 “Yogis cannot reach Krishna, but for pure devotees like mother Yashoda, Krishna is already caught.” (Shrila Prabhupada, Shrimad Bhagavatam, 10.9.9 Purport)With the hustle and bustle that comes with the feverish pursuit to procure enough wealth and provisions to support oneself and a family, even a holiday turns into a time of turmoil, adding pressure to a day that is meant to relieve it. The increase in obligations is especially true with the Thanksgiving holiday. Though carrying issues relating to travel and the comingling with family members you may not have seen in a long time, Thanksgiving is meant to be a day of prayer and remembrance, a time to give thanks to the Almighty for the bountiful gifts he heaps upon us. Thanksgiving brings the inevitable question of what we are thankful for. For the spiritualist trying to reach a better end in both this life and the next, there is one aspect to their practices that provides endless gifts, which can be appreciated every day, including on Thanksgiving.  The first Thanksgiving celebrated a bountiful harvest that resulted from a major shift in the way food was produced inside of a small community. Settlers to what would be known as the New World had a difficult time in the beginning. There were very few colonists who had fled England for the “greener” pastures of America, but when they arrived after a long boat ride conditions were so unexpectedly harsh that many of them died during the first winter. To further add to their troubles, the colonists found that their food production was quite sparse, for everything was placed into a common store, to be shared by all the members of the community.The governor of this group decided to shift gears, assigning a plot of land to each family, with the fruits of labor remaining in their possession. As a result, the next harvest was so large that not only was the starvation problem solved, but free trade with the neighboring native Americans could take place as well. Deciding that the harvest was too grand to let pass without commemoration, the Pilgrims held a grand feast, where there was an overwhelming feeling of gratitude. They thanked the Lord for their ability to eat and survive. The tradition then continued annually even into the founding of the United States of America, with George Washington, the first president, declaring the holiday be dedicated to serving the Supreme Lord, a time to give thanks for all that He has given.
In the Vedic tradition, the oldest system of spirituality known in the world, there are different ways to reach the Supreme Absolute Truth, the source of everything. In any endeavor, there are multiple avenues one can travel down to reach their desired destination. Usually the one that is the simplest to implement is considered the best, but sometimes the simplest doesn’t equate to the easiest to accept. For instance, in weight loss, the easiest option to implement is a reduction in eating. Just don’t eat as much as you are now and you will lose weight. While reducing food intake is easy, accepting the option is difficult, for the individual is accustomed to act otherwise, especially when there are culinary delights available at every corner. Instead of curbing eating directly, roundabout options, such as exercise, diets involving specific foods, and tight controls on the combination of foods consumed, are accepted. For realizing God, there is one simple and surefire method. This option is the easiest to implement but the most difficult to accept. Because this option is available to the most number of people, God is represented fully within it. The other avenues only have God represented partially and thus only bring the Lord’s partial association. A famous incident documented in the Shrimad Bhagavatam The Bhagavatam states that the Supreme Absolute Truth, the Personality of Godhead Himself, descended to earth around five thousand years ago in Vrindavana If we are not our body, then surely someone who is the fountainhead of all spirit and matter cannot be the same as His body when He comes to earth. The body has a strong influence, however, which operates through the illusory energy known as maya. Since we living entities are affected by maya, how can the Supreme Lord have the same defect? Either He is subject to maya also - which thus makes Him equal to us - or the listed incarnations aren’t really God but just some exalted personalities who had extraordinary abilities.
