New brain imaging research shows that social drinkers have decreased sensitivity in brain regions involved in detecting threats, and increased activity in brain regions involved in reward.
After alcohol exposure, threat-detecting brain circuits can’t tell the difference between a threatening and a non-threatening social situation.
Working with 12 healthy participants who drink socially, researchers used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to study activity in emotion-processing brain regions during alcohol exposure. When participants received a placebo instead of alcohol, they showed greater activity in the amygdala, insula, and parahippocampal gyrus — brain regions involved in fear and avoidance — when shown a picture of a fearfulfacial expression.
Alcohol, meanwhile, activated striatal areas of the brain that are important components of the reward system, but did not increase brain activity in areas involved in fear.
Medical students have always been fascinated by the story of Phineas Gage, a normal, hard working 26-year-old labourer. He became famous in 1848, when an iron rod pierced his skull and brain and exited on the opposite side. He survived this extensive trauma and was physically normal. His life aroused scientific curiosity as physicians suddenly realised that, contrary to popular opinion at that time, all parts of the brain where not essential for life.
The brain controls the physical functions of the body, determines our intelligence, memory, personality and ability to respond to change. It has four paired lobes. Of these, the parietal, temporal and occipital lobes have well elucidated mapped areas for functions like sight, speech, hearing and movement. The frontal lobes (through which the rod pierced Gage), situated just behind the forehead, are responsible for subtle psychological functions like mental maturity, recognition of social norms of behaviour, emotional development and appropriate responses to society.
English: Four brain lobes frontal lobe(red) parietal lobe(orange) temporal lobe(green) occipital lobe(yellow) and insula(purple) is also shown. others are Brain stem(black) Cerebellum(sky blue). Polygon data are from BodyParts3D maintained by Database Center for Life Science(DBCLS). ???: ????? ???(??) ???(?????) ???(??) ???(??) ??? ?????? ? ??(??) ??(??) ????????Database Center for Life Science(DBCLS)???????BodyParts3D??? (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The frontal area of the brain is protected to some extent by the skull bones. However, damage to the frontal lobes can occur as a result of accidents. Surgery may be performed on the frontal lobes to remove cysts or tumours, to treat intractable epilepsy, or very rarely for psychiatric disorders. The effects of injury to the frontal lobes are often subtle and difficult to pinpoint as the IQ (intelligence quotient) may remain normal. There may be weakness without actual paralysis, inability to perform sequential movement (like dressing for work), lack of flexibility and spontaneity, poor attention and difficulty in expressing thoughts lucidly despite increased talking. Sexual habits may change with promiscuity or disinterest or socially inappropriate behaviour. The entire personality of the individual may change, making him or her unpleasant, obnoxious and intolerable.
The brain fibres in the frontal lobes mature as we grow older and develop fully around the age of 25. Genetic defects or injury in the uterus, during birth or within this time frame, can result in faulty connections, inadequate development and poor release of brain chemicals like dopamine. This can cause learning disabilities, antisocial personalities and sometimes even major psychiatric illnesses like schizophrenia. Also the size of our brain, particularly of the frontal lobes, shrinks over time. This affects important human abilities such as planning, reasoning and problem solving.
Not all brains age or deteriorate at the same rate. Part of this process is genetic and the degeneration sets in at a certain chronological age triggered by an in-built biological alarm. This apparently inevitable mental decline is further influenced by environmental factors, which can be modified favourably.
The concept of retraining ageing brain circuits has been gaining popularity. There are DVDs and books available on brain exercises. The numbers game Sudoku is in almost every newspaper. Retraining the frontal lobes can also be done quite simply by memorising passages or poetry from books. Repetition of a task makes performance rapid and more efficient with less room for error, as the cascading chemical reactions in the brain then occur on accustomed pathways. Older adults who regularly participate in cognitive activity improve their memory, speed of thought and attention span. This helps them to efficiently manage their day-to-day activities and their finances. The benefits of brain training can be enhanced by regular physical activity.
Look after your brain as it is the only one you have.
* Protect it from injury by wearing seat belts and using helmets.
* Do not hit anyone on the head (this particularly includes corporal punishment).
* If anyone has had an accident or brain surgery, tolerate their idiosyncrasies, changes in personality, unreasonable anger and emotional outbursts.
