Coffee and Neurology

02/06/2024

There's a reason they are now calling the gut the "second brain" - check out my latest blog post where I share why!

The human body is a complex and interconnected system where every organ plays a vital role in maintaining overall health. While we often attribute cognitive functions solely to the brain nestled in…

08/21/2021

When your Amazon storefront finally gets approved- I’m on Amazon y’all!

On the C+N storefront, you are going to find:

📚my favorite neurology textbooks
🩺recommended equipment for those practicing functional neurology
🖍my favorite office essentials
🗃organization recommendations- because your external environment is a direct reflection of your internal state of mind!
🍫my go-to dairy free snacks for studying and on the go

Link in bio ⬆️

08/17/2021

Traditionally we have divided the autonomics into ✌🏼 two divisions- the sympathetics and parasympathetics (we also talk about the enteric nervous system as a third division, but we’re not going to talk about that in this post)

The sympathetic nervous system is our "fight or flight" division and is involved with anything that requires you to get moving. Think of a bear chasing you 🐻you're going to need your pupils dilated to see where it is, heart pumping and blood delivered to your muscles to either fight that bear 💪🏼 or run away 🏃🏻‍♀️ (I suggest you just run away if there's a bear).

Parasympathetics, on the other hand, is the "rest and digest" side of your autonomics 🛌. This is what lets your body do what you would technically think of during rest periods, including eating 🍽, urination and sexual arousal.

It's all a balancing act between these two systems. ⚖️ When the balance tips in favor of one side vs the other, we can get something we call dysautonomia. When we have dysautonomia, our bodies can’t tell the difference between a bear attack and bear claw (get it? Like the pastry? Ok I digress)

08/12/2021

A patient comes in with a constellation of different symptoms:

🫀heart feels like it is beating out of their chest, even though they barely did anything
💡sensitive to lights, especially artificial light
🌡getting overheated easily and feeling better in colder environments
✋🏻cold and clammy hands
😖feeling bloated and experiencing ongoing digestive issues
😠getting irritated more than usual
😵‍💫getting dizzy + feeling off when they stand up
😶‍🌫️feeling foggy all the time
😴chronic fatigue
🤫low libido or erectile dysfunction

They have seen many other doctors already, but unfortunately are struggling to find answers. They are told that everything looks normal and they are not sure why they are feeling the way they do, and it must be all in their head. They feel crazy. Hopeless. Scared they will never recover.

But if we take a closer look, we can see all of these symptoms point to the autonomic nervous system as the root cause. Because the autonomic nervous system has its effects on many systems in the body, dysautonomia can present as a magnitude of different things, even when they all seem disconnected.

In the next few posts we are going to focus more on the autonomic nervous system -
Stay tuned 😎

07/02/2021

⬆️ Most Common Symptoms associated with Concussion

⚠️Headache is the most common with 25-90% of patients reporting it
⚠️Migraine is the most common headache phenotype following mTBI
⚠️Sleep disturbances are often overlooked or missed- using the COMPASS-31 assessment can help catch this if it is present
⚠️Anxiety is the most frequently diagnosed emotional disturbance following concussion

🧠Concussion can often present as a wide variety of different symptoms, depending on which areas of the brain are effected. Just because your symptom is not one of the most common or might sound “strange” or “not real” to others, it does not mean it should be overlooked or invalidated, especially by your healthcare provider.

06/30/2021

🧠Let’s talk about the insular cortex and concussion

The insula plays an important role in our interoceptive awareness, or awareness of what is happening inside our body. It’s this insider knowledge (no pun intended) that makes the insula one of the key players in maintaining homeostasis and regulating our autonomic nervous system.

This becomes even more insightful when we look at concussion. In two separate studies (I’ll put citations in comments), researchers found a reduction in cerebral blood flow in the insular cortex in those who had suffered from a concussion. If the insula is not getting proper blood supply, it won’t be able to do its job as effectively to maintain homeostasis and regulate our autonomics. This decrease in blood supply is one way that we can explain why autonomic dysfunction may occur in concussed populations.

Different ways that you could potentially target activation of the insular cortex include activities that would increase interoception, such as mindfulness meditation, breath focus work, and listening to your heartbeat or bowel sounds with a stethoscope.

*Ofcourse, there are many other factors to consider when working with concussions. If you have had a concussion, please consult with your doctor for a proper examination.

08/31/2019

Hi!! 👋🏻 It’s been a minute since I’ve posted so I thought now would be a better time than ever to jump back in 😁 As we all are well aware, life can get pretty chaotic and busy, and with all the content I have been working to produce with the it can become REALLY easy to put the personal account on the back burner, am I right?

This weekend I teach Module 803 of the Clinical Neuroscience Program for the Carrick Institute: The Peripheral Nervous System. 🤓🧠 We all know the name of the game when working in Clinical Neuroscience— changing the expression of genes through the use of environmental and receptor stimuli (epigenetics, anyone?). But in order for the environment and the receptors we activate to create a response within the central nervous system, we have to have something to communicate the information to the brain and vice versa! That’s where the PNS comes in.

I can’t wait to share all the Clinical goodies this weekend at the Carrick Institute module. 🤗 If you’ve been ignoring the PNS like I’ve been ignoring my personal account, this course will definitely be a game changer for you!

Hope to see you there 🤓🎉 In the meantime, here’s a pic of the cervical plexus I recreated, swipe ➡️ for a close up

@ Carrick Institute

08/31/2019

👋🏻 Move your hand. It seems easy, but there is a LOT that goes on in your nervous system to make this possible.

Motor outputs (ie. outputs from our brain to make us move) are responsible for sending commands to our muscles to cause them to contract and generate movement. 🤸🏻‍♀️ In order for us to have PROPER movement, we must know where we are in space, what joints we have to move, and how much we have to move them from their resting or current location to achieve our goal. During ALL of this, parts of the nervous system are constantly monitoring our intended movement to our actual movement, correcting errors and making adjustments when needed.

Without this complex integration of our nervous system, our movements would be unsteady, inconsistent and would lack smoothness. Simply touching someone’s finger or reaching for a glass would become difficult. We would become dysmetric or ataxic.

So next time you reach for your coffee, appreciate all those little behind the scenes acts of your nervous system that are making it possible! ☕️

08/31/2019

✅ This past weekend I got to check a big goal off my list and teach my first 15 hour neuroscience course with the

So honored to represent this school and share some clinical goodies with others 🧠 Next up, Neuromuscular Applications in July 🤗💪🏻

06/19/2019

When you wear multiple hats in your career and love it 😂🧠
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