Digitally Distracted? Re-Synchronize Your Brain Hemispheres!

Do you find yourself doing stupid things? Forgetting things? Do you experience "phantom" phone vibrations, imagining your phone is calling you when it hasn't actually buzzed? Are you a "constant-checker": do you check your emails and social media accounts frequently, if not constantly?  Do you go into panic mode when you can't find your smartphone?  Do you find it difficult to look up from your phone screen, computer screen, iPad, etc.? Is your attention span/concentration level diminished? Do you feel generally fearful without knowing why?  In other words, are you digitally distracted, digitally dumbed-down and/or digitally distressed?  Are you digitally addicted?

If you can relate to any of the aforementioned questions, you are not alone.   An ever-increasing amount of research suggests that constant access to information is changing our brains in more ways than one, and not for the best. As our devices get smarter, our brains get lazier, or to be blunt, dumber, which I realize is over-simplifying, but some things are best if researched for oneself.  Once again, risking oversimplification, part of the problem is alignment; not only realigning technology with humanity’s best interests, but realigning or even more accurately,  resynchronizing our brain hemispheres.

“Adrian Ward, a researcher at the University of Austin, has found that in many ways the internet is a lot like junk food. Just as snacks play on a deep biological need for sugar and fat, which tricks us into overeating these unhealthy foods, the internet messes with our cognitive functions to increase our dependence on it. Just being around a smartphone drives many to distraction, while heavy Googling has us increasingly outsourcing the task of remembering things to the cloud. That in turn means that we have to Google more and more things that we used to just have to commit to memory. Similarly, we may be taking more photos of things than ever, but we remember them less.

So, if you are a smart/cell/mobile phone user or even if you are not, because you are absorbing radiation from other people's wireless devices and the WIFI environments from which there is no escape, the following video will help because electrosmog is not only smogging up our brains it's switching our brains causing all of the symptoms previously mentioned. Even more importantly, a prolonged state of fear will also result in the switching of the brain which is the basis for mind control. This is one of the reasons why this technology is being forced upon us whether we like it or not. Don't get me wrong, most people love it! But for those of us who don't--a growing number-- because we see what it's doing, there is very little choice in the matter.

In other words, the technology we’re tethered to, not to mention, the WIFI environments we're immersed in, switch the brain.  Believe it or not, there is a little something you can do about it aside from crawling under a rock and wrapping yourself in tin-foil.  It's called  de-switiching, as it re-synchronizes the brain hemispheres.  Try it! You've got nothing to lose and perhaps, something to gain.



Links:

Here's What Your Smartphone Is Really Doing to Your Brain

Stress in America™ 2017: Technology and Social Media

Your Brain on Apps

This is what your smartphone is doing to your brain — and it isn't good

Your smartphone is hijacking your brain. Here's how to stop it.

This beautifully designed 'dumb phone' can only make calls and send texts — and it might be the key to curing our addiction to apps

Humane Tech

“Technology is hijacking our minds and society.

Our world-class team of deeply concerned former tech insiders and CEOs intimately understands the culture, business incentives, design techniques, and organizational structures driving how technology hijacks our minds.

Since 2013, we’ve raised awareness of the problem within tech companies and for millions of people through broad media attention, convened top industry executives, and advised political leaders. Building on this start, we are advancing thoughtful solutions to change the system."

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Smoking is Good For You?

According to Niels Ipsen, an environmental biologist and Klaus Kjellerup, a researcher who analyzed and summarized 40 years of scientific research. The claim is that nicotine boosts brain performance. They do not address the lungs. I guess breathing isn't as important if your brain's on fire.

After 40 years of scientific research on the effects of nicotine, researchers now say that they have sound scientific proof that smoking and nicotine have a significant positive effect on human brain performance.

The brain works better when it gets nicotine - almost like an optimized computer. Nicotine is a "work-drug" that enables its consumers to focus better and think faster. The brain also becomes more enduring, especially in smokers: Nicotine experiments show that smokers in prolonged working situations are able to maintain concentration for many hours longer than non-smokers.

This seems like a paradox considering the smoking bans imposed on workplaces in many countries - but it is nonetheless the picture emerging from hundreds of scientific studies of smoking and nicotine. It seems very unlikely that companies would be able to stop smoking in workplaces with many smokers without experiencing a decline in labor productivity.

Generally nicotine boosts the brain to work 10-30% more efficiently in a number of areas. This is especially true for smoking - but also true when using smokeless nicotine. But at the same time, when smokers and nicotine users abstain, they experience a perhaps equally great decline in the effect. This is called the "withdrawal effect" - a nicotine craving, especially for smokers.

Thus the difference between smoking and smoking abstinence is very pronounced for a smoker - a difference of perhaps as much as 50%. And, according to the scientists, this answers the question: Why do people smoke? The answer is simple: Because smoking boosts their brain power.

