Neurology Diagnostics

Archive for 2011

Beyond that produces intensely flavored with curry seasoning meals are neuroprotective properties, especially against Alzheimer’s.

The word “curry” derives from kari, which means “sauce” in Tamil, one of the dialects spoken in India. Curry is a mixture of different spices used in cooking Pakistani, Indian and China. The spices used are turmeric and ginger, which gives the product its characteristic yellow color. Other spices that are used quite often are garlic, Ceylon cinnamon, onion, coriander, cumin, fennel, nutmeg, white pepper and black.
Curry has antioxidant

Curry has become very popular not only in Asian countries but around the world and is especially used by English and Dutch cooks. Some of the dishes that can be flavored with it are the rice and curry, the curry chicken , turkey steak tomato and curry, cold apple soup with curry, eggplant curry, pork chops, curry, pineapple with curry cream … All of them taste great.

Longa Turmeric is a plant of Asian origin that has a high content of antioxidants, the rhizome of this plant is extracted curry, which is why this species may have a role in cardiovascular disease prevention. In laboratory animals has been seen that curcumin can reduce blood cholesterol levels and prevent the formation of atherosclerotic plaques.

Curry is good for the brain

Researchers at the David Geffen School of Medicine, Los Angeles, and the Human Biomolecular Research Institute, San Diego, have shown that curry may have beneficial effects in preventing the onset of Alzheimer’s disease. What does this protective effect could be due? Probably the bisdemethoxycurcumin, an active ingredient found in curcuminoids, a natural substance that is present in turmeric root.

Using blood samples from patients with Alzheimer’s disease, scientists have determined that bisdemethoxycurcumin can encourage macrophages to destroy the protein beta amyloid, which is responsible for neuronal death in people with this disease. This substance could become useful in the manufacture of a vaccine against the disease.

Apparently the benefits of curry on health is not achieved with consumption once a week, but with the intake of three times a week, along with a healthy diet. As a curious note that the curry is consumed in high quantities in India , a country with very low levels (1%) of patients with Alzheimer’s .

Other foods good for the brain

Curry is not the only food that has proven to be good for preventing disease Alzheimer’s , has also been seen with vitamin E-rich foods (eg olive oil), vitamin C (eg kiwi, orange, etc. .) or rich in essential fatty acids.

In short, the curry may have a preventive role in the onset of Alzheimer’s disease and may be the basis of a vaccine against this disease.

Music is part of our life and is good for the development of our brain, but also has its “negative.”

The pleasure we play music is because our brain is producing large amounts of dopamine , a neurotransmitter which also is released when having sex or when we eat.

Benefits of music

It has been shown that listening to music promotes the creation of neural networks that stimulate our creativity. In this sense, the researcher Nina Kraus, Northwestern University (USA) showed that while a person playing a musical instrument establishing neural connections that promote verbal communication. That is why children who have received musical training tend to speak better than those who have received it.

The music is also good for our circulation. So when we hear music that is pleasing the diameter of our blood vessels dilate, thereby improving blood flow, or at least that’s the conclusion we have reached Medical Center researchers at the University of Maryland (USA)

The music has a lot of math and this relationship has been demonstrated by a group of researchers at the University of Toronto (Canada). The scientists conducted a study in children 6 years, noting that those who received musical training increased their math skills and IQ .

In this research, Professor Gordon Shaw, University of California Irving (USA) conducted a study in 19 preschool children and found that when children listened to classical music cortical neurons exercised and strengthened some of the circuits that are used to perform mathematical reasoning. Since we found that at 8 months into the study, children who received music lessons improved their reasoning and their ability to do puzzles, compared to those children who received no music lessons.

Also, listen to music while practicing some form of sport makes it rise to 15% physical performance, according to a report by scientists at Brunel University in the Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology.
“Iniquities” of music

But not everything is good, music has its “evil”. Thus, in an article published in Applied Cognitive Psychology the authors concluded that the background music reduces job performance, regardless of the type of music you’re listening to (classical, rock, pop …). It is true that this rule is not always true. Thus, it is said that the American writer Stephen King wrote some of his best-selling listening to rock music blaring in the background.

Finally, have you ever wondered why many bars have music so loud? Well, apparently, and according to an article published in Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research, the higher the sound more drink is consumed in less time.

