birth represents dramatic change of environment
dendrites improve in length,thickness and degree of myelination
brain is primed to extract significance from sensory input
having a brain,being a mind
humans have minds,intentionality,agency,personality
BRAIN AND BODY INTERACTS WITH MATERIAL,BIOLOGICAL AND SOCIALWORLDS
//////////////////courage does not stop bullets
/////////////// Religion is a word that comes from the Latin religare, which means "to bind"
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An Animal Model of Emotional Blunting in Schizophrenia:
Schizophrenia is often associated with emotional blunting--the diminished ability to respond to emotionally salient stimuli--particularly those stimuli representative of negative emotional states, such as fear. This disturbance may stem from dysfunction of the amygdala, a brain region involved in fear processing. The present article describes a novel animal model of emotional blunting in schizophrenia. This model involves interfering with normal fear processing (classical conditioning) in rats by means of acute ketamine administration. We confirm, in a series of experiments comprised of cFos staining, behavioral analysis and neurochemical determinations, that ketamine interferes with the behavioral expression of fear and with normal fear processing in the amygdala and related brain regions. We further show that the atypical antipsychotic drug clozapine, but not the typical antipsychotic haloperidol nor an experimental glutamate receptor 2/3 agonist, inhibits ketamine's effects and retains normal fear processing in the amygdala at a neurochemical level, despite the observation that fear-related behavior is still inhibited due to ketamine administration. Our results suggest that the relative resistance of emotional blunting to drug treatment may be partially due to an inability of conventional therapies to target the multiple anatomical and functional brain systems involved in emotional processing. A conceptual model reconciling our findings in terms of neurochemistry and behavior is postulated and discussed.
//////////////////e present study, demonstrating significant correlations between age and inflammatory mediators of the eicosanoid and MMP pathways in whole buccal saliva from healthy volunteers, points to a marked modification of the inflammatory state of the oral cavity associated with age. Furthermore, the data suggest that this age-related inflammatory response was independent of the innate oral antimicrobial activity as monitored by lysozyme activity.
/////////////////Obesity is heritable, not genetic [Gene Expression]
Posted: 27 Dec 2007 12:27 PM CST
Genome Wide Association (GWA) Study for Early Onset Extreme Obesity Supports the Role of Fat Mass and Obesity Associated Gene (FTO) Variants. Even if this is true, these correlations between particular alleles and obesity hold for the modern German lifestyle. I guarantee you that population level diversity in weight correcting for height was sharply attenuated when all Germans were basically farmers and laborers. It seems possible to me that in pre-modern times "obesity alleles" might have been selected for something different in an environment where gaining a lot of weight and becoming subject to higher risk of various chronic diseases was not a plausible outcome. With the change in environment the whole phenotypic landscape shifted as the environment in which the genes expressed was radically altered.
Note: I'm skeptical that obesity alleles mark a much more efficient metabolism. After all, if LCT can nearly fix in northern Europe why not genes which allow you to more efficiently convert food into energy would not have been swept to fixation long ago? I suppose this could be balancing selection, but there's only so much of that a genetic architecture can support.
Read the comments on this post...
//////////////////////A real skeptic always sides with scientific consensus.
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Posted: 27 Dec 2007 08:59 AM CST
Terry McDermott, who penned that great series on neuroscientist Gary Lynch earlier this year, has written another illuminating article on Alzheimer's. The news is bleak: scientists have yet to understand the disease. In fact, we still don't even know what causes the cellular degeneration in the first place:
It's been 101 years since Alzheimer's disease was first theorized, and 30 years since the federal government began funding research on it, spending, to date, more than $8 billion. Private industry has spent billions more. What has been learned?The answer is perplexing. There have been more than 35,000 scientific papers published on Alzheimer's just in the last decade. They include hundreds of impressively detailed descriptions of purported disease mechanisms. But in all that wealth of information, there are some rather obvious gaps.
For example, the leading hypothesis of the cause of Alzheimer's, called the amyloid hypothesis, is centered on the overproduction, or inadequate clearance, in the brain of a protein called beta amyloid. Fragments of the protein aggregate into clumps called plaques. These plaques were first observed more than a century ago by the man after whom the disease is named, Alois Alzheimer.
For most of the century since, scientists have believed the plaques were associated with the disease. But to date, they don't know whether amyloid plaques are the cause of the disease or a result. They don't know whether they are vital to the progress of the disease or incidental. They don't even know whether their presence is indicative of the disease.
A rival idea, called the tau hypothesis, is no more definitive. Where beta amyloid generally aggregates outside brain cells, the protein tau aggregates into fibrous structures, called tangles, inside the cells.
The processes by which either amyloid or tau cause brain cells to malfunction, and in some cases die, are neither well understood nor completely coincident with observations of the disease itself.
It's now been almost a decade since the decade of the brain, and while we know more than ever about the three pounds of gelatinous flesh inside our head, the lack of scientific progress on major brain diseases has been humbling. Prozac, a drug invented fifty years ago by accident, remains our most effective treatment against depression. Nobody really knows what causes schizophrenia, or if schizophrenia is even a single disease. We have no idea what triggers Parkinson's. Alzheimer's remains poorly understood. Autism is a mystery. The list goes on and on. Perhaps one day we'll be able to fix the brain and prevent its breakdown. But I'm not holding my breath.
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//////////////////////UK03-BONK-JGTG-TIMKO-RAS
///////////////////Out of control mayhem
///////////////// Fruitcake Day [Dec 27]
Call-A-Friend Day [Dec 28]
Bad Hangover Day [Jan 1]
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Posted: 26 Dec 2007 03:50 PM CST
The documentary below is the first episode of a three-part series on the question of animal minds: do they even have them? Are non-human animals intelligent? Can they reason or use logic? Can they grasp abstract concepts? Do they have problem-solving skills? Can they be innovative? Can they understand and use syntactical grammar? Do they have a sense of self?