There are over 4000 chemicals (many of them, combustion by-products) in store bought cigarettes that include formaldehyde, arsenic and cyanide.  Now, certain chemicals reduce the tar intake. That's a good thing, right? But, to be sure, there are far more bad things.  For one, cigarette manufacturers like to enhance nicotine delivery to increase likelihood of addiction. For example, adding ammonia enables the smoker to freebase nicotine. Moreover, they add other chemicals to keep the cigarette from extinguishing itself. That can't be good.

And if that's not bad enough, fire safe cigarette legislation,  in all 50 states has produced the Fire Standards Compliant cigarette, which is held together with Ethylene Vinyl Acetate - carpet glue!   If this isn't incentive to roll your own...

Ethylene Vinyl Acetate, the product that holds the cigarette paper together, is essentially carpet glue. The product has no accepted internal (ingestion) purpose, and is considered to be highly toxic. In fact, the Material Safety Data Sheet, the “expert” on material uses says the following about ethylene vinyl acetate, “Not considered hazardous under normal conditions of use.” Normal conditions, of course, are those that include gluing a new carpet to the floor. Yuck!

The Data Sheet continues, in the same paragraph stating; “Can release irritating or toxic fumes and vapors if involved in a fire.” Naturally, all cigarettes are involved in a fire, as that is the only way they can be consumed.

What’s in a FSC?
Well, a lot. The health risks are plenty when inhaling the smoke from Fire Safe Cigarettes. FSC’s produced 13.9% more Naphthalene and 11.4% more carbon monoxide than regular cigarettes. Naphthalene is a nasty chemical, the main ingredient in moth balls, and contributes to the following conditions: headache, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, malaise, confusion, anemia, jaundice, convulsions, and coma.

...that is, unless you want to try the so-called safe alternative, Hookah or water-pipe smoking, that seems to be on the rise, especially amongst teens. Apparently, some think the smoke is filtered by the water;  hence, is safer than regular cigarette smoking. Not true, "a hookah, which is smoked for about 45 minutes, delivers 36 times more tar than a cigarette, 15 times more carbon monoxide and 70% more nicotine.".  The Mayo Clinic agrees.

In conclusion, while scientists have found that nicotine might be good for you in certain circumstances, and  that smoking might help prevent the onset of various dementias (nicotine), and that smokers, in general, are more likely to avoid obesity, smoking still drastically increases your chances of cancer and heart disease.  

Science is conclusive: Tobacco increases work capacity

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Is it Possible to Program Someone to Kill?

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Remote Control for the Brain

What if it were possible to treat brain disorders such as post-traumatic stress disorder, epilepsy, and Parkinson's disease and other neurological and psychiatric disorders with more efficacy and fewer side effects?  Moreover, what if it this technology were as simple as switching a light on?  If you've suffered from mental illness, I'm sure this sounds too good to be true. Well, not according to Ed Boyden at MIT.

Neurons are themselves electrical devices, and in order to treat brain disorders it is necessary to understand how the elements of a neural circuit work together. It's not as simple as it sounds.

Brain cells in many disorders in the neurological field do not show damage to the individual cell, but an inability for the brain cells to create proper circuit function. Electrical stimulation provokes communication between nerve cells but cannot target specific neural cells. But now systematic analysis of brain circuits is possible. With this new light switch technology, it's possible to make neurons controllable with pulses of colored light. 

In summary, we have identified optogenetic proteins that act as molecular tools to make neurons controllable with pulses of colored light. We are now developing high-count arrays of optical fibers that enable perturbation of activity in distributed and complexly shaped neural circuits, in order to open up systematic analysis of brain circuits. By revealing the neural substrates that can most powerfully control and correct aberrant neural computations, these tools will lead to better therapies for treating brain disorders such as post-traumatic stress disorder, epilepsy, and Parkinson's disease. New drugs can be generated that target these control circuits but not other unrelated ones, presenting more efficacy and fewer side effects. They may also present new targets for neuromodulation therapies such as deep-brain and transcranial magnetic stimulation. The ability to optically control cells may directly enable a new generation of optical prostheses, which can precisely control aspects of patient physiology using temporally precise pulses of light.

So the channelrhodopsin switch, or light-switch technology, may some day give birth to a treatment for neurological and psychiatric disorders that requires only a remote control to function correctly. 

The channelrhodopsin switch is “really going to blow the lid off the whole analysis of brain function,”-- George Augustine, Neurobiologist at Duke University in Durham, N.C.

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Why are American Children Beyond Redemption?

Is there anything more dangerous than a child soldier? First, it requires a certain hardness of heart to actively defend oneself against a child. Besides that, a child does not have the brain development nor the experience necessary to discern long time consequences, to make sound judgments and to control impulses. It takes time for the brain to mature and internalize a sense of morality.

So, children can be dangerous and commit heinous acts against humanity...there is no doubt about it, but, our system of justice, rather than rehabilitate juvenile offenders, transforming them into productive citizens, growing evidence says juvenile systems exacerbate delinquency, creating costly burdens to society.

“We have a great need to reform the juvenile justice system, from sentencing to punishment to the actual prisons we’re placing juveniles in. There’s clearly something wrong, the system isn’t working.” -- Jane Christie, 23, a law student at ASU.

