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qkirkpatrick

Brain-immune system connection lymphatic vessel - Business Insider - 0 views

www.businessinsider.com/ection-lymphatic-vessel-2015-6

science knowledge technology brain science

shared by qkirkpatrick on 05 Jun 15 - No Cached
  • Antoine Louveau was looking through his microscope at thin membranes that protect the brain when he saw something that absolutely shouldn't be there: a lymphatic vessel.
  • The lymphatic system is part of the circulatory system but, instead of blood, it carries lymph — a clear liquid that ferries immune cells and rids the body of toxins and waste. As a 2009 research review notes, it is "an undisputed anatomical fact" that the brain is the only major organ that lacks a direct connection to the lymphatic system.
  • The elusive lymphatic vessel hid in plain sight, throughout decades of research, because it was very small and tucked behind a major blood vessel.
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  • How did immune cells get in, and how did they leave? No one knew.
  • The new study stands to resolve this and lead to new understanding of and treatments for vexing diseases.
  • For now, the researchers are hard at work on two major follow-up questions to try to figure out how the research might be relevant and useful. First, does this system definitely exist in humans? And second, what is the potential role of these vessels in Alzheimer's, MS, and meningitis?
  • The idea that an entire part of the lymphatic system was hiding in plain sight should ensure that these potentially crucial areas are ignored no longer. With any luck, this might help us solve more mysteries behind the brain — and fight some of its greatest foes.
Javier E

Big Think Interview With Nicholas Carr | Nicholas Carr | Big Think - 0 views

bigthink.com/26561

reading technology brain science books intellectual

shared by Javier E on 22 Jan 11 - No Cached
  • Neurologically, how does our brain adapt itself to new technologies? Nicholas Carr: A couple of types of adaptations take place in your brain. One is a strengthening of the synaptical connections between the neurons involved in using that instrument, in using that tool. And basically these are chemical – neural chemical changes. So you know, cells in our brain communicate by transmitting electrical signals between them and those electrical signals are actually activated by the exchange of chemicals, neurotransmitters in our synapses. And so when you begin to use a tool, for instance, you have much stronger electrochemical signals being processed in those – through those synaptical connections. And then the second, and even more interesting adaptation is in actual physical changes,anatomical changes. Your neurons, you may grow new neurons that are then recruited into these circuits or your existing neurons may grow new synaptical terminals. And again, that also serves to strengthen the activity in those, in those particular pathways that are being used – new pathways. On the other hand, you know, the brain likes to be efficient and so even as its strengthening the pathways you’re exercising, it’s pulling – it’s weakening the connections in other ways between the cells that supported old ways of thinking or working or behaving, or whatever that you’re not exercising so much.
  • And it was only in around the year 800 or 900 that we saw the introduction of word spaces. And suddenly reading became, in a sense, easier and suddenly you had to arrival of silent reading, which changed the act of reading from just transcription of speech to something that every individual did on their own. And suddenly you had this whole deal of the silent solitary reader who was improving their mind, expanding their horizons, and so forth. And when Guttenberg invented the printing press around 1450, what that served to do was take this new very attentive, very deep form of reading, which had been limited to just, you know, monasteries and universities, and by making books much cheaper and much more available, spread that way of reading out to a much larger mass of audience. And so we saw, for the last 500 years or so, one of the central facts of culture was deep solitary reading.
  • What the book does as a technology is shield us from distraction. The only thinggoing on is the, you know, the progression of words and sentences across page after page and so suddenly we see this immersive kind of very attentive thinking, whether you are paying attention to a story or to an argument, or whatever. And what we know about the brain is the brain adapts to these types of tools.
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  • we adapt to the environment of the internet, which is an environment of kind of constant immersion and information and constant distractions, interruptions, juggling lots of messages, lots of bits of information.
  • Because it’s no longer just a matter of personal choice, of personal discipline, though obviously those things are always important, but what we’re seeing and we see this over and over again in the history of technology, is that the technology – the technology of the web, the technology of digital media, gets entwined very, very deeply into social processes, into expectations. So more and more, for instance in our work lives. You know, if our boss and all our colleagues are constantly exchanging messages, constantly checking email on their Blackberry or iPhone or their Droid or whatever, then it becomes very difficult to say, I’m not going to be as connected because you feel like you’re career is going to take a hit.
  • With the arrival – with the transfer now of text more and more onto screens, we see, I think, a new and in some ways more primitive way of reading. In order to take in information off a screen, when you are also being bombarded with all sort of other information and when there links in the text where you have to think even for just a fraction of a second, you know, do I click on this link or not. Suddenly reading again becomes a more cognitively intensive act, the way it was back when there were no spaces between words.
  • If all your friends are planning their social lives through texts and Facebook and Twitter and so forth, then to back away from that means to feel socially isolated. And of course for all people, particularly for young people, there’s kind of nothing worse than feeling socially isolated, that your friends are you know, having these conversations and you’re not involved. So it’s easy to say the solution, which is to, you know, becomes a little bit more disconnected. What’s hard it actually doing that.
  • if you want to change your brain, you change your habits. You change your habits of thinking. And that means, you know, setting aside time to engage in more contemplative, more reflective ways of thinking and that means, you know, setting aside time to engage in more contemplative, more reflective ways of thinking, to be – to screen out distractions. And that means retreating from digital media and from the web and from Smart Phones and texting and Facebook and Tweeting and everything else.
  • The Thinker was, you know, in a contemplative pose and was concentrating deeply, and wasn’t you know, multi-tasking. And because that is something that, until recently anyway, people always thought was the deepest and most distinctly human way of thinking.
  • we may end up finding that those are actually the most valuable ways of thinking that are available to us as human beings.
  • the ability to pay attention also is very important for our ability to build memories, to transfer information from our short-term memory to our long-term memory. And only when we do that do we weave new information into everything else we have stored in our brains. All the other facts we’ve learned, all the other experiences we’ve had, emotions we’ve felt. And that’s how you build, I think, a rich intellect and a rich intellectual life.
  • On the other hand, there is a cost. We lose – we begin to lose the facilities that we don’t exercise. So adaptation has both a very, very positive side, but also a potentially negative side because ultimately our brain is qualitatively neutral. It doesn’t pare what it’s strengthening or what it’s weakening, it just responds to the way we’re exercising our mind.
  • the book in some ways is the most interesting from our own present standpoint, particularly when we want to think about the way the internet is changing us. It’s interesting to think about how the book changed us.
  • So we become, after the arrival of the printing press in general, more attentive more attuned to contemplative ways of thinking. And that’s a very unnatural way of using our mind. You know, paying attention, filtering out distractions.
  • what we lose is the ability to pay deep attention to one thing for a sustained period of time, to filter out distractions.
aqconces

