Mental Health

Shock Therapy Can ‘Erase’ Bad Memories, Brain Researchers Show

In the film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, unhappy lovers undergo an experimental brain treatment to erase all memories of each other from their minds. No such fix exists for real-life couples, but researchers report today in Nature Neuroscience that a targeted medical intervention helps to reduce specific negative memories in patients who are depressed.

“This is one time I would say that science is better than art,” says Karim Nader, a neuroscientist at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, who was not involved in the research. “It’s a very clever study.”

The technique, called electroconvulsive (ECT) or electroshock therapy, induces seizures by passing current into the brain through electrode pads placed on the scalp. Despite its sometimes negative reputation, ECT is an effective last-resort treatment for severe depression, and is used today in combination with anaesthesia and muscle relaxants.

Marijn Kroes, a neuroscientist at Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands, and his colleagues found that by strategically timing ECT bursts, they could target and disrupt patients’ memory of a disturbing episode.

A matter of time
The strategy relies on a theory called memory reconsolidation, which proposes that memories are taken out of ‘mental storage’ each time they are accessed and ‘re-written’ over time back onto the brain’s circuits. Results from animal studies and limited evidence in humans suggest that during reconsolidation, memories are vulnerable to alteration or even erasure.

Kroes and his team tested this idea in 42 patients who had been prescribed ECT for severe clinical depression. In an initial session, the researchers showed two disturbing slide-show narratives: one depicting a car accident, and the other a physical assault.

The team later prompted patients to recall only one of the stories by replaying part of that slide show. Immediately afterwards, when the reactivated memory is thought to be vulnerable, the patients received electroconvulsive therapy.

One day later, when given a multiple-choice memory test, patients were significantly worse at remembering details from the reactivated story, performing near chance. Patients’ memory of the other story, however, remained largely unscathed. But when researchers administered the memory test 90 minutes after treatment, patients showed no differences in their ability to recall the two stories. This suggests that the therapy blocked the time-dependent process of reconsolidation, rather than causing sudden memory loss.

“This provides very strong and compelling evidence that memories in the human brain undergo reconsolidation, and that a window of opportunity exists to treat bad memories,” says Daniela Schiller, a neuroscientist at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York who also studies memory reconsolidation.

Thinking ahead
Schiller says more work is needed to establish how long the ECT effects last, and whether the technique works as effectively on older or more complex memories from real-life experiences, says Schiller.

Kroes adds that ECT may not be the best option for most patients, but says that these results could guide the development of less invasive interventions that target memory reconsolidation. Eventually, he says, the idea could be extended to memories involved in post-traumatic stress disorder, addiction and obsessive-compulsive disorder.

“The ability to permanently alter these types of memories might lead to novel, better treatments,” says Kroes.

Source: huffington post

 

Teasing tied to less physical activity among kids

Children who are teased while playing sports tend to have a worse quality of life than their non-teased peers, a new study suggests. Some of them may also become less active over time.

“Teasing not only influences psychological functioning but may reduce physical activity and lead to poorer physical, social, and emotional functioning for children,” Chad D. Jensen told Reuters Health in an email. He led the study at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah.

The link between teasing and less physical activity is particularly concerning considering most children are already not exercising as much as they should.

Jensen and his colleagues surveyed 108 kids, aged nine to 12, in 2010 and again in 2011. They asked kids about their participation in 21 different types of physical activity before, during and after school and how often they had been teased while playing sports or exercising since kindergarten.

The researchers also asked the kids how well they functioned physically, emotionally, with friends and at school. Together those measures were used to determine children’s health-related quality of life.

Children who were teased reported a worse quality of life than those who were not.

In particular, overweight and obese kids who reported being teased on the first survey had a poorer quality of life both initially and again one year later, the researchers write in the Journal of Pediatric Psychology.

“Negative effects of teasing appear to be persistent, affecting important outcomes one year after teasing is reported,” Jensen said.

Normal-weight kids who reported being teased on the first survey were more likely to become less active over the next year. For overweight and obese children, teasing reported in year two was linked to less physical activity the same year.

“School policy makers are encouraged to think of this form of peer victimization as a direct threat to children’s health outcomes,” write Jensen and his co-authors.

“These findings provide support for comprehensive bullying prevention programs and suggest that efforts to reduce peer victimization in the context of physical activity participation may be helpful in promoting physical activity participation and children’s quality of life,” Jensen said.

