New Robot can Read your Mind
Imagine that, the next generation of robots may be telepathic! Japanese searchers at Honda Motors have come close with the development of a robot that can respond to your thoughts. These robots are not telepathic, but respond to signals from a computer which can read your intentions from your brain waves. In a public demonstration reported by the media, the Honda researchers explained that technology allows them to map brain activity associated with a person’s desire to move an arm in a particular directions. After the person’s brain responses have been calibrated, the person only need think of such a movement and the computer signals the robot to make a similar movement. One day it may be possible to drive our car simply by thinking about it.
Web source:
Honda connects brain thoughts with robotics
|
Mar 31,
7:22 AM (ET)
By YURI KAGEYAMA
|
TOKYO (AP) - Opening a car trunk or controlling a home air conditioner could become just a wish away with Honda's new technology that connects thoughts inside a brain with robotics.
Honda Motor Co. (HMC) has developed a way to read patterns of electric currents on a person's scalp as well as changes in cerebral blood flow when a person thinks about four simple movements - moving the right hand, moving the left hand, running and eating.
Honda succeeded in analyzing such thought patterns, and then relaying them as wireless commands for Asimo, its human-shaped robot.
In a video shown Tuesday at Tokyo headquarters, a person wearing a helmet sat still but thought about moving his right hand - a thought that was picked up by cords attached to his head inside the helmet. After several seconds, Asimo, programmed to respond to brain signals, lifted its right arm.
Honda said the technology wasn't quite ready for a live demonstration because of possible distractions in the person's thinking. Another problem is that brain patterns differ greatly among individuals, and so about two to three hours of studying them in advance are needed for the technology to work.
The company, a leader in robotics, acknowledged the technology was still at a basic research stage with no immediate practical applications in the works.
"I'm talking about dreams today," said Yasuhisa Arai, executive at Honda Research Institute Japan Co., the company's research unit. "Practical uses are still way into the future."
Japan boasts one of the leading robotics industries in the world, and the government is pushing to develop the industry as a road to growth.
Research on the brain is being tackled around the world, but Honda said its research was among the most advanced in figuring out a way to read brain patterns without having to hurt the person, such as embedding sensors into the skin.
Honda has made robotics a centerpiece of its image, sending Asimo to events and starring the walking, talking robot in TV ads. Among the challenges for the brain technology is to make the reading-device smaller so it can be portable, according to Honda.
Arai didn't rule out the possibility of a car that may some day drive itself - even without a steering wheel.
"Our products are for people to use. It is important for us to understand human behavior," he said. "We think this is the ultimate in making machines move."
Weblink: http://apnews.myway.com/article/20090331/D978VQ482.html
-=-=-==-==-
Happiness May Be Inherited
Although the way parents raise their children has a big impact on the kids’ personality and behavioral patterns, inheritance may also play a big factor, even in such traits that may be learned, such as happiness. In an article published in Bioscience Hypotheses, Mexican researchers explain how the parents’ mood during pregnancy may affect the genetic expression of the fetus. Happiness and depression stimulate different chemicals in the brain, and these elements may in turn affect the genes. The researchers are also exploring the possibility that the mood hormones may affect both egg and sperm, allowing mood before conception to affect the genetic behavior of the fetus.
A researcher proposes that happiness may be partly inherited from parents' life experiences.
Posted May 14, 2009
By Livescience Staff, LiveScience
Many parents fret about ensuring their children's happiness, but those worries could be too late if happiness is mainly is inherited, as a researcher now suggests.
Epigenetics research has shown how life experiences and a person's environment can impact gene expression and change the traits that parents pass on to their kids. That provides some indirect support for this latest hypothesis.
It is well known, of course, that parental behavior affects children, and that the genes that a child gets from its parents help shape that child's character." said Dr. Alberto Halabe Bucay of Research Center Halabe and Darwich in Mexico. "My paper suggests a way that the parent's psychology before conception can actually affect the child's genes."
Halabe Bucay points to brain chemicals that accompany different moods, and suggests that they could affect eggs and sperm. Such chemicals may alter the way that specific genes are expressed in the cells that ultimately fuse to form the next generation — and in turn influence how a child develops.
The new paper is detailed in the May issue of the journal Bioscience Hypotheses, which showcases scientifically intriguing ideas and hypotheses rather than peer-reviewed studies. That means this new idea has not been tested nor reviewed thoroughly by other experts in the field.