BBC - Future - Cancer: The mysterious miracle cases inspiring doctors - 0 views

www.bbc.com/...he-mystery-of-vanishing-cancer

Cancer cure Science

shared by aqconces on 09 Mar 15 - No Cached
  • “We watched for a period of a few months and the tumours just disappeared,”
  • “There had been no doubt about her diagnosis,” he says. “But now there was nothing in the biopsies, or the scans.”
  • After 20 weeks, the patient was cancer-free.
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  • our immune system should hunt out and destroy mutated cells before they ever develop into cancer. Occasionally, however, these cells manage to sneak under the radar, reproducing until they grow into a full-blown tumour.
dpittenger

3-D-printed organs are on the way - Nov. 4, 2014 - 0 views

money.cnn.com/...3d-printed-organs

science research technology

shared by dpittenger on 15 Jan 15 - No Cached
  • Add one more to the growing list of 3-D-printed products: human organs.
  • Within the next few years, Renard says 3-D-printed tissues could also be used in patient treatment, to replace small parts or organs or encourage cell regeneration.
  • Once the cells have been printed in the right arrangement, they begin to signal to one another, fuse and organize themselves into a collective system.
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  • That hasn't stopped scientists from trying, however. Harvard researchers are at work trying to print functioning human kidneys, while a team at the University of Louisville is trying to produce a 3-D-printed heart.
  • dpittenger on 15 Jan 15
     
    Scientists are creating organs using 3d printers. This is a big scientific breakthrough and changes how we think about biology.
kushnerha

Learning a New Sport May Be Good for the Brain - The New York Times - 0 views

well.blogs.nytimes.com/...port-may-be-good-for-the-brain

new york times brain science sports research

shared by kushnerha on 02 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • Learning in midlife to juggle, swim, ride a bicycle or, in my case, snowboard could change and strengthen the brain in ways that practicing other familiar pursuits such as crossword puzzles or marathon training will not, according to an accumulating body of research about the unique impacts of motor learning on the brain.
  • Such complex thinking generally is classified as “higher-order” cognition and results in activity within certain portions of the brain and promotes plasticity, or physical changes, in those areas. There is strong evidence that learning a second language as an adult, for instance, results in increased white matter in the parts of the brain known to be involved in language processing.
  • Regular exercise likewise changes the brain, as I frequently have written, with studies in animals showing that running and other types of physical activities increase the number of new brain cells created in parts of the brain that are integral to memory and thinking.
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  • But the impacts of learning on one of the most primal portions of the brain have been surprisingly underappreciated, both scientifically and outside the lab. Most of us pay little attention to our motor cortex, which controls how well we can move.
  • We like watching athletes in action, he said. But most of us make little effort to hone our motor skills in adulthood, and very few of us try to expand them by, for instance, learning a new sport. We could be short-changing our brains. Past neurological studies in people have shown that learning a new physical skill in adulthood, such as juggling, leads to increases in the volume of gray matter in parts of the brain related to movement control.
  • Even more compelling, a 2014 study with mice found that when the mice were introduced to a complicated type of running wheel, in which the rungs were irregularly spaced so that the animals had to learn a new, stutter-step type of running, their brains changed significantly. Learning to use these new wheels led to increased myelination of neurons in the animals’ motor cortexes. Myelination is the process by which parts of a brain cell are insulated, so that the messages between neurons can proceed more quickly and smoothly.
  • Scientists once believed that myelination in the brain occurs almost exclusively during infancy and childhood and then slows or halts altogether. But the animals running on the oddball wheels showed notable increases in the myelination of the neurons in their motor cortex even though they were adults.
  • In other words, learning the new skill had changed the inner workings of the adult animals’ motor cortexes; practicing a well-mastered one had not. “We don’t know” whether comparable changes occur within the brains of grown people who take up a new sport or physical skill, Dr. Krakauer said. But it seems likely, he said. “Motor skills are as cognitively challenging” in their way as traditional brainteasers such as crossword puzzles or brain-training games, he said. So adding a new sport to your repertory should have salutary effects on your brain, and also, unlike computer-based games, provide all the physical benefits of exercise.
Javier E