David Palmiter, a psychologist at Marywood University in Scranton, Pennsylvania, said the findings are not surprising.

“Being teased or being bullied in any kind of an ongoing way itself is a symptom…and worsens symptoms,” he said. Kids who are teased “often have vulnerabilities,” such as low self-esteem, before the teasing starts.

“Any kid, no matter how healthy they are, can have isolated instances of bullying,” he told Reuters Health. But a pattern of consistent bullying probably points to inner pain in the child who is bullied, said Palmiter, who wasn’t involved in the new research.

He said one way to address or prevent repeated teasing is to increase the size of children’s friend circles, so they’re not always on the fringes. That way, “They can travel from class to class with a pack,” he said.

Parents can arrange sleepovers and other activities with children’s peers outside of school and boost their children’s confidence by identifying their areas of strength and making sure they are regularly exposed to these areas.

In addition, Palmiter stressed the importance of parents spending one-on-one time with their children, focused entirely on what the child is doing or saying.

He also echoed Jensen’s sentiment about the importance of comprehensive bullying prevention programs.

“Every school should have an anti-bullying program,” Palmiter said

Source: GMA News

One Week of Junk Food May Be Enough to Damage Your Memory

 

Everyone knows that junk food is bad for the waistline, but new research suggests it can damage memory, too.
Australian researchers found that even a short term diet of junk food can have a detrimental effect on the brain’s cognitive ability.
The study suggests that obesity can trigger rapid changes in the brain.

Scientists from the University of New South Wales (UNSW) showed for the first time that rats fed a diet high in fat and sugar had impaired memory after just a week.

Interestingly, the results were similarly poor for the rats fed a healthy diet that had been given sugar water to drink, according to the study, which was published in the journal Brain, Behaviour and Immunity.

The animals found it more difficult to recognise specific places after their junk food diet and showed a lesser ability to notice when an object shifted to a new location.
The mice also had inflammation of the hippocampal region of the brain, which is associated with spatial memory.

‘We know that obesity causes inflammation in the body, but we didn’t realise until recently that it also causes changes in the brain,’ said Professor Margaret Morris from UNSW Medicine, who co-authored the study.

‘What is so surprising about this research is the speed with which the deterioration of the cognition occurred,’ she said.
‘Our preliminary data also suggests that the damage is not reversed when the rats are switched back to a healthy diet, which is very concerning.’

Some aspects of the animals’ memories were spared, regardless of their diets.
All the animals were equally able to recognise objects after eating either the healthy, healthy with sugar or ‘cafeteria’ diets, the latter of which was high in fat and sugar, including cake, chips and biscuits.
The change in the animals’ memory appeared even before the mice eating junk food gained any weight.
Ongoing work will attempt to establish how to stop the inflammation in the brain of animals with the unhealthy diets, which could unlock secrets relating to humans who eat unhealthily.
‘We suspect that these findings may be relevant to people,’ said Professor Morris.
‘While nutrition affects the brain at every age, it is critical as we get older and may be important in preventing cognitive decline. An elderly person with poor diet may be more likely to have problems.’

The research builds on previous work that has implications for obesity.
‘Given that high energy foods can impair the function of the hippocampus, if you eat a lot of them it may contribute to weight gain, by interfering with your episodic memory,’ Professor Morris said.
‘People might be less aware of their internal cues like hunger pangs and knowing when they have had enough,’ she said.

Source: mail online

‘Baby Illusion’ Makes Family’s Youngest Seem Tiny

The youngest child in a family may be perpetually the baby, according to new research showing that moms literally perceive their littlest as smaller than he or she really is.

This “baby illusion” often shatters suddenly upon the birth of another child, researchers wrote today (Dec. 16) in the journal Current Biology. In a survey of 747 moms, more than 70 percent reported their first child suddenly seemed larger and older upon the birth of a second baby.

“Contrary to what many may think, this isn’t happening just because the older child just looks so big compared to a baby,” Jordy Kaufman of the Swinburne University of Technology in Australia said in a statement. “It actually happens because all along, the parents were under an illusion that their first child was smaller than he or she really was. When the new baby is born, the spell is broken, and parents now see their older child as he or she really is.”

To get to the heart of the illusion, Kaufman and colleagues asked mothers to estimate the height of one of their children on a blank wall. The researchers then compared the marks made by mom with the kid’s actual height. Some of the kids were older siblings, while others were either the youngest in their family or were only children.

