What a nice surprise. Hello. Nice to meet you!

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Note: Chronic Babe wins a complimentary copy of The SharpBrains Guide to Brain Fitness for basically inventing cognitive sleep therapy. Congrats!

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Life and Death

MindHacks discusses an unexpected surge in brain activity when blood pressure drops to zero.

In Sickness & In Health suffers a death in the family. Adam shem tov. A man of good name.

BrainBlogger wonders, is religion a “natural” phenomenon?

Mind and Empathy

Behaviorism & Mental Health finds that everyone can have a mental illness – take a look at “Adjustment Disorder“.

ACP Internist reinforces the importance of empathy. Novel Patient encourages patients to dream big, Florecendotcom highlights how patients themselves contribute to patient safety. The Hippocratic Oaf discusses the feelings of a medical student. Clinical Cases wonders what doctors  in training carry in their white coats.

Advances in the History of Psychology examines an important early step in the journey to conceptualize cognition and emotion from a neural point of view.

The Fitness Fixer empathizes with her feet.

Brain

How to Cope With Pain discusses a controversial treatment for severe pain.

Neurophilosopher shows how vision (viewing one’s body) can modulate the senses of touch and pain. Fun experiments  included. Neurocritic takes things one step further, and takes us to the potential future of tattoo removal.

Providentia announces a new NFL Concussion Committee. 300,000 sports-related traumatic brain injuries occur in the United States alone each year.

SharpBrains answers 15 common questions related to neuroplasticity.

Medical Smartphones suggests smartphones can act as peripheral brains.

Cognitive Daily introduces us to the combination of fMRI research and genetic analysis to identify a genetic basis for anger.

Technology

Health Business Blog issues a warning to teleradiologists and other tele-providers.

Anticlue explains how to sell the concept of Electronic Health Records.

Shrink Rap offers the provider’s guide to Facebook. ACP Hospitalist covers Twitter obsession.

Diabetes Mine wonders about the safety of inhalable insulin.

Big, broad questions

Neuroanthropology, a neuroanthropology group blog, avoid the kind of cognitive bias that we at SharpBrains suffer all too often,  and asks, Why Neuroanthropology?

Teen Health 411 kindly reviews our recent SharpBrains book, and enjoys reading how humans developed cultural systems to help young people master the knowledge and skills they need to survive. Highlight Health likes the book too, placing it in the right lifelong context.

The Cockroach Catcher suggests a solution for ADHD in China: playing the piano.

Specific answers

Allergy Notes discusses a treatment for pregnant women with allergic rhinitis.

Medicine for the Outdoors introduces us to a useful device to manage bone fractures.

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Next edition of Grand Rounds: October 27th, CodeBlog.

Next edition of Encephalon: November 2nd, Providentia.

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Good night! good morning!

The Society for Neuroscience (SfN) has just released a user-friendly publication titled Neuroscience Core Concepts, aimed at helping educators and the general public learn more about the brain.

Description: “Neuroscience Core Concepts offer fundamental principles that one should know about the brain and nervous system, the most complex living structure known in the universe. They are a practical resource about:

• - How your brain works and how it is formed.
• - How it guides you through the changes in life.
• - Why it is important to increase understanding of the brain.”

You will enjoy reading the web page explaining in detail 8 Neuroscience Core Concepts:

1| The brain is the body’s most complex organ.

2| Neurons communicate using both electrical and chemical signals.

3| Genetically determined circuits are the foundation of the nervous system.

4| Life experiences change the nervous system.

5| Intelligence arises as the brain reasons, plans, and solves problems.

6| The brain makes it possible to communicate knowledge through language.

7| The human brain endows us with a natural curiosity to understand how the world works.

8| Fundamental discoveries promote healthy living and treatment of disease.

Page: Neuroscience Core Concepts

You can also Download Neuroscience Core Concepts (PDF, 6 MB), and educators can request a free hardcopy by emailing education@sfn.org.

