Full Transcript Neuroimmune Development Overview 0:00 Hey everybody, it's Dr. 0:01 Laura with Connect My Brain. 0:04 Okay, so we are continuing our deeper dive into the neuroimmune story. 0:14 So the previous podcast, we started to explain what this means regarding neuro-immune. 0:25 In the story of a child's development, if there are open windows of development and there is some type of immune situation going on when that neurology 0:41 is being developed the immune system is going to impact the outcome of that developmental window. 0:53 We highlighted one particular study that's very recent that looked at 250 children that were babies that born to mothers that tested positive for COVID. 1:11 Now the babies did not have COVID, but the immune reaction going on in mom had an impact on the development of their baby. 1:24 Now that is a virus, and so what we talked about before was that this isn't only to COVID, this is any virus. 1:37 Any virus that's acute, mean it's going during your pregnancy, Or maybe your bucket from your past medical history has other things in it, 1:54 like maybe Epstein-Barr, the family of herpes, which there's several of those, The idea of hand-foot-mouth, Fitt's disease, 2:08 pneumonia, any of these things that we've ever had. 2:14 It can also be in the family of yeast, parasites, chronic stress, food sensitivities, irritable bowel, leaky gut, leakey brain, 2:30 licky liver, any of this stuff is important for us to understand that our immune system is being taxed. 2:41 And if it's not completely cleared up, we're heading into pregnancy and creating a life with that kind of a bucket. 2:53 And so this is what we're really trying to understand. 2:57 And what do we do with this information? 3:00 So in the previous podcast, we talked about if you're thinking about having a baby, plan, you got to plan. 3:09 You need a couple of years, you need to look at labs, You Need to Look at Your Bucket. 3:15 And these are not typically traditional lab tests. 3:20 These are typically functional lab test where they're going to do a deeper dive. 3:27 So I'm not talking about like just going and having a CBC, a complete blood count. 3:33 I am talking looking at like a viral bacterial load.
Planning Pregnancy and Reducing Immune Burden 3:40 If you were ever told you had Lyme, finding out where that level of Lyne is. 3:46 Any of these things is important for us to look at before we go and decide that we're going to make a baby. 3:55 And it's true for mom and dad, okay? 3:57 You're both coming to the equation. 4:02 Now then we shifted gears and we spend more time in this arena talking about what does this mean for your child. 4:11 So if you look back at your own child's blueprint and you're saying to yourself, well, yeah, I've got some of these, The one that I left out that is really important, 4:26 they're all important but one everybody kind of thinks is so common is strep. 4:31 Strep now has been completely connected to the panda's diagnosis. 4:38 And we're not talking about the black and white bear, we are talking a pediatric autoimmune disorder. 4:44 That one has then connected two streps. 4:49 I was talking to a mom and she said, yeah, I had lots of strep and my child's already had streps. 4:57 And people do. 4:58 They think that, well, everybody gets strept. 5:00 I got to tell you, And it's important for us to realize we don't just dismiss something because it is common. 5:11 This is one of the things that I think really creates hardship on people understanding why something is going in the direction that it's going, 5:25 because it is kind of thought of as, well, everybody has it. 5:28 I've had parents come in and say to me, every kid has attention deficit, I really hope not. 5:36 And when we get so casual with this, we stop looking. 5:42 We stop thinking that maybe there's something that we can do about it, so for the person, that wants to have a baby, I want you to think about it. 5:55 I wanna you plan your pregnancy. 5:58 Look at your state of health and find out if this is the best time for you, to be conceiving a Baby. 6:07 If it's not, then clean it up. 6:09 There's so many things that can be done. 6:13 Clean it and then conceive your baby. 6:16 It's very important. 6:19 So over the course of a lifetime, we really want to pinpoint how the neurons grow and why things like immune dysfunction can have such a far-reaching effect. 6:43 And there's decades of research that shows that the environment of a child's earliest years can have effects that last a lifetime. 6:56 The biological embedding of early experience in brain development is supported by numerous studies. 7:08 And today what we're really looking at It's like one and one to three to five kids. 7:17 So out of every three-to-five kids, there's at least one that's having trouble going through the typical process. 7:29 of development and therefore being able to adapt to the life after birth and then go through their developmental milestones and eventually start their 7:43 academic career. 7:45 So today what I want to do, because as I've mentioned in my previous one, this is going to take a little bit of unraveling. 7:53 So what i'm trying to is connect the dots because i want you to understand how this can happen.
