AEBL

10 Benefits of Reading: Why You Should Read Every Day

Fri, 24 May 2013 10:26:07 -0400

10 Benefits of Reading: Why You Should Read Every Day:

If you’re one of countless people who don’t make a habit of reading regularly, you might be missing out: reading has a significant number of benefits, and just a few benefits of them are listed below.

1. Mental Stimulation

2. Stress Reduction

3. Knowledge

4. Vocabulary Expansion

5. Memory Improvement

6. Stronger Analytical Thinking Skills

7. Improved Focus and Concentration

8. Better Writing Skills

9. Tranquility

10. Free Entertainment

Read the article in full for more details.

[source: Lifehack]

Tonight I did a ten minute speech in front of thirty five people; the topic was discrepancies...

Fri, 24 May 2013 02:19:56 -0400

Tonight I did a ten minute speech in front of thirty five people; the topic was discrepancies between neurology, and psychology. I choked.

It was everything short of a success; but I learned a great deal, and hit my first mile stone towards my dreams.

medicalschool: The human brain in cross section

Wed, 22 May 2013 21:21:40 -0400

medicalschool:

The human brain in cross section

Photo

Tue, 21 May 2013 22:11:11 -0400

medicalschool: Purkinje neurons play an essential role in motor...

Mon, 20 May 2013 16:47:59 -0400

medicalschool:

Purkinje neurons play an essential role in motor function. Here the Purkinje neurons reach their arbor-like dendrites into the molecular layer of the developing cerebellum of a mouse. The mostly green cells at the bottom left are cerebellar granule cells, which relay information from the nervous system to the Purkinje neurons.

neurosciencestuff: Deep brain stimulation: a fix when the drugs...

Mon, 20 May 2013 16:47:30 -0400

neurosciencestuff:

Deep brain stimulation: a fix when the drugs don’t work

Neurological disorders can have a devastating impact on the lives of sufferers and their families.

Symptoms of these disorders differ extensively – from motor dysfunction in Parkinson’s disease, memory loss in Alzheimer’s disease to inescapable cravings in drug addiction.

Drug treatments are often ineffective in these disorders. But what if there was a way to simply switch off a devastating tremor, or boost a fading memory?

Recent advances using Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) in selective brain regions have provided therapeutic benefits and have allowed those affected by these neurological disorders freedom from their symptoms, in absence of an existing cure.

A pacemaker for the brain

Artificial cardiac pacemakers are typically associated with controlling and resynchronising heartbeats by electrical stimulation of the heart muscle.

In a similar manner, DBS sends electrical impulses to specific parts of the brain that control discrete functions. This stimulation evokes control over the neural activity within these regions.

Prior to switching on the electrical stimulation, electrodes are surgically implanted within precise brain regions to control a specific function.

The neurosurgery is conducted under local anaesthetic to maintain consciousness in the patient. This ensures that the electrode does not damage critical brain regions.

The brain itself has no pain receptors so does not require anaesthetic.

Following recovery from surgery the electrodes are activated and the current calibrated by a neurologist to determine the optimal stimulation parameters.

The patient can then control whether the electrodes are on or off by a remote battery-powered device.

Turning off tremors

Perhaps the most documented success of DBS is in the control of tremors and motor coordination in Parkinson’s disease.

This is caused by the degeneration of neurons in an area of the brain called the substantia nigra. These neurons secrete the neurotransmitter dopamine.

Deterioration of these neurons reduces the amount of dopamine available to be released in a brain area involved in movement, the basal ganglia.

Drug therapy for Parkinson’s disease involves the use of levodopa (L-DOPA), a form of dopamine that can cross the blood brain barrier and then be synthesised into dopamine.

The administration of L-DOPA temporarily reduces the motor symptoms by increasing dopamine concentrations in the brain. However, side effects of this treatment include nausea and disordered movement.

DBS has been shown to provide relief from the motoric symptoms of Parkinson’s disease and essential tremors.

For the treatment of Parkinson’s disease electrodes are implanted into regions of the basal ganglia – the subthalamic nucleus or globus pallidus, to restore control of movement.

These are regions innervated by the deteriorating substantia nigra, therefore the DBS boosts stimulation to these areas.

Patients can then switch on the electrodes, stimulating these brain regions to enhance control of movement and diminish tremors.