Nutrients play key roles in brain function. Several have shown efficacy in clinical trials treating cases of mood disorders, cognitive decline and of course benefiting the physical health of the brain. Nutrients are both the raw materials employed in creating new neural connections and important components in regulating the activity of genes involved in these processes. Specific nutrients involved in mitochondrial efficiency, the energy factories of brain and body cells, are particularly important for many aspects of brain function. Other nutrients are involved in the inner workings of neuronal membranes, responsible for ensuring that electrochemical signals, which make up our thoughts, transmit efficiently and reliably. Finally, antioxidants, important throughout the body, are especially important in the brain due to its high energy production rates and concurrent high capacity for free radical leakage. Keeping this in mind, it is readily apparent that nutrition provides the building blocks for our brain’s structure and function, and therefore cannot be ignored.

Exercise is a clearly established component for promoting brain health as well. No longer can we think that the brain is completely separate from the brawn. Human studies have shown the value of exercise in controlling stress and maintaining positive mood states; in improving cognitive function, including performance on memory and executive tasks; and in improving the brain’s two-way communication streams with the rest of the body. Some of these benefits are likely due to the positive effects of exercise on neurovascular health, which parallel cardiovascular health. Other benefits seem due to increased grey matter in ‘front office’ functions of the cortex; and neuronal birth, or neurogenesis, in the hippocampus, a brain region that controls aspects of memory and mood regulation. Whatever the mechanism, giving your body a workout will produce substantial benefits in terms of brain health. Remember, a body in motion tends to stay in motion, and your brain and body will be together your whole life.

Mental activity is an obvious, and critical, ingredient for optimizing and maintaining brain function. Studies have established relationships between the degree of life-time mental activity and late-life cognitive function. It’s clear that those who engage in intellectually challenging endeavors on a regular basis reap the benefits of a clear mind. There is, however a need for each individual to balance sufficient variety with a proper degree of challenge. Without variety and challenge, tasks become too mundane and too easy, eventually growing stale and losing their capacity to adequately stimulate the brain. We must also realize that mental activity goes beyond ‘cognitive’ tasks. Mental activities also include practices like meditative focus, relaxation and stress reduction techniques, as well as social interaction. These active and dynamic processes challenge the mind as well. Mixing cognitive challenges with emotional regulation provides a more complete mental workout that will help you to use it to improve it.

An often neglected component contributing to brain health is optimal sleep. On average, we sleep approximately 1.5 hours per night less than we did 100 years ago. Modern technology makes it easier to get less sleep and our busy lives encourage us to do it. Sleep is far more than a time of rest, and is too often misclassified as a period of lost productivity. It is an active metabolic period for our brains. Sleep is a time when we consolidate memories of the previous day, a time when we re-synchronize the circadian rhythm of at least dozens, if not hundreds, of hormones controlling our metabolism. Sleep loss is associated with a high percentage of mood disorders and certainly reduces our cognitive efficiencies. We must give ourselves permission to sleep by realizing that it is counterproductive to steal from it.

In our new book BrainFit For Life: A User’s Guide to Life-Long Brain Health and Fitness, we focus equally on the cognitive, emotional and physical health of the brain and all of the lifestyle factors that come into play to maintain them. Today’s aging population is becoming increasingly focused on the maintenance of cognitive health and the value of ‘brain training’ programs. But we must realize that such training is not unlike that of an athlete, who must focus on their diet, sleep needs and psychological preparation in addition to their physical skill development. We explore specific aspects of nutrition, exercise, mental activity and sleep. We discuss how they regulate emotional, physical and intellectual functions of the brain. After all, they are not separable.

“To keep the body in good health is a duty…otherwise we shall not be able to keep our mind strong and clear.” – Buddha, circa 500 B.C.

– This article was co-written by Drs. Simon Evans and Paul Burghardt. Drs. Evans and who currently collaborate in the University of  Michigan’s Department of Psychiatry, and the Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience Institute to study the effects of nutrition and exercise on brain function. They are co-authors of BrainFit For Life: A User’s Guide to Life-Long Brain Health and Fitness.

Enjoy the article and the long weekend (at least here in the US) and Relax…

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Stress Management for Your Brain Health

– By Landon N

Thousands and thousands of web-like neurons linked together form a spongy mass inside a skull. This mass, called the brain, is what controls the body and the thoughts that run threw it have a notable effect on the heath of an individual. In addition to thoughts, fear, stress, and emotions also have a strong effect on health. So then, health depends on more than just eating right and exercising; it depends on our mental state as well.