Early Brain Development and Pruning 8:02 So we started using words yesterday like apoptosis and synaptogenesis or in the previous podcast, and then we talked about pruning. 8:13 So I want you to imagine a timeline. 8:17 And in your mind, in that conception period, This is what we have when the egg and sperm come together and then just begins to multiply. 8:28 And then there is just this proliferation of neurons. 8:34 Then around 13, 14, 15 weeks, that is actually even the beginning of what's called apoptosis. 8:44 It's kind of a scary word to me, but that word alone, just for pure definition, means cell death. 8:53 And I like to equate it more to the word pruning because what's really happening is we already have the growth of neurons. 9:03 We already the migration of the neurons and the brain is already having its time. 9:12 Whatever is firing together is wiring together. 9:16 and what is not part of that connection will be pruned away. 9:22 This is the way our brains are very efficient. 9:27 If we just kept all of the neurons, we would not be very efficiency. 9:33 Things would loop around and circuits would connect as expected. 9:40 Then very shortly after that time, maybe a week or two, we start with what's called synaptogenesis, and that is literally those trees on the circuits being connected. 9:54 And I added in the links to the previous podcast a couple of pictures for you to look at. 10:01 But if you wanted to just kind of look this information for yourself, if put in a search of hubs and modules of the brain, 10:11 hubs, H-U-B-S, and Modules, M-O-D-E-L-A-F, of brain. 10:17 You'll see it kind reminds me of The Spirograph that we would draw when we were kids, that you put your pen in a little hole and you twirl it around and 10:29 then you see all the interconnections that are going on. 10:33 And just realizing that there's just this beautiful circuitry that goes on up in our brain. 10:41 The other part about it is we all have the same stuff, but things might wire together a little different between us because of our experience. 10:52 Now, going into about the 28th week, that's when myelination is occurring, and myelination is going to continue well into the mid-20s. 11:06 And I would tell you that even when you're working on with neuroplasticity, these types of growth and changes are still able to continue. 11:20 So don't think it's a stop sign at 25. But then, and what myelin is, it's this white coating that goes over every nerve. 11:33 It is all of the white matter of And what that means is it's like the tracks. 11:41 So myelin creates the conduction, the speed in which information is going to travel down axons and cross over different synaptic junctions. 11:57 Myelin is very, very important. 12:01 And depending upon who you want to quote, There's many authors that believe that the vestibular system is actually the first to come on, 12:12 completely mature and myelinated by the time we are born. 12:18 And from the work that I do, I really, go from that premise because I think the Vestibula system, is a very powerful system. 12:27 I mean, by this podcast that you'll understand too, it's all about the movement. 12:34 The vestibular system is a very small little structure inside of your ears and there's three little canals and inside those canales are these otoliths 12:45 and crystals and little hair follicles. 12:49 And every time you move, the endolymph or the fluid inside those canals moves. 12:56 And when it moves, it's moving the crystals, its moving, the little hair follicles, and it literally is telling your brain where you're going. 13:06 Now, there's also deeper reflection into the vestibular system that it's not just limited to the traditional idea of moving, 13:17 like a child crawling, a children coming out of the birth canal. 13:21 But inside of human body, we have a very particular way that everything moves in our body. 13:28 Our blood travels a certain way, and if it doesn't, There's something wrong and it could be a pathology. 13:35 There is a very particular way that the egg and sperm come together and if it doesn't, we may have a hard time conceiving a baby. 13:52 So movement is both external and internal. 13:57 And then we've got the concept of emotions. 14:02 When we feel really positive and confident about ourself, our posture is upright and we can feel confident. 14:11 But when we're sad or we are depressed, we might be more slumped over and inflection. 14:18 That too is a movement. 14:21 So the vestibular system is very far-reaching. 14:26 Now, when we get into after birth, this is where we start to look at how that sensory system is going to come on board. 14:37 And as that sensor system, sensory motor, comes on-board, starting with your milestones, getting that child really engaged in their environment, 14:48 they're not avoiding anything, then that also is creating greater connection to the different lobes of the brain and eventually all the way up to, 15:01 the prefrontal cortex and the temporal cortex are the ones on the side. 15:07 Now, when we also get to about four-ish is when, we start going through more pruning. 15:17 Meaning, now you're here, you've gone through the reflex stage, and now, gone you through birth, engaged in sensory motor, 15:29 it's time to keep cleaning up the circuits and how many neurons are actually there, what kind of communication flow do you have? 15:41 So we know that this is, how important this, is one of the things that we do is we want to look at how well that process is going. 15:51 And that does not stop up until the 20s, mid-20s. 15:58 Now it slows down, the greatest time of pruning is actually in those earlier years. 16:04 That's why babies have really big heads. 16:06 You don't get to keep all those neurons. 16:09 So as the body goes through that, as brain cleaves off excess that's not being used, then we have a more efficient brain. 16:19 This is one of the biggest things that is found in the diagnosis of autism is that they lack pruning. 16:28 And I can also see it in many different things when somebody is not following that traditional path of cognitive development, 16:40 movement development etc. 16:42 and I really should say movement first. 16:45 Everything is about movement FIRST. 16:49 So we always wanna make sure that when we're looking at a child, that we are really paying attention to how the brain is functioning and how their development