Noam Chomsky on Where Artificial Intelligence Went Wrong - Yarden Katz - The Atlantic - 1 views

www.theatlantic.com/...261637

chomsky science AI biology research brain science psychology

shared by Javier E on 27 Jun 13 - No Cached
  • Skinner's approach stressed the historical associations between a stimulus and the animal's response -- an approach easily framed as a kind of empirical statistical analysis, predicting the future as a function of the past.
  • Chomsky's conception of language, on the other hand, stressed the complexity of internal representations, encoded in the genome, and their maturation in light of the right data into a sophisticated computational system, one that cannot be usefully broken down into a set of associations.
  • Behaviorist principles of associations could not explain the richness of linguistic knowledge, our endlessly creative use of it, or how quickly children acquire it with only minimal and imperfect exposure to language presented by their environment.
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  • David Marr, a neuroscientist colleague of Chomsky's at MIT, defined a general framework for studying complex biological systems (like the brain) in his influential book Vision,
  • a complex biological system can be understood at three distinct levels. The first level ("computational level") describes the input and output to the system, which define the task the system is performing. In the case of the visual system, the input might be the image projected on our retina and the output might our brain's identification of the objects present in the image we had observed. The second level ("algorithmic level") describes the procedure by which an input is converted to an output, i.e. how the image on our retina can be processed to achieve the task described by the computational level. Finally, the third level ("implementation level") describes how our own biological hardware of cells implements the procedure described by the algorithmic level.
  • The emphasis here is on the internal structure of the system that enables it to perform a task, rather than on external association between past behavior of the system and the environment. The goal is to dig into the "black box" that drives the system and describe its inner workings, much like how a computer scientist would explain how a cleverly designed piece of software works and how it can be executed on a desktop computer.
  • As written today, the history of cognitive science is a story of the unequivocal triumph of an essentially Chomskyian approach over Skinner's behaviorist paradigm -- an achievement commonly referred to as the "cognitive revolution,"
  • While this may be a relatively accurate depiction in cognitive science and psychology, behaviorist thinking is far from dead in related disciplines. Behaviorist experimental paradigms and associationist explanations for animal behavior are used routinely by neuroscientists
  • Chomsky critiqued the field of AI for adopting an approach reminiscent of behaviorism, except in more modern, computationally sophisticated form. Chomsky argued that the field's heavy use of statistical techniques to pick regularities in masses of data is unlikely to yield the explanatory insight that science ought to offer. For Chomsky, the "new AI" -- focused on using statistical learning techniques to better mine and predict data -- is unlikely to yield general principles about the nature of intelligent beings or about cognition.
  • Chomsky acknowledged that the statistical approach might have practical value, just as in the example of a useful search engine, and is enabled by the advent of fast computers capable of processing massive data. But as far as a science goes, Chomsky would argue it is inadequate, or more harshly, kind of shallow
  • An unlikely pair, systems biology and artificial intelligence both face the same fundamental task of reverse-engineering a highly complex system whose inner workings are largely a mystery
  • Implicit in this endeavor is the assumption that with enough sophisticated statistical tools and a large enough collection of data, signals of interest can be weeded it out from the noise in large and poorly understood biological systems.
  • Brenner, a contemporary of Chomsky who also participated in the same symposium on AI, was equally skeptical about new systems approaches to understanding the brain. When describing an up-and-coming systems approach to mapping brain circuits called Connectomics, which seeks to map the wiring of all neurons in the brain (i.e. diagramming which nerve cells are connected to others), Brenner called it a "form of insanity."
  • These debates raise an old and general question in the philosophy of science: What makes a satisfying scientific theory or explanation, and how ought success be defined for science?
  • Ever since Isaiah Berlin's famous essay, it has become a favorite pastime of academics to place various thinkers and scientists on the "Hedgehog-Fox" continuum: the Hedgehog, a meticulous and specialized worker, driven by incremental progress in a clearly defined field versus the Fox, a flashier, ideas-driven thinker who jumps from question to question, ignoring field boundaries and applying his or her skills where they seem applicable.
  • Chomsky's work has had tremendous influence on a variety of fields outside his own, including computer science and philosophy, and he has not shied away from discussing and critiquing the influence of these ideas, making him a particularly interesting person to interview.
  • If you take a look at the progress of science, the sciences are kind of a continuum, but they're broken up into fields. The greatest progress is in the sciences that study the simplest systems. So take, say physics -- greatest progress there. But one of the reasons is that the physicists have an advantage that no other branch of sciences has. If something gets too complicated, they hand it to someone else.
  • If a molecule is too big, you give it to the chemists. The chemists, for them, if the molecule is too big or the system gets too big, you give it to the biologists. And if it gets too big for them, they give it to the psychologists, and finally it ends up in the hands of the literary critic, and so on.
  • it has been argued in my view rather plausibly, though neuroscientists don't like it -- that neuroscience for the last couple hundred years has been on the wrong track.
  • neuroscience developed kind of enthralled to associationism and related views of the way humans and animals work. And as a result they've been looking for things that have the properties of associationist psychology.
Javier E