Moms routinely underestimated the size of their youngest or only kids, the results revealed. On average, only children or youngest children were seen as almost 3 inches (7.5 centimeters) shorter than they really were. In contrast, moms were right on target in estimating their older children’s height.

The illusion could be beneficial for kids and parents alike, as seeing their youngest as more vulnerable than they really are could prompt parents to pour more resources into that child — an important key to survival in a family where multiple kids need attention. The findings also might lend credence to the idea that birth order helps shape personality.

“The key implication is that we may treat our youngest children as if they are actually younger than they really are,” Kaufman said. “In other words, our research potentially explains why the ‘baby of the family’ never outgrows that label. To the parents, the baby of the family may always be ‘the baby.'”

Source: live science

Heavy marijuana use may alter brain structure and harm memory

Teens who are heavy marijuana users show abnormal changes in their brain structures that are associated with having schizophrenia, a new study has found.

Researchers from the Northwestern University found that chronic smokers, those who smoked marijuana daily for about three years, showed changes in their brain structures related to working memory and performed poorly on memory tasks.

Researchers observed the brain abnormalities and memory problems during the individuals’ early twenties, two years after they stopped smoking marijuana, which could indicate the long-term effects of chronic use.

Memory-related structures in their brains appeared to shrink and collapse inward, possibly reflecting a decrease in neurons.

The study showed the marijuana-related brain abnormalities are correlated with a poor working memory performance and look similar to schizophrenia-related brain abnormalities.

Of the 15 marijuana smokers who had schizophrenia in the study, 90 per cent started heavily using the drug before they developed the mental disorder, researchers said.

Marijuana abuse has been linked to developing schizophrenia in prior research.

This is the first study to target key brain regions in the deep subcortical gray matter of chronic marijuana users with structural MRI and to correlate abnormalities in these regions with an impaired working memory.

Working memory is the ability to remember and process information in the moment and – if needed – transfer it to long-term memory.

The younger the individuals were when they started chronically using marijuana, the more abnormally their brain regions were shaped, the study found.

The findings suggest that these regions related to memory may be more susceptible to the effects of the drug if abuse starts at an earlier age.

“The study links the chronic use of marijuana to these concerning brain abnormalities that appear to last for at least a few years after people stop using it,” said lead study author Matthew Smith, an assistant research professor in psychiatry and behavioural sciences at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.

Source: Indian Express

4 ways to fight seasonal depression naturally

The shorter days of winter can give you the blues, and for some people, it may even lead to Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), or seasonal depression.

While many people know that they don’t feel their best during the winter months, they might not be aware that they could be suffering from a specific form of depression that begins in the late fall, peaks around January and February, and then starts to fade by early spring.

Some experts believe the increased darkness disrupts the brain chemicals that affect mood, such as melatonin and serotonin, and others believe that the reduced sunlight causes vitamin D deficiencies, which can translate to depressive feelings.

Symptoms of SAD include depression, anxiety, loss of energy, social withdrawal, loss of interest in normal activities, weight gain and appetite changes, according to the Mayo Clinic.

Instead of living with this every year, you can take steps to keep your mood boosted and avoid falling into a winter slump.

Exercise consistently
Getting regular exercise can alleviate stress and anxiety; its effects may even last longer than antidepressants. This beneficial side effect happens because exercise enhances the action of endorphins in the body, chemicals that circulate in the body which improve immunity, reduce the perception of pain and help improve mood. The neurotransmitter norepinephrine is also stimulated during exercise, which can also help improve mood and ease the symptoms of depression.

Check your vitamin D levels
The easiest way to get vitamin D is through direct sunlight on the skin; during the cold winter months we lose most of our access to natural vitamin D in the form of sunlight. Vitamin D deficiencies have been linked with increased rates of depression, so winter is an important time to speak with your doctor about taking a supplement.

The Institute of Medicine recommends 600 international units of vitamin D for most people, which is almost impossible to get through food alone. The best sources include cod liver oil, oysters, caviar, and fatty fish, such as herring and salmon.

Increase your omega-3 intake
These healthy fats can help relieve symptoms of depression as well as help maintain healthy levels of the brain chemicals dopamine and serotonin. Fatty fish such as mackerel, salmon, herring and anchovies are the best sources since they contain both EPA and DHA, which are forms of omega-3 fatty acids that are easily assimilated by the body. Vegan sources such as flaxseed, hemp and walnuts contain another source of omega-3 known as alpha-linoleic acid (ALA), which the body converts into EPA and DHA in small amounts.

