BLOG.MINDBOOSTINMINUTES.COM

Health Behaviors More Important than Socioeconomic Status

MBIM2 — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 10:21:06 GMT

Many studies have reported that socioeconomic status is a predictor of morbidity and mortality. Now, a large-scale, longitudinal study asserts that the association may be more related to health behaviors than socioeconomic status. The study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), reports that assessment of health behaviors over time lessens the association between socioeconomic status and mortality. … [visit site to read more]

Related Articles:

Pulling The Plug Too Soon?

MBIM2 — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 05:00:17 GMT

The findings of the new study show that, even when no physical movement or observable response to stimuli are present, means exist to permit some individuals to respond sufficiently to prove that they understand their condition and may wish to continue treatment. … [visit site to read more]

Related Articles:

Closing the Window of Fear

MBIM2 — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 07:18:15 GMT

Excessive fear is the cause of many psychopathologies. Although pharmacological interventions can help in preventing the retrieval of fear memories, they are toxic and involve a lot of side-effects. Till now, non-pharmacological interventions were only effective in suppressing the memory of fear for a short period. A new technique developed by scientists at the Center for Neural Science and New York University has generated a lot of interest in the in the field of psychological therapy.

According to a hypothesis called the reconsolidation theory, fear memories are consolidated every time they are recalled. Following an episode of fear stimuli, it’s memory becomes unstable for some time which allows it to be updated. This window period of reconsolidation has provided scientists with a tool to modify it. … [visit site to read more]

Related Articles:

Lawsuits Shed Light on Seasonal Depression

MBIM2 — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 08:15:56 GMT

Many people get a little melancholy as the winter months take away sunshine and warm weather. But, for some, the winter blues become a serious case of depression. Recent lawsuits have designated this recurrent seasonal depression, or seasonal affective disorder (SAD), as a disability that requires accommodation by employers. However, these rulings are provoking renewed questions about the validity of the disorder entirely. … [visit site to read more]

Be Mindful to Maintain Job Satisfaction

MBIM2 — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 05:00:11 GMT

Physician burnout and job dissatisfaction are concerning as physicians in the United States have more patients to see in less time with fewer resources. Physician burnout is associated with job absenteeism, leaving the profession altogether, poor quality of care, and medical errors. Now, a recent study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association claims that meditation and mindfulness can decrease physician burnout. … [visit site to read more]

Be Mindful to Maintain Job Satisfaction

MBIM2 — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 05:00:11 GMT

Related Articles:

Screening for Postpartum Depression Not Worth the Time or Money

MBIM2 — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 05:00:46 GMT

More than 10% of women experience either major or minor depression six weeks after giving birth. Postpartum depression (PPD) leads to significant biological, social, psychological, and economic consequences for the mother, the child, and the family. Clinically and cost-effective treatments are available for PPD, but less than half of PPD cases are ever diagnosed. Unfortunately, a new British Medical Journal (BMJ) report concludes that formal screening tools for PPD are not cost-effective. … [visit site to read more]

Survive the A-Bomb, Die Prematurely from Stroke and Heart Disease

MBIM2 — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 05:00:53 GMT

The survivors of the World War II atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki may have considered themselves lucky, at least at first. Shortly thereafter, however, those who didn’t die from radiation poisoning learned that the radiation from the bombings placed themselves and their children at increased risk of cancer. Now, they can add heart disease and stroke to their list of potential medical problems. … [visit site to read more]

Empathy – How Much is Too Much?

MBIM2 — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 05:00:45 GMT

The physician-patient relationship is the cornerstone to quality medical care. A key component to this relationship is physician empathy — the ability to understand the patient’s experiences and feelings and view the world from the patient’s perspective. Empathy is so important in this day and age that medical and other health care professional schools are instituting empathy training programs and establishing empathy-related learning objectives. But, a recent study reveals that physicians might benefit from decreasing their empathy response and improve clinical outcomes. … [visit site to read more]

Let the Matches Begin!