However, some related research last year found that happiness is partly determined by personality traits that are largely inherited from parents. Psychologists identified common genes which express personality traits that predispose people to the sunny side of life.
"Although happiness is subject to a wide range of external influences, we have found that there is a heritable component of happiness which can be entirely explained by genetic architecture of personality," said Alexander Weiss, a psychologist at the University of Edinburgh who lead the previous study.
Of course, parents can't gift happiness to their kids wholesale. The keys to happiness are manifold, and life experiences seem to play an important role, other studies have shown. Kids will still struggle through their usual challenges of adolescence and eventually adulthood, and try to seek happiness any way they can — whether by finding a great place to live or being charitable.
But if future evidence emerges in support of the idea of inherited happiness, whatever joy that young people gather may somehow find its way, at least in part, to the next generation.
Weblink: http://www.usnews.com/articles/science/medical-science/2009/05/14/happiness-may-be-inherited.html
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Perfectionism Can be Deadly
If you’ve ever had a perfectionist for a friend, you know what a burden it can place upon such a person. New research suggests that it can also lead to an earlier death.
When Canadian researchers interviewed more than four hundred senior citizens and then followed them for over six years, they found that certain character traits had a significant effect on mortality. According to the report of their study published in Journal of Health Psychology, those seniors who reported "a strong motivation to be perfect" and revealed a tendency toward "all or nothing thinking" had a fifty per cent greater chance of dying during the subsequent six years than those without such perfectionistic tendencies. The only thing more deadly was tension. Those seniors who reported feeling tense most of the time had twice the mortality than those seniors who reported feeling relaxed most of the time.
On the other hand, being conscientious, outgoing, and optimistic significantly reduced mortality.
Web Source:
Do Perfectionists Face Early Deaths? New Study Suggests Yes
Perfectionism, as a way of life, tends to be self-defeating. New research suggests it may also be deadly.
That's the conclusion of a Canadian study of senior citizens just published in the Journal of Health Psychology. Researchers conducted psychological tests on 450 elderly residents of southern Alberta, and then kept tabs on them for 6½ years. During that period, just over 30 percent of the subjects, who ranged in age from 65 to 87, died.
Perfectionists — that is, those who expressed "a strong motivation to be perfect" and revealed a tendency toward "all or nothing thinking" — were approximately 51 percent more likely to have died during the life of the study than those with more reasonable self-expectations. Those who were rated high on neuroticism — for instance, those who reported often feeling tense — did even worse: Their risk of death nearly doubled compared with those with a more relaxed disposition.
In contrast, "risk of death was significantly lower for high scorers in conscientiousness, extraversion and optimism," reports lead author Prem S. Fry, a research psychologist at British Columbia's Trinity Western University. She notes that previous research has found that "perfectionism exerts a great deal of stress on health," while optimism "is viewed as a stress-alleviating factor."
"In short, our findings confirmed that conscientiousness and extraversion are health-related dimensions that are enabling in their effects, and perfectionism and neuroticism are disabling," she concludes. "It is noteworthy that these associations endure well into late life."
The findings have interesting implications for seniors' health care providers and caregivers. They suggest physicians and family members are well-advised to be vigilant in noticing perfectionist tendencies, and understanding of the physical and psychological toll they can take.
The desire to pursue a favorite task or hobby at the same high level one achieved in previous years is very understandable, and in many ways commendable. But at the same time, it's important to be cognizant of the stress such an effort can produce and the negative health effects that can result.
Web Link:
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Useless Remedies Receive Greater Endorsement
Although some alternative and folk remedies are effective, many are not. As governmental agencies are taking a greater interest in confirming the effectiveness of alternative remedies, public health researchers wonder why it is that “quack” remedies seem “contagious,” because they spread so well among the population. One researcher has proposed an answer to that question.
Quack remedies are more contagious than effective treatments simply because they don’t work, suggests Mark Tanaka, a mathematical biologist at University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. He explains this paradox by noting that people using ineffective treatment use it longer, hoping for results. During that prolonged period, they have more opportunities to tell others about the treatment than do people who use effective treatments, get well, and cease using the remedy.