Choose snacks wisely
A symptom of SAD is an increased craving for carbohydrates, which may be due to the decreased serotonin activity in the brain. In an effort to increase these low levels, the body craves foods that promote the production of serotonin. Choosing the right carbohydrates is critical. Processed or sugary carbohydrates will quickly raise blood sugar levels and cause an insulin spike. Once the sugar is metabolized there will be a sudden drop in blood sugar that can cause fatigue and irritability. Choose brightly colored vegetables to keep carbohydrate cravings under control, aiming for three to four cups per day, and be sure to include some protein with every meal and snack.

Source: Fox news

G8 nations sets 2025 target to find treatment for dementia

A pledge by the G8 countries to find a cure or treatment for dementia in 12 years is highly optimistic considering no drug is anywhere close to being developed, health officials have acknowledged.

The promise came at the end of a day-long meeting in London involving representatives of health, business and non-profit sectors from Canada, the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Japan, Russia and Italy. In a communiqué, G8 health ministers vowed to identify a cure or “disease-modifying therapy” by 2025. They also promised to “significantly increase” the amount they spend on dementia research and share scientific data. They also plan to appoint a global envoy for dementia innovation to co-ordinate international efforts.

“No one here is in any doubt about the scale of the dementia crisis,” British Prime Minister David Cameron told the conference, adding that one new case of dementia is diagnosed every four seconds around the world. “This disease steals lives, wrecks families and breaks hearts.”

The 2025 target immediately came into question and Britain’s Health Minister Jeremy Hunt conceded it was ambitious. “We know that it’s a big challenge and I don’t think we have that cure yet,” he said. “If we don’t aim for the stars, we won’t land on the moon. I think we should be aiming for the stars.”

Dementia is a term used to describe Alzheimer’s and other diseases in which brain cells die in vast numbers. Developing a drug to stop the deterioration has proven fruitless so far despite roughly 10 years of efforts and $12-billion (U.S.) spent by drug companies.

Not one clinical trial has succeeded and officials say some drug makers have given up altogether. Over all, spending on dementia research is a fraction of the amount devoted to cancer, HIV/AIDS and other illnesses, even though the number of those affected is soaring as the population ages. About 44 million people worldwide have dementia, an increase of 22 per cent in three years.

“In terms of a cure, or even a treatment that can modify the disease, we are empty-handed,” World Health Organization director-general Margaret Chan told the meeting. “The ‘business as usual’ model hasn’t worked.”

Harry Johns, chief executive of the U.S. Alzheimer’s Association, said Alzheimer’s is the only disease “among the top 10 killers that has no way to prevent or treat effectively.”

Source: the globe and mail

phone addicts are less likely to be happy: New study

  1. Those who can’t resist a ring are also more likely to suffer anxiety
  2.  Social network sites also listed as sources of stress

If you are constantly on your mobile phone, most onlookers might think you have lots of friends and a busy social life.

However, those attached to the phone are likely to be less happy than those who can resist a ring or a message alert, says a study.

Avid mobile phone users also suffer from higher anxiety while students see their class work suffer with lower marks than those who are able to switch off.

Researchers studied more than 500 students to look at their daily phone usage and gauge how it affected their outlook on life.

They found that far from making people feel more connected to friends the phone only heightened their anxiety as many felt obligated to keep in constant touch.

They found users suffered heightened anxiety as many felt obligated to keep in constant touch.

Others had trouble disconnecting from social media sites such as Facebook.

The study by scientists Jacob Barkley, Aryn Karpinski and Andrew Lepp is in stark contrast to previous research that found mobile phones improve social interaction and help reduce feelings of isolation.

Previous research has claimed that mobile phones improve social interaction and help reduce feelings of isolation.

But the latest study by Kent University in Ohio found constant phone use was linked to greater stress.

One student said: ‘The social network sometimes just makes me feel a little bit tied to my phone.

‘It makes me feel like I have another obligation in my life.’

Another complained that having a mobile phone meant that he could always be contacted at any time.

The researchers used a clinical measure of anxiety and each student’s level of satisfaction with their own life in the analysis.

Researcher Andrew Lepp added: ‘There is no me time or solitude left in some of these students’ lives and I think mental health requires a bit of personal alone time to reflect, look inward, process life’s events, and just recover from daily stressors.’