If God stays above matter and doesn’t require self-realization when coming to earth, why even make an appearance? Ah, here is where the opportunity for giving thanks comes in. In the roundabout methods of spirituality, different aspects of the Supreme Lord are uncovered. Even an atheist is a kind of spiritualist, though they don’t know who God is or that He exists. Rather, the atheist recognizes Krishna’s external energy expansion of maya, or material nature. Even in the theory of evolution, which is seen as the antithesis of the spiritual doctrine, a higher power is acknowledged. That stronger force is nature, which assumes the responsibility for the purported changing in the species. Even though such theories are based in ignorance, there is still an acknowledgement of one of Krishna’s energies. Since the Lord has no personal presence in the material energy, His personal association is denied such followers. The jnanis and yogis connect with aspects that have more of Krishna’s influence. Instead of seeing material nature as the cause, jnanis consider the impersonal spiritual energy known as Brahman as the highest force. Think of how each individual has a spark of life inside of them that guides their activities. Then carry that same discernment across every autonomous being, from the tiny ant all the way up to the large elephant. In this way we see that there is a total collection of the spiritual energy, almost a singular energy in a sense. This force is known as Brahman, and it is beyond the dualities created by maya. The jnanis, through study of Vedanta philosophy, worship this energy. Though Brahman is pure spirit, it again lacks Krishna’s personal presence. The yogis try to catch Krishna through His feature of Paramatma, which is the plenary expansion residing within the heart next to the individual soul. With Brahman the sum collection of energy is recognized, and with the Paramatma the localized aspect is honored, but in either case Krishna’s transcendental features are not noticed. Brahman and Paramatma can be described as nirguna, or without attributes, for the spiritualist connecting with these features doesn’t notice the qualities of sweetness belonging to the Personality of Godhead. God isnirguna in the sense that He never possesses material attributes, but at the same time He has spiritual features that can appear contradictory. Krishna is both formless and with form. He has eyes and doesn’t. He has legs and at the same time doesn’t.  How can the human brain make light of these contradictions? The Supreme Personality of Godhead, Bhagavan, in His forms known as saguna, or with attributes, descends to earth every now and then to show the devoted souls what it means to have spiritual attributes. As Krishna, the Lord came to Vrindavana in His original form, one which was full of sweetness. The benefit of Bhagavan’s association is that anyone can connect with Him. Practicing meditational yoga and studying Vedanta are very difficult, thus the two disciplines are exclusive. Their necessary requirements automatically prohibit entry. The jnani must be very intelligent, capable of understanding high logic. The yogi must be renounced, capable of sitting in meditation for hours on end and blocking out the distractions of material life.To connect with Bhagavan one must follow bhakti-yoga, which is available to every person, even if they are seemingly materially entangled. The residents of Vrindavana five thousand years ago weren’t jnanis or yogis, and they had never practiced self-realization. Nevertheless, they got to catch Krishna, to hold Him in their arms and bask in His sweet vision. How was this possible? They practiced bhakti, though they weren’t cognizant of the fact. Through many austerities from previous lives and a pious attitude guiding their activities, these residents were fully deserving of Krishna’s company. As they weren’t jealous of Him, why wouldn’t the Lord choose their land as the place to come and enact His pastimes?  The residents of Vrindavana were certainly thankful for Krishna’s association, and the people who hear from the Shrimad Bhagavatam can share the same sentiments. One time, the child Krishna broke a pot of butter belonging to His mother Yashoda. When she came upon the broken pot, she knew that it was Krishna’s work, for He was angry that she had gotten up while feeding Him to tend to a pot of boiling milk on the stove. When she returned, Yashoda saw the broken pot and then found the culprit Krishna feeding butter and yogurt to monkeys. Delighting in the scene, Mother Yashoda was ready to catch her son and punish Him for His transgression.Seeing Mother Yashoda with her whipping stick in hand, Krishna started to run away, pretending to be afraid. Though yogis and jnanis can’t catch Krishna, Mother Yashoda, a cowherd woman without much speed herself, was able to catch the Supreme Lord and bind Him in her motherly affection. The Lord allowed His dear mother to catch Him and execute her motherly duties, which gave her so much pleasure. From that association both sides felt tremendous delight, for the natural positions of the Supreme Lord and His devotees On Thanksgiving we can give thanks to the Supreme Lord for having descended to earth to engage in these pastimes. Karma, yoga and jnana are available to try, but only through bhakti will we get Krishna’s association. The Shrimad Bhagavatam is a bhakti-shastra, a scriptural work focused on devotional service In Closing: Seeing mother’s presence Krishna started to run, Knew He did something bad, with mother enjoyed the fun. A whipping stick in her hand to punish she took, Trouble catching son, for not was she fleet afoot. Materialist the presence of God can never see, Brahman and Paramatma for jnani and yogi. But Yashoda caught Krishna by bhakti following, With ropes of affection her young son binding. Thankful we are for that scene so pleasurable, Krishna caught by mother’s love, a pastime so delightful. |
Thursday, November 24, 2011
Thanksgiving 2011
Al ain paradise united arab emirates
AL AIN PARADISE.....The First park in Guinness World Record by The Largest Number of Hanging Flower Baskets---Al Ain, United Arab Emirates.
Implanted neurons, grown in the lab, take charge of brain circuitry
Among the many hurdles to be cleared before human embryonic stem cells can achieve their therapeutic potential is determining whether or not transplanted cells can functionally integrate into target organs or tissues.