John Anderson (not his real name), a 55-year old peace activist, told me, that as a young boy he loved guns, toy soldiers, army games, and anything involving weapons. His father, a policeman, threatened John with harsh punishment if he ever discovered that John had even touched his gun,warning him constantly of the deadly consequences that could occur from real guns.

At 16-years old, John, far from a child, but not yet a man and a friend took his father's gun out, and after quickly checking to make sure the gun was empty, played a game of Russian roulette. Luckily, for them, the gun was indeed empty and no one was hurt, however, John now looks back on that experience and has a hard time believing he initiated what could only be described as dangerous and immoral act. He not only risked his own life, but that of his friend as well.

Yet, despite overwhelming evidence that proves children and adolescent brains are not fully mature, the United States continues to send minors into the adult criminal-justice system, even for nonviolent crimes and incarcerate children for life without the possibility of parole. We are the only nation in the world that puts children behind bars and throws away the key.

“The evidence now is strong that the brain does not cease to mature until the early 20s in those relevant parts that govern impulsivity, judgment, planning for the future, foresight of consequences, and other characteristics that make people morally culpable….”

As "free" as we are in the US, freedom to screw up is not included. Our system of justice is purely punitive. Rehabilitation programs are non-existent.

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Shutting Down the Pain Gate Before it Shuts You Down

Dr. Rollin Gallagher, Director of the Center for Pain Medicine, Research and Policy and clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania and Director of Pain Medicine at the Philadelphia VA Medical Center currently studies the treatment of pain in injured troops on the battlefield.
Pain management is no different on the battlefield today than it was during the Civil War…an injection of Morphine which provides short-term relief but does not do anything to prevent the pain from continuing long-term.

This new method of pain management Dr. Rollin Gallagher is studying not only stops the pain but it also prevents neural pathways of pain to be created, therefore addressing the chronic permanent pain many times associated with injury. This method works by placing a catheter right next to the nerves that transmit the pain information from the area of injury to the brain -- the soldier pushes a button that continuously dribbles medicine right on that nerve to paralyze the specific nerve connected to the place of injury. This new method of pain management prevents the pain signal from getting into the spinal cord where it makes those changes in the neural pathways leading to chronic severe nerve pain.

How pain works?

When injured, a signal immediately goes from the injured tissue into the nerves to your spinal cord and then it is relayed through a set of relay stations in your spinal cord to two parts of your brain, one part of the brains says it’s in my left arm and it’s bad or not so bad and the other part of the brain says this hurts and I hate it...the suffering part.

Then the brain sends a message back down to the spinal cord or the descending control mechanism that say this is really important or this is not so important.

Then you have a reaction around the tissue involved in the injury and have inflammatory cells getting activated and the inflammatory process.

Then either healing begins, if the area is stabilized or if it’s a disease process or a disease process that interferes with healing or continue to do something to activate the injury then healing won’t begin. The longer the pain goes untreated such as the actual stimulus doesn’t heal up properly then your going to have changes in the mechanics of the muscles involved in the area of injury that will continue to send signals from the periphery.

More importantly you may have changes in the spinal cord and brain that then permanently activate the pain causing Chronic Regional Pain Syndrome, where just moving, blowing on the area actually activates the pain system. In addition, from not using the area the person gets bone absorption, contractures (a shortening or distortion of muscular or connective tissue due to spasm, scar, or paralysis of the antagonist of the contracting muscle) and other problems that create new neural pathways of pain.

Studies are suggesting that early exposure (babies or children) to pain that is not controlled actually enables an overgrowth of the pain neuron system in the spinal cord so there may be people who are more reactive to the same level of stimulus based on what happened to them earlier on in life.

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Culture Influences Brain Function

MIT researchers report in the first brain imaging study of its kind that American culture, uses their brains differently than Asian culture to solve the same visual perceptual tasks.

Americans, which values the individual, emphasize the independence of objects from their contexts. In contrast, they found that East Asian societies, who values the collective, emphasizes the contextual interdependence of objects.

Americans, when making relative judgments that are typically harder for them, they activated brain regions involved in attention-demanding mental tasks. They showed much less activation of these regions when making the more culturally familiar absolute judgments. East Asians showed the opposite tendency, engaging the brain's attention system more for absolute judgments than for relative judgments.

Everyone uses the same attention machinery for more difficult cognitive tasks, but they are trained to use it in different ways, and it's the culture that does the training," Gabrieli says. "It's fascinating that the way in which the brain responds to these simple drawings reflects, in a predictable way, how the individual thinks about independent or interdependent social relationships."

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When "Smart" People are "Stupid"

I always thought the difference between a robot and a human being is the human being's innate drive to make sense of the world. Whereas a robot or computer absorbs or passively receives objective knowledge and responds in such a way that it has been preprogrammed to respond, a human being actively constructs knowledge by integrating new information and experiences into what they have previously come to understand, revising and reinterpreting old knowledge in order to reconcile it with the new. In other words, human beings try to make sense of what they have perceived, learned and reasoned by attempting to fit it into the context of which is it acquired.