Web Source:
Eating a vulture won't clear a bad case of syphilis nor will a drink made of rotting snakes treat leprosy, but these and other bogus medical treatments spread precisely because they don't work. That's the counterintuitive finding of a mathematical model of medical quackery.
Ineffective treatments don't cure an illness, so sufferers demonstrate them to more people than those who recovery quickly after taking real medicines.
"The assumption is that when people pick up treatments to try, they're basically observing other people," says Mark Tanaka, a mathematical biologist at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, who led the study. "People don't necessarily know that what somebody is trying is going to work."
The World Health Organization is demanding better proof that folk medicines work before they can be approved. And the Malaysian government has rejected more than a third of the 25,000 applications to register traditional medicines it has received because the treatments are ineffective or dangerous.
Despite these efforts, quack medicine persists around the world. Some Nigerians treat malaria with witchcraft, a South African health minister recently claimed that garlic and beetroot treat HIV, and western health stores brim with unproven treatments for almost any disease imaginable. For instance St John's wort does nothing for attention deficit hyperactive disorder in children, a recent placebo-controlled trial concluded.
To understand why these quack medical treatments persist in the face of better proven remedies, Tanaka applied mathematical models used to measure evolutionary fitness to medical treatments.
His model accounted for factors including the rate of conversion to a treatment, the effectiveness of a treatment, the rate at which people abandon a treatment, the odds of recovering naturally, and the chances of dying. The model starts with a single person demonstrating a treatment – rubbish or not – and measures how many people are influenced to go on to give the treatment a try.
Under a wide range of conditions, quack treatments garnered more converts than proven hypothetical medicines that offer quicker recovery, Tanaka found. "The very fact that they don't work mean that people that use them stay sick longer" and demonstrate a treatment to more people, he says.
Bad treatments don't always win out. Recurring diseases are more likely to promote effective treatments than rare diseases because repeated demonstration weeds out bad treatments, Tanaka found.
But is this model valid in cultures where evidence-based medicine predominates, and government groups such as the US Food and Drug Administration vet most medical treatments?
Tanaka thinks so, pointing to the popularity of alternative medicines and the debate over the effectiveness of FDA-approved drugs. "In many situations people will just observe and copy anyway, regardless what the official information is," he says.
And in some cases, one peer-reviewed study may conclude that a drug works, while another shows it doesn't. "Even where there is a bit of clinical research, we don't really know yet whether at lot of medicines are effective," he says.
"I think it's an interesting idea. It's quite clever", James Holland Jones, a biological anthropologist at Stanford University in California, says of the model. However, language allows people to vet unproven remedies without trying them, he adds – that is, you can just ask if a treatment was effective. "You don't necessarily have to copy everything."
Journal reference: PLoS-ONE (DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0005192.s001)
Web link: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17064-quack-remedies-spread-by-virtue-of-being-useless.html
-=-=-==
Daydreaming May Support Problem Solving
Daydreaming is not a waste of time, but a time when the brain may initiate behind the scenes work to solve ongoing problems. In a brain imaging study conducted at the University of British Columbia and published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers asked participants to attend to a simple response task while undergoing a brain scan. Using a complex methodology, researchers could determine when the participant was daydreaming and whether or not the person was aware of that fact. The results of their study was that, contrary to previous assumptions, during daydreaming, the brain is quite active, including the portion of the brain that deals with complex problem solving. The less aware the participant was of the occurrence of daydreaming, the more active was the problem solving portion of the brain. The researchers speculated that daydreaming, which takes up about a third of our waking moments, is a tool the brain uses to solve problems.
Web source:
Got a tough problem to solve? Try daydreaming.
Contrary to the notion that daydreaming is a sign of laziness, letting the mind wander can actually let the parts of the brain associated with problem-solving become active, a new study finds.
Kalina Christoff of the University of British Columbia in Canada and her colleagues placed study participants inside an fMRI scanner, where they performed the simple routine task of pushing a button when numbers appear on a screen. The researchers tracked subjects' attentiveness moment-to-moment through brain scans, subjective reports from subjects and by tracking their performance on the task.
Until now, scientists had thought that the brain's "default network," which is linked to easy, routine mental activity, was the only part of the brain that remains active when the mind wanders. But in the study subjects, the brain's "executive network" — associated with high-level, complex problem-solving — also lit up.
The less subjects were aware that their mind was wandering, the more both networks were activated.
