Psychiatry
Prevent Dyslexia
February 21, 2012 | 
Author 
Dyslexia could be detected even before children learn to read. According to a U.S. research team, their brain activity shows some differences easy to grasp by MRI and confirm this in an article published in ‘Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences’.
It was suspected that this type of learning problems reading and writing “certainly have neurobiological and functional alterations in the brain (temporal or frontal),” says Gustavo Lorenzo, child neurologist at the Hospital Ramon y Cajal in Madrid. The results of this research, conducted at Children’s Hospital of Boston, are a new support for this theory.
After doing MRI scans on 36 children (mean age five years) while they decided whether two words beginning with the same sound, the authors of this study found that those with family history of dyslexia showed less metabolic activity in some brain areas .
Specifically, the joints between the occipital and temporal lobes and the temporal and parietal lobes. This indicates, says the lead author of the research, Nora Raschle, is that “the brain’s ability to process speech sounds is poor, even before these children learn to read.” On the contrary, who had a high activation in this brain region, had better reading skills, such as rhyme, knowledge of letters and their sounds.
To Raschle, this finding is good news: “Early identification of children likely to develop dyslexia can help reduce the negative consequences they face from the standpoint of social and psychological.” Throughout the article points out that many studies have shown that those affected tend to have bad experiences at school, are labeled as lazy or unmotivated, and sometimes frustration leads to antisocial and impulsive behaviors, and a greater risk of Read the rest of this entry »
Chemotherapy and Mental Attitudes
Current treatments for breast cancer have succeeded in lengthening the life of the affected, one reason for the scientific community to pay attention to the long-term effects of therapies. Perhaps for this reason, in the last decade have emerged in studies that investigate the effects of cancer therapy on cognitive function. Most research has focused on women who have overcome breast cancer and has since coined the term ‘chemo brain’.
Some examples to clarify its real meaning provides the ‘American Cancer Society’: “Having memory lapses, difficulty concentrating, recoder names, dates, details, events, difficulty performing multiple tasks at once, among other things” .
Paul Jacobsen, Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Florida (USA) is one of the scientists who blazed a trail in this field published several articles on the effects of chemotherapy and radiotherapy at the cognitive level.
Neuropsychological Test
The latest one, published in ‘Cancer’, reveals that breast cancer survivors may experience problems with certain mental abilities for several years after treatment, regardless of whether they were treated with chemotherapy plus radiation or radiation alone. For Dr. Jacobsen These findings suggest that “some patients’ cognitive problems beyond their tumor is not only due to the chemotherapy.”
To carry out the research, the scientists compared to former cancer patients (62 women who received chemotherapy plus radiotherapy and only 67 had undergone radiation) with 184 women with no history of disease. The experts performed several neuropsychological assessments: six months of receiving treatment and three years.
During the analysis evaluated the cognitive performance, intellectual ability, attention, executive function, verbal memory, language and verbal memory.
The data show that chemotherapy can cause cognitive problems that persist for three years after patients completed treatment. These same effects were similar in those receiving the ‘chemo’ in combination with radiation or radiation alone. By contrast, there was no alteration to the following hormonal therapy (tamoxifen).
“The findings suggest that problems in some survivors with their mental abilities are not only due to the administration of chemotherapy,” says the author of the essay, which insists that the “study also provides a more complete picture of the impact of cancer treatment on cognitive function that previous studies did not follow the patients in both time and mental abilities observed in survivors who had not been treated with ‘chemo’. ”
Objections
To Agusti Barner, Member of Board of Directors of the Spanish Society for Medical Oncology (SEOM) and chief of Medical Oncology at the Hospital Santa Creu i San Pau de Barcelona, acknowledges that “the study, but has a following of three years, no can establish with certainty the ‘cerebral’ long-term therapies. In the query if there are patients who have told us they have difficulty retaining certain information or to keep the focus on a text, but it was while receiving chemotherapy. Gradually, and after the Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Oncology, Psychiatry | 
Tags: Attitudes, breast cancer, chemotherapy, Mental, Mental Attitudes, treatments | 
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Guided Imagery for Depression Help – Scientific Results
According to the Anxiety Disorders Association of America, anxiety disorders affect nearly 40 million American adults while depression affects one in every 10 adults in the United States, according to the CDC. Anxiety and depression help typically consists of medication and psychotherapy; however initial studies have shown guided meditation can be an effective treatment option for controlling and reducing the severity of depression and anxiety.