Restoring fading memories

Recently, DBS has been used to diminish memory deficits associated with Alzheimer’s disease, a progressive and terminal form of dementia.

The pathologies associated with Alzheimer’s disease involve the formation of amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles within the brain leading to dysfunction and death of neurons.

Brain regions primarily affected include the temporal lobes, containing important memory structures including the hippocampus.

Recent clinical trials with DBS involve the implantation of electrodes within the fornix – a structure connecting the left and right hippocampi together.

By stimulating neural activity within the hippocampi via the fornix, memory deficits associated with Alzheimer’s disease can be improved, enhancing the daily functioning of patients and slowing the progression of cognitive decline.

Deactivating addiction

Another use of DBS is in the treatment of substance abuse and drug addiction. Substance-related addictions constitute the most frequently occurring psychiatric disease category and patients are prone to relapse following rehabilitative treatment.

Persistent drug use leads to long term changes in the brain’s reward system.

Understanding of the reward systems affected in addiction has created a range of treatment options that directly target dysregulated brain circuits in order to normalise functionality.

One of the key reward regions in the brain is the nucleus accumbens and this has been used as a DBS target to control addiction.

Translational animal research has indicated that stimulation of the nucleus accumbens decreases drug seeking in models of addiction. Clinical studies have shown improved abstinence in both heroin addicts and alcoholics.

Studies have extended the use of DBS to potentially restore control of maladaptive eating behaviours such as compulsive binge eating.

In a recent study, binge eating of a high fat food in mice was decreased by DBS of the nucleus accumbens. This is the first study demonstrating that DBS can control maladaptive eating behaviours and may be a potential therapeutic tool in obesity.

Despite its therapeutic use for more than a decade, the neural mechanism of DBS is still not yet fully understood.

The remedial effect is proposed to involve modulation of the dopamine system – and this seems particularly relevant in the context of Parkinson’s disease and addiction.

DBS potentially has effects on the functional activity of other interconnected brain systems. While it can provide therapeutic relief from symptoms of neurological diseases, it does not treat the underlying pathology.

But it provides both effective and rapid intervention from the effects of debilitating illnesses, restoring activity in deteriorating brain regions and aids understanding of the brain circuits involved in these disorders.

neuromorphogenesis: Experts Agree: ‘Psychiatry’s Bible’ Is No...

Mon, 20 May 2013 11:34:29 -0400

neuromorphogenesis:

Experts Agree: ‘Psychiatry’s Bible’ Is No Bible

When the American Psychiatric Association releases its newDiagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders — DSM-5 — this weekend, lots of journalists and commentators will refer to it as “psychiatry’s bible.”

That’s a term that makes the manual’s authors and other mental experts cringe.

“Bible implies that it’s been handed down by some deity as the absolute truth,” says Michael First, a psychiatrist at Columbia University who’s had a hand in the past two revisions of the DSM. ”We don’t consider this to be a bible. It’s a guidebook.”

Dr. Thomas Insel, director of the National Institute of Mental Health, also wants people to know the DSM isn’t some sacred text. “It’s a dictionary, not a bible,” he says.

The DSM has taken on biblical proportions over the years because its list of several hundred disorders is often used to decide whether a particular behavior is abnormal and insurance will cover a problem. DSM-5, for example, has provoked lots of debate about new diagnoses like Binge Eating Disorder or Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder in children.

But insurance coverage and defining what’s normal are not why theDSM was created. It was created to solve a communication problem.

Before DSM-III came along in 1980, “It was really chaotic,” Insel says. “We had no common language” for describing mental disorders. The new manual provided clear definitions for the first time, he says, so that “when one person says major depressive disorder another person will know what that is.”

Revisions since then have updated those definitions and added or eliminated diagnoses based on the latest research, First says. “TheDSM is a synthesis of the best knowledge at this moment in time,” he says. “So DSM-5 is the culmination of research in the past 20 years.”

That makes the DSM ”a tool used by clinicians to take care of patients,” not a bible, First says.

Insel adds that the DSM only becomes a problem when mental health professionals forget that and start “looking at the manual instead of listening to their patients. That’s never a good outcome.”

nsmed: Craniotomy Neurosurgery Meningioma Removal Clips from a...