The Startling Link Between Sugar and Alzheimer's - The Atlantic - 0 views

www.theatlantic.com/...551528

sugar dementia diet research brain science

shared by Javier E on 27 Jan 18 - No Cached
  • A longitudinal study, published Thursday in the journal Diabetologia, followed 5,189 people over 10 years and found that people with high blood sugar had a faster rate of cognitive decline than those with normal blood sugar
  • In other words, the higher the blood sugar, the faster the cognitive decline.
  • “Currently, dementia is not curable, which makes it very important to study risk factors.”
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  • People who have type 2 diabetes are about twice as likely to get Alzheimer’s, and people who have diabetes and are treated with insulin are also more likely to get Alzheimer’s, suggesting elevated insulin plays a role in Alzheimer’s. In fact, many studies have found that elevated insulin, or “hyperinsulinemia,” significantly increases your risk of Alzheimer’s. On the other hand, people with type 1 diabetes, who don’t make insulin at all, are also thought to have a higher risk of Alzheimer’s. How could these both be true?
  • Schilling posits this happens because of the insulin-degrading enzyme, a product of insulin that breaks down both insulin and amyloid proteins in the brain—the same proteins that clump up and lead to Alzheimer’s disease. People who don’t have enough insulin, like those whose bodies’ ability to produce insulin has been tapped out by diabetes, aren’t going to make enough of this enzyme to break up those brain clumps. Meanwhile, in people who use insulin to treat their diabetes and end up with a surplus of insulin, most of this enzyme gets used up breaking that insulin down, leaving not enough enzyme to address those amyloid brain clumps.
  • this can happen even in people who don’t have diabetes yet—who are in a state known as “prediabetes.” It simply means your blood sugar is higher than normal, and it’s something that affects roughly 86 million Americans.
  • In a 2012 study, Roberts broke nearly 1,000 people down into four groups based on how much of their diet came from carbohydrates. The group that ate the most carbs had an 80 percent higher chance of developing mild cognitive impairment—a pit stop on the way to dementia—than those who ate the smallest amount of carbs.
  • “It’s hard to be sure at this stage, what an ‘ideal’ diet would look like,” she said. “There’s a suggestion that a Mediterranean diet, for example, may be good for brain health.”
  • there are several theories out there to explain the connection between high blood sugar and dementia. Diabetes can also weaken the blood vessels, which increases the likelihood that you’ll have ministrokes in the brain, causing various forms of dementia. A high intake of simple sugars can make cells, including those in the brain, insulin resistant, which could cause the brain cells to die. Meanwhile, eating too much in general can cause obesity. The extra fat in obese people releases cytokines, or inflammatory proteins that can also contribute to cognitive deterioration, Roberts said. In one study by Gottesman, obesity doubled a person’s risk of having elevated amyloid proteins in their brains later in life.
  • even people who don’t have any kind of diabetes should watch their sugar intake, she said.
  • as these and other researchers point out, decisions we make about food are one risk factor we can control. And it’s starting to look like decisions we make while we’re still relatively young can affect our future cognitive health.
  • “Alzheimer’s is like a slow-burning fire that you don’t see when it starts,” Schilling said. It takes time for clumps to form and for cognition to begin to deteriorate. “By the time you see the signs, it’s way too late to put out the fire.”
anonymous

Researchers identify gene that helps prevent brain disease: Protein 'proofreading' erro... - 0 views

www.sciencedaily.com/...180516162516.htm

research disease genes technology human development science knowledge brain science

shared by anonymous on 20 May 18 - No Cached
  • Researchers identify gene that helps prevent brain disease: Protein 'proofreading' errors lead to neurodegenerative disease
  • Without normal levels of Ankrd16, these nerve cells, located in the cerebellum, incorrectly activate the amino acid serine, which is then improperly incorporated into proteins and causes protein aggregation.
  • Elevating the level of Ankrd16 protects these cells from dying, while removing Ankrd16 from other neurons in mice with a proofreading deficiency caused widespread buildup of abnormal proteins and ultimately neuronal death.
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  • The researchers note that only a few modifier genes of disease mutations such as Ankrd16 have been identified and a modifier-based mechanism for understanding the underlying pathology of neurodegenerative diseases may be a promising route to understand disease development.
sandrine_h

