//////////////////////Prolonged human chorionic gonadotrophin stimulation as a tool for investigating and managing undescended testes Dixon, J., et al. - To observe the outcome in a group of children with undescended testes (UDT) given prolonged human chorionic gonadotrophin (hCG) stimulation as part of their management...Whilst a 3-day hCG stimulation regimen may exclude 17beta-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase-3 and 5alpha-reductase deficiencies, some boys with cryptorchidism may require more prolonged stimulation to assess androgen production and sensitivity. The possibility that this regimen leads to a reduced need for orchidopexy requires further exploration [more...]
Clinical Endocrinology, 11/20/07
/////////////////////Down syndrome with microgranular variant of acute promyelocytic leukemia in a child Jain, D., et al. - Acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL) accounts for less than 10% of pediatric AML. Cases of APL in Down syndrome (DS) have been described in the literature rarely and it is rarer still to find the microgranular variant (M3v) of APL in trisomy 21 patients...This case report emphasizes the importance of a high index of suspicion in the diagnosis of acute promyelocytic leukemia microgranular variant in Down syndrome [more...]
Journal of Medical Case Reports, 11/26/07 Free Full Text
//////////////////Benefits of Altruism
From Elizabeth Scott, M.S.,Your Guide to Stress Management.FREE Newsletter. Sign Up Now!
About.com Health's Disease and Condition content is reviewed by Steven Gans, M.D.
Altruism Benefits Everyone--Here's How!
It’s often been said that it’s better to give than to receive, but did you know that this cliché is actually backed by research? While many of us feel too stressed and busy to worry about helping others with their burdens, or would like to think about doing good deeds when we have more ‘spare’ time, energy and money, altruism is its own reward, and can actually help you relieve stress. Altruistic acts can improve your quality of life in several ways, and are absolutely worth the effort. Here are some ways that helping others helps you:
Altruism and Psychological WellbeingStudies show that altruism is good for your emotional well-being, and can measurably enhance your peace of mind. For example, one study found that dialysis patients, transplant patients and family members who became support volunteers for other patients experienced increased personal growth and emotional well-being.
zSB(3,3)
Sponsored Links
StressDiscover how NLP can help you overcome Stress more effectivelywww.itsnlp.com
Stress Relief GameLearn to Relax Your Mind and Body New Computer Game for Well-Beingwww.Meditations-UK.com
Stress Risk AssessmentOnline Stress Risk Assessment based on HSE guidelines.www.health-e-solutions.co.ukAnother study on patients with multiple sclerosis showed that those who offered other MS patients peer support actually experienced greater benefits than their supported peers, including more pronounced improvement on confidence, self-awareness, self-esteem, depression and daily functioning. Those who offered support generally found that their lives were dramatically changed for the better.
Altruism and Increased Social SupportStudies also show that what goes around generally does come around. More specifically, when people make altruistic personal sacrifices, they end up reaping what they sow in the form of favors from others. These individuals earn the reputation as altruistic people and end up receiving favors from others who they may not have even directly helped. The favors and social support you ‘earn’ through altruism, combined with the good feelings you get from helping others (see above), more than make up for sacrifices made in the name of altruism.
Keeping Things In PerspectiveMany people don’t realize the strong impact that their comparisons have on their outlook. However, your expectations of life and the people you compare yourself to can make a real difference in your level of life satisfaction. For example, your home may seem shabby to you if you’re comparing it to the living rooms you see in the pages of decorating magazines, or it may seem palatial and opulent compared to the structures inhabited by people in impoverished countries. Helping others in need, especially those who are less fortunate than you, can provide you with a sense of perspective on how fortunate you are to have what you do in life -- be it health, money, or a safe place to sleep, and help you focus less on the things you feel you lack. Helping others with their problems can also help you gain a more positive perspective on the things in life that cause you stress.
Building a Better CommunityWhen you do something nice for someone else, often the positive effects go beyond just you and that other person, influencing your whole community. One of my favorite illustrations of this phenomenon is in the movie Pay It Forward where one boy’s good deeds have far-reaching positive consequences. When you do nice things for others, you often enable them to do nice things for others, and the phenomenon grows. Your children and your friends may see your good example and behave in more altruistic ways as well. As Ghandi said, “You must be the change you want to see in the world," and you can contribute to a more positive community.
