The practice of modern psychiatry has increasingly become dependent on the use of medications to treat the symptoms of brain-based disorders. Research in recent decades have resulted in a dramatic increase in our understanding of medications that alter several chemical messengers in the brain we call neurotransmitters.
Chemical messengers in the brain have names like serotonin, dopamine, norepinephrine, GABA among others. The medications, which treat conditions like ADHD, depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety to name the most common, have their impact on 1 or 2 of these neurotransmitter systems. Long-term symptom management with medications has its limitations and consequences.
Many fields of medicine have enjoyed varying degrees of success teaming up with natural healthcare providers such as internal medicine, orthopedic medicine, endocrinology, obstetrics, neurology, to name a few. The one medical field that has enjoyed the least benefit from a natural approach to health is psychiatry. This will all change with the application of fundamental health principles to brain science.
Our understanding of the brain and its environment has far outpaced our ability to produce medications, which impact brain function. There are new, important medications being developed and researched but even the pharmaceutical industry acknowledges that they are merely addressing symptoms and not addressing improved brain health or causes. There is also a lot of hope for personalized medication based on genetic models, however the application of this powerful new information is not clear.
Medications that treat common psychiatric concerns like the ones mentioned above mostly address the metabolism of specific individual neurotransmitters. The majority of work done in psychiatric medicine for the last 50 years has been on these individual neurotransmitters called “mono-amines”. This is the approach that gave the public conventional wisdom of a “chemical imbalance” as a diagnosis, an unscientific model of cause and effect.
Today, researchers look at brain function as it relates to whole circuits; not just individual regions of the brain or individual chemical messengers. We are looking at interconnectivity of the whole nervous system, a more holistic model.
For example, if research shows that many of the symptoms of ADHD come from a deficiency of function in the right pre-frontal cortex and or the right basal ganglia, then it is the job of the functional neurologist to determine what drives that system from the environment and use various methods to “activate” those neurological pathways, naturally.
What is the difference between increasing the activity of a pool of neurons, making a certain brain chemical substance more available through actions in the environment and giving a drug to make more brain chemical substance more available without being activated by the environment. The answer is that with environmental action you get the desired result and the areas of the brain in question are healthier and less likely to atrophy and dysfunction.
Understanding how the brain interacts with its environment and making sure that the environment is healthy for optimal genetic expression and neurologic function. This is where the functional neurologist and functional medicine specialist has the greatest impact. We use technology to determine specific areas of imbalance or weakness and target those areas with specific stimulation. After a period of time we would re-assess to determine the degree of functional change.
As a functional neurologist with extensive training in functional medicine, I apply a detailed understanding of brain circuitry and chemistry and strategize to impact it naturally. Activation of neurological pathways is the process of recognizing where information from the environment may not be getting through. Before this is done we make sure the nervous system has the nutrients, immune health and fuel to accept increased activity.
What questions do you have on brain function? Post them here and let’s discuss!
Thanks for reading!