"This study shows our brains are very active when we daydream — much more active than when we focus on routine tasks," Christoff said.
The findings, detailed in the May 11 issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggest that daydreaming is an important cognitive state where we may unconsciously turn our attention from immediate tasks to sort through important problems in our lives.
"When you daydream, you may not be achieving your immediate goal — say reading a book or paying attention in class — but your mind may be taking that time to address more important questions in your life, such as advancing your career or personal relationships," Christoff said.
That's particularly good news, because daydreaming can occupy as much as one third of our waking lives, previous studies have found.
-=-=-=-=-=-=
Meditation Grows Brain Cells
While most workouts affect the body, a meditation workout affects the brain, and grows new cells. Past research has shown that meditation enables people to control their emotions and develop positive ones, leading to less stress and a stronger immune system. New research, conducted at U.C.L.A., and published in the journal NeuroImage, has shown that meditation actually increases brain matter, developing new brain cells and connections.
When the researchers conducted brain scans on non-meditators and long-term meditators, they found that the meditators had larger brain mass in the hippocampus region and areas within the orbito-frontal cortex, the thalamus and the inferior temporal gyrus — all regions known for regulating emotions.
Web source:
May 12th, 2009 in Medicine & Health / Neuroscience
Push-ups, crunches, gyms, personal trainers -- people have many strategies for building bigger muscles and stronger bones. But what can one do to build a bigger brain? Meditate.
That's the finding from a group of researchers at UCLA who used high-resolution magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to scan the brains of people who meditate. In a study published in the journal NeuroImage and currently available online (by subscription), the researchers report that certain regions in the brains of long-term meditators were larger than in a similar control group.
Specifically, meditators showed significantly larger volumes of the hippocampus and areas within the orbito-frontal cortex, the thalamus and the inferior temporal gyrus — all regions known for regulating emotions.
"We know that people who consistently meditate have a singular ability to cultivate positive emotions, retain emotional stability and engage in mindful behavior," said Eileen Luders, lead author and a postdoctoral research fellow at the UCLA Laboratory of Neuro Imaging. "The observed differences in brain anatomy might give us a clue why meditators have these exceptional abilities."
Research has confirmed the beneficial aspects of meditation. In addition to having better focus and control over their emotions, many people who meditate regularly have reduced levels of stress and bolstered immune systems. But less is known about the link between meditation and brain structure.
In the study, Luders and her colleagues examined 44 people — 22 control subjects and 22 who had practiced various forms of meditation, including Zazen, Samatha and Vipassana, among others. The amount of time they had practiced ranged from five to 46 years, with an average of 24 years.
More than half of all the meditators said that deep concentration was an essential part of their practice, and most meditated between 10 and 90 minutes every day.
The researchers used a high-resolution, three-dimensional form of MRI and two different approaches to measure differences in brain structure. One approach automatically divides the brain into several regions of interest, allowing researchers to compare the size of certain brain structures. The other segments the brain into different tissue types, allowing researchers to compare the amount of gray matter within specific regions of the brain.
The researchers found significantly larger cerebral measurements in meditators compared with controls, including larger volumes of the right hippocampus and increased gray matter in the right orbito-frontal cortex, the right thalamus and the left inferior temporal lobe. There were no regions where controls had significantly larger volumes or more gray matter than meditators.
Because these areas of the brain are closely linked to emotion, Luders said, "these might be the neuronal underpinnings that give meditators' the outstanding ability to regulate their emotions and allow for well-adjusted responses to whatever life throws their way."
What's not known, she said, and will require further study, are what the specific correlates are on a microscopic level — that is, whether it's an increased number of neurons, the larger size of the neurons or a particular "wiring" pattern meditators may develop that other people don't.
Because this was not a longitudinal study — which would have tracked meditators from the time they began meditating onward — it's possible that the meditators already had more regional gray matter and volume in specific areas; that may have attracted them to meditation in the first place, Luders said.
However, she also noted that numerous previous studies have pointed to the brain's remarkable plasticity and how environmental enrichment has been shown to change brain structure.
Web link: http://www.physorg.com/print161355537.html
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Yoga Helps Reduce Anxiety and Depression
Although meditation receives the bulk of research on how to reduce stress, yoga, practiced by millions, has also received research that has confirmed its stress reducing qualities, according to a review published in Harvard Medical Publications.