Apparently, this is not always the case as the following story indicates.

A Lifesaving Checklist

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Neurobiology of Politics

A new study finds that a person's political orientation is related to differences in how the brain processes information. Liberals tolerate ambiguity and conflict better than conservatives and therefore are more open to new ideas.

"...the results provided an elegant demonstration that individual differences on a conservative-liberal dimension are strongly related to brain activity." -- Frank J. Sulloway, UC Berkeley's Institute of Personality and Social Research

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Recruiting Kids to Hell

It occurred to me, after reading the article, "Waldorf Mother Is Furious at Soldier Daughter's Death", in the Washington Post, what a tragedy this girl's death, and so many others her age who have suffered and will suffer the same fate, really is/was and will be.

Recent studies conclude the brain continues to change into the early 20's with the frontal lobes, or the area responsible for "executive function" developing last. "that govern impulsivity, judgment, planning for the future, foresight of consequences...", which are all necessary characteristics to make major decisions about one's future.

In addition to the profound changes taking place in the brain, adolescents are also going through overwhelming hormonal and emotional changes which make them easy targets for overeager recruiters who have a vested interest in making joining the military sound better than a Club Med vacation.

Parents are less likely to encourage their children toward the military today, forcing recruiters to paint an even rosier picture of war. Unfortunately, the recruiters know the most vulnerable of all, the kids least likely to have involved parents, are the discouraged, disempowered, and disconnected poor kids with little or no hope for the future. These young people, especially the males, are almost guaranteed to swallow the recruiter's propaganda hook, line and sinker. After all, what else sounds more empowering to teenage boys than traveling the world to kick ass?

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Ninth Circle of Helll

I remember waking up on the operating table during an operation I had a few years back; experiencing pain so intense, it permeated every cell of my being. I writhed on the table howling in horror at what was happening to me. I remember the doctor cursing at everyone ordering that I be put back under and then nothing...I was totally free of what was the worst pain I have ever felt.

But what if I could not move? Could not shout? Could not alert anyone to the pain I cannot find words to describe? I could only lie there, totally paralyzed, feeling every slice of the surgeon's scalpel as he sliced and diced my flesh and internal organs, every suture or staple as it pierces my skin. Every second seems like a minute, every minute, and an hour and on and on until I could only assume I descended into Dante's Ninth Circle of Hell.

Unfortunately, this is all too real for some people in a rare occurrence called anesthesia awareness. The patient lies there fully aware of the surgery that is taking place on their body and feeling all the pain of the operation without being able to move a muscle, moan, scream...totally powerless over what can only be described as the most grisly nightmare except that it is really happening. It is the unseen pain, that cannot be shared which must make the patient feel so alone and left only to conclude what can only be described as the deepest alienation from God.

There is a relatively easy remedy to prevent this from happening to anyone but it is only used in 17% of anesthesia patients. Monitoring the brainwaves of the patient while anesthetized will more than likely show the patient's level of awareness. There are also other precautions the anesthesiologist can take:

* Consider premedication with amnesic drugs, e.g., benzodiazepines or scopolamine, particularly when light anesthesia is anticipated.

* Administer more than a "sleep dose" of induction agents if they will be followed immediately by tracheal intubation.

* Avoid muscle paralysis unless absolutely necessary and, even then, avoid total paralysis [by using only the amount clinically required].

* Conduct periodic maintenance of the anesthesia machine and its vaporizers, and meticulously check the machine and its ventilator before administering anesthesia.

* In addition, anesthesia practitioners should be alert to patients on beta-blockers, calcium channel blockers and other drugs that can mask physiologic responses to inadequate anesthesia.

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Electricity to Zap Cancer Cells

Twelve major hospitals are testing a "noninvasive device that generates electrical fields of a certain strength that, it's hoped, will kill cancer cells but not normal brain tissues" on patients with the deadliest form of brain cancer, Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM)

This procedure is based on the fact that cells are most vulnerable to electromagnetic fields when they're dividing and cancer cells divide rapidly as opposed to brain cells which divide very infrequently, if at all.

Unlike chemotherapy and radiation therapy commonly used to treat cancer today, this treatment has shown minimal toxicity.

"We've been very happy to find that there is minimal toxicity-- of course we all know about the possible bad side effects of chemotherapy and radiation therapy," he says. "And so far this new type of treatment has been found to be very safe. And what the study is doing is looking to see whether or not it's effective. There's no cutting, there's no drugs involved at all, it's very simple, almost too simple,"

"We're putting electrodes on someone's head, we're putting an electric field through that, and that electric field is killing cancer cells."

-- Herb Engelhard, Neuro-oncologist

Hopefully, people with this insidious type of brain cancer, will have this treatment available as an option very soon...these patients do not have much to lose and everything to gain without the pain and danger of chemotherapy and radiation therapy.