Altruism and Stress ReliefWhen you feel stressed and overwhelmed, you may feel like you’re least able to give. However, acts of altruism can be a great form of stress relief. Studies have shown that the act of giving can activate the area of the brain associated with positive feelings, lifting your spirits, and making you feel better the more you give. And given that altruism can lead to lasting emotional well-being, a more positive perspective, a positive effect on others, and better social standing, altruism certainly does the job as a healthy means for relieving stress and increasing life satisfaction.
Sources:
REMCALAD BELUR
///////////////////////ABOS=ANESTHETIC BLACKNESS OF SLEEP-ALARM CLOCK-BACK TO CONSCIOUSNESS
//////////////////NO NEED FOR CENTRE OF CONSC
/////////////////////KOCH VS GREENFIELD MODELS
//////////////////ANESTHETICS=KOCH=INCR SYNAPTIC INHIBN,REDUCED SYNAPTIC EXCITN
///////////////////GREENFIELD=ANESTHETICS ALTER EMERGENT PROPERTY OF HOLISTIC BRAIN-NEURONAL ASSEMBLY
//////////////////Mankind 'shortening the universe'slife'Telegraph Nov. 22, 2007*************************Astronomers may have accidentallynudged the universe closer to itsdeath by observing dark energy, twoastronomers suggest, based onquantum theory....http://www.kurzweilai.net/email/newsRedirect.html?newsID=7527&m=33138
///////////////////IMPENDING ENERGY AND WATER CRSS OF WORLD
///////////////////HOME SHANTI HOME
////////////////////Mark Latham says a Labor Government will ban plastic bags outright if they are not voluntarily phased out by 2007. But with the 20 million being used in Australia everyday causing environmental havoc, how long can we afford to wait? Sushi Das reports.
There is one thing we know for sure: long after today's shoppers have passed away and their bodies have turned to dust, their plastic bags will still lie in the soil, refusing to decay. Environment groups estimate plastic bags can stay intact for up to 1000 years. It is no wonder, then, that the very mention of these powerful symbols of durability can invoke a serious bout of "bag-guilt".
Dianne Steele confesses to being particularly afflicted. As the automatic doors at Coles in South Melbourne slide open, she walks out, her tall frame curved under the weight of four or five plastic bags hanging from the ends of both arms.
////////////////////////Severe Depression Associated With Greater Number Of Nerve Cells In Thalamus Region Of Brain
ScienceDaily (Jul. 6, 2004) — Individuals who suffer from severe depression have more nerve cells in the part of the brain that controls emotion, researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas have found.
See also:
Health & Medicine
Nervous System
Psychology Research
Mental Health Research
Mind & Brain
Neuroscience
Depression
Disorders and Syndromes
Reference
Thalamus
Dopamine hypothesis of schizophrenia
Psychosis
Adult attention-deficit disorder
Studies of postmortem brains of patients diagnosed with major depressive disorder (MDD) showed a 31 percent greater than average number of nerve cells in the portion of the thalamus involved with emotional regulation. Researchers also discovered that this portion of the thalamus is physically larger than normal in people with MDD. Located in the center of the brain, the thalamus is involved with many different brain functions, including relaying information from other parts of the brain to the cerebral cortex.
The findings, published in today's issue of The American Journal of Psychiatry, are the first to directly link a psychiatric disorder with an increase in total regional nerve cells, said Dr. Dwight German, professor of psychiatry at UT Southwestern.
"This supports the hypothesis that structural abnormalities in the brain are responsible for depression," he said. "Often people don't understand why mentally ill people behave in odd ways. They may think they have a weak will or were brought up in some unusual way.
"But if their brains are different, they're going to behave differently. Depression is an emotional disorder. So it makes sense that the part of the brain that is involved in emotional regulation is physically different."