Writing today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a team of Wisconsin scientists reports that neurons, forged in the lab from blank slate human embryonic stem cells and implanted into the brains of mice, can successfully fuse with the brain’s wiring and both send and receive signals.
Neurons are specialized, impulse conducting cells that are the most elementary functional unit of the central nervous system. The 100 billion or so neurons in the human brain are constantly sending and receiving the signals that govern everything from walking and talking to thinking. The work represents a crucial step toward deploying customized cells to repair damaged or diseased brains, the most complex human organ.
“The big question was can these cells integrate in a functional way,” says Jason P. Weick, the lead author of the new study and a staff scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Waisman Center. “We show for the first time that these transplanted cells can both listen and talk to surrounding neurons of the adult brain.”
The Wisconsin team tested the ability of their lab grown neurons to integrate into the brain’s circuitry by transplanting the cells into the adult mouse hippocampus, a well-studied region of the brain that plays a key role in processing memory and spatial navigation. The capacity of the cells to integrate was observed in live tissue taken from the animals that received the cell transplants.
Weick and colleagues also reported that the human neurons adopted the rhythmic firing behavior of many brain cells talking to one another in unison. And, perhaps more importantly, that the human cells could modify the way the neural network behaved.
A critical tool that allowed the UW group to answer this question was a new technology known as optogenetics, where light, instead of electric current, is used to stimulate the activity of the neurons.
“Previously, we’ve been limited in how efficiently we could stimulate transplanted cells. Now we have a tool that allows us to specifically stimulate only the transplanted human cells, and lots of them at once in a non-invasive way,” says Weick.
Weick explains that the capacity to modulate the implanted cells was a necessary step in determining the function of implanted cells because previous technologies were too imprecise and unreliable to accurately determine what transplanted neurons were doing.
Embryonic stem cells, and the closely related induced pluripotent stem cells can give rise to all of the 220 types of tissues in the human body, and have been directed in the lab to become many types of cells, including brain cells.
The appeal of human embryonic stem cells and induced pluripotent cells is the potential to manufacture limitless supplies of healthy, specialized cells to replace diseased or damaged cells. Brain disorders such as Parkinson’s disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, more widely known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, are conditions that scientists think may be alleviated by using healthy lab grown cells to replace faulty ones. Multiple studies over the past decade have shown that both embryonic stem cells and induced cells can alleviate deficits of these disorders in animal models.
The new study opens the door to the potential for clinicians to deploy light-based stimulation technology to manipulate transplanted tissue and cells. “The marriage between stem cells and optogenetics has the potential to assist in the treatment of a number of debilitating neurodegenerative disorders,” notes Su-Chun Zhang, a UW-Madison professor of neuroscience and an author of the new PNAS report. “You can imagine that if the transplanted cells don’t behave as they should, you could use this system to modulate them using light.”
-Latest Science News
_________
In addition to Weick and Zhang, the new PNAS report was co-authored by Yan Liu, also of UW-Madison’s Waisman Center. The study was funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health.
Violence traced to 129,000 years ago
| CHINESE ACADEMY OF SCIENCSE |
 The living scene of the Maba human Image: Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology The identification of traumatic lesions in human fossils is of special interest because of the underlying behaviors that are involved: accidental or intentional wounding, potential interpersonal violence, and also the social support needed for the care and recovery of impaired individuals. Aside from the Neandertals, secure evidence of healed traumatic lesions is very rare among Pleistocene human remains. The research of the late Middle Pleistocene archaic human cranium from Maba, south China, brings to the new evidence that interhuman aggression and healed blunt force trauma as early as 129,000 years ago in East Asian. The report published on Monday, 21 November 2011, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS) documents a lunate lesion on the right frontal squamous exocranially concave and ridged lesion with endocranial protrusion. Differential diagnosis indicates that it resulted from localized blunt force trauma, due to an accident or, more probably, interhuman aggression. The area of the depressed portion of the vault lesion is 14.0 mm in length and 1.5 mm in its deepest point below the frontal external contour. The center of the depression is rough. Several concentric waves within it created rounded edges, none of which is a complete circle. When the lesion is enlarged, healing of the bone can be seen to have taken place surrounding the area of the depressed area. The trauma is very similar to what is observed today when someone is struck forcibly with stones or staves. Its remodeled, healed condition also indicates the survival of a serious brain injury. It is