MBIM2 — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 07:50:47 GMT

Today is Match Day, the day when fourth-year medical students across the country learn their fate for the next three to five years, and possibly their lifetimes. It’s the day that the National Residency Matching Program (NRMP) announces the assignments of the students to their residency training programs that will develop the pluripotent medical student into a specialized professional. In short, it is one of the most important days in a medical student’s career. … [visit site to read more]

My Nephew and his Brain, Part 4 – Their Life Today

MBIM2 — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 05:00:54 GMT

Continued from Part 3. After the surgery we were hopeful, that with a few limitations on his left side, my nephew would have a fairly normal life. Unfortunately, this was not to be. The faulty electrical impulses that had caused his seizures had migrated to the left lobe and a few days after surgery the seizures returned. It was true that they were milder than they had been before; he no longer stopped breathing when he had them, so some good had definitely come out of his surgery experience. They weren’t gone, however, so he spent another month in the hospital as the doctors tried a staggering amount of drug cocktails on him trying to figure out the best combination for controlling his seizures. None of them worked perfectly, though, so even today at the age of seven, he still has multiple seizures a day. … [visit site to read more]

My Nephew and his Brain, Part 3 – Try to Work Out their Troubles

MBIM2 — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 05:00:39 GMT

Continued from Part 2. After we had been transferred to the large university hospital, the doctors decided to delve more deeply into the specifics of my nephew’s brain malformation. The MRIs had told us some things, but not everything, so they scheduled him for a Positron Emission Tomograph, commonly known as a PET-scan. A PET-scan uses radioactivity coupled with a biologically-active molecule and after injection, the biological molecule congregates in the area of interest, in our case, my nephew’s brain. The radioactivity attached to the biological molecule then starts letting its extra neutrons go in a process called decay. This decay, through a very complicated process, is read by the PET scanner and brain activity can be assessed. What this very comprehensive scan told the doctors and subsequently us was that the right side of my nephew’s brain couldn’t send electrical signals properly and this aberrant electrical activity was causing the seizures. Unfortunately, the only way to stop the activity was to take out whatever in the right hemisphere was giving the wonky signals, so my nephew, at the age of four months, was scheduled for brain surgery. … [visit site to read more]

My Nephew and his Brain, Part 2 – Revealed to be Complicated

MBIM2 — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 05:00:26 GMT

Continued from Part 1. After we had arrived at the new hospital and my nephew had been placed into the Pediatric ICU (PICU), the doctors started running more tests, and in conjunction with what the ER doctor had found out, my nephew was diagnosed with a seizure disorder or, as it is more commonly known, epilepsy. Epilepsy is defined as a “brain disorder characterized predominantly by recurrent and unpredictable interruptions of normal brain function” and in most cases, this interruption is caused by either an over-excitation or under-excitation of the neurons in the brain. After electroencephalography (EEG) was performed and analyzed, this aberrant electrical brain activity was what appeared to be happening to my nephew, so the doctors began to prescribe medications that are typically given to children with seizure disorders. The problem with my nephew, however, was that from the MRI that had been performed on him at this point, it was evident that there was significant brain malformation in his right hemisphere, and these medications would only be treating the symptoms and not the cause. … [visit site to read more]

My Nephew and his Brain, Part 1 – Introduction

MBIM2 — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 05:00:34 GMT

As a person who believes in full disclosure, I feel that I should say from the outset that I am not a neurologist. I am a microbiologist, and generally speaking, even though I am a science-type of person, I was never very interested in neurology. All that changed, however, when my nephew was born. Well, it didn’t happen exactly the moment he was born; it took a while for us to learn how unique he really was. I guess it is probably best if I start at the beginning. … [visit site to read more]

Psychotropics and Youth, Part 1 – The Five Myths

MBIM2 — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 05:00:01 GMT

“The dramatic rise in prescriptions [of psychotropics for children and young adults] has alarmed several commentators,” according to Lakhan and Hagger-Johnson. In their article, they trace this problem to five erroneous myths that influence prescribing:

1) Children are little adults. During adolescence, the brain changes rapidly. As a result, therapeutic benefits, potential adverse occurrences, and drug interactions can vary with age. Adolescents, in particular, have unique characteristics meaning inconsistent results and effects. For example, SSRIs are being prescribed less for adolescents because studies have identified increased suicide risk among adolescents taking them. … [visit site to read more]

Speaking in Tongues – A Neural Snapshot

MBIM2 — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 05:00:41 GMT

“Asaria isa asaria ari masheetee sadabada vena amina gotaya menda meshela mosha nami ki toro ma…”

Glossolalia, or speaking in tongues, has fascinated thinkers ever since the “tongues of angels” descended upon early believers as a gift from the Holy Ghost in the New Testament of the Bible. This unusual mental state, characterized by utterances that sometimes sound like an untranslated psalm from Mars, typically occurs during instances of religious excitation, and is primarily associated with Pentecostal religious practices. It has commonly been considered a form of ecstatic trance accompanied by verbal utterances not found in any language. … [visit site to read more]

The Evolution of Depression

MBIM2 — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 21:58:49 GMT

Millions of people around the world suffer from depression, the most common mental disorder of all. Since depression appears to be largely genetic, several long-standing questions continue to bedevil researchers. Have the genes for clinical unipolar depression undergone selective evolution–or is depression a random product of mutation, evolutionary drift, or other non-selective forces?

The symptoms of depression are found in every culture and time period, from the ancient Greeks to modern New Yorkers, from the !Kung of southern Africa to ranchers in the American West. Why is depression so much more common than any other major mental illness? Clearly, it is a malfunction, a maladaptation — or is it? … [visit site to read more]

---
Related Articles at Brain Blogger:

Is Knowledge Power? Direct-to-Consumer Genetic Testing

MBIM2 — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 05:00:17 GMT

The completion of the sequencing of the human genome in 2003 was an outstanding scientific accomplishment. This achievement, together with advances in technology and the forces of capitalism and competition, has brought genetic testing directly to the consumer. However, this Pandora’s box is proving difficult to manage for many people.

Direct-to-consumer (DTC) genetic tests are marketed to consumers primarily through the Internet. Consumers are motivated by education, recreation, and preventive health care, but the answers obtained from the tests do not necessarily provide meaningful information. … [visit site to read more]

---
Related Articles at Brain Blogger:

Are Physicians Spending Too Much Time Diagnosing Patients?

MBIM2 — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 05:00:34 GMT

Dizziness is responsible for nearly 3 million emergency room visits every year in the United States. In most of the cases, the dizziness is caused by a benign inner ear problem, or is the result of short-lived discomfort or distress, including anxiety, depression, or certain phobias. However, approximately 4% of patients that present to the emergency room complaining of dizziness are experiencing a stroke or transient ischemic attack. Since more than half of patients with dizziness who are experiencing a stroke show no other symptoms, misdiagnosis is frequent and common. Now, a study published in the journal Stroke reports that a simple one-minute bedside eye exam could be more effective in diagnosing stroke than Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI). … [visit site to read more]

---
Related Articles at Brain Blogger:

Possible Medical Application of a Smart Drug

MBIM2 — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 05:00:44 GMT

Cognitive enhancers, also known as nootropics, are a category of drugs with the ability to increase mental performance. Many rave about such “smart drugs” helping them to study, take tests, or increase work performance. Ginkgo biloba, piracetam, and vinpocetine are some popular cognitive enhancers, all with varying mechanisms of action in the human brain. For example, Ginko biloba increases blood circulation; the simple idea regarding its effect is that increased blood circulation results in a more energized brain. Still, the FDA has not yet confirmed how effective any of these “smart drugs” are; as a result, cognitive enhancers are presently deemed supplements. … [visit site to read more]

---
Related Articles at Brain Blogger: