liable for commercial use.

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