Vestibular System and Sensory-Motor Growth 17:05 is going. 17:06 And one of the biggest issues that is now being connected Two, I am going to call it an epidemic of children that are not developing as expected. 17:22 And there's many, many reasons for it and there are many different timelines for. 17:27 But one of the things that did come out of a lot of research that's been recently done during the situation with the pandemic and how much stress and fear 17:42 was going on that when a mother has very high levels of stress, there is a connection of motor delay, cognitive delay and language development in these 17:59 young children. 18:01 Now, back in the 80s when autism, like really the diagnoses of autism really took off, we have to realize that over these decades, 18:12 this research has been looked at. 18:15 And I believe that they're really fine tuning. 18:18 It's just that sometimes things just take so long for someone to publish and more importantly, for our traditional healthcare approach or medical model 18:30 to accept. 18:32 And I can remember reading maybe back in early 2000s that one of the things that they found to be most common in the mothers that these children were later 18:49 diagnosed autistic was stress. 18:52 And the number one stressor was suffering a loss. 18:59 We understand a lost when you lose somebody, but there can also be a lose of maybe a career or maybe you're a single mother and you are doing this by yourself. 19:12 And these things are very stressful. 19:16 And, you know, as time has gone on and in this last season of time that our country, the world, has been in, There's been so much information that has 19:30 come out that that stressful response has had a huge impact. 19:37 We'll think about for a minute what happens when we are in a stress response. 19:44 and we've talked about this in previous podcasts so I'll kind of you know zip it up pretty quickly but it's a physiological event and I think there's lots 19:54 of people that just simply go around and say I am so stressed out first of all I want to really caution you to watch what you speak over yourself You know, 20:06 your brain listens to you. 20:10 And like when we're doing neurofeedback, neuro feedback uses two reward systems, the visual system and the auditory system. 20:22 And that means that your mind and primarily your subconscious mind is literally looking for the pattern so that the picture will go bright. 20:34 It's very common in neurofeedback that there'll be a visual filter that will over the screen that when you're meeting the reward, 20:48 then the pictures will be bright, But when you are not meeting the reward, the picture is dark. 20:57 So this is from your visual system. 20:59 And then there's a sound that is associated with the pictures going bright. 21:06 Right there, we know that there is a connection between the outside world and how we think and how our brain functions. 21:20 And it's really important for us to speak the right words over ourselves. 21:27 So I would caution you, don't go around saying that you're stressed out all the time, because it is going to potentially cause problems. 21:36 It's not always about having a baby, but again, that chronicity of our thought life over time your brain begins to think this is who you are and this where 21:52 you want to be and therefore It's going to surrender real estate from your brain, good connections that you may have had back from when you were a kid, 22:04 but you're not using them anymore. 22:06 And your brains goes, wow, you just want to keep going with this stress response. 22:10 So what I'm going do is I am going take that real state and I going apply it to the stress responses just so we can keep it going. 22:19 And this has very far reaching effects. 22:23 And again, this too impacts children. 22:26 I have seen kids that the first time I meet them, they'll tell me how they hate school. 22:33 Or when we're doing the assessment, Their responses are always like, oh, did I do that wrong? 22:40 Oh, is my number bad? 22:42 And wow, we start so young beating kids down. 22:48 And then if nobody comes in and shifts that direction, if somebody tells them to do it differently, they grow up thinking this way. 22:59 And we got to change it because the area in those temporal cortices, the ones on the side, that's where the hippocampus is. 23:09 And the Hippocampsus, is your long-term memory, it's having cognitive flexibility, and that is really important. 23:21 Let me finish that thought. 23:22 And then I want to tie that back to impulsivity. 23:26 That's how we got to realize how these circuits actually work. 23:30 So when we have a hard time with keeping stress going, there's also the chemical bath that goes with it. 23:44 I think of the hippocampus as having all these lightning rods on it, and the stress chemicals go and bathe over those receptors, 23:58 and it blocks new learning and long-term memory. 24:03 And the other thing that your hippocampus does is it creates your personality. 24:11 And so when we block this with stress chemicals, it would be very difficult for a child to learn. 24:21 It would very be difficult to want to engage in anything new. 24:27 And they just don't go towards, and this could be the kid that you also want say, they have no motivation.