Thoughts have more power in the body then most people know. The brain and health are closely connected, and usually if one malfunctions, so does the other. In fact, some scientists have traced about 87 percent of illnesses to thoughts (Leaf 2007). Even if that percentage high, I do think that thoughts definitely have an effect on health. In addition to shaping our health, thoughts also shape our attitudes. As an ancient proverb says, “For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he.” This means that if someone is constantly thinking negative thoughts, he will tend to be someone with poor health and vice versa. If not properly dealt with, bad thoughts can slowly build up and could cause damage to the brain. This is very important for people to know since it could help them to have better health and therefore a better life. In addition, if they knew this they would be spared the pain of being polluting with bad thoughts. That is why this is the most important thing for people to know about the brain. The public should know that the true cause of their illnesses could be nothing more than a buildup of bad thoughts over the years.

Fear, stress, and emotion are also directly linked to health and the brain. For example, fear starts as harmful thoughts, which are created in the brain, and which in turn, can cause stress. Also, anyone who has been afraid at one time or another knows that fear is stressful. The mouth gets dry, the hands get clammy, and the nerves get jumpy. Living in a continual state of fear is very unhealthy because it wears greatly on an individual’s health. So then, fear can be unhealthy because it causes stress, which is unhealthy in excessive measures. In some cases, overstressed children have a 30% higher chance of developing some kind of cancer in their early 30’s (Leaf 2007) Also, when someone is too stressed, the dendrites in the brain can actually shrink causing their mind to “go blank” (Leaf 2007). In addition, it has been found that stress can cause people to gain weight and take vital minerals from the bones. Emotions are also very important to the health of a person, and studies have shown that emotional pain can slowly turn into physical pain as well. People who are angry all the time can have many more health problems then someone who is not. And those who hold on to a past wrongs and refuse to forgive only hurts themselves both emotionally and physically. As the psalmist said, “Refrain from anger and turn away from wrath; do not fret–because it leads only to evil.” With this in mind, we should not hold grudges or be unforgiving; the only one hurt the one who holds the grudge. One can hide or bury his feelings and not deal with them, but be sure those buried emotions will come to the surface again when they don’t expect it. So many things are directly linked to the brain and health and they are important because they have a strong effect on our lives.

Though the brain is made up of thousands parts, each small thought has a consequence of its own. Stress, emotion, and fear also have an effect on the brain, and therefore the health. The most important concept for people to know about the brain is that thoughts affect health and that health is the guardian of life.

 

Related posts on Stress management

- Relaxing for your Brain’s Sake.

- Stress and Neural Wreckage: Part of the Brain Plasticity Puzzle.

- Stress Management Workshop for International Women’s Day.

1. We men know we are hard to lead, and that can be stressful for you and for us. You should know that stress affects short term memory, so it is important to be able to manage stress well, with meditation or other methods. Check here your level of stress to see how much this point applies to you. Please remember, laughing is good for your brain.  
2. Don’t think too much-we don’t. If we do, we try to find ways to self-talk us out of that uncomfortable state.
3. Please remember our humble origins. We are tool-using animals, which is why we like playing with all kinds of toys, from a car to that blackberry. 
4. When we are stubborn, you are entitled to remind us that even apes can learn-if you help us see the point. Show us that change is possible at any age. Believe it or not, we can listen.
5. Especially if we can find common ground: what about chatting about sports psychology?.
6. Please motivate us to listen and be open minded to learn with wise words. If that doesn’t work, please persevere with nice words. Please don’t ever say that we are worse than pink dolphins-if we feel attacked, we’ll just disengage.
7. Sometimes we don’t cooperate enough?. Please give us time for our brains to fully evolve, we have been trying for a while!
8. You can help us grow. For the next leadership workshop, buy us copies of the Train Your Mind, Change Your Brain book. You may think we don’t need this… but at our core we really want to  get better at Gratitude and Altruism. We want to be able to play with the ultimate toy: our genes!
9. If that book is sold out, we could also benefit from reading Damasio’s Descartes Error and discover how emotions are important for good decision-making. Or help us improve our ability to read emotional messages. As long as we believe we can somehow benefit from it, we’ll try!
10. If you lead someone with Bill Gates-like Frontal Lobes, congratulate him for his brain. If you don’t, encourage him to follow track. Please be patient…

Now, any takers for Top Ten Tips for Women Who Lead Women or Men Who Lead Men?