Blind, Yet Seeing: The Brain's Subconscious Visual Sense - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...23blin.html

science brain science knowledge research

shared by sandrine_h on 05 Mar 17 - Cached
  • Scientists have long known that the brain digests what comes through the eyes using two sets of circuits. Cells in the retina
  • Scientists have long known that the brain digests what comes through the eyes using two sets of circuits. Cells in the retina
  • project not only to the visual cortex
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  • but also to subcortical areas
  • These include the superior colliculus, which is crucial in eye movements and may have other sensory functions; and, probably, circuits running through the amygdala, which registers emotion.
  • In time, and with practice, people with brain injuries may learn to lean more heavily on such subconscious or semiconscious systems, and perhaps even begin to construct some conscious vision from them. “It’s not clear how sharp it would be,” Dr. Held said. “Probably a vague, low-resolution spatial sense. But it might allow them to move around more independently.”
anonymous

Gene Therapy Creates Replacement Skin to Save a Dying Boy - The New York Times - 1 views

www.nytimes.com/...gene-therapy-skin-graft.html

science research knowledge technology health

shared by anonymous on 09 Nov 17 - No Cached
  • The boy in the Nature article had suffered since birth from blisters all over his body, and in 2015 contracted bacterial infections that caused him to lose two-thirds of his skin. His doctors did not know how to treat him, other than keeping him on morphine for the pain.
  • Doctors in the burn unit tried everything: antibiotics, bandages, special nutritional measures, a skin transplant from the boy’s father. Nothing worked.
  • The doctors removed a sample of the boy’s skin — slightly more than half a square inch — and took it to Modena, where they genetically engineered his cells, using a virus to insert the normal form of his mutated gene into his DNA.Then they grew the engineered cells in the laboratory into sheets of skin and transported them back to Germany, where surgeons grafted them onto the boy’s body.In October 2015, they covered his arms and legs with the new skin, and in November, his back. Ultimately, they replaced 80 percent of the child’s skin.
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  • A major concern with any type of gene therapy is that the inserted genetic material could have dangerous side effects, like turning off an essential gene or turning on one that could lead to cancer.
anonymous

Opinion | I Survived 18 Years in Solitary Confinement - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...litary-confinement-reform.html

shared by anonymous on 26 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • I Survived 18 Years in Solitary Confinement
  • Mr. Manuel is an author, activist and poet. When he was 14 years old, he was sentenced to life in prison with no parole and spent 18 years in solitary confinement.
  • Imagine living alone in a room the size of a freight elevator for almost two decades.
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  • As a 15-year-old, I was condemned to long-term solitary confinement in the Florida prison system, which ultimately lasted for 18 consecutive years
  • From age 15 to 33.
  • For 18 years I didn’t have a window in my room to distract myself from the intensity of my confinement
  • I wasn’t permitted to talk to my fellow prisoners or even to myself. I didn’t have healthy, nutritious food; I was given just enough to not die
  • These circumstances made me think about how I ended up in solitary confinement.
  • United Nations standards on the treatment of prisoners prohibits solitary confinement for more than 15 days, declaring it “cruel, inhuman or degrading.”
  • For this I was arrested and charged as an adult with armed robbery and attempted murder.
  • My court-appointed lawyer advised me to plead guilty, telling me that the maximum sentence would be 15 years. So I did. But my sentence wasn’t 15 years — it was life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.
  • But a year and a half later, at age 15, I was put back into solitary confinement after being written up for a few minor infractions.
  • Florida has different levels of solitary confinement; I spent the majority of that time in one of the most restrictive
  • I was finally released from prison in 2016 thanks to my lawyer, Bryan Stevenson
  • Researchers have long concluded that solitary confinement causes post-traumatic stress disorder and impairs prisoners’ ability to adjust to society long after they leave their cell.
  • In the summer of 1990, shortly after finishing seventh grade, I was directed by a few older kids to commit a robbery. During the botched attempt, I shot a woman. She suffered serious injuries to her jaw and mouth but survived. It was reckless and foolish on my part, the act of a 13-year-old in crisis, and I’m simply grateful no one died.
  • Yet the practice, even for minors, is still common in the United States, and efforts to end it have been spotty
  • In 2016, the Obama administration banned juvenile solitary confinement in federal prisons, and a handful of states have advanced similar reforms for both children and adults.
  • More aggressive change is needed in state prison systems
  • Because solitary confinement is hidden from public view and the broader prison population, egregious abuses are left unchecked
  • I watched a corrections officer spray a blind prisoner in the face with chemicals simply because he was standing by the door of his cell as a female nurse walked by. The prisoner later told me that to justify the spraying, the officer claimed the prisoner masturbated in front of the nurse.
  • I also witnessed the human consequences of the harshness of solitary firsthand: Some people would resort to cutting their stomachs open with a razor and sticking a plastic spork inside their intestines just so they could spend a week in the comfort of a hospital room with a television
  • On occasion, I purposely overdosed on Tylenol so that I could spend a night in the hospital. For even one night, it was worth the pain.
  • Another time, I was told I’d be switching dorms, and I politely asked to remain where I was because a guard in the new area had been overly aggressive with me. In response, four or five officers handcuffed me, picked me up by my feet and shoulders, and marched with me to my new dorm — using my head to ram the four steel doors on the way there.
  • The punishments were wholly disproportionate to the infractions. Before I knew it, months in solitary bled into years, years into almost two decades.
  • As a child, I survived these conditions by conjuring up stories of what I’d do when I was finally released. My mind was the only place I found freedom from my reality
  • the only place I could play basketball with my brother or video games with my friends, and eat my mother’s warm cherry pie on the porch.
  • No child should have to use their imagination this way — to survive.
  • It is difficult to know the exact number of children in solitary confinement today. The Liman Center at Yale Law School estimated that 61,000 Americans (adults and children) were in solitary confinement in the fall of 2017
  • No matter the count, I witnessed too many people lose their minds while isolated. They’d involuntarily cross a line and simply never return to sanity. Perhaps they didn’t want to. Staying in their mind was the better, safer, more humane option.
  • Solitary confinement is cruel and unusual punishment, something prohibited by the Eighth Amendment, yet prisons continue to practice it.
  • When it comes to children, elimination is the only moral option. And if ending solitary confinement for adults isn’t politically viable, public officials should at least limit the length of confinement to 15 days or fewer, in compliance with the U.N. standards
  • As I try to reintegrate into society, small things often awaken painful memories from solitary. Sometimes relationships feel constraining. It’s difficult to maintain the attention span required for a rigid 9-to-5 job. At first, crossing the street and seeing cars and bikes racing toward me felt terrifying.
  • I will face PTSD and challenges big and small for the rest of my life because of what I was subjected to.
  • And some things I never will — most of all, that this country can treat human beings, especially children, as cruelly as I was treated.
  • Sadly, solitary confinement for juveniles is still permissible in many states. But we have the power to change that — to ensure that the harrowing injustice I suffered as a young boy never happens to another child in America.
  • anonymous on 26 Mar 21
     