Those taking part, aged from 18 to 22, allowed the study team to access their exam results, known in the US as a grade point average (GPA), from university records.

‘Also, a few of the students we interviewed reported sending texts constantly throughout the day from morning to night that in itself might be stressful.’

There are now more mobile phones in the UK than people with the latest figures showing 80.2 million subscription.

The popularity in recent years of smart phones, such as the iPhone, has meant that 94 per cent of all adults own a mobile.

Source: mail online

 

Root Causes of Dyslexia Unraveled

Dyslexia, the learning disability that makes reading and processing speech a challenge, may result from problems with brain connectivity, a new study suggests.

Scientists estimate that dyslexia affects more than 10 percent of the world’s population. Some hypothesize that in people with dyslexia, the way that speech sounds are represented in the brain is impaired, while others contend that the brains of people with dyslexia represent the sounds correctly, but have trouble accessing them because of faulty brain connections.

Ultimately, understanding the roots of dyslexia could lead to better ways to help people with the disability, the researchers said.

Normally, when people read words or hear spoken language, the brain creates a map to represent the basic sounds in speech, called phonemes. These brain representations have to be robust, for instance, all “b” sounds must map to the same category. But they must also be distinct, in order to distinguish between similar sounds such as “b” and “d.”

In the new study, Bart Boets, a clinical psychologist at KU Leuven, in Belgium, and his colleagues used brain imaging to test which hypothesis — flawed sound representations or flawed wiring — best explains dyslexia.

The researchers scanned the brains of 23 adults with dyslexia and 22 adults without the condition as they responded to various speech stimuli. The scientists looked at how accurately the participants’ brains mapped sounds to their phonetic representations.

People with dyslexia had intact representations of basic sounds, just as non-dyslexic people did, the scans revealed.

“To our surprise, and I think to the surprise of a large part of the dyslexia research society, we found out that phonetic representations were perfectly intact. They were just as robust and distinct in individuals with dyslexia as they were in typical readers,” Boets told reporters today (Dec. 5).

The researchers then investigated whether brain connectivity differed between the dyslexic and normal participants. In particular, they examined how well 13 brain areas involved in language processing were connected to phonetic representations.

The participants with dyslexia had notably worse connectivity between Broca’s area, a region in the brain’s frontal lobe linked to speech production, and the left and right auditory cortexes, the researchers reported online today in the journal Science. In addition, the people with the weakest connections performed the worst on reading and spelling tests.

The findings suggest dyslexia stems from a failure to connect to fundamental sound representations, rather than problems with those representations themselves, the researchers said.

Boets compared the dyslexic brain to data stored on a computer server. “The data [itself is] perfectly intact, but the connection to access this data is somehow degraded — maybe too slow or somehow distorted,” Boets said.

Frank Ramus, a cognitive scientist at the École Normale Supérieure, in France, who was not involved in the study, called it the most conclusive study of dyslexia’s causes in the last five years, adding that, if the results hold, they would change scientists’ understanding of dyslexia.

However, Usha Goswami, a neuroscientist at the University of Cambridge, in England, who supports the view that dyslexia is a problem of faulty representations, interpreted the results differently.

“The data in the study do not show that dyslexia is caused by a difficulty in accessing phonemes, as the participants are adults,” Goswami told LiveScience. “The reduced connectivity shown could be a result of a lifetime of poor reading, rather than evidence for a reduced access to phonemes which has caused dyslexia.”

Source: live science

Choir singing can boost mental health

Singing in a choir can boost your mental health, a new study suggests.

Researchers carried out an online survey of 375 people who sang in choirs, sang alone, or played team sports.

All three activities yielded high levels of psychological wellbeing – but choristers stood out as experiencing the greatest benefit.

Compared with the way sports players regarded their teams, choral singers also viewed their choirs as more coherent or “meaningful”.

Nick Stewart, from Oxford Brookes University, who led the study, said: “Research has already suggested that joining a choir could be a cost-effective way to improve people’s wellbeing. Yet we know surprisingly little about how the well-being effects of choral singing are brought about.

“These findings suggest that feeling part of a cohesive social group can add to the experience of using your voice to make music. Further research could look at how moving and breathing in synchrony with others might be responsible for creating this effect.”

Mr Stewart presented the findings at the annual meeting of the British Psychological Society’s Division of Clinical Psychology in York.

Source: Zee News