Mon, 20 May 2013 11:32:48 -0400

nsmed:

Craniotomy Neurosurgery Meningioma Removal

Clips from a neurological medical surgery of a craniotomy to remove a meningioma brain tumor.

Courtesy of Dr. Farhad Limonadi, MD top neurosurgeon specialist in Palm Desert, Palm Springs and Rancho Mirage California.

"An entire sea of water can’t sink a ship unless it gets inside the ship. Similarly, the negativity..."

Mon, 20 May 2013 11:31:16 -0400

“An entire sea of water can’t sink a ship unless it gets inside the ship. Similarly, the negativity of the world can’t put you down unless you allow it to get inside you.”

- Goi Nasu (via thedapperproject)

Dyslexic med student diaries: The end of the application cycle. The beginning of learning how to learn

Mon, 20 May 2013 11:23:24 -0400

Dyslexic med student diaries: The end of the application cycle. The beginning of learning how to learn:

dyslexicmdstudent:

Hello! My name is Carin and I’m a senior at MIT, about two weeks from graduation. Next fall I’ll be headed off to medical school at Tufts. I’m both excited and a bit apprehensive about med school, which seems fairly normal. I’ve heard that medical school is much easier than MIT, but I’m not sure…

neuromorphogenesis: Why Is Psychiatry’s New Manual So Much...

Fri, 17 May 2013 22:33:06 -0400

neuromorphogenesis:

Why Is Psychiatry’s New Manual So Much Like The Old One?

The American Psychiatric Association is about to release an updated version of its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. The DSM helps mental health professionals decide who has problems such as depression, anxiety and schizophrenia.

Psychiatry’s new manual, DSM-5, has been nearly 20 years in the making. During that time, scientists have learned a lot about the brain. Yet despite some tweaks to categories such as autism and mood disorders, DSM-5 is remarkably similar to the version issued in 1994.

“There are lots of changes throughout the manual that reflect the research in the last 20 years,” says Michael First, a clinical psychiatrist at Columbia University who was involved in creating both DSM-IV and DSM-5. (The APA abandoned Roman numerals for the new manual.) “But because that kind of research hasn’t allowed for a paradigm shift, the DSM is not a paradigm shift either,” First says.

Specifically, DSM-5 will continue to use symptoms as the primary way to decide whether a person has a particular disorder. That may not sound odd until you consider what’s happened in other fields of medicine, like cardiology.

If you go to a hospital with chest pain these days, chances are you’ll get a diagnosis based on tests of the electrical activity in your heart, the enzymes in your blood, and the blood flow through your arteries. But if your problem is emotional pain, your diagnosis will probably be based on a conversation.

So why is psychiatry still so last-century? Scientists say it has to do with the nature of the brain itself.

The Hippo Problem

When psychiatrists began work on DSM-5, they expected to come up with a document that would signal a new era in mental health care, First says.

“We were hoping and imagining that research would advance at a pace that laboratory tests would have come out,” he says. “And here we are 20 years later and we still unfortunately rely primarily on symptoms to make our diagnoses.”

That’s not ideal, First says. Not for doctors. Not for patients. Not for scientists.

The problem is that the new DSM is still classifying mental disorders based on their surface appearance, not their underlying biology. And the history of science shows that appearances can be deceiving.

Take hippos, for example. Early naturalists thought hippos must be related to pigs. After all they look somewhat alike and have similar teeth. But fossils and genetic studies showed that hippos’ closest living relatives are actually dolphins and whales.

So to avoid the hippo problem, many areas of medicine have begun to look beneath the superficial appearance of an illness.

A New Kind Of Medicine

“For literally centuries, doctors have looked at diseases using signs and symptoms,” says Susan Desmond-Hellman, an oncologist who is chancellor of the University of California, San Francisco. So, she says, doctors would ask questions like, “Do you have a lump somewhere?”

But now, many scientists are concerned that this emphasis on the signs and symptoms of a disease “could be seen as holding us back,” Desmond-Hellman says. Instead, she’s been advocating something called “precision medicine,” which tries to classify diseases in a way that indicates what’s truly causing the problem.

A good example of this new approach is breast cancer, Desmond-Hellman says. “I’m a cancer doctor and had the incredible opportunity to work on revolutionizing how we treat breast cancer based on what’s in your DNA that’s signaling the breast cancer to grow,” she says. “And it’s a wonderful opportunity because if a patient has a breast cancer that’s driven by something in the genome, we can turn it off.”