In short, the benefits of music on the brain occur in different brain areas, but especially those related to solving mathematical tasks.

Not all people respond similarly to a stressful situation, some of them manifested a more intense fear.

The amygdala is an area of our brain with almond-shaped and receives a large amount of information in our environment, for example, smells, sights, sounds … We could say that the amygdala is our sentinel.

What do you do with all those signs? Responds to them by primitive signs thanks to his connections with the spinal cord, such as heart rate, blood pressure and respiratory rate. This explains that when someone comes to us at night and the fact that our life is in danger, we increase the heart rate, blood pressure and breathe in a jerky fashion. In addition, the pupils dilate and increases sweating. The amygdala has just activated the alarm.
Connections of the amygdala

The signals from the amygdala reach the hypothalamus, the area where corticotropic releasing hormone (HCT), which in turn is responsible for the release of cortisol (stress hormone). Cortisol is the substance responsible for leading the fight or flight through connections with our metabolism, since it directly influences the amount of glucose you should get the muscles.

There are connections from the amygdala that go to the cingulate cortex and other fibers that go directly into specific muscles. Such connections are what make the dog growl, arching your back and tighten cat musculature of the human vocal cords. So when we fear we get a high-pitched voice.

The information is also directed toward the locus coeruleus, an area in the brainstem, which is responsible for producing norepinephrine and disperse throughout the brain. The result? All of our brain is alert, the smallest of the stimulus can make us tremble in fear.

These connections bypass the cerebral cortex, what does this mean? We can not control. Our rational brain is outside the control of all these kinds of responses.

Neurotransmitters and fear

Being afraid is not bad. It is natural and positive, inherent in all animals. What is your role? Alerted to the danger, the defense planning and ensure our survival. Now, one of the characteristics of fear is anxiety and this depends basically on the interrelationship between two neurotransmitters, oxytocin and vasopressin at the level of the amygdala.

When the amygdala oxytocin dominates the person is calmer in situations of danger, while if more vasopressin increases anxiety, uncertainty and, ultimately, fear grips us. Our body prepares for fight or flight.
Fear Gene

Experience shows that not all people react the same way to a dangerous situation and, in part, our genes have much to say. Some scientists believe they have discovered the gene for fear. It is called COMT and directly regulates anxiety. It has been shown that this gene has two variants: Met 158 ​​and Val 158, ie, at position 158 can be methionine or valine. Those with two copies of Met 158 have a greater degree of anxiety when viewing unpleasant pictures and those with two copies of Val 158 to better control their emotions .

In short, the amygdala is the conductor of the responses of fear and its score are oxytocin and vasopressin.

From the 40 years starts on brain aging, often associated with a gradual decline in memory.

Our brain consists of about 100,000 million neurons that are “surrounded” by a trillion supporting cells. These cells are set trillion synapses (connections), that are modulated by different chemicals that are known by the name of neurotransmitters. One of the neurotransmitter is acetylcholine.
Acetylcholine and hippocampus

Acetylcholine is associated with memory , attention, learning and sleep. It has been observed, for example, that people with Alzheimer’s disease have low levels of acetylcholine at cerebral cortex can have up to 90% less than normal people. This decrease in acetylcholine is directly responsible for memory impairment experienced by patients with Alzheimer’s.

In any case, a person has memory lapses or forgetfulness does not necessarily mean you are at the beginning of a process of dementia, most cases of memory lapses are simply due to the existence of inattention. Does having many slip indicates that our brain acetylcholine concentration is low? Nor is this relationship in 100% of cases.

Anatomical level, lapses of memory are caused by defects in the functioning of the hippocampus , the area of the brain responsible for storing our memories. You could say that the hippocampus is the “memory of our brain.” This region is involved in some psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia or depression.

Memory lapses and excess glucose

In one study, by MRI, the size of the hippocampus was correlated directly with the memory function. This study was conducted in 102 elderly, aged between 81 and 94 years, they showed that the best results in the neuropsychological tests correlated with people who had larger volumes of the hippocampus. In other words, the larger the size of our hippocampal memory works best for us. This could explain why patients with schizophrenia or depression, which have decreased the size of the hippocampus, have impaired memory.