    A very eye-opening article and story told by a victim about young children facing solitary confinement.
anonymous

Is Ringing in the Ears a Symptom of Coronavirus? - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...vid-symptoms-ears-ringing.html

shared by anonymous on 27 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • When the Noise Never Stops: Coping With the Challenges of Tinnitus
  • Researchers are just beginning to untangle how Covid might be linked to a ringing in the ears. Here’s what we know.
  • Experts are beginning to learn how it may be linked to Covid
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  • the heart palpitations, headaches, stomach troubles, numbness and weakness in her hands and feet — the most frustrating one is the tinnitus, a condition that can cause sufferers to hear phantom ringing, buzzing, whistling, chirping or other sounds.
  • “It makes it hard to concentrate, it makes it hard to hold conversations with others, it makes it almost impossible to lie down and go to sleep. It’s maddening, and you can’t fully understand it unless you experience it yourself.
  • the most common cause of chronic tinnitus is age
  • As the hair cells inside your inner ear become damaged over time, she said, they may no longer send sound waves to your brain, so your brain tries to recreate them on their own, which is what might cause the ringing.
  • But experts have long known that some viruses can temporarily cause hearing loss or ringing in the ears, too. When the body fights an infection, the overall inflammation from the virus can damage the nerves or hair cells in the ear, Dr. Cosetti said.
  • “I was so depressed and scared I’d never get better,” Ms. Suarez said. “I speak and talk for a living — how was I going to be able to have a conversation with a client or present in court if it constantly sounded like bells were exploding on my left side?”
  • Tinnitus has been linked to several mental health conditions, including anxiety and depression, and mostly in women. “It can be particularly challenging for many people initially because it’s something they have absolutely no control over,”
  • “For most people with tinnitus, the worst time is the first six to nine months after it begins,” Dr. Tyler said. “After that, most people adjust and learn to live with it, especially if they’re given the right treatments.”
  • If you are diagnosed with Covid-19 and you experience tinnitus that lasts for more than two days, tell your doctor right away.
  • If your tinnitus persists after you’ve recovered from the virus, make an appointment with an ear, nose and throat doctor, who can check for blockages in your ear
  • If no blockage exists, you might be sent to an audiologist to check your hearing.
  • “It’s always there and with me all the time — I can never escape it,” she said, adding that she has to take sedatives now to fall asleep. “I have days when I don’t know if I can handle this anymore. But I have to go on being hopeful.”
caelengrubb