Guided mediation, also known as guided imagery , is when users are led by an outside source down a path of relaxation, enlightenment and realization with the goal of tapping into hidden spaces that were either purposefully or subconsciously buried. A recorded or live facilitator guides users to the recesses of their subconscious minds in order to bring forth thoughts, fears and negative internal influences. By facing these negative emotions, users can gain true clarity that will eventually ease depression and anxiety symptoms.
A study published in the September 1995 issue of the “Journal of Holistic Nursing” found that over a period of four weeks depression and anxiety symptoms were significantly reduced among participants who engaged in guided meditation while self-esteem dramatically increased. Another study published in “The Physical Educator” journal found the anxiety and depression symptoms among first-year college students were significantly reduced due to guided imagery sessions after a period of eight weeks.
Although depression and anxiety can be triggered due to a vast array of external and internal influences, eliminating the mental fog associated with these mental conditions may be accomplished by undergoing regular guided imagery sessions led by a professional facilitator. The aforementioned studies prove guided meditation can be effective at lowering depression symptoms; however, those with depression must make a true effort to regularly engage and participate in this internal healing process.
Optimism and Good Health
See the glass half full, relative the problems … In short, perceptions and expectations have a positive life and improves the mood every day can generate an extra benefit to their health. If previous research had indicated that optimists are less likely to suffer a heart attack, now a new study suggests that their brain is also more protected from stroke.
It may be as simple as positive people have healthier habits or otherwise, that those who follow a healthy lifestyle habits tend to be happier and do not give too much on the pitfalls of everyday life. And maybe this is the reason that pose less risk of suffering a stroke, also known as stroke, heart attack or stroke. The fact is that this association is that researchers have detected the University of Michigan in an observational study conducted with 6044 adults over 50 years.
Each participant is evaluated their level of optimism with the revised Life Orientation Test, a widely used tool in which responses are measured on a scale of 16 points. After considering numerous factors that could influence the development of stroke, such as having a chronic illness, the socio-demographic or biological, psychological and behavioral, found that for each point on the scale is reduced by 9% risk of acute stroke in the next two years.
“The results suggest that the effect of optimism in stroke is not attributable to other psychosocial risk factors for cardiovascular disease such as anxiety, hostility, depression, neurotic personality, pessimism and low positive affect,” said the authors in their study , which has been published in the journal Stroke. ”
In this case, the test used independently assessed optimism and pessimism, which in previous studies had not been made nor had included such a large sample of participants. “Previous research had suggested that being pessimistic or have a low and transient positive emotions were associated with a lower risk of stroke,” however, this is “the Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Medical News, Neurology, Psychiatry | Tags: Good Health, Optimism, positive life | No Comments »
Brain Response to Fear
According to Aristotle described the fear, the identification with the suffering of the characters and the emotions that inspired the rest of Greek tragedy achieved a ‘catharsis’ of the spectators, who were thus released from their own fears. His soul, said the philosopher, was purified.
Now, brain scanning techniques and analysis of hormones have allowed scientists to delve into the biomedical foundation of this purgative experience.
Stressful experiences rewire the way the brain works: the senses are sharpened, bad memories are relived and blocked the mechanisms we use to deliberate slowly. This prompts us to act quickly and offer a reply attack, flee … – the threat that we face.
In order to analyze the neurochemical mechanisms associated with this condition, a team of researchers has exposed 80 volunteers to viewing scenes of terror.
The study, led by Erno Hermans, University of New York (USA), and published in the journal Science’, has confirmed that the brain reorganizes its neural networks to respond to stress and has generated trace how this change .
Several cortical and subcortical areas of the brain are activated and increase their connectivity during the viewing, as has been shown resonance imaging.
This restructuring is motivated, according to research by the action of the neurotransmitter noradrenaline, as has been measured in the participants. By contrast, cortisol, another hormone involved in stress response is not involved in this process, as scientists have found.
To measure the response of the volunteers, the researchers underwent both horror films scenes as current volunteers, and measured in their Read the rest of this entry »