In one study, regular yoga practitioners, patients with fibromyalgia, and a control group of participants responded to a pain sensitivity test where a machine pressed down on a participants finger to determine at what pressure the participant would feel pain. During the test, the researchers conducted a brain scan of the participant. The results indicated that those patients with fibromyalgia had the lowest pain threshold, and the pain center in their brain showed the highest level of activity. Yoga practitioners, on the other hand, had the highest pain threshold, and their brains’ pain center showed the least amount of activity.
Another study showed that yoga helps military veterans suffering from PTSD. The participants in this study were also daily drinkers and were taking at least one anti-depressant. After six weeks of daily yoga practice, these veterans had reduced their stress level by half. The researchers also observed that this reduction continued for several months following the conclusion of the yoga class. Researchers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center believe that soldiers find yoga a more acceptable treatment than psychotherapy.
Web source:
From Harvard Health Publications
Since the 1970s, meditation and other stress-reduction techniques have been studied as possible treatments for depression and anxiety. One such practice, yoga, has received less attention in the medical literature, though it has become increasingly popular in recent decades. One national survey estimated, for example, that nearly 8 percent of U.S. adults had tried yoga at least once, and that nearly 4 percent practiced yoga in the previous year.
Yoga classes can vary from gentle and accommodating to strenuous and challenging; the choice of style tends to be based on physical ability and personal preference. Hatha yoga, the most common type of yoga practiced in the United States, combines three elements: physical poses, called asanas; controlled breathing practiced in conjunction with asanas; and a short period of deep relaxation or meditation.
Many of the studies evaluating yoga's therapeutic benefits have been small and poorly designed. However, a 2004 analysis found that, in recent decades, an increasing number have been randomized controlled trials—the most rigorous standard for proving efficacy.
Available reviews of a wide range of yoga practices suggest they can reduce the impact of exaggerated stress responses and may be helpful for both anxiety and depression. In this respect, yoga functions like other self-soothing techniques, such as meditation, relaxation, exercise, or even socializing with friends.
Taming the stress response
By reducing perceived stress and anxiety, yoga appears to modulate stress response systems. This, in turn, decreases physiological arousal—for example, reducing the heart rate, lowering blood pressure, and easing respiration. There is also evidence that yoga practices help increase heart rate variability, an indicator of the body's ability to respond to stress more flexibly.
A small but intriguing study further characterizes the effect of yoga on the stress response. In 2008, researchers at the University of Utah presented preliminary results from a study of varied participants' responses to pain. They note that people who have a poorly regulated response to stress are also more sensitive to pain. Their subjects were 12 experienced yoga practitioners, 14 people with fibromyalgia (a condition many researchers consider a stress-related illness that is characterized by hypersensitivity to pain), and 16 healthy volunteers.
When the three groups were subjected to more or less painful thumbnail pressure, the participants with fibromyalgia—as expected—perceived pain at lower pressure levels compared with the other subjects. Functional MRIs showed they also had the greatest activity in areas of the brain associated with the pain response. In contrast, the yoga practitioners had the highest pain tolerance and lowest pain-related brain activity during the MRI. The study underscores the value of techniques, such as yoga, that can help a person regulate their stress and, therefore, pain responses.
Improved mood and functioning
Questions remain about exactly how yoga works to improve mood, but preliminary evidence suggests its benefit is similar to that of exercise and relaxation techniques.
In a German study published in 2005, 24 women who described themselves as "emotionally distressed" took two 90-minute yoga classes a week for three months. Women in a control group maintained their normal activities and were asked not to begin an exercise or stress-reduction program during the study period.
Though not formally diagnosed with depression, all participants had experienced emotional distress for at least half of the previous 90 days. They were also one standard deviation above the population norm in scores for perceived stress (measured by the Cohen Perceived Stress Scale), anxiety (measured using the Spielberger State-Trait Anxiety Inventory), and depression (scored with the Profile of Mood States and the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale, or CES-D).
At the end of three months, women in the yoga group reported improvements in perceived stress, depression, anxiety, energy, fatigue, and well-being. Depression scores improved by 50%, anxiety scores by 30%, and overall well-being scores by 65 percent. Initial complaints of headaches, back pain, and poor sleep quality also resolved much more often in the yoga group than in the control group.