Four groups were represented in the study: subjects with major depression, with bipolar disorder and with schizophrenia, as well as a comparison group with no history of mental illness. Major depression is characterized by a depressed mood and lack of interest or pleasure in normal activities for a prolonged period of time, while bipolar disease is distinguished by alternating periods of extreme mania or elevated mood swings, and severe depression. Schizophrenia often results in psychotic episodes of hallucinations and delusions and a lack of perception of reality.
Brain specimens were provided by the Stanley Foundation Brain Bank, which collects donated postmortem brains for research on mental illness, and the subjects were matched according to age, gender, brain weight and other variables.
Researchers from UT Southwestern, working with a team from Texas A&M University System Health Science Center, used special computer-imaging systems to meticulously count the number of nerve cells in the thalamus.
Results showed an increase of 37 percent and 26 percent, respectively, in the number of nerve cells in the mediodorsal and anteroventral/anteromedial areas of the thalamus in subjects with MDD when compared with similar cells in those with no psychiatric problems. The number of nerve cells in subjects with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia was normal.
Researchers also found that the size of the affected areas of the thalamus in subjects with MDD was 16 percent larger than those in the other groups.
"The thalamus is often referred to as the secretary of the cerebral cortex – the part of the brain that controls all kinds of important functions such as seeing, talking, moving, thinking and memory," Dr. German said. "Most everything that goes into the cortex has to go through the thalamus first.
"The thalamus also contains cells that are not involved with emotion. Our studies found these portions of the thalamus to be perfectly normal. But the ones that are involved in emotion are the ones that were abnormal."
Researchers also looked at the effect of antidepressant medications on the number of nerve cells and found no significant difference among any of the subject groups – whether they had taken antidepressants or not – reinforcing the belief that abnormalities in brain development are responsible for depression.
Other researchers involved in the study were Dr. Umar Yazdani, a postdoctoral researcher in psychiatry from UT Southwestern, and Drs. Keith A. Young, Leigh A. Holcomb and Paul B. Hicks from Central Texas Veterans Health Care System, Texas A&M University System Health Science Center and Scott & White Hospital in Temple.
The research was supported by the National Institutes of Health; the Veterans Administration; the Scott, Sherwood and Brindley Foundation, and the Theodore and Vada Stanley Foundation.
Adapted from materials provided by University Of Texas Southwestern Medical Center At Dallas.
DEPRESSION=INCR THALAMIC NEURONES
////////////////////
Common Past, Different Paths:
Evolution is the change in organisms over time that gives rise to new species. Development is the process by which a fertilized egg, or embryo, generates the cells, tissues, and organs of a new individual and assembles them into their proper form. Evolution produces the body shapes of the animal kingdom; development produces the body plan of individuals. Biologists have been making connections between these two processes since the 19th century. But in the last decade, these studies have intensified and even spawned a new field of study: evolutionary developmental biology, or, as it's often known, "evo-devo.'' Using new techniques of biology and genetics, researchers are now investigating development at the molecular level, the genes that regulate and orchestrate the unfolding of a new life. Moreover, the genes not only serve as a construction and operating manual, they also contain a record of the evolutionary history of the organism, because many of the same genes were used by direct ancestors. "Evo-devo'' researchers investigate the ways that evolution has modified embryological processes, and, conversely, how developmental mechanisms have influenced evolution. Even before Darwin, biologists recognized that species that looked quite different as adults often had close similarities as developing embryos. Many four-legged animals go through embryonic stages that have similar features -- gill arches, a notochord, segmentation, and paddle-like limb buds -- as they develop into different adults. To Darwin, the embryonic resemblances were strong support for the theory of evolution. One of Darwin's contemporaries, German biologist Ernst Haeckel, summed up the argument in a famous, pithy statement: "Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny.'' That is to say, in the process of development, an individual passes through the adult forms of all its ancestors. So, Haeckel proposed, by examining the development of an embryo you could read its entire evolutionary history in the transition from one stage to another. In fact, this isn't strictly true, and the drawings Haeckel made exaggerated the embryonic similarities between species. But biology now has new tools, from microphotography to molecular biology, with which to examine the process of development in embryos. These new tools reveal that different descendants of a common ancestor do indeed usually go through embryonic stages that resemble each other and their common ancestor The processes that guide embryonic development are conserved by evolution and reused again and again.
No comments:
Post a Comment