not possible to assess whether the incident was accidental or intentional, or whether it resulted from a short-term disagreement, or premeditated aggression. Neurocranial abnormalities had been found in Chinese human fossils; however, when evaluated by paleopathological and forensic diagnostic standards, none represents definitely traumatic lesions caused by interpersonal violence. The depressions or damages on the Zhoukoudian H. erectus crania were suspected to hominid agency, but they could be more likely made by geological-crushing from the weight of overlying sediment or carnivores. The lesion on the supraorbital of the Lantian (Gongwangling) calvarium, initially thought to be a healed antemortem trauma, were later ascribed to postmortem taphonomic alterations of the bone. The Middle Pleistocene partial cranium from Hulu Cave, Tangshan, Nanjing, exhibits an ecdocranial healed lesion that was caused by either trauma or burning. Maba cranium was discovered in 1958, in a karst cave at Lion Rock, Maba town, Qujiang district, Shaoguan city, Guangdong province. The Maba cranium and a large quantity of mammal fossils were found in a deep and narrow crevice inside the cave. Maba has a thick, prominent and projecting supraorbital torus that arches over the circular profile orbits. The nasal bones are narrow, pinched and strongly projecting. Since its unique morphology in the middle stage of Early Homo Sapiens from mainland northern eastern Asia, Maba has been described extensively from a comparative morphological perspective. Although lots of researchers studied the Maba partial cranium, no one pay more attention and analysis the special lesion. Using a high-resolution industrial CT scanner and stereomicroscopy, Dr Xiu-jie WU and her co-author suggested that the Maba individual survived from serious injury and post-traumatic disabilities, and that it obviously did not kill the person. Maba would have needed social support and help in terms of care and feeding to recover from this injury long before death. The Maba 1 lesion joins a series of other craniofacial traumatic lesions of Pleistocene humans which provide evidence of both apparently elevated levels of risk to injury and the ability to survive both major and minor conditions. This research was mainly supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China. (Link: www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1117113108 Editor's Note: Original news release can be found here. |
New tool to track mental health
| THE UNIVERSITY OF CANBERRA |
Patients with depression can monitor their mental health using a computer as quickly as those with diabetes can manage their condition, thanks to new research presented at the University of Canberra. The joint research project between the University of Canberra, Queensland Institute of Medical Research and the Black Dog Institute at the University of New South Wales will feature in a workshop to mark the launch of the University of Canberra’s new Human-Centred Computing Laboratory. University of Canberra researcher Dr Roland Goecke will present research towards a computerised diagnostic aid that can diagnose depression with up to 80% accuracy. The researchers’ next step is to develop a laptop-based prototype. “Ultimately, we hope to assist patients with depression to monitor the progress of their illness in a way that a patient with diabetes monitors their blood sugar levels with a small portable device,” Dr Goecke said. Half of all Australians will experience mental illness during their life. Still, despite the high prevalence, current clinical practice depends almost exclusively on self-report and clinical opinion, risking a range of subjective biases, Dr Goecke said. Dr Goecke and his colleagues have completed a pilot study of their ‘affective computing’ technology on 40 patients and 40 healthy control subjects. The technology analyses a subject’s mental health by recognising markers of depression, such as movements in the eyebrows and lips, when subjects are exposed to video clips designed to elicit an emotional response. “The results demonstrate the capacity of affective computing technology to help with and improve the diagnosis of depressive disorders and the monitoring of progress during therapy. As health care costs increase in Australia, providing effective health monitoring systems and diagnostic aides is significant. Affective computing technology can and will play a major role in this,” Dr Goecke added. The following steps are to identify a new generation of objective ‘markers’ of mental illness in subjects’ expressions and combine physiological, audio and video sensors in a single device to measure depression. Launched today, the University of Canberra’s new Human-Centred Computing Laboratory will undertake multidisciplinary cutting-edge research ranging from face and gait recognition to forensic voice comparison and fingerprint analysis, from the detection of depressive disorders to the reliable tracking of athletes in field sports and the analysis of their performance. Editor's Note: Original news release can be found here. |
Dyslexic adults have more trouble if background noise levels are high
Dyslexia affects up to 17.5% of the population, but its cause remains somewhat unknown. A report published in the Nov. 23 issue of the online journal PLoS ONE supports the hypothesis that the symptoms of dyslexia, including difficulties in reading, are at least partly due to difficulty excluding excess background information like noise.
In the study of 37 undergraduate students, the researchers, led by Rachel Beattie of the University of Southern California, found that the poor readers performed significantly worse than the control group only when there were high levels of background noise.