"It might show up on the MRI scan as a circle or a ball, but really, by the time it's seen on the MRI scan, individual cells have gone deep into the brain. So glioblastoma multiforme is really cancer of the brain, and it's very, very difficult to treat," he says. "Once the tumor does not respond to radiation therapy and chemotherapy-- because surgery can't remove it all-- then one does have a very short time left on average."

-- Herb Engelhard, Neuro-oncologist

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Einstein's Brain is Physically Different.

London - It was, without doubt, one of the finest minds of all time. Now scientists have proved that Albert Einstein's brain was not only unique in its ability to process concepts: it was also physically different.

New research comparing the characteristics of Einstein's brain with that of four men of similar age has found remarkable structural differences.

Parts of his brain were found to be larger than those of the others, and he also appeared to have had more brain cells, scientists have found previously.

More brain cells
The brain of the great mathematician and physicist, who died at the age of 76 in 1955, has long fascinated researchers, not least because while Einstein's body was cremated, his brain was saved for scientific study.

The brain has now been found to possess a greater number of glial cells for each neurone, suggesting that Einstein's brain needed and used more energy. As a result it may have generated more processing ability. The job of glial cells is to provide support and protection for neurones.

The density of neurones in Einstein's brain is greater, too, and the cerebral cortex is thinner than the brains to which it was compared.

Einstein's brain also has an unusual pattern of grooves in an area thought to be involved in mathematical skills. It was 15 percent wider than the other brains, suggesting that the combined effect of the differences may be better connections between nerve cells involved in mathematical abilities.

The latest research, due to be published this week, was conducted by scientists in the United States and Argentina.

Einstein's brain needed and used more energy
"Einstein's astrocytic processes showed larger sizes and higher numbers of interlaminar terminal masses," say the researchers.

Exactly what effects these differences could have is not clear, and the researchers caution that what they found could simply be a sign of ageing.

The researchers also suggest that the structure of Einstein's brain may not have been unique, and that other people may have something similar, but never get the chance to use it.

"Perhaps individuals with 'special' brains and minds are more frequent than suspected. They just may go unnoticed due to socio-cultural conditions or their early potential being cancelled following exposure to unwanted health or child-rearing hazards during gestation and early childhood, or lack of an adequate child-raising environment,'' say the researchers.

And there's hope for us all. The researchers say that the brain structure shouldn't be seen as a marker of intelligence in isolation. "In a species with a heavily socially moulded brain and mind, such as humans, the full expression of an individual special aptitude depends on multiple genetic and environmental factors.''

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"Sexy" Smells Different for Gay, Straight Men, Study Says

[...]
The findings suggest that brain activity and sexual orientation are linked. It also supports an opinion held by most scientists, that people are born—not bred—gay.
[...]
The researchers found that the testosterone compound activated the hypothalamus in homosexual men and heterosexual women, but not heterosexual men. Conversely, the estrogen compound activated the hypothalamus only in heterosexual men.
[...]
However, the new studies boost the hypothesis that homosexuality has a genetic basis and is not simply the result of learned behavior.
"This, incidentally, is not in any way controversial for biologists," Hamer said. "It's completely expected from the basic tenets of biology. It's only controversial because of the social and political controversy over homosexuality."

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What’s Going On in George Bush’s Mind?

I don't know if anyone really knows the answer but a few politicians, writers, humorists, academics, and psychologists are trying to answer that question.

Pathological narcissism? Delusions of grandeur? Res ipsa loquitur. There have been other presidents, of course, who could readily be described as suffering from these same maladies. (All of them, you could argue.) But not since Richard Nixon has Washington seen a case so severe—or so tragic. Today, Bush’s poll numbers are mired at Nixonian levels circa Watergate. He is similarly isolated, similarly aggrieved, similarly blinded to his own faults and follies. Similarly out to lunch, that is. (Though he hasn’t yet invited Dick Cheney to pray with him in the Oval Office—at least as far as we know.) And he is also similarly unloved and unlamented by the very pols who so recently fetishized and fawned over him.

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Folic Acid May Save Your Brain!

Folic acid, the vitamin prescribed to pregnant women, could be a brain saver, a study has found.

People who took high dose supplements of folic acid did significantly better in tests of memory and cognitive performance than those given a placebo, researchers report.

The vitamin is found in green leafy vegetables, beans and liver but few people in the UK and northern Europe obtain high enough levels from diet alone. Average intake is around 200 micrograms a day, half the recommended amount.

Folic acid plays a crucial role in the development of the embryo and some countries such as the US now fortify flour with the vitamin. As a result the incidence of spina bifida and similar birth defects has declined. Low folate levels have also been linked with poor cognitive performance, but research has failed to show a benefit among people given supplements.

Now scientists from the University of Wageningen in the Netherlands have demonstrated with the use of more sensitive tests of cognitive performance that high dose folic acid supplements taken over a long period slow the effect of ageing on the brain.

A group of 818 participants, aged 50 to 70, were given a daily dose of 800 micrograms of folic acid, equivalent to four times the average daily intake, for three years. Tests showed their performance on memory and speed of thinking tasks was comparable to that of people five years younger. The results are published in The Lancet.