Join this team of scientists and animals (including Alex the parrot, who sadly died earlier this year) on a quest to understand the intelligence of the animal mind. Among those interviewed are Jane Goodall, famous for her work with chimpanzees (click here to see more videos of her), and Euan Macphail, whose skepticism about animal intelligence provides a nice balance for those of us who find the notion of animal intelligence just too exciting to deny.
To see a truly fascinating and inspiring video about the intelligence of bonobo chimps, check out this awesome TEDTalk presentation by Susan Savage-Rumbaugh.
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//////////////////If short-term happiness isn't always best, what about long-term?
Posted: 27 Dec 2007 08:30 AM CST
Earlier this week we discussed the relationship between life satisfaction and other measures of well-being, finding that for measures such as relative income, the happiest people weren't always the best-off. For relationships, however, the happiest individuals also seem to do better.
But these measures were only taken at an instant in time. What about over longer periods? The College and Beyond study questioned incoming college freshmen in 1976, and included a self-rating of "cheerfulness," among many other measures. Then those same individuals were surveyed in 1995. How did cheerfulness affect income nearly two decades later? Here are the results:
As you can see, it depends on the individual. People who came from higher-income families earned significantly more than those who were from low-income families. But the pattern for high-income families looks more like the pattern previously observed only for relationships: the more cheerful respondents were in 1976, the more they made in 1995. For low-income families, being extremely cheerful didn't pay off as well: respondents from the second most cheerful group in 1976 earned more in 1995 than the most cheerful group.
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//////////////////The bouncer in the brain pp5 - 6
Efficiency variations in the filtering of relevant from irrelevant information could contribute to individual differences in working memory. A new functional imaging study suggests that the basal ganglia act as this filter because activity in this region before stimulus presentation was inversely correlated with unnecessary storage.
Edward Awh and Edward K Vogel
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Fish Oil Is A Deterrent Against
Alzheimer's Disease
Medical News Today Dec. 26, 2007
*************************
Researchers at UCLA's Alzheimer
Disease Research Center have found
evidence that fish oils do indeed
reduce your chances of developing
late-onset Alzheimer's, and why this
is so. Using tests on both rat and
human neuronal tissue (and dietary
fish oil in young rats with insulin
resistance), they found that even
///////////////sd=Life and Discipline: Using the Five Personal Finance Business Cards for Other Aspects of Life
Posted: 27 Dec 2007 02:00 PM CST
A while back, I wrote a post outlining everything you needed to know about personal finance on the back of five business cards. In a succinct way, that post laid out the most important pieces of personal finance: spend less than you earn, and do that by living frugally and focusing on increasing your earnings - from there, you’ll achieve financial independence.
The truth is that most of that philosophy applies to any self-motivated goal, from teaching yourself something new to losing weight. To show how useful that general philosophy is, I decided to apply the “five business card” philosophy to two goals I have for myself in the coming year: learning how to play the piano and losing weight.
1. The Most Important Thing
Losing weight The transition of that principle to weight loss is pretty straightforward: consume less than you burn. In other words, the caloric intake in a given day should be less than the calories spent when you’re in weight loss mode.
Learning the piano But how does that rule apply to learning a new skill? Basically, it’s a motivator to practice - each day you practice, you get better, while each day you don’t bother, you get worse. It’s also a cry to work on the fundamentals, which is also true for any kind of training. Practice more, put it off less is a good way to describe it.
2. Earn More!
Losing weight This basically means burn more - in other words, exercise. My plan is to start walking/jogging each morning as a tool to wake myself up, and I received a pedometer for Christmas to help me set specific numeric goals for this part of the plan.
Learning the piano For learning the piano, this basically means stop avoiding practice. If I want to actually learn an instrument, I should practice on a consistent schedule instead of every once in a while on a whim. Setting up a clear practice schedule with clear goals (a certain number of sessions a week, for instance) enables me to consistently practice over time.
3. Live Frugal!
Losing weight Here, the idea is to do what you already do in a more efficient fashion. In other words, I should cut some unhealthy elements out of my diet. Part of my plan for the new year is to try a part-time vegetarian diet, mostly in an effort to discover truly appealing healthy dishes - this should help quite a bit with cutting down on the unhealthy food intake.
Learning the piano This means that when I do practice, the practice should be worthwhile, including working on fundamentals and chords and scales and simple songs that really reinforce these things. Sure, I can try to stretch what I know as well, but completely mastering the fundamentals is what will make me a solid pianist.
4. Manage money!
Losing weight This basically refers to defining larger goals for what I’m doing, because if I both exercise and eat better, I will have the fuel I need to meet my goals. I plan on lowering my BMI by 5 by the end of 2008, and I’ll track that data in Excel throughout the year. Mostly, I want to feel more in shape.
Learning the piano I want to be able to functionally play a number of Christmas carols by the end of 2008, and be able to piece through many more from the sheet music. In other words, I want to build the consistent practicing and the quality practice into the functionality of being able to play God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.
5. Control your own destiny!
Losing weight The larger goal for losing weight is to get myself into a healthy shape so I can participate in every imaginable activity with my children as they grow up and keep up with them as well (at least until they’re in high school). I want to be able to teach my son how to play basketball in the driveway and play one-on-one with him regularly without worrying about passing out.
Learning the piano I’d like to be able to tackle most songs of reasonable complexity on the piano without much hesitation. I can piece things out in a very rough fashion now, but I know my skills are not strong and I badly want to change that.
low doses of omega-3 fatty acid...
http://www.kurzweilai.net/email/newsRedirect.html?newsID=7705&m=33138
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