The two groups performed comparably at the prescribed task when there was no background noise and when the stimulus set size was varied, either a large or a small set size.
According to Dr. Beattie, "these findings support a relatively new theory, namely that dyslexic individuals do not completely filter out irrelevant information when attending to letters and sounds. This external noise exclusion deficit could lead to the creation of inaccurate representations of words and phonemes and ultimately, to the characteristic reading and phonological awareness impairments observed in dyslexia."
More information: Beattie RL, Lu Z-L, Manis FR (2011) Dyslexic Adults Can Learn from Repeated Stimulus Presentation but Have Difficulties in Excluding External Noise. PLoS ONE 6(11): e27893. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0027893
Provided by Public Library of Science
"Dyslexic adults have more trouble if background noise levels are high." November 23rd, 2011. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-11-dyslexic-adults-background-noise-high.html
Posted by
Robert Karl Stonjek
Robert Karl Stonjek
A study looks at the nature of change in our aging, changing brains
(Medical Xpress) -- As we get older, our cognitive abilities change, improving when we’re younger and declining as we age. Scientists posit a hierarchical structure within which these abilities are organized. There’s the “lowest” level— measured by specific tests, such as story memory or word memory; the second level, which groups various skills involved in a category of cognitive ability, such as memory, perceptual speed, or reasoning; and finally, the “general,” or G, factor, a sort of statistical aggregate of all the thinking abilities.
What happens to this structure as we age? That was the question Timothy A. Salthouse, Brown-Forman professor of psychology at the University of Virginia, investigated in a new study appearing in an upcoming issue of Psychological Science, a journal published by the Association for Psychological Science. His findings advance psychologists’ understanding of the complexities of the aging brain.
“There are three hypotheses about how this works,” says Salthouse. “One is that abilities become more strongly integrated with one another as we age.” That theory suggests the general factor influences cognitive aging the most. The second—based on the idea that connectivity among different brain regions lessens with age—“is almost the opposite: that the changes in cognitive abilities become more rather than less independent with age.” The third was Salthouse’s hypothesis: The structure remains constant throughout the aging process.
Using a sample of 1,490 healthy adults ages 18 to 89, Salthouse performed analyses of the scores on 16 tests of five cognitive abilities—vocabulary, reasoning, spatial relations, memory, and perceptual speed. The primary analyses were on the changes in the test scores across an interval of about two and a half years.
The findings confirmed Salthouse’s hunch: “The effects of aging on memory, on reasoning, on spatial relations, and so on are not necessarily constant. But the structure within which these changes are occurring does not seem to change as a function of age.” In normal, healthy people, “the direction and magnitude of change may be different” when we’re 18 or 88, he says. “But it appears that the qualitative nature of cognitive change remains the same throughout adulthood.”
The study could inform other research investigating “what allows some people to age more gracefully than others,” says Salthouse. That is, do people who stay mentally sharper maintain their ability structures better than those who become more forgetful or less agile at reasoning? And in the future, applying what we know about the structures of change could enhance “interventions that we think will improve cognitive functioning” at any age or stage of life.
Provided by Association for Psychological Science
"A study looks at the nature of change in our aging, changing brains." November 23rd, 2011. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-11-nature-aging-brains.html
Posted by
Robert Karl Stonjek
Robert Karl Stonjek
Scientists point to link between missing synapse protein and abnormal behaviors
(Medical Xpress) -- Although many mental illnesses are uniquely human, animals sometimes exhibit abnormal behaviors similar to those seen in humans with psychological disorders. Such behaviors are called endophenotypes. Now, researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have found that mice lacking a gene that encodes a particular protein found in the synapses of the brain display a number of endophenotypes associated with schizophrenia and autism spectrum disorders.
The new findings appear in a recent issue of The Journal of Neuroscience, with Mary Kennedy, the Allen and Lenabelle Davis Professor of Biology at Caltech, as the senior author.
The team created mutations in mice so that they were missing the gene for a protein called densin-180, which is abundant in the synapses of the brain, those electro-chemical connections between one neuron and another that enable the formation of networks between the brain's neurons. This protein sticks to and binds together several other proteins in a part of the neuron that's at the receiving end of a synapse and is called the postsynapse. "Our work indicates that densin-180 helps to hold together a key piece of regulatory machinery in the postsynaptic part of excitatory brain synapses," says Kennedy.