This revolution happened in part because cancer researchers looked beyond the old way of classifying tumors according to simply what body part they appeared in, Desmond-Hellman says. And something similar needs to happen in mental health because, she says, “everything from autism to Alzheimer’s is classified in ways that clearly don’t work today.”

Desmond-Hellman adds that she’s not criticizing psychiatrists or psychologists for using the DSM. It’s still the best option because there still aren’t genetic tests or brain scans that offer a better way to classify patients with mental disorders.

Brain Research Looks Ahead

So why haven’t researchers developed simple lab tests for mental disorders?

“We’ve tried,” says Thomas Insel, director of the National Institute of Mental Health. “You know we’ve actually looked — using brain imaging, using various endocrine tests, looking at a range of other kinds of biomarkers. So far that has been found wanting.”

For example, researchers tried for many years to find a genetic test or a brain-scanning technique that could identify people with depression. That approach would make sense if scientists knew that all depression can be linked to the same underlying problem. But what if it can’t, Insel says. What if depression is like a fever?

“Some people who have a fever have a bacterial infection, some a viral infection, some an endocrine problem,” Insel says, “a whole range of reasons why that would be your presenting symptom and a whole range of different treatments that you need for each of those causes.”

So a few years ago, the NIMH began moving away from research based on categories defined only by symptoms. Instead, it’s pushing an approach it calls Research Domain Criteria that emphasizes basic functions in the brain. Researchers might get money to study circuits involved in fear, or so-called working memory.

This sort of research has the potential to uncover problems in the brain that will change the way mental disorders are classified, Insel says. “A biological thing that presents with depression in some people might present with psychosis or anxiety in others,” he says. “And so maybe what you’ll find is a problem that cuts across the current diagnostic categories.”

Insel says findings like that are years off. Maybe they’ll get here in time for the next version of the DSM. Maybe.

A Better Future?

Michael First, the psychiatrist who spent much of his career working on the DSM, says he’s learned to be cautious about anticipating major advances in any problem that affects the brain.

Back in the 1990s, when he was writing a guidebook to DSM-IV, First says, he made an unfortunate prediction about Alzheimer’s. “I stuck my neck out,” he says. “We said that by the time DSM-5 comes out, Alzheimer’s will be the first diagnosis that has a laboratory test.”

That hasn’t happened. Even though scientists have learned a huge amount about the plaques and tangles associated with Alzheimer’s and even though high-tech scans can reveal ever more subtle changes in the brains of people with the disease, there’s still no lab test that’s good enough to diagnose Alzheimer’s.

First says migraine headaches are another brain problem still waiting for a lab test. “If you have a headache and you go to a neurologist, even though they might run some blood tests, the actual diagnosis of a migraine vs. a cluster headache depends on the description of the symptoms,” he says. “So psychiatry is not unique.”

In fact, almost every specialty that deals with the brain has run into the same roadblocks facing psychiatrists. “The brain is very, very complicated and it really hasn’t yielded its secrets yet,” First says.

And that, he says, is the primary reason mental health isn’t more like cardiology or oncology, why psychiatrists and psychologists still rely on symptoms, rather than lab tests. The human brain is the most complicated thing in the universe. It has nearly 100 billion neurons and many trillions of connections, and its complex wiring changes all the time.

But the daunting complexity of the brain is no reason to give up on the DSM or the ability of mental health professionals to treat mental disorders, First says. “When people walk into our offices they come for help, not some explanation of the neurobiology of what’s going on,” he says. “They want some relief of suffering and the DSM remains the most valuable tool for psychiatrists to be able to do that.”

neurosciencestuff: Researchers develop novel Brain Training...

Fri, 17 May 2013 22:32:50 -0400

neurosciencestuff:

Researchers develop novel Brain Training Device to reconnect the brain and paralyzed limb after stroke

The world’s first Brain Training Device has given a ray of new hope to the recovery of survivors after stroke. Developed by researchers of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU)’s Interdisciplinary Division of Biomedical Engineering (BME), this novel device which can detect brainwave, and thereby control the movement of paralyzed limbs, or go even further to control a robotic hand based on its sophisticated algorithm.