How to Read the News Without Going Insane | Vanity Fair - 0 views

www.vanityfair.com/...-the-news-without-going-insane

shared by caelengrubb on 07 Jun 21 - No Cached
  • In the years since smartphones were invented, there have been smart people with advice about leaving this little black box of horrors behind, about containing the content Pandora created. But maybe this time is my chance to change, and maybe it’s yours.
  • “Right now is an extremely, extremely challenging time to have a healthy relationship with the news, and that’s regardless of your political orientation, or even if you care about politics at al
  • Recognize it’s not your fault
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • Begin to build boundaries by starting with the easy stuff, whatever that means for you
  • This one is relatively simple: don’t have television news on in the background (or better, a news podcast). Clean up the passive background noise
  • Assess the situation
  • Figure out your main problem area
  • Choose what, when, where, and how
  • “What level of news is going to make me feel suitably up-to-date and responsible without driving me insane? Recognize that may be a moving target and that it’s going to be extremely difficult to stick with, but at least have some kind of goal.
  • A word on the “when” part 
  • Sometimes this means buying an alarm clock and putting your phone in a different room/closet than the one where you sleep. 
  • Ask for help
  • Who profits from my fear, my elation, my outrage? It’s a nice question to keep in the back of one’s head when you’re down the rabbit hole—especially when you’re not really getting much out of it, but just half-remembered ideas about what you’re reading and why.
margogramiak

Brain tissue yields clues to causes of PTSD -- ScienceDaily - 0 views

www.sciencedaily.com/...201221160445.htm

shared by margogramiak on 17 Jan 21 - No Cached
  • diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
  • diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
    • margogramiak
      margogramiak on 17 Jan 21
       
      We have talked about PTSD in class, and how certain triggers associate with memories and feelings.
  • why women are more susceptible to it
    • margogramiak
      margogramiak on 17 Jan 21
       
      I didn't realize women were more susceptible.
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • prefrontal cortex
    • margogramiak
      margogramiak on 17 Jan 21
       
      This is another thing we have talked and read about.
  • Major differences in gene activity particularly affected two cell types in PTSD patients -- interneurons, which inhibit neural activity, and microglia, immune system cells in the central nervous system, the researchers report Dec. 21 in the journal Nature Neuroscience.
    • margogramiak
      margogramiak on 17 Jan 21
       
      I had no idea there was any sort of genetic links with PTSD. That's very interesting, and I'm assuming important info to know from a medical standpoint.
  • as many as 35% exhibit PTSD symptoms.
    • margogramiak
      margogramiak on 17 Jan 21
       
      Not that I know a lot about PTSD, but this makes sense to me.
  • About 8% of the general population has been diagnosed with PTSD.
    • margogramiak
      margogramiak on 17 Jan 21
       
      That's a lot of people.
  • These differences might help explain why women are more than twice as likely to develop PTSD and other anxiety disorders than men and why they are likely to experience more severe symptoms, the findings suggest.
    • margogramiak
      margogramiak on 17 Jan 21
       
      That's super interesting. Again, I had no idea how disproportionately women were affected.
  • "This is a new beginning for the PTSD field,
    • margogramiak
      margogramiak on 17 Jan 21
       
      Awesome! Maybe that means closer to a cure.
  • "We need new treatments for PTSD, and studies like this will provide the scientific foundation for a new generation of medication development efforts."
    • margogramiak
      margogramiak on 17 Jan 21
       
      That's fantastic.
margogramiak

Compound from medicinal herb kills brain-eating amoebae in lab studies -- ScienceDaily - 0 views

www.sciencedaily.com/...210113132411.htm

shared by margogramiak on 17 Jan 21 - No Cached
  • Primary amoebic meningoencephalitis (PAM), a deadly disease caused by the "brain-eating amoeba" Naegleria fowleri, is becoming more common in some areas of the world, and it has no effective treatment.
  • Primary amoebic meningoencephalitis (PAM), a deadly disease caused by the "brain-eating amoeba" Naegleria fowleri, is becoming more common in some areas of the world, and it has no effective treatment.
    • margogramiak
      margogramiak on 17 Jan 21
       
      Wow, that's scary.
  • Inula viscosa or "false yellowhead," kills the amoebae by causing them to commit cell suicide in lab studies, which could lead to new treatments.
    • margogramiak
      margogramiak on 17 Jan 21
       
      Nature based medicine is so interesting to me.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • Although the disease, which is usually contracted by swimming in contaminated freshwater, is rare, increasing cases have been reported recently in the U.S., the Philippines, southern Brazil and some Asian countries.
    • margogramiak
      margogramiak on 17 Jan 21
       
      That's terrifying. I wonder how something like that spreads effectively.
  • traditional medicine in the Mediterranean region, could effectively treat PAM.
    • margogramiak
      margogramiak on 17 Jan 21
       
      Traditional medicine is trusty!
  • Then, they isolated and tested specific compounds from the extract. The most potent compound, inuloxin A, killed amoebae in the lab by disrupting membranes and causing mitochondrial changes, chromatin condensation and oxidative damage, ultimately forcing the parasites to undergo programmed cell death, or apoptosis.
    • margogramiak
      margogramiak on 17 Jan 21
       
      We've studied concepts similar to this one in biology. Very interesting stuff!
  • Although inuloxin A was much less potent than amphotericin B in the lab, the structure of the plant-derived compound suggests that it might be better able to cross the blood-brain barrier. More studies are needed to confirm this hypothesis, the researchers say.
    • margogramiak
      margogramiak on 17 Jan 21
       