In mice lacking densin-180, the researchers found decreased amounts of some of the other regulatory proteins normally located in the postsynapse. Kennedy and her colleagues were especially intrigued by a marked decrease in the amount of a protein called DISC1. "A mutation that leads to loss of DISC1 function has been shown to predispose humans to development of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder," Kennedy says.
In the study, the researchers compared the behavior of typical mice with that of mice lacking densin. Those without densin displayed impaired short-term memory, hyperactivity in response to novel or stressful situations, a deficit of normal nest-building activity, and higher levels of anxiety. "Studies of mice with schizophrenia and autism-like features have reported similar behaviors," Kennedy notes.
"We do not know precisely how the molecular defect leads to the behavioral endophenotypes. That will be our work going forward," Kennedy says. "The molecular mechanistic links between a gene defect and defective behavior are complicated and, as yet, mostly unknown. Understanding them goes to the very heart of understanding brain function."
Indeed, she adds, the findings point to the need for a better understanding of the interactions that occur between proteins at synapses. Studies of these interactions could provide information needed to screen for new and better pharmaceuticals for the treatment of mental illnesses. "This study really reinforces the idea that small changes in the molecular structures at synapses are linked to major problems with behavior," Kennedy says.
More information: "Deletion of Densin-180 Results in Abnormal Behaviors Associated with Mental Illness and Reduces mGluR5 and DISC1 in the Postsynaptic Density Fraction," The Journal of Neuroscience (2011).
Provided by California Institute of Technology
"Scientists point to link between missing synapse protein and abnormal behaviors." November 23rd, 2011. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-11-scientists-link-synapse-protein-abnormal.html
Posted by
Robert Karl Stonjek
Robert Karl Stonjek
Seeing Sound
Researchers ask: Is there an advantage to getting emotional when touching certain textures, or seeing colors change when you listen to music?
By Edyta Zielinska |
wikimedia commons, Jennifer RenselWhat if every time you listened to Mozart or the Wu-Tang Clan your world began to change color. What if every time you touched a rough sandy surface, you felt an irrepressible jealousy. Synesthetes, or people who connect the perception of one sense with another unrelated sense or processing center, will commonly have strong associations such as these throughout their lives, often without realizing that their experiences are different.
Researchers have shown that this ability—or disorder, depending on how you look at it—may have a genetic basis. Around 50 percent of parents pass the trait onto their children, although it’s still unclear what genes are involved. With 2 to 4 percent of the population estimated to have this trait, David Brang and V.S. Ramachandran from the University of California, San Diego, wondered whether synesthesia might confer a selective advantage. The pair published their musings in an article published in PLoS Biology today
The Scientist: How did you get into this area of study?
David Brang: I think the first time that I discovered it was through a friend of mine. I had just learned about synesthesia in class, I was telling a few friends about it, and all of a sudden he sort of looks over and he asks, “What do you mean you don’t see colors when you think of numbers and letters?” This was the first time I had seen a synesthete, and it tends to be the way most synesthetes “out” themselves.
TS: Why do you suspect it could be good to have synesthesia?
DB: Synesthesia is an interesting phenomenon in itself, but a secondary question is what good is it? Why would this have survived any type of evolutionary pressure? It’s possible that it was just by chance—that it co-evolved with some other process that was itself useful; it just tagged along. Another possibility is that it’s just the tail end of the distribution of how senses are perceived in the normal population. It’s not special in itself, it’s just the extremes of normal experiences.
SynesthesiaFlickr, twitchcraft
But one thing we do find is that there are specific enhancements from synesthesia. For example, synesthesia is more common in artists, poets, novelists, and these people say that it helps their art-form. There have been a number of well documented cases over time—Kandinsky was always thought to be a synesthete, possibly also Van Gogh. One of the other interesting things is that synesthesia doesn’t just affect communication between the senses but it seems to actually enhance the sensitivity of the individual sensory systems as well. So when people see colors in numbers, they have better discrimination ability for just colors in themselves.
One of the other findings is that synesthetes report that these secondary associations aid in their memory, including anything from remembering phone numbers to license plates to remembering equations. If they need to remember “56249,” they can think in numbers, or they can think ‘well I know I saw a red color first and then there was a green and then a blue color, and so it just adds this perceptual anchor to give weight to some of these primary sensory processes.
TS: If there is a genetic basis, what might these genes be doing on the cellular level?
DB: There may be enhanced connectivity between separate brain regions. Typically the sensory systems—such as sight, hearing, taste—are usually pretty distinct. But in synesthetes we think there is actually increased communication between the senses such that there is increased white matter connectivity between each of the sensory modalities.