Stress, Hippocampus, and Learning 24:34 Well, I'm not saying definitively that that's the only reason, but I can tell you about nine times out of 10, it is the reason. 24:42 People are walking around in a lot of stress. 24:46 And in that season of time, we didn't have a point of reference and our children didn' have point to reference during COVID, 24:56 which then literally put us all into a heightened state of stressed. 25:03 Now if I don't have cognitive flexibility, if i don' have motivation, those other characteristics that we were talking about with the hippocampus, 25:15 this can also create this idea of that impulsive reaction because I don't have the flexibility to take in the information that gives me the sequence of 25:28 events that I should do. 25:30 So as a child, as I learn to try to adapt, I am just going to take those little pieces of information and I'm going jump at it because in some cases the 25:43 child just wants to be helpful. 25:44 I saw that the other day. 25:48 Everybody's already saying about this one little child that there's great impulsivity. 25:54 I just saw a child that wanted to help and had a hard time being able to take the direction, let the sequence happen, or allow me to, 26:06 take us through the steps. 26:09 So then he would know it. 26:11 And one of the things that we do here at Connect My Brain is we teach these kids how to set themselves up on all the different equipment. 26:19 We're trying to inspire motivation, we're trying to create the skill of learning how to take initiative and how look at a situation and know, 26:36 am I following the sequence of steps. 26:40 And rather than telling them that they're wrong, we're telling, okay, hold on a second. 26:46 Let's go back through that. 26:48 Did we follow all of the steps? 26:51 Oh, there's the one. 26:52 Okay, so let's add that one in and I'm sure then that you're on your way. 26:57 You know, it's important when a child is demonstrating that, they don't know how to do something. 27:04 that we really take the time and find out if they know how to do it. 27:13 So here's an example of that. 27:15 I was noticing with another little person that every time we were doing what we call our neurosensory integrator board and we we're doing eye movements 27:26 called saccades, which are quick movements, scanning the screen for letters and numbers, the child was always flipping the numbers. 27:37 and letters. 27:39 And so we started talking about it and realized that it isn't, when the child tries to do the alphabet verbally, has that sequence because children are 27:51 taught the mnemonic of a alphabet song, okay? 27:56 And one of the things that I find really funny is listening to them going, L-M-N-O-P, for L, M, N, O, P. 28:05 And we really do start trying to break that habit. 28:07 And I really encourage you, even when your child is learning, right at the beginning, stop them and say, let's slow down and let say L M N O P. 28:23 Lots of times when we are practicing sequencing activities, that's what the children lose is the middle between the begin of the alphabet and the end of alphabet. 28:35 And yes, it's L, M, N, O, P, so I would encourage you slow them down And yes, it can be cute, but if it's continued to be practiced, 28:46 always remember, whatever we are practicing, that is what we're firing together and wiring together, and at some point it is going to have to broken. 29:00 So we started talking to the parent and helping them understand. 29:04 We got to put a little emphasis on this and really make sure that they know what they're seeing, okay? 29:11 So when we talk about what you're saying, it's not just visual acuity, the clarity, but it is the motor part. 29:20 And that visual cortex is all the way back here in the back of the brain. 29:25 and literally your retina goes all the way to the front outside of your skull in your eyeball. 29:36 So we got to make sure kids really know how to see and then you got a build the visual imagery in you mind and when a child has any kind of motor issue 29:54 it affects how that brain is ultimately going to be wired up, especially when we're trying to connect both sides of the brain. 30:08 So we are doing flashcards, that's terrific. 30:12 And we were practicing coloring and that is terrific, and we working on handwriting, That's Terrific. 30:21 But if they cannot see the letter in their mind as they are writing it, they won't have great penmanship. 30:32 That too is another part about bringing both sides of the brain together. 30:39 When babies start out, I'm holding up my hand for my podcast audience, And on the side where the pinky is, so the ring finger, 30:51 the middle finger and the pinkie, children navigate the world as a rake. 30:57 And then it isn't till around four that we create the pincer grip. 31:02 So if I don't go through the developmental sequence, if i don t integrate a palmar reflex, it is going to be very difficult for me to write. 31:16 If I did not lateralize correctly, meaning is my eye, ear, hand, and foot all on one side? 31:25 Are things crossed over? 31:26 It's going to be very difficult to use both sides of the brain. 31:32 So again, all these little things, handwriting, being able to organize your mechanics of your body, your eye, ear, hand, 31:44 and foot, these are all motor. 31:48 And of course they have a sensory connection. 31:51 That's why they're saying everything is pointing to if that child's motor skills are not where they are supposed to be, that is already sending up a red flag,