In another study, also conducted magnetic resonance imaging in the elderly was found that the higher the concentration of glucose in the hippocampus was his worst performance, especially in an area called the dentate gyrus of the hippocampus. This area is responsible for episodic memory control-unlike similar situations and places. Alterations of the dentate gyrus is what produces the famous déjà vu (the inability to differentiate between two similar situations). The dentate gyrus is the one that plays the tricks to have the sensation of having lived there before.
Memory lapses and exercise

In a study of 60 adults aged between 60 and 80 years found that aerobic exercise (brisk walking) at least 30 minutes three times a week, increased hippocampal volume, which resulted in improved memory. Moreover, increased hippocampal volume was also associated with higher levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factor.

In conclusion, limiting consumption of sugar, treating glucose intolerance and increasing aerobic exercise could limit the number of forgetfulness.

Since its concept and its timing, falling in love is not synonymous with love. Psycho-brain processes associated with such states explain the difference.

Falling in love is considered by some scholars psychologists as a state of temporary psychosis, a crazy, to the surprise of a feeling that overpowers and confounds, which pushes to want to run faster than the wind and eat the world. Logic, reason trial and never could come into play in the psyche of a person in love. As stated by the psychiatrist and writer Irvin Yalom , a leading proponent of contemporary humanistic psychology, psychologists do not want to meet people in love, at least not during the short time that this state away from the clouded reason, because, simply, is useless to try to reason with them.

However, the person who has reached the certain conclusion that his sentiment is reflected in the verb to love , regardless of the intensity of acute and falling in love, logic, reasoning and self-analysis play important roles in decision making and the impact of each step to take. You can retain some impulsivity, if this is part of the personalities involved, but the long term are sought, as opposed to falling in love, in which the next thing to live is important.

In each process, the brain behaves differently, and thus the psyche of the individual, intimate relationship with the brain circuits activated express different behaviors.

The brain mechanisms involved in infatuation and love

According to researchers Bianchi-Demicheli, Grafton and Ortique University Hospital of Geneva, Switzerland, the site of brain processing of love “romantic” correlates with subcortical structures involved in reward, motivation and the development of emotions . This finding suggested that love as a feeling, have a clearly directed toward complacency and is much more than a simple and spontaneous emotion .

In the early stages, when the attraction is overpowering and unmanageable from reason, mediate goals and long term can not be defined, although, paradoxically, is often the most time fantasizing the future. The intense emotions beyond any process of maturation and the words flow without a rationale or strong mental processing.

The behavior of a person in love, Bianchi-Demicheli state and its partners, once the love is transformed into a feeling, it becomes predictable and intended for a particular purpose. The authors demonstrated that brain function in cognitive tasks markedly rises to relate, even subliminally, by the name of the loved one, suggesting a facilitative action of love over many brain circuits, including that of cognition.

During the crush, the brain seems sunk to an obsession or addiction unmanageable related intimately to the idea of being that has captivated not seem to have cognitive processing circuits involved, but emotions and feelings associated with passionate instinctive behavior.

When love calls for decisions

Decisions made during the period of infatuation ethereal usually no real decisions. They are, however, fits with the feet not anchored to the mainland.

The feelings of joy and spiritual well-being confused with the physical excitement and euphoria of falling in love causes, and the mixture of the four emotions up to a conscious decision but a strong desire expressed as a plan equivalent to an imperfect future model of a real decision.

Over time the “madness of love” or transient psychosis, as Yalom calls it, the sudden feeling of love begins to take root on land and only then, decisions decisions or processes can be considered complete brain.

Being loving, he starts to feel their emotional needs, and not only physical or instinctive, and that which should fill in a period of infatuation could become an incomplete project according to their basic needs for shelter, company, projection and joint plans. This is the time in which reality imposes on the imagination.

The left brain (logical, thinking and the benefits and risks sopesante) begins to play a leading role on any decision to take. The vision of the beloved is expanded markedly, beginning the stage of real vision of others and their circumstances. The analysis of the reality surpasses the words heard.

The brain circuits that are involved and are more cognitive, including mathematical, speculative gains and losses of their own.