One uncontrolled, descriptive 2005 study examined the effects of a single yoga class for inpatients at a New Hampshire psychiatric hospital. The 113 participants included patients with bipolar disorder, major depression, and schizophrenia. After the class, average levels of tension, anxiety, depression, anger, hostility, and fatigue dropped significantly, as measured by the Profile of Mood States, a standard 65-item questionnaire that participants answered on their own before and after the class. Patients who chose to participate in additional classes experienced similar short-term positive effects.
Further controlled trials of yoga practice have demonstrated improvements in mood and quality of life for the elderly, people caring for patients with dementia, breast cancer survivors, and patients with epilepsy.
Since evidence suggests that yoga can tone down maladaptive nervous system arousal, researchers are exploring whether or not yoga can be a helpful practice for patients with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
One randomized controlled study examined the effects of yoga and a breathing program in disabled Australian Vietnam veterans diagnosed with severe PTSD. The veterans were heavy daily drinkers, and all were taking at least one antidepressant. The five-day course included breathing techniques (see above), yoga asanas, education about stress reduction, and guided meditation. Participants were evaluated at the beginning of the study using the Clinician Administered PTSD Scale (CAPS), which ranks symptom severity on an 80-point scale.
Six weeks after the study began, the yoga and breathing group had dropped their CAPS scores from averages of 57 (moderate to severe symptoms) to 42 (mild to moderate). These improvements persisted at a six-month follow-up. The control group, consisting of veterans on a waiting list, showed no improvement.
About 20 percent of war veterans who served in Afghanistan or Iraq suffer from PTSD, according to one estimate. Experts treating this population suggest that yoga can be a useful addition to the treatment program.
Researchers at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., are offering a yogic method of deep relaxation to veterans returning from combat in Iraq and Afghanistan. Dr. Kristie Gore, a psychologist at Walter Reed, says the military hopes that yoga-based treatments will be more acceptable to the soldiers and less stigmatizing than traditional psychotherapy. The center now uses yoga and yogic relaxation in post-deployment PTSD awareness courses, and plans to conduct a controlled trial of their effectiveness in the future.
Cautions and encouragement
Although many forms of yoga practice are safe, some are strenuous and may not be appropriate for everyone. In particular, elderly patients or those with mobility problems may want to check first with a clinician before choosing yoga as a treatment option.
But for many patients dealing with depression, anxiety, or stress, yoga may be a very appealing way to better manage symptoms. Indeed, the scientific study of yoga demonstrates that mental and physical health are not just closely allied, but are essentially equivalent. The evidence is growing that yoga practice is a relatively low-risk, high-yield approach to improving overall health.
Benefits of controlled breathing
A type of controlled breathing with roots in traditional yoga shows promise in providing relief for depression. The program, called Sudarshan Kriya yoga (SKY), involves several types of cyclical breathing patterns, ranging from slow and calming to rapid and stimulating, and is taught by the nonprofit Art of Living Foundation.
One study compared 30 minutes of SKY breathing, done six days a week, to bilateral electroconvulsive therapy and the tricyclic antidepressant imipramine in 45 people hospitalized for depression. After four weeks of treatment, 93 percent of those receiving electroconvulsive therapy, 73 percent of those taking imipramine, and 67 percent of those using the breathing technique had achieved remission.
Another study examined the effects of SKY on depressive symptoms in 60 alcohol-dependent men. After a week of a standard detoxification program at a mental health center in Bangalore, India, participants were randomly assigned to two weeks of SKY or a standard alcoholism treatment control. After the full three weeks, scores on a standard depression inventory dropped 75 percent in the SKY group, as compared with 60 percent in the standard treatment group. Levels of two stress hormones, cortisol and corticotropin, also dropped in the SKY group, but not in the control group. The authors suggest that SKY might be a beneficial treatment for depression in the early stages of recovery from alcoholism.
Web link: http://health.msn.com/health-topics/depression/articlepage.aspx?cp-documentid=100237603&Gt1=31009
-=-=-=-=-=-=-==--==-=-=-
Anti-Depressants Hinder Romance
Citizens of Prozac Nation, be advised, anti-depressants are doing more than removing your depressing feelings. Not only does this type of medication reduce your sex drive, it can also interfere with your ability to experience romantic feelings and to form attachments in relationships.
