Intrigue at the Immune Synapse Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Intrigue at the Immune Synapse - Assignment Example This also allows the persistence of infectious organisms inside cells, leading to chronic infections. The development of high-resolution microscopy techniques and computer enhancement of previously used imaging methods to create three-dimensional images has allowed visualization and observation of immune synapses. 5. The author states, ‘virtually all the surface (cytoplasmic membrane) proteins involved in immune cells’ recognition of disease (pathogens) have been identified and named.† If this is true, then why is the immune synapse such a profound discovery? Although the proteins involved have been identified and named, their roles and how they bring about communication between immune cells has not been entirely discovered. These discoveries, including that on the immune synapse, can be made by observing or ‘just watching’ the cells and proteins at work. The team of Charles A. Janeway, Jr., at Yale University performed the following experiment in 1988: they fitted T cells tightly into the pores of a membrane, which was then immersed in a solution. A stimulant to activate T cells was added to the solution on only 1 side of the membrane. They then detected proteins secreted by activated T cells in the solution containing the stimulant, but the proteins were absent in the stimulant-free solution on the other side of the membrane. This experiment demonstrated the ability of immune cells to secrete proteins after activation specifically in the direction of the stimulant. The neuronal and immune synapses are similar as they both involve communication and signal transduction between two cells through the interaction and activity of specific proteins. Neuronal and immune synapses also seem to share some common proteins, such as the Agrin protein and the Neuropilin-1 receptor. The synapse structure of both cell types forms a bull’s-eye pattern. However, they have differences too. Neuronal

Weekly Journal #8 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Weekly Journal #8 - Essay Example Doing contrary is likely to cause confusion and lack of focus, which may lead to failure or stalling of a therapy. Additional point collectible from the readings is that family therapy approaches can apply in the treatment of other psychological and behavioral malfunctions such as substance abuse, childhood depression, eating disorder, internalizing disorder, childhood depression and childhood anxiety. As a qualified counselor, one needs to accept and value concepts of effective integration as presented in the readings. Actually, an experienced counselor should never combine many approaches to family therapy in their entirety. Instead, one should select and borrow important concepts from other models, which are relevant and capable of addressing challenges and differences encountered at different levels of therapy. In addition, an experienced counselor need to apply more of specially designed integrative model when doing therapy. This can help in avoiding confusion and making clients understand complexity of stages and perhaps reasons for changing in costs of therapy. The concept of preferred view can also help experienced counselors identify problems and dysfunctional relationship quickly (Nichols, 2013). The readings of the week also contain many insights that can be vital to a family therapist. One of the insights is that a therapist can use family therapy approaches to treat other behavioral problems such as childhood depression, childhood anxiety, substance abuse and eating disorders among others. Another insight is that therapeutic techniques are dynamic and multidimensional as concepts of one technique can help in resolving problems encountered during application of another technique (Nichols, 2013). Prior to the week’s readings, one would be thinking that integration of family therapy approaches is wrong and, professionally,