Oh, it brings such blessed relief and now scientists can tell you why scratching an itch temporarily shuts off areas in the brain linked with unpleasant feelings and memories.
Prior studies have shown that pain, including vigorous scratching, inhibit the need to itch. Yosipovitch and colleagues looked at what goes on in the brain when a person is scratched.
He and colleagues used a technique known as functional magnetic resonance imaging to see which areas of the brain are active during scratching. They scratched 13 healthy people with a soft brush on the lower leg on and off in 30-second intervals for a total of five minutes.
Scratching reduced activity in the anterior cingulate cortex and the posterior cingulate cortex — areas linked with pain aversion and memory. And the more intensely a person was scratched, the less activity they found in these areas of the brain.
“It’s possible that scratching may suppress the emotional components of itch and bring about relief,” Yosipovitch said. But they also found why one scratch often begets another.
Scratching increased activity in the secondary somatosensory cortex, a pain center, and in the prefrontal cortex, which is linked with compulsive behaviour.
“This could explain the compulsion to continue scratching,” Yosipovitch said. The researchers noted that the study is limited because people were not scratching in response to an actual itch.
But they said understanding what goes on in the brain may lend clues about how to treat people tormented by chronic itch, including people with eczema and many kidney dialysis patients. The study, which appears online in the Journal of Investigative Dermatology, was paid for by the National Institutes of Health.
Recent studies have suggested that months to years of intensive meditation can improve attention and lower stress……….click & see
Researchers now believe that in less than one week of meditation practice with the integrativebody-mind meditation training method can produce noteworthy improvement in attention and ones’ state of mind.
The study of 40 Chinese undergraduates found that participation in 20-minute integrative meditation sessions over 5 days showed greater improvement in attention and overall mood, and lower levels of anxiety, depression, anger and fatigue, compared with students in a control group who participated in relaxation training.
Integrative meditation, they explain, “incorporates several key components body and mind techniques including body relaxation, breathing adjustment, mental imagery, and mindfulness training, which have shown broad positive effects in attention, emotions, and social behaviors in previous studies. This combination may amplify the training effect over the use of only one of these components.”
As mentioned, after just 5 days, students in the integrative meditation group showed significantly greater improvement on tests of attention and mood than did the relaxation control group. Their reaction to a mental stressor was also significantly improved, as evidenced by a significant decrease in stress-related cortisol levels. These outcomes after only 5 days of training “open a door” for simple and effective studies looking at the benefits of meditation.
The findings in this study highlight the potential value of integrative meditation for stress management, body-mind health, and improvement in cognitive performance and self-regulation,” Tang’s team notes.
“Our study is consistent with the idea that attention, affective processes and the quality of moment-to-moment awareness are flexible skills that can be trained,” they add.
The integrative body-mind training approach was developed in the 1990s. The technique avoids struggles to control thought, relying instead on a state of restful alertness, allowing a high degree of body-mind awareness while receiving instructions from a coach, who provides breath-adjustment guidance and mental imagery while soothing music plays in the background.
NEW YORK: Scientists in the US have claimed that scorpion venom may help in the treatment of a wide range of cancers.
Scorpions occur naturally in parts of Africa, America, India and the Caribbean. The majority of scorpions are harmless to human beings although the sting is extremely painful and requires treatment.
Researchers have found that when applied to tumours, the chemical chlorotoxin found in scorpion venom can distinguish cancer from healthy tissue, even when it affects only a few hundred cells and could improve the treatment of a wide range of cancers, reported the online edition of the Daily Mail .
Scientists believe it will help guide surgeons and result in more successful treatment. “By allowing surgeons to see cancer that would be undetectable by other means, we can give our patients better outcomes,” said James Olson, a doctor who led the US research team.
By joining the chemical chlorotoxin to a fluorescent marker, Olson and his team created a molecular beacon that lights up tumours. Painting a suspect area with the compound makes it easier for surgeons to remove every bit of cancer without damaging the surrounding healthy tissue.
This is especially important in the brain, where 80 percent of recurring malignant tumours appear at the edges of the surgical site. The paint marks out tumours with at least 500 times more sensitivity than a magnetic resonance imaging scan, the researchers found.
The scientists said that in tests on mice, it highlighted brain tumours as small as one millimetre in diameter. They are now preparing for human clinical trials. The researchers said the technique could be used in operating theatres in the US in as little as 18 months.