All the participants had raised levels of homocysteine, a naturally occurring enzyme which is over-produced in response to low folate levels. High concentrations of homocysteine increase the risk of heart disease and have been associated with atrophy of the hippocampus, an area of the brain important for memory consolidation.

Other cognitive functions, such as word fluency, were unaffected by the supplements, suggesting that the effect of folic acid might be restricted to basic aspects of speed and information processing.

The researchers say: "We have shown that three-year folic acid supplementation improves performance on tests that measure information processing speed and memory, domains that are known to decline with age... Trials similar to our own should be repeated in other populations to provide greater insight into the clinical relevance of folic acid supplementation."

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Remembering what is not the same as remembering how.

Researcher uses a comparative approach to study plasticity of recall

Why is it that amnesia patients can't remember their names or addresses, but they do remember how to hold a fork? It's because memories come in many flavors, says Fred Helmstetter, professor of psychology at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee (UWM). Remembering what is not the same as remembering how.

"Different circuits in the brain are activated when you remember what you had for breakfast this morning versus when you fell off a bicycle in second grade," says Helmstetter, who researches the brain's regulation of memories, emotions and learning.

And it's those distinctive connections in the brain's communication network that differentiate between the "aware," or conscious, memories and the unconscious ones, some of which Helmstetter calls "emotional memories."

Selectivity is one of the many aspects of memory that intrigues him, and it's key to his research into the specific brain process that is responsible for making you aware of what you've learned or remembered.

Dissecting the mechanisms behind emotional memory is important because the region of the brain that governs this also controls fear and anxiety. That is why an emotional memory, such as a traumatic car accident, can activate the autonomic nervous system, causing bodily responses like an increase in heart rate, sweating and blood pressure – even if you don't realize it.

So the research has implications for a variety of illnesses, from Alzheimer's disease to anxiety disorders.

Unraveling the differences between kinds of memories, Helmstetter believes, depends on understanding the chemical changes that happen in the brain at the molecular level.

Helmstetter's work has already shown how memories are stored in certain neurons. Now he wants to know more about the molecular players that make the brain's whole network of constantly changing memory connections possible. His extramural funding has come from sources such as the National Science Foundation and the National Institute of Mental Health.

Once thought to be static, the adult brain is now known to be the opposite – constantly forming or breaking neural connections and growing new cells.

It happens automatically when you exercise, take drugs or recover from certain illnesses. But it also occurs by simply thinking: The brain reroutes its communication pathways and its genetic instructions in response to experience.

"When you first learn something, such as how to ride a bike, there is an actual physical change in the brain – the cells make proteins they didn't make before," Helmstetter says.

The brain's capacity for dynamic states, called neuroplasticity, or just plasticity, makes tracking the circuitry behind memories a task of near-epic proportions. Hundreds of variables come into play.

Consider, for example, that a lot of memory formation and storage goes on simultaneously, some of it consciously and some of it unconsciously. And, in the time it takes to commit something to memory, hundreds of other experiences are being sorted and perhaps stored.

A message passed between two neurons is like person-to-person e-mail rather than a listserv. It does not trigger a global response in the brain's processing network.

Sound complicated? "That's right," says Helmstetter. "Plasticity is functionally infinite."

So how can scientists investigate under such a tempest of changing circumstances? It would be impossible to track all the neural adjustments marking every new condition, Helmstetter concedes. So he uses a mix of approaches.

One weapon in his investigative arsenal is an imaging technique that produces a 3-D picture of the parts of the human brain that are active during memory formation or recall. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), Helmstetter can "map" the anatomy of plasticity because it allows him to actually see, in real time, where cells are more active and use more energy.

But since it isn't yet possible to observe which genes turn on and off while humans call up their memories, he does the next best thing: He studies what happens in rats. He further simplifies the experiments by modifying the expression of whole families of genes at once.

"Our initial approach has been to use broad strokes," he says. "We suppress the whole compliment of genes involved in memory formation rather than chasing each individual gene and its expression."

The rat results are then compared with the information gleaned from the memory imaging in humans to see if there's a correlation. The memory circuitry is the same in both organisms, he says.

But of potentially more value is finding the exact role that genes and proteins play in the brain in response to stimuli, he says, because genes also are affected by environment.

What he's discovered suggests he is on the right track. Storage of a memory is a time-dependent endeavor. The process of making a memory involves a set of genes that are expressed or come "on" right away, he says.

"We now look at time versus structure," he says. "And we're focused on a set of proteins that appear to be required in several parts of your brain right after something important happens to you."

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Brains Can Recover From Alcoholism To a Degree.

New research reveals the brain's capacity to regenerate -- however, the sooner alcoholics abstain from drinking the more they may recover

The findings, published today (18 December 2006) in the online edition of the journal Brain [1], used sophisticated scanning technology and computer software to measure how brain volume, form and function changed over six to seven weeks of abstinence from alcohol in 15 alcohol dependent patients (ten men, five women).