The right brain tends to balance the logical analysis of the left hemisphere, keeping emotions in a space supremacy over rational thought, until the latter rigidly imposed to save the self-esteem based on unmet needs, and preserve the emotional health of those who may be damaged if not met as scheduled or expected. The expectations are confronted with promises, to the facts. The thought process takes over bottom and emotional figure in a game of self-defense and conquest.

The limbic system, processor par excellence of the emotions, and empathy , the supreme condition of man, mark the route and destination of each connection once both hemispheres participate in the analysis of the appropriateness of that love as an emotion experienced before overpowering.
Conclusion

The infatuation excites the senses and clouds the reasoning but does the cycle in a few months to produce, or not, the true feeling of love, which is based on processes anchored in both hemispheres.

During the infatuation of the reasons or logical theories have no place whatsoever, nor self-analysis, but after initial instinctive emotion processed to become a feeling rooted and projects, such love demands from basic needs of those who love, the reason amalgamates the feeling and focus on the limbic and cortical areas and processing suborticales than evaluating every aspect of that feeling with full power to alter human behavior.

Virtually all the energy consumed comes from our brain glucose consumption is 20% of basal metabolism.

For about four decades we have accurate methods that allow us to quantify what is cerebral oxygen consumption in a living being. With this information we can calculate the energy consumption and compare it with the rest of the body (basal metabolism). So we know that the brain of a 70 kg person weighs about 1,400 g (2% of total body weight) and consumes 20% of the energy of our body. The brain is very glutton !

But what about other animals? When the same calculation is done in other animals see that your brain uses less power. Thus, the brains of our cousins ​​the monkeys consume only 9% of basal metabolism and a horse, a pig or a dog is reduced to 3%.

Another interesting aspect is that consumer spending brain power is not equal at all stages of life. In a newborn of 3,400 g weight of your brain is only about 390 g (11% of body weight) but the brain energy consumption rises to almost 50% of basal metabolism. In other words, half of what you eat goes to the brain.

What do you eat your brain?

The major brain fuel is glucose , our brain consumes about 120 g per day (about 420 Kcal). This figure is much higher than needed to meet energy needs from cerebral oxygen consumption. During prolonged fasting ketone bodies (acetoacetate and 3-hydroxybutyrate), synthesized in the liver, partly replace glucose as brain fuel.

Why do you need so much energy our brain? Most, nearly 50% – intended to keep the ions from the cells “in place” so that they can excite neurons and conduction of nerve impulses. A small part used to synthesize the proteins, neurotransmitters , etc..

Where does the brain ” for food “? The brain gets glucose from three different sources:

Foods rich in glucose.
Decomposition of carbohydrates: sugar is broken down and is delivered to the brain.
Since the liver produces glycogen and stores from the breakdown of fats and proteins.

In 2011 a group of researchers from the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda (USA) published a study in JAMA that showed that 50 minutes of mobile phone use was associated with increased metabolism glucose in the brain. The study conducted in 47 participants and found that the major effect of the metabolic abnormality was located in the brain area closest to the mobile antenna (orbitofrontal cortex and temporal pole). This finding demonstrated that our brain is sensitive to the effects of electromagnetic fields. Now, have any significance of this discovery? We do not know if this finding is of clinical importance, both in the neuronal damage as potential carcinogenic effects, we must wait for other clinical trials to evaluate these effects.
Glucose and caffeine: a good partnership

The combination of caffeine and glucose appear to be the perfect combination to study, because they improve performance on attention and working memory by increasing the efficiency of the brain areas related to these two functions. Scientific studies have shown with these two substances is decreased brain activation related to the activity in bilateral parietal cortex and left prefrontal cortex, two regions that are actively involved in the processes of attention and working memory. The decrease in brain activity, coupled with the absence of differences in behavioral performance type, suggests that the brain is more efficient since it requires less resources to get the same performance.

In short, our brain consumes a high amount of glucose daily and the union of the same to caffeine can increase your performance.

A break of a couple or any situation in which one feels rejected us pain. But where this pain is captured?

