The Best Laid Eggs

Eggs are thought of as a perfect food and are also quite a versatile food as well. An egg can be boiled, steamed, baked, cooked over easy, over hard and of course scrambled.

And much like a scrambled egg a brain can also get scrambled in a whiplash injury.

Any quick jerky movement of the neck and head can cause the brain to get shaken back and forth in the brain causing sometimes severe irreparable damage^1,3.

Any quick jerky movement of the neck and head can cause the brain to get shaken back and forth in the brain causing sometimes severe irreparable damage^1,3.

The cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) is a liquid that bathes the brain and spinal cord giving those nutrients and food, but it is also there for protection. Cerebral Spinal Fluid could also be thought as a cushion made of liquid surrounding the brain and spinal cord to help slow down severe impacts to those areas⁴. The liquid cushion is like a pillow that can help decrease the acceleration being put on the brain by the whiplash force⁴.

Unfortunately sometimes the CSF isn’t able to slow these forces down enough and the brain still suffers an injury^1,4.

Recently we’ve acquired some chickens all hens and it is very interesting to see them think and reason through things and also not comprehend others. For example the very common question, “Why did the chicken cross the road,” can be answered by watching these chickens and it is because they just thought why not? They seem to just wander around with not much rhyme or reason.

Seeing someone suffering from a concussion is similar to watching a chicken think, it sort of makes sense, you can see them trying to figure it out, but the wires aren’t quite connecting.

Interestingly in a concussion or traumatic brain injury (TBI) it is wires called axons that aren’t connecting correctly. The axons can be physically broken after a TBI occurs and this doesn’t allow nerves to communicate as much or sometimes at all^1,3.

According to the Center for Disease Control the best things to do to heal from a concussion are to relax, stay away from anything that over exerts your brain and body^1,2, eat healthy foods, drink good clean water, don’t read, watch television, or work or school. Anything that seems like it might tax your body or brain should be avoided and that includes sports^1,2.

It’s been quite fun having chickens, they are fluffy and cute and really like eating bananas and strawberries. These chickens have been a handful like having a concussion, but with a lot of patience and some work I am optimistic that they will get better and so will those with a concussion.

References:

1. https://www.cdc.gov/headsup/basics/concussion_recovery.html Opens in new window
2. https://www.healthline.com/health/concussion-recovery Opens in new window
3. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5367465/ Opens in new window
4. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-happens-to-the-brain/ Opens in new window