The researchers from Germany, the UK, Switzerland and Italy measured the patients’ brain volume at the beginning of the study and again after about 38 days of sobriety, and they found that it had increased by an average of nearly two per cent during this time. In addition, levels of two chemicals, which are indicators for how well the brain’s nerve cells and nerve sheaths are constituted, rose significantly. The increase of the nerve cell marker correlated with the patients performing better in a test of attention and concentration. Only one patient seemed to continue to lose some brain volume, and this was also the patient who had been an alcoholic for the longest time.

The leader of the research, Dr Andreas Bartsch from the University of Wuerzburg, Germany, said: "The core message from this study is that, for alcoholics, abstinence pays off and enables the brain to regain some substance and to perform better. However, our research also provides evidence that the longer you drink excessively, the more you risk losing this capacity for regeneration. Therefore, alcoholics must not put off the time when they decide to seek help and stop drinking; the sooner they do it, the better."

Dr Bartsch, who is senior neuroradiology resident and head of the structural and functional MR-imaging laboratory of the Department of Neuroradiology at the University of Wuerzburg, said the study was one of the first to be able to integrate data that showed how the brain regained volume and function early on, once alcoholics, who had no complicating factors, had stopped drinking alcohol. It was carried out in collaboration with colleagues from the University of Oxford’s Centre for Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging of the Brain (FMRIB) and from the University of Siena’s Institute of Neurological and Behavioural Sciences.

The patients’ brains were scanned using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and proton MR-spectroscopy upon admission and after short-term sobriety. Only the patients that managed to abstain from alcohol without receiving any psychotherapeutic medication were included in the study, and those with secondary alcohol-induced disorders, as well as heavy cigarette smokers (more than 10 cigarettes a day), were excluded. Ten healthy volunteers (six men, four women), matched for age and gender, were recruited as controls for the study. The data were analysed and evaluated using FSL, a sophisticated software package developed at the Oxford FMRIB Centre, and LCModel (a computer program that analyses spectroscopy data) to give estimates of changes to brain volume, form (morphology), metabolism and function.

The technology enabled the researchers to superimpose the images of the patients’ brains upon follow-up on to the images of the brains at the start of the study so that they could see any morphological changes. They also measured how levels of various chemicals, including N-acetylaspartate (NAA) and choline, changed between the two time points. NAA can indicate how intact the brain’s nerve cells are (i.e. it is a metabolic marker of neuronal integrity), while choline provides hints at how cell membranes are being broken down and repaired.

In addition, the neuropsychological performance of the patients was tested at the beginning and end of the study, using a specific test (the d2-test) that primarily measures attention and concentration [2].

Dr Bartsch said: "After short-term sobriety of less than two months, we found that brain volume had increased by an average of nearly two per cent (1.82%), with a range of -0.19 to 4.32%. Only the one patient with the longest history of alcohol dependence (25 years) had a slightly reduced brain volume (-0.19%), but that value is within the margin of measurement error. Volumetric brain recovery was signified by the patients’ brains expanding beyond their previous limits, with an outward brain edge shift for the outer regions and an inward shift for the inner ones.

"In addition, on average across all the patients, cerebellar choline levels increased by about 20%, while levels of NAA in the cerebellar and frontal region of the brain and frontal choline significantly increased by about 10%. Brain volume regeneration correlated with the percentages increase in choline, indicating that volume regain is driven primarily by rising choline levels, while the more the NAA recovered, the better the patients performed on the d2-test."

There were no significant changes in the controls.

Dr Bartsch and his colleagues were confident that the increase in brain volume and form was not simply due to rehydration of the brain, as concentrations of choline and NAA increased even when water levels and other metabolites did not change significantly.

"Our results indicate that early brain recovery through abstinence does not simply reflect rehydration. Instead, the adult human brain, and particularly its white matter, seems to possess genuine capabilities for re-growth. Our findings show the ways that the brain can recover from the toxic insults of chronic alcoholism and substantiate the early measurable benefits of therapeutic sobriety. However, they also suggest that prolonged dependence on alcohol may limit rapid recovery from white matter brain injury.

"Modern neuroimaging enables us to monitor morphological, metabolic and other functional brain changes. Usually this has been applied to evaluate the degree and speed of brain degeneration in illnesses such as Alzheimer’s disease or multiple sclerosis. Here, we show that neuroimaging can also demonstrate and quantify brain regeneration in substance and function. Data analysis is crucial to these endeavours, and modern software such as the tools delivered by the Image Analysis Group at the FMRIB centre in Oxford provides us with the utilities necessary for such studies. For instance, I am able to inform a specific patient how much exactly his or her brain has benefited from sobriety and, as a clinician, I believe this may be a very supportive part of their treatment," he concluded.

In an accompanying commentary, Professor Graeme Mason, wrote that the study was important not just because it unified several previously separate lines of research but because it might give doctors the tools to motivate their alcohol-dependent patients to stay sober.