At a recent meeting of the American Psychiatric Association, Dr. Helen E. Fisher, an anthropologist at Rutgers, presented evidence based upon studies of brain scans of people in love. This research has shown that certain biochemicals are responsible for the three dimensions of romantic relationships. Sexual libido depends upon the action of androgens and estrogen hormones. Attachment depends upon oxytocin and vasopressin, while attraction depends upon high levels of dopamine and norepinephrine, which can alter levels of serotonin. Researchers knew that anti-depressants, which disrupt serotonin, reduces the sex drive, but new evidence suggests that it also plays havoc with the other two components of romantic relationships, making it harder for users of this medication to find partners attractive or to feel any bond with the romantic partner. Dr. Fisher reported case studies which suggest that continued use of the medication causes an actual loss of serotonin receptor cells, such that after discontinuing the medication, the suppressed relationship functions are permanently disabled.
Citizens of Prozac Nation, be advised to explore meditation, exercise, and diet as alternative treatments for depression.
Web source:
SSRI-Induced Sexual
Dysfunction: It May Be Permanent
May 4, 2004
By Anahad O'Conner
http://www.nytimes.com
For most people
taking antidepressants, the risk of a diminished sex drive may seem like a
worthwhile sacrifice for the benefits from the drugs.
Up to 70 percent of patients on antidepressants report sexual side effects, yet
the number of Americans who take the drugs has ballooned since Prozac was
introduced in the late 1980's. Last year, studies show, doctors in the United
States wrote 213 million prescriptions for antidepressants.
But what if the sexual side effects of the drugs, often considered little more
than a nuisance, had more serious consequences, impairing not only sexual desire
in some
people, but also the ability to experience romance? The question, which experts
are beginning to ask, was at the center of a talk this weekend at the annual
meeting of the
American Psychiatric Association in New York. Dr. Helen E. Fisher, an
anthropologist at
Rutgers, presented
findings that suggest, she says, that common antidepressants that tinker with
serotonin levels in the brain can also disrupt neural circuits involved in
romance and attachment.
"We know that there are real sexual problems associated with serotonin-enhancing
medications," said Dr. Fisher, author of "Why We Love: The Nature and Chemistry
of
Romantic Love" (2004). "But when you cripple a person's sexual desire and
arousal, you're also jeopardizing their ability to fall in love and to stay in
love."
Dr. Fisher and a colleague, Dr. Anderson J. Thomson Jr., have studied the brains
of people in love and pored over research from the last 25 years on the
neurological basis
of romance. Three brain systems, all interrelated, the researchers say, control
lust, attraction and attachment. Each runs on a different set of chemicals. Lust
is fueled by androgens and estrogens. Attachment is controlled by oxytocin and
vasopressin. And attraction, they say, is driven by high levels of dopamine and
norepinephrine, which can alter levels of serotonin. As a result, they say,
serotonin systems disrupted because of
SSRI antidepressants can
cripple the sex drive but also can create an imbalance among the three systems.
Drs. Fisher and
Thomson are submitting a scientific paper on the subject for publication this
year.
"There are two lines of evidence on this," Dr. Thomson, a psychiatrist at the
University
of Virginia, said. "The first is the well-documented frequency of sexual side
effects. When you actually talk to patients who have diminished libido and you
ask how it affects them, you discover that it has an enormous impact on their
romantic lives."
Often, the change is subtle. Drs. Fisher and Thomson point to case studies of
people who gradually find their emotions blunted and their ability to see
attractive features in others lost. The researchers also point to more extreme
cases like people who say losing their sex drives caused romantic feelings
toward longtime spouses to evaporate suddenly.
"Everyone is distinctly different," Dr. Fisher said. "Some people are so
securely attached that this isn't going to change things for them. But people
should be aware that these drugs dull the emotions, including the positive ones
that are central components of romantic love."
___________________________________________
(Ed note (4-19-09): SSRIs ("selective serotonin reuptake pump inhibitors") are now known to deplete total brain serotonin long-term and cause a partial disappearance of serotonin receptor sites as well as serotonin reuptake pumps (AKA serotonin transporters). The SSRIs include Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft, Celexa, Lexapro and Luvox. It is not known if these synaptic anatomic alterations are permanent or temporary in humans.