The love, by definition, is a feeling of affection we feel toward another person. Now, it can measure love? A priori we would say that love can not be quantified, it depends on many variables, which are immeasurable. However, the reality is quite different. You can measure and is measured from more than 20 years, from 1986, when the psychologist Elaine Hatfield and Susan Sprecher sociologist developed what they called Passionate Love Scale. Using a simple test can measure the love that a person is another. The questionnaire consists of 30 questions and the respondent must respond to each using a number between 1 and 9 as it is agreed with the statement (1 = strongly disagree and 9 = strongly agree). Among the questions included are:

I feel deep despair if he / she leaves me
Sometimes I feel I can not control my thoughts, I think he / she obsessively
I feel happy when I do something to make him / her happy
I’d rather be with him / her with any / a
I would be jealous if he / she think he was in love with / to another / a
I long to know everything about him / her
Him / her want physically, emotionally and mentally
I have an insatiable appetite for affection to him / her
To me it’s the perfect romantic partner
I feel that my body responds when I touch
He / she seems to always on my mind
I want you to know my thoughts, my fears and my hopes
I eagerly look for signs to indicate their desire for me
Caused a powerful attraction on him / her
I get depressed a lot when things go wrong in my relationship with him / her

What is the brain region of heartbreak?

We have all felt at one time a characteristic and indescribable discomfort when someone socially or emotionally rejected. But what happens in our brains? Why produce the anxiety and unease that grips us and let us not concentrate?

Scientists seem to have found the answer to all these questions. Apparently the anguish and pain, in neurological terms, is that certain areas are activated brain that play an essential role in motivation, reward and addiction. To reach this conclusion a study conducted in 15 men and women of college age, who had been abandoned by their partners and recognizing love-recognized remain to spend more than 85% of the day thinking about your ex-partner and not hesitate to return to her if he asked. The average length of time that had passed the break was 63 days.

First, participants applied the Passionate Love Scale, then underwent functional magnetic resonance and observed what was happening in their brains if they showed a picture of the ex-partner and a photograph of another person. The scientists found that all participants were stimulated more brain regions when shown the photograph of his former partner was displayed when the other people. Stimulated regions were: the ventral tegmental area (controls motivation and reward and is known for his role in the feelings of love romantic), the nucleus accumbens, the orbitofrontal cortex and prefrontal cortex (related to the yearnings and addictions ), and the insular cortex and anterior cingulate cortex (associated with physical pain and disgust).

This finding may help us better understand why sometimes emotional rejection is so difficult to control and why it sometimes leads to harassment, homicide or suicide.
The emotional and physical pain are related

In another study, this time conducted by psychology professor Ethan Kross of the University of Michigan, it was confirmed that when we suffer a broken heart in our brain are activated the same brain regions that when we have a painful sensory response (eg hit a finger with a hammer or we spill hot coffee on your leg). In other words, the physical pain and emotional are neurologically more related than we thought.

In short, there is an overlap in the brain between physical damage and social rejection.

Humans long ago trying to find out why we dream. In recent years, controversial studies have suggested that we process our memories dreaming. Now a new study suggests that dreams also have to do with learning to process what we just experienced.

Researchers found that people who dreamed about a maze game that had just played better the next play, compared to those not dreamed of the game.

“There are parts of the brain that actually reproduce the memory of walking through the maze, and that improve memory and lead to better performance,” said study coauthor Robert Stickgold, director of the Center for Sleep and Cognition, Faculty of Medicine of Harvard.

Dreams have always fascinated people. “We started thousands of years ago, thinking they were messages from God,” he said Stickgold. “Then came Freud, and said they were messages from our subconscious pernicious and immoral.”

Then, scientists thought that dreams were “random activation of nerves in the brain stem,” Stickgold said. Now, he said, “we started to say that at one level, as more or less have always known, do something to our memory.”

In the new study, published in the online edition of the April 22 issue of the journal Current Biology, the researchers asked 99 subjects to play a video game they had to find their way through a maze with the help of a three-dimensional description of it.
Participants then stayed awake for two hours, or took a nap. They played the maze game again five hours later.

Four participants reported having dreamed of the maze during nap time. They were among the most improved when they played the maze after the second time, ten times better than the others who took naps.

Then those who had dreams, what they learned while dreaming? It is not entirely clear how dreams are connected with the experience of playing the maze game, but Stickgold thinks “the process of dream reflects an underlying brain activity” that determines “which means the learning experience, learning how to do better “.

