Often use the phrase “wear of the nervous system” – however, the nervous system is not a car, its wear is not associated with mileage. The tendency to emotional reactions is partly heredity in conjunction with education and environment.
Neurons and stress
Despite the fact that nerve cells (they are neurons) are the main, but not the only cells of the human nervous system, they generate and conduct signals entering the brain. Their job is to process information, respond to everything around and decide how we will perceive what is happening. This is a large and voluminous work of the nervous system and it is accomplished due to neurons.
Nerve cells are very complex and require certain conditions. However, they are not inclined to die just like that – “out of the blue”. Most neurons live as long as a person lives.
It is generally accepted that nerve cells die when a person experiences household stress and emotional experiences. The picture, which is drawn by illiterate marketing (while you are nervous, millions of your nerve cells die), this does not work. Stress, experiences – this is one of the modes of the nervous system. Yes, maybe he is not the most comfortable, but certainly not a disaster. One of the functions of the nervous system is to serve the body, which must be saved from unpleasant situations.
Such a regime for a person is subjectively unpleasant, but the cells, in fact, do not care. If the stress does not stop and lasts for weeks and months, this can deplete the body’s margin of safety, but still it is rather difficult to bring nerve cells to death, we’ll soon get other health problems.
“Nerve cells die due to stress” – this is just an advertising slogan that has no evidence base and is, among other things, a monstrous lie. Nerve cells are perceived as firewood, which “drowns” human experiences and which as a result die due to this. But this is not so – we are born with them and die with them.
Disorders of the nervous system
There must be serious reasons for the death of nerve cells. For example, damage to the brain and, as a result, complete or partial damage to the nervous system. This happens during a stroke, and there are two options for the development of events. In the first case, the vessel is blocked and oxygen ceases to flow to the area of the brain. As a result of oxygen starvation, partial (or complete) cell death occurs in this region. In the second case, the vessel bursts and a brain hemorrhage occurs, the cells die, because they simply are not adapted for this.
In addition, there are diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease. They are just connected with the death of certain groups of neurons. These are very serious conditions that a person receives as a result of a combination of many factors. Unfortunately, these diseases cannot be foreseen in the early stages or reversed (although science leaves no attempt). For example, Parkinson’s disease is detected when a person shakes hands, it is difficult for him to control movements. This means that 90% of the neurons in the area that controlled all this have already died. Prior to this, the surviving cells took over the work of the dead. In the future, mental functions are disturbed and problems with movement appear.
Alzheimer’s syndrome is a complex disease in which certain neurons begin to die throughout the brain. Man loses himself, loses his memory. Such people are supported with medication, but medicine cannot yet recover millions of dead cells.
There are other, not so well-known and widespread, diseases associated with the death of nerve cells. Many of them develop in old age. A huge number of institutions around the world study them and try to find a way to diagnose and treat, because the world’s population is aging.
Neurons are slowly starting to die with age. This is part of the natural process of human aging.
Nerve cell repair and sedatives
If the affected area was not very large, then the functions for which he was responsible can be restored. This is due to the plasticity of the brain, its ability to compensate. The human brain can transfer the tasks that the deceased piece solved to the “shoulders” of other areas. This process does not occur due to the restoration of nerve cells, but due to the ability of the brain to very flexibly rearrange the connections between cells. For example, when people recover from a stroke, they learn to walk and talk again – this is the same plasticity.
It should be understood here: dead neurons no longer resume their work. What died is lost forever. No new cells are formed, the brain is rebuilt so that the tasks performed by the affected area are resolved again. Thus, it is absolutely certain that it can be concluded that nerve cells do not unambiguously recover, but also do not die from events occurring in a person’s daily life. This happens only with severe injuries and diseases that are directly related to a malfunction in the nervous system.
– If nerve cells died off every time we are nervous, we would very quickly become incapacitated and then just as quickly cease to exist. If the nervous system has completely stopped working, then the body has died.
Manufacturers of sedatives claim that their regular use during a “stressful” life will preserve our nerve cells. In fact, they work to reduce the negative reaction. Sedatives act in such a way that an attempt to respond to a negative emotion does not start so quickly. Cells have nothing to do with it. Roughly speaking, they help not to lose his temper, perform the function of prevention. Emotional stress is a burden not only for the nervous system, but also for the whole organism, which is preparing to fight against a non-existent adversary. So sedatives help not to include the “fight or run” mode when it is not needed.