During development you have a huge excess of connections. Most of the regions of the brain are connected to most of the other regions and then you have this steady process of pruning through development where connections that are not efficient get pruned back so you get these efficient hubs. One possibility is that synesthesia may just be the outgrowth of what happens when pruning isn’t as successful as development may have wanted it to be, and then it has this secondary consequence.
TS: Does working on this research change how you perceive the world?
DB: I don’t have synesthesia myself, but I have definitely, over the years, developed preferences for associations. I definitely have a preference that “2” should be blue, that “b” should be yellow and that “a” should be red. I started building my own associations, but I don’t see them to any degree.
Studying synesthesia, in general, has made me more aware of the fact that our own experiences may not be universal. We can only see inside our own head.
Source: The Scientist
http://the-scientist.com/2011/11/22/seeing-sound-2/
http://the-scientist.com/2011/11/22/seeing-sound-2/
Posted by
Robert Karl Stonjek
Robert Karl Stonjek
Dreaming takes the sting out of painful memories
They say time heals all wounds, and new research from the University of California, Berkeley, indicates that time spent in dream sleep can help.
UC Berkeley researchers have found that during the dream phase of sleep, also known as REM sleep, our stress chemistry shuts down and the brain processes emotional experiences and takes the painful edge off difficult memories.
The findings offer a compelling explanation for why people with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), such as war veterans, have a hard time recovering from painful experiences and suffer reoccurring nightmares.They also offer clues into why we dream.
"The dream stage of sleep, based on its unique neurochemical composition, provides us with a form of overnight therapy, a soothing balm that removes the sharp edges from the prior day's emotional experiences," said Matthew Walker, associate professor of psychology and neuroscience at UC Berkeley and senior author of the study to be published this Wednesday, Nov. 23, in the journal Current Biology.
For people with PTSD, Walker said, this overnight therapy may not be working effectively, so when a "flashback is triggered by, say, a car backfiring, they relive the whole visceral experience once again because the emotion has not been properly stripped away from the memory during sleep."
The results offer some of the first insights into the emotional function of Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep, which typically takes up 20 percent of a healthy human's sleeping hours. Previous brain studies indicate that sleep patterns are disrupted in people with mood disorders such as PTSD and depression.
While humans spend one-third of their lives sleeping, there is no scientific consensus on the function of sleep. However, Walker and his research team have unlocked many of these mysteries linking sleep to learning, memory and mood regulation. The latest study shows the importance of the REM dream state.
"During REM sleep, memories are being reactivated, put in perspective and connected and integrated, but in a state where stress neurochemicals are beneficially suppressed," said Els van der Helm, a doctoral student in psychology at UC Berkeley and lead author of the study.
Thirty–five healthy young adults participated in the study. They were divided into two groups, each of whose members viewed 150 emotional images, twice and 12 hours apart, while an MRI scanner measured their brain activity.
Half of the participants viewed the images in the morning and again in the evening, staying awake between the two viewings. The remaining half viewed the images in the evening and again the next morning after a full night of sleep.
Those who slept in between image viewings reported a significant decrease in their emotional reaction to the images. In addition, MRI scans showed a dramatic reduction in reactivity in the amygdala, a part of the brain that processes emotions, allowing the brain's "rational" prefrontal cortex to regain control of the participants' emotional reactions.
In addition, the researchers recorded the electrical brain activity of the participants while they slept, using electroencephalograms. They found that during REM dream sleep, certain electrical activity patterns decreased, showing that reduced levels of stress neurochemicals in the brain soothed emotional reactions to the previous day's experiences.
"We know that during REM sleep there is a sharp decrease in levels of norepinephrine, a brain chemical associated with stress," Walker said. "By reprocessing previous emotional experiences in this neuro-chemically safe environment of low norepinephrine during REM sleep, we wake up the next day, and those experiences have been softened in their emotional strength. We feel better about them, we feel we can cope."
Walker said he was tipped off to the possible beneficial effects of REM sleep on PTSD patients when a physician at a U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs hospital in the Seattle area told him of a blood pressure drug that was inadvertently preventing reoccurring nightmares in PTSD patients.
It turns out that the generic blood pressure drug had a side effect of suppressing norepinephrine in the brain, thereby creating a more stress-free brain during REM, reducing nightmares and promoting a better quality of sleep. This suggested a link between PTSD and REM sleep, Walker said.