Another mystery: why the maze dreamed so few people? Less than ten percent of those who took naps did. In contrast, Stickgold said, about 86 percent of those who played a game of ski racing in the Alps dreamed it. Perhaps the game “is not sufficiently rich or attractive,” he said. He said that future research will try to find out why.

But for now, at least one brain researcher familiar with the study was unimpressed with the findings. “There is no convincing evidence that sleep has no effect on memory consolidation,” said Irwin Feinberg, professor resident who studies sleep at the University of California, Davis. Sleep is not clearly necessary for people to remember things he said.

But Stickgold says this is a misunderstanding of their research. “Nobody in the field suggests that we must sleep to learn things or retain memories,” he said.

Breast lift surgery, technically known as mastopexy, is used to correct sagging breasts. Breast lift can be done alone or with the addition of breast implants and breast augmentation. Other needs can be determined by examining a plastic surgeon.

Your plastic surgeon will take specific measures to determine where the nipple and areola are positioned in prxomity to the fold of the breast. Your plastic surgeon will use these measurements to determine if the fullness can be restored only with breast implants or a breast lift is needed to help restore a youthful appearance.

Physician preferences and desired outcomes determine the specific method is chosen for your breast lift. The most common method of breast lift surgery involves three different incisions. An incision is made near the areola. Another is vertical from the lower edge of the areola to the crease under the breast. The third is a horizontal incision below the breast, following the natural curve of the breast fold.

When the doctor removes the excess skin in the shape of the breast and residual breast tissue, the nipple and areola are moved to higher position. The skin was already above the areola is brought down and moved within. In some cases, liposuction can be used to improve the contour, in particular, the sides of her breasts. Nipples and areolas remain united base mounds of tissue. Mastopexy generally allows sensitivity to be preserved, as well as the ability to breastfeed.

Although there is the idea that excessive stress can cause a stroke (CVA), a new study found no evidence that stressful experiences enhance the risk of a deadly type of stroke.

The study, published in Stroke, examined the relationship between stress and the risk of subarachnoid hemorrhage, which occurs when the rupture of a vessel causes bleeding into the space surrounding the brain. Up to half of cases are fatal. It is common that people attributed to sudden stress health problems, such as a stroke, said Dr. Craig S. Anderson, George Institute for International Health and the University of Sydney, Australia.

In the case of a subarachnoid hemorrhage, told Reuters Health, it is possible that a sudden increase in pressure produces a rupture in an aneurysm, a weakened area in the wall of an artery. Sometimes this bleeding occurs by a sudden exertion, such as during exercise or sex, said Anderson. But whether stressful life events increase the risk of suffering a stroke.

Anderson’s team interviewed 388 survivors of subarachnoid hemorrhage who had undergone stressful experiences between one month and one year before the stroke. The survey focused on 12 types of situations, such as the death of a relative or friend, loss of job or have suffered a crime. The team then compared the responses with those of a control group of 473 people the same age who had never suffered a subarachnoid hemorrhage. And most of the situations was not related to the risk of bleeding.

But analyzing the experiences of the previous month, two types of stressors, financial or legal problems and “other significant events” – yes were associated with increased risk. 10 percent of the survivors said they had a financial or legal problem the month before the bleeding, as opposed to 4 percent in the control group.

But in considering factors such as hypertension, smoking and alcohol consumption, the relationship between these stressors and the bleeding was only “marginally” significant. There was also an association between the occurrence of subarachnoid hemorrhage have been the victim of a crime the previous year (4 percent of survivors and 1 percent of the control group).
On the other hand, the risk of bleeding decreased in those who had had a family member or friend very ill or had an accident the previous year.

That, according to the researchers, is that the study looked at 12 types of experiences, the few that were weakly associated with the risk of bleeding as they were by chance alone.
Stress, Anderson said, it is very difficult to measure for researchers. The study used an approach of analyzing the rates of the major events that often cause psychological stress. Are unknown real individual responses to these situations. Still, “we can say that ‘stressful experiences’ are not an important risk factor for subarachnoid hemorrhage.”

To prevent it, recommended that people focus on preventing or treating known risk factors of cerebral hemorrhage, which include smoking and hypertension.