Motor Skills, Milestones, and Parent Resources 32:06 potential developmental delay. 32:10 And we can see motor in the womb. 32:14 Did you feel the baby kicking? 32:17 Did feel you the the moving? 32:19 I have actually met people that told me two in one little season of time, yeah, my baby never moved. 32:29 And one of the kids was always banging his head. 32:35 And by the time I met him, he had had seven mild concussions, like standing up and hitting his had on the locker door above. 32:46 You have to ask yourself, Is there a possibility that that motor did not get laid down correctly? 32:55 And that's why when we do a developmental assessment, we are spending a lot of time on looking at that Motor system, the mechanical. 33:06 So I always talk about mechanical chemical brain. 33:10 We want to make sure that these children are able to do the things that they should be doing at that certain age. 33:22 And don't forget, Connect My Brain put together a great app. 33:28 Everything about us is called Connect my Brain. 33:31 And you can get this on either Apple or Google and Google Play, I think is what it is. 33:39 The links are right there on the website. 33:42 But this is going to put into your hands. 33:46 You can look up what your child should be doing and the earlier that we get to it, the better. 33:53 We have to be able to change the trajectory of development as soon as possible. 34:02 Every time these kids get older, it gets a little bit harder. 34:07 Now it doesn't mean it can't be done, so I don't want anybody to think that if your child is eight or nine that you can do things. 34:16 You can, but I'm going to have to ask you to be ready to roll up your sleeves so that we can get the work done. 34:22 And this has everything to do with the different developmental windows. 34:26 between seven and a half and eight and half that's when that brain is going okay i'm surging up to the top and so of course getting to it before that that 34:39 year seven-and-a-half to eight- and- a- half is very valuable and it makes it just a little bit easier to make change so this is what we're trying to educate 34:54 Let's look at these children. 34:55 If you're ever asking yourself, is my child on target? 35:00 Look at the app. 35:02 And you can also go over to the website and on the podcast page, you Can download Dr. 35:12 Hansen's guide to developmental milestones and have a hard copy, no charge. 35:19 You can always send me a message through the website. 35:29 The most important thing is to ask. 35:31 Don't wonder. 35:33 If we keep wondering and time goes on before you know it, these kids are further down the road. 35:40 Not only is it harder, but it's their childhood that's truly being impacted. 35:46 Now we are also really, we're launching more remote services for our families and our community, the world. 35:57 So check out on the website, CMB Store, and there's the Jumpstart program. 36:04 We've talked about that, as well as the new parent membership. 36:09 And what the parent membership is all about is giving you a deeper dive through a private podcast. 36:17 I will take a topic and I'll pull it apart and even give you some recommendations. 36:23 And then there's going to be different tools to help you feel more supported as you parent your child. 36:34 And then watching the podcast, you're listening to the podcasts, how about giving me a review? 36:41 It's so important to get this information out there. 36:45 We've got lots of kids that really need support and you can help. 36:50 If you write a revue, it plugs something into an algorithm. 36:55 I'm not quite sure what that is. 36:56 I leave that up to the wonderful support team that I have, Marcy Page, Stephanie Meyer, and Natasha. 37:04 They help me, they navigate me. 37:06 they help know how we can get more information into the hands of our parents. 37:13 We've also launched an account on Hero, H-I-R-O-F-M. 37:20 And we are moving to a more auditory platform because we realize most people are listening to things today and we're gonna try to meet you exactly where 37:34 those needs are. 37:35 So be sure and take the time to send your questions through the website connectmybrain.com, leave a review, follow us on Instagram, 37:46 check out our parent membership and our Jumpstart program. 37:50 Now we're not done with the neuroimmune. 37:53 In fact, what we are going to do next time is we going talk about the maternal immune activation. 38:01 and what this is is when mama's system is in an inflammatory response and lots of things can cause this but some of the big ones are psychological and 38:15 social stress, any kind of psychological disorder, overweight, autoimmune conditions, asthma and allergy conditions like we talked about when there's a 38:27 flare in that second trimester, and then of course, any of these viral bacterial infections. 38:33 These are culprits that are already being connected to neurodevelopmental delay. 38:44 The brain is developing, That's our neurology. 38:47 The immune system is under attack and that attack is impacting the direction of your child's development. 38:57 Please share this information. 39:00 It's so important that we all begin to understand health is in our hands. 39:06 We need to take control of our bodies and be able to look at our health make decisions and by all means change the things that need to be changed. 39:19 Thanks for tuning in and I hope you have a wonderful day and as always be blessed.
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