"This study can help explain the mysteries of why these medications help some PTSD patients and their symptoms as well as their sleep," Walker said. "It may also unlock new treatment avenues regarding sleep and mental illness."
Provided by University of California - Berkeley
"Dreaming takes the sting out of painful memories." November 23rd, 2011. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-11-painful-memories.html
Posted by
Robert Karl Stonjek
Robert Karl Stonjek
SUCCESS AND FAILURE: WHAT BOTH TRULY MEAN
THE HARD TRUTH ABOUT HOW SUCCESS REALLY WORKS
Here’s what’s getting in your way when you attempt (and fail) to hit those “reach” goals.
Many people fall prey to, “Yeah, but…” thinking.
I have a friend who absolutely hates how successful his brother-in-law has become. “Oh yeah, I’d like to be doing that well,” he’ll say, “but he has very little downtime.”
Another is bitter because one of his friends is extremely fit. “Oh yeah, I’d like to be in that kind of shape,” he’ll say, “but he has to run like 30 miles a week.”
Sound familiar? It’s easy to look at people who are successful and begrudge their success. So we say, “Yeah, but he constantly watches what he eats,” about a thin friend, or, “Yeah, but he’s a slave to his schedule,” about a friend who achieves multiple goals, or even, “Yeah, but he took on way too much risk when he started his company,” about another entrepreneur.
But that’s how success works. Fit people are fit because they work out a lot. Successful people are successful because they work incredibly hard. People whose family relationships are close-knit have put time and effort into building those relationships.
Nothing worth achieving comes without a price. To begrudge those who pay the price is unfair. To be unwilling to pay the price will always result in failure.
The next time you consider a goal you want to achieve, decide if you really want to pursue that goal. If the answer is yes, the rest isn’t easy but it is simple.
Look around: No matter what your pursuit, plenty of people have already succeeded. Great blueprints and easy-to-follow road maps are everywhere.
Continue reading this article at INC.com
How the brain works with feelings
In the inaugural College of Science Colloquium Series lecture, psychology professor Lisa Feldman Barrett explored how emotions function in the mind. Photo by Mary Knox Merrill.(Medical Xpress) -- People who claim to recognize a burned imprint of Jesus on a piece of toast are channeling what Northeastern University Distinguished Professor of Psychology Lisa Feldman Barrett calls a self-interested perception of the world.
“We take sensory information and match it up to something we have seen before,” Barrett told more than 200 students, faculty and staff in the Raytheon Amphitheater last Thursday for the inaugural lecture in the College of Science Colloquium Series. “This is not a failure of science but rather a natural consequence of how the human brain works.”
Barrett based her lecture on research conducted in the Interdisciplinary Affective Science Laboratory at Northeastern, which studies how emotions function in the mind by using experiential, behavioral, psychophysiological and brain-imaging methods. The lab’s working hypothesis is that words for emotion, such as “fear,” “anger” and “sadness,” correspond to mental states that can be described as the combination of more basic psychological processes.
On Dec. 1, Barrett, along with associate professor David DeSteno and other Northeastern researchers, will lead an interdisciplinary conference that will serve as the first sponsored event of the newly created Affective Science Institute (ASI). ASI will be a nexus for collaboration, training and the exchange of ideas between researchers and scholars who study emotion and related topics in the New England area. The meet-and-greet event will also feature a poster session and a keynote address from neuroscientist Joseph LeDoux.
As part of her lecture, Barrett described how a technique called semantic satiation could shed light on how language affects our ability to recognize emotions.
Say the word "anger" over and over again and you won’t know the meaning of the furious scowl on the face of the person sitting next to you on the subway. Repeat the word "smile" over and over, and you won’t be able to tell whether two happy kids with ear-to-ear grins are conveying the same emotion.
“This principle is useful for deactivating the meaning of a word for a split second,” Barrett explained. “Perceptual accuracy can drop significantly and influence how you take in information from someone’s face.”
Barrett said the brain is constantly processing sensory input from both the body and the world and using experience to make sense of images, phrases, sounds and smells. “At any given moment, the brain is doing these things, whether you are experiencing an emotion, cognition or perception,” she said.
Half of our waking lives, however, are spent in reverie — lost in daydream. As Barrett put it, “Fifty percent of the time we’re not paying too much attention to what’s going on the world.”
Provided by Northeastern University
"How the brain works with feelings." November 23rd, 2011. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-11-brain.html
Posted by
Robert Karl Stonjek
Robert Karl Stonjek
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)