"Doctors treating or studying alcoholism should be made aware of the research of Dr Bartsch because it may provide a motivational tool that is a broad set of concrete, tangible, and rapid benefits of sobriety: cognition, chemistry and brain volume," wrote the associate professor of diagnostic radiology and psychiatry at Yale University. Prof Mason believed this was a particularly valuable contribution of the study because "patients often become discouraged from the physical and cognitive difficulties of achieving and maintaining sobriety."

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Reading Shakespeare Excites Your Brain

Shakespeare uses a linguistic technique known as functional shift that involves, for example using a noun to serve as a verb. Researchers found that this technique allows the brain to understand what a word means before it understands the function of the word within a sentence. This process causes a sudden peak in brain activity and forces the brain to work backwards in order to fully understand what Shakespeare is trying to say.

Professor Philip Davis, from the University’s School of English, said: “The brain reacts to reading a phrase such as ‘he godded me’ from the tragedy of Coriolanus, in a similar way to putting a jigsaw puzzle together. If it is easy to see which pieces slot together you become bored of the game, but if the pieces don’t appear to fit, when we know they should, the brain becomes excited. By throwing odd words into seemingly normal sentences, Shakespeare surprises the brain and catches it off guard in a manner that produces a sudden burst of activity - a sense of drama created out of the simplest of things.”

Experts believe that this heightened brain activity may be one of the reasons why Shakespeare’s plays have such a dramatic impact on their readers.

Professor Neil Roberts, from the University’s Magnetic Resonance and Image Analysis Research Centre, (MARIARC), explains: “The effect on the brain is a bit like a magic trick; we know what the trick means but not how it happened. Instead of being confused by this in a negative sense, the brain is positively excited. The brain signature is relatively uneventful when we understand the meaning of a word but when the word changes the grammar of the whole sentence, brain readings suddenly peak. The brain is then forced to retrace its thinking process in order to understand what it is supposed to make of this unusual word.”

Professor Roberts and Professor Davis together with Dr Guillaune Thierry, from the University of Wales, Bangor, monitored 20 participants using an electroencephalogram (EEG) as they read selected lines from Shakespeare’s plays.

In this initial test electrodes were placed on the subject’s scalp to measure brain responses.

Professor Roberts said: “EEG gives graph-like measurements and when the brain reads a sentence that does not make semantic sense it registers what we call a N400 effect – a negative wave modulation. When the brain reads a grammatically incorrect sentence it registers a P600 effect – an effect which continues to last after the word that triggered it was first read.”

Researchers also found that when participants read the word producing the functional shift there was no N400 effect indicating that the meaning was accepted but a P600 effect was observed which indicates a positive re-evaluation of the word. The team is now using magnetoencephalography (MEG) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (FMI) to test which areas of the brain are most affected and the kind of impact it could have in maintaining healthy brain activity.

Professor Davis added: “This interdisciplinary work is good for brain science because it offers permanent scripts of the human mind working moment-to-moment. It is good for literature as it illustrates primary human thinking. Through the two disciplines, we may discover new insights into the very motions of the mind.”

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Virus Cures Deadly Human Brain Cancer in Mice

A cancer-fighting virus has eliminated malignant brain tumors and prolonged survival in mice with a single injection.

Reporting in the journal Cancer Research, Canadian scientists from Calgary and London, Ontario have shown for the first time that myxoma virus, a poxvirus, kills human brain tumors in mice.

“We’re extremely encouraged by these results and the apparent cure seen in the mice treated with the active virus compared to untreated mice or those injected with inactivated virus,” says researcher Grant McFadden of Robarts Research Institute in London.

For the brain tumor experiments, McFadden teamed up with Dr. Peter Forsyth of the University of Calgary, a professor in the departments of oncology, and biochemistry & molecular biology, who has developed a mouse model with human gliomas, a malignant form of brain tumor. Over the past two years, their laboratories have tested the virus against experimental models of human malignant tumors, both in cell culture and in living animals. Injecting the tumor with the virus was not only well-tolerated – with only minimal inflammation at the site of the inoculation—but 92 per cent of the 13 mice treated were alive and apparently “cured” when the experiment was finished (after more than 130 days).

“Those animals continued to show a selective and long-lived myxoma virus infection in the tumors themselves but that infection did not spread and harm the animal,” says Dr. Forsyth, director, Clark H. Smith Integrative Brain Tumour Research Centre. “This and other factors suggest that myxoma virus warrants further investigation as a potential treatment for malignant brain tumors in people.”

The University of Ottawa also played a major role: Dr. John Bell initiated the Canadian Oncolytic Virus Consortium, a program funded by The Terry Fox Foundation, to study various viruses with the potential to treat cancer. In 2004, Dr. Bell brought together the teams from London and Calgary to initiate the study reported in Cancer Research.

McFadden and Forsyth are now planning to test the virus as a treatment for a deadly melanoma that is known to spread to the lung. They will be able to tag the virus with a fluorescent protein and track its progress in mice as it attacks the metastasized tumor cells.

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