      It's pretty cool that this disease is still considered rare, and we're already figuring out how to fix it.
caelengrubb

How a second language can boost the brain - 0 views

knowablemagazine.org/...econd-language-can-boost-brain

language

shared by caelengrubb on 11 Jan 21 - No Cached
  • The cognitive benefits of bilingualism can begin from experiences very early in childhood and can persist throughout life.
  • The first main advantage involves what’s loosely referred to as executive function. This describes skills that allow you to control, direct and manage your attention, as well as your ability to plan
  • The brain is made up of cells called neurons, which each have a cell body and little branching connections called dendrites.
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • Executive functions are the most complex brain functions — the most “human” functions that separate us from apes and other animals.
  • Bilingualism promotes the integrity of white matter as you age. It gives you more neurons to play with, and it strengthens or maintains the connections between them so that communication can happen optimally.
  • These myths about bilingualism date back to studies in the US and the UK from the First and Second World Wars. They were seriously flawed studies involving children from war-torn countries: refugees, orphans and, in some cases, even children who were in concentration camps.
  • Not every bilingual person is going to have a healthier brain than every monolingual person. We’re talking about general, population-level trends.
  • A bilingual brain can compensate for brain deterioration by using alternative brain networks and connections when original pathways have been destroyed.
anonymous

Human Brain: facts and information - 0 views

www.nationalgeographic.com/...brain

shared by anonymous on 03 Nov 20 - No Cached
  • The human brain is more complex than any other known structure in the universe.
  • Weighing in at three pounds, on average, this spongy mass of fat and protein is made up of two overarching types of cells—called glia and neurons—and it contains many billions of each.
  • The cerebrum is the largest part of the brain, accounting for 85 percent of the organ's weight. The distinctive, deeply wrinkled outer surface is the cerebral cortex. It's the cerebrum that makes the human brain—and therefore humans—so formidable. Animals such as elephants, dolphins, and whales actually have larger brains, but humans have the most developed cerebrum. It's packed to capacity inside our skulls, with deep folds that cleverly maximize the total surface area of the cortex.
  • ...18 more annotations...
  • The cerebrum has two halves, or hemispheres, that are further divided into four regions, or lobes. The frontal lobes, located behind the forehead, are involved with speech, thought, learning, emotion, and movement.
  • Behind them are the parietal lobes, which process sensory information such as touch, temperature, and pain.
  • At the rear of the brain are the occipital lobes, dealing with vision
  • Lastly, there are the temporal lobes, near the temples, which are involved with hearing and memory.
  • The second-largest part of the brain is the cerebellum, which sits beneath the back of the cerebrum.
  • diencephalon, located in the core of the brain. A complex of structures roughly the size of an apricot, its two major sections are the thalamus and hypothalamus
  • The brain is extremely sensitive and delicate, and so it requires maximum protection, which is provided by the hard bone of the skull and three tough membranes called meninges.
  • Want more proof that the brain is extraordinary? Look no further than the blood-brain barrier.
  • This led scientists to learn that the brain has an ingenious, protective layer. Called the blood-brain barrier, it’s made up of special, tightly bound cells that together function as a kind of semi-permeable gate throughout most of the organ. It keeps the brain environment safe and stable by preventing some toxins, pathogens, and other harmful substances from entering the brain through the bloodstream, while simultaneously allowing oxygen and vital nutrients to pass through.
  • One in five Americans suffers from some form of neurological damage, a wide-ranging list that includes stroke, epilepsy, and cerebral palsy, as well as dementia.
  • Alzheimer’s disease, which is characterized in part by a gradual progression of short-term memory loss, disorientation, and mood swings, is the most common cause of dementia. It is the sixth leading cause of death in the United States
  • 50 million people suffer from Alzheimer’s or some form of dementia. While there are a handful of drugs available to mitigate Alzheimer’s symptoms, there is no cure.
  • Unfortunately, negative attitudes toward people who suffer from mental illness are widespread. The stigma attached to mental illness can create feelings of shame, embarrassment, and rejection, causing many people to suffer in silence.
  • In the United States, where anxiety disorders are the most common forms of mental illness, only about 40 percent of sufferers receive treatment. Anxiety disorders often stem from abnormalities in the brain’s hippocampus and prefrontal cortex.
  • Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, is a mental health condition that also affects adults but is far more often diagnosed in children.
  • ADHD is characterized by hyperactivity and an inability to stay focused.
  • Depression is another common mental health condition. It is the leading cause of disability worldwide and is often accompanied by anxiety. Depression can be marked by an array of symptoms, including persistent sadness, irritability, and changes in appetite.
  • The good news is that in general, anxiety and depression are highly treatable through various medications—which help the brain use certain chemicals more efficiently—and through forms of therapy
  • anonymous on 03 Nov 20
     
    Here is some anatomy of the brain and descriptions of diseases like Alzheimer's and conditions like ADHD, depression, anxiety.
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