The research was led by Prof. Raymond Tong Kai-yu, Professor of PolyU’s Interdisciplinary Division of Biomedical Engineering, who is also the Principal Investigator of the award-winning Exoskeleton Hand Robotic Training Device or the “Hand of Hope”. His team members include the BME research team (Newmen Ho, Xiaoling Hu, Ching-hang Fong, Xinxin Lou, Lawrence Chong and Nathan Lam) and the Industrial Centre team of PolyU (Robert Tam, Bun Yu, Shu-to Ng and Peter Pang).

The latest breakthrough “Brain Training Device” can be coupled with the use of the “Hand of Hope” to achieve higher degree of recovery for stroke patients. While effective motor recovery after stroke depends on early rehabilitation program and intensive voluntary practice of the paretic limbs, current rehabilitation products have not use brainwave to guide the stroke survivors to identify voluntary intention and to relearn how to reconnect to their paralyzed limb again.

Prof. Raymond Tong and his team therefore developed the Brain Training Device with a new coherence algorithm for hand function training. The new algorithm is based on frequency coherence on surface electroencephalography (EEG, brainwave) and electromyography (EMG, muscle activities) to identify voluntary intention and their connection.

“The Brain Training Device is able to guide the stroke patients to relearn the reconnection between the brain and the limb, with a new design on the EEG headset and the EMG forearm brace to transmit data for controlling a hand robotic system interfaced by a telecare software platform using iPad app.” Prof. Raymond Tong explained.

The patented Brain Training System, which looks like a helmet for cyclist and can read brainwaves, also has new features to find the specific EEG electrode locations for each individual stroke patient and reduce the number of EEG electrodes, which can reduce the system cost and the preparation time for brain training, added by Prof. Tong.

To find a minimal set of electrodes to control the device with accuracy higher than 90%, five chronic stroke patients were recruited to be trained for 20 sessions in the study. The researchers found that, in general, 32 electrodes are needed to maintain accuracy higher than 90%.

The high accuracy and low number of channels needed means that the Brain Training Device is a viable tool for assistive aid and rehabilitation training. The futuristic system will be made portable and easy-to-use at hospital and home settings.

PolyU researchers have already filed patents for this Brain Training Device in both the United States and China. This project is funded by the HKSAR Government’s Innovation and Technology Fund (ITF). The findings of this brain control algorithm have been published as the cover story in top international journal IEEE Transactions on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering (2011.12).

yaleuniversity: Yale researchers used light to probe the...

Fri, 17 May 2013 11:10:56 -0400

yaleuniversity:

Yale researchers used light to probe the actions of the neurotransmitter GABA on single synapses along the branches of a neuron.

This photo shows a mouse cortical neuron in red, with dendritic branches that are studded with synaptic spines. Surrounding the neuron are inhibitory axons or fibers (in blue) that are genetically engineered to release GABA when activated by light, a technique known as optogenetics. Learn more →

inthemoodforliving: psych-facts on We Heart It -...

Wed, 15 May 2013 17:09:16 -0400

inthemoodforliving:

psych-facts on We Heart It - http://weheartit.com/entry/33852543/via/omfgimsogorgeous

Hearted from: http://neurolove.me/page/7

Neuroscience: White matter imaging provides insight into human and chimpanzee aging

Wed, 15 May 2013 17:04:08 -0400

Neuroscience: White matter imaging provides insight into human and chimpanzee aging:

neurosciencestuff:

The instability of “white matter” in humans may contribute to greater cognitive decline during the aging of humans compared with chimpanzees, scientists from Yerkes National Primate Research Center, Emory University have found.

Yerkes scientists have discovered that white matter — the wires…

Photo

Wed, 15 May 2013 12:29:02 -0400

"There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your..."

Wed, 15 May 2013 12:27:23 -0400

“There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.””

- Ernest Hemingway (via thedapperproject)

"The highest form of ignorance is when you reject something you don’t know anything about."

Mon, 13 May 2013 16:36:56 -0400

““The highest form of ignorance is when you reject something you don’t know anything about.””

- Dr Wayne Dyer (via mishaboom)

Photo

Mon, 13 May 2013 02:11:17 -0400

Video

Sun, 12 May 2013 02:09:12 -0400