Alarmingly, there are now thousands of ex-SSRI users who have been made permanently impotent or otherwise sexually dysfunctional (unable to achieve orgasm, get an erection or even feel romantic) because of their use of SSRIs, even after discontinuing their drugs!
In regards to the
sexual dysfunction issue, there is a Wikipedia article on the subject that is
well-researched, with a lot of scientific journal articles on the permanence of
the sexual dysfunction. It can be found at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PSSD.
Whatever can cause impotence or decreased libido can also cause the "I don't give a damn attitudes", the lack of motivation or the numbing down of feelings common in users of the SSRIs,
There is a YouTube video that gives some pretty good advice on managing withdrawal symptoms with regard to the use of 5-HTP and Tyrosine and B vitamins. It can be seen at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gk3mNOy__aM&NR=1.
There is also a sobering testimonial from a person with permanent SSRI-induced sexual dysfunction (PSSD). He mentions a support group of 1300 others with the syndrome. The 1300 likely represents a tiny drop in a big bucket of people unaware of what happened to them. The video is at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-6pmsVOe3g.
It's time for the medical profession to start warning their patients about this and then try to figure out what to do about it, although they will likely try to keep their blinders on as long a possible so as to claim ignorance.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-==-
Faith Communities Fostering Healthy Diets
Among a variety of religious denominations, a common trend is appearing on the radar: members of faith communities are actively advocating healthy diets, family gardens, locally grown food, and sustainable agriculture, according to a survey conducted by the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP). The survey found that the motivation for this movement is the belief that healthy foods will help feed the body and soul.
Examples include hosting farmers markets, connecting members with local sources of halal or kosher foods, and growing produce at a church garden to donate to a neighboring food shelf.
ITAP joined forces with Blue Cross/Blue Shield to fund the survey. The health insurance company believed that the root causes of cancer and heart disease might be alleviated by a better diet. ITAP believes that spreading the word among other faith-based communities might inspire more programs of this kind.
Web source:
Report finds faith organizations building community, improving health through healthy foods
MINNEAPOLIS, Minn., May 6, 2009 – Parishioners at Guardian Angels Catholic Church in Minnesota do more than donate food to a local food shelf—they actually grow it themselves. The project is one of many case studies highlighted in a new report by the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP) and funded by Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota (Blue Cross) that demonstrate a growing nationwide movement within the faith community to put into practice the belief that healthy foods will help feed the body and soul.
The report, Faith and Food: Action Strategies for Healthy Eating, found that churches, synagogues and other faith organizations throughout the United States are building community—and healthier lives—by making healthy foods available to their members and others. Faith-based organizations are embracing healthy eating, local foods, and sustainable agriculture and see it as an effective way to improve their members’ health and make a difference in their communities. Examples include hosting farmers markets, connecting members with local sources of halal or kosher foods, and growing produce at a church garden to donate to a neighboring food shelf.
“Faith communities are important supporters of healthy eating because of their strong presence in neighborhoods and their commitment to the well-being of community members,” said JoAnne Berkenkamp, director of IATP’s Local Foods program. “It is our hope that faith members across the country will be inspired by these stories and take action in their own places of worship.”
IATP joined forces with Blue Cross’ Prevention Minnesota initiative, which works to improve the health of Minnesotans by combating the root causes of cancer and heart disease, of which unhealthy eating is a leading factor. Physical inactivity and unhealthy eating combined contribute to obesity, cancer, cardiovascular disease and diabetes. Together, they are the second leading cause of preventable death and disease in the United States.
“With two-thirds of Americans overweight or obese, we need many solutions to stop this alarming trend,” said Dr. Marc Manley, vice president and medical director for Population Health at Blue Cross. “If we surround people with healthy food options where they live, work and play—including their place of worship—people will be much more successful in improving their diets. We’re excited to be working with IATP to encourage more faith communities to make healthy foods the easy choice and in turn improve the health of their members.”
Case studies in the report include:
IATP is working to identify and expand opportunities for faith communities to support local foods, sustainable agriculture and healthy eating. They invite others to share the efforts of their own faith community to improve access to healthy food by visiting www.iatp.org/faith and adding their stories to complement the case studies highlighted in this report.
A PDF of the complete Faith and Food: Action Strategies for Healthy Eating report can be downloaded at www.iatp.org/faith or www.bluecrossmn.com/preventionminnesota.