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LOVE ADDICTION

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Fumiko Hoeft, MD, PhD, Director, Lab of Educational NeuroScience (BrainLENS); Associate Professor, University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine

Roy F. Baumeister, PhD, Francis Eppes Professor of Psychology, Florida State University; Co-Author, Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength (2011)

Stephanie M. Jones, PhD, Associate Professor in Human Development and Urban Education Advancement; Co-Director, Making Caring Common Initiative; Co-Project Director, Rigorous and Regulated Learning Environments, Harvard Graduate School of Education

Rick Hanson, PhD, Senior Fellow, Greater Good Science Center, University of California, Berkeley; Author, Hardwiring Happiness: The New Brain Science of Contentment, Calm and Confidence (2013)

Marc A. Brackett, PhD, Director, Center For Emotional Intelligence; Senior Research Scientist in Psychology, Yale University

Richard Weissbourd, PhD, Senior Lecturer on Education; Co-Director, Making Caring Common Project and Caring Schools Initiative, Harvard Graduate School of Education

Laurence Steinberg, PhD, Distinguished University Professor, Temple University; Author, Age of Opportunity: Lessons from the New Science of Adolescence (2014)

Jessica Minahan, MEd, BCBA, Director of Behavioral Services at NESCA-Newton; Adjunct Professor, Boston University; Co-Author, The Behavior Code (2012)

Kenneth R. Ginsburg, MD, Professor of Pediatrics, The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania; Author, Raising Kids to Thrive (2015), Reaching Teens (2014) and Building Resilience in Children and Teens (2011)

Leah H. Somerville, PhD, Director, Affective Neuroscience & Development Laboratory; Assistant Professor of Psychology, Center for Brain Science, Harvard University

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NG,BEHAVIOR, AND EVENMENTAL WELL-BEING.18

DISCOVERING THSCOVERING TUT MAY INFLUENUT MAY INFLUEN

OUR THINKINOUR THINKINHAVIOR, AND EVAVIOR, AND EVENTAL WELL-BEINNTAL WELL-BEIN

Frontal Lobes10 Four Surprising Ways to Increase Your Life Expectancy

11 Six Ways You Can Beat Winter Time Depression

12 Seven Tips on Healthy Living

Cover14 The Science of Love Addiction

18 Curing the Mind through the Gut

22 A Brief History of Wellness and the Brain

26 Yoga and its Effects on the Parasympathetic Nervous System

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Brain in Focus46 Understanding the Master Gland

Personality 50 Lucy Brown: the Neuroscience of Romantic Love

Education54 Neuroscience and Community Outreach: A Personal Account

Global 56 How Neuroscientists Can Help Poverty

Business58 Managing Work Stress

62 Couple Therapy by the Moschettas: Self-Transcending Love

Resources 64 TV: Limitless Possibilities

66 Book Roundup

68 Creativity Comic

Events 70 Calendar of Brain-Related Events

The Last Word72 Persevering Through Hardship

FALL 2015

Fall 2015


Brain World is published by The Earth Citizen Way, Inc. VOL. 7, NO. 1, Fall, 2015. All contents in BRAIN WORLD are copyrighted to The Earth Citizen Way Inc. and are protected by all applicable laws. BRAIN WORLD is not responsible for the return or loss of any unsolicited manuscripts, artwork, promotional materials or any other unsolicited items. No part of this periodical may be reproduced without the written consent of the publisher. BRAIN WORLD’s name, logo, and various titles and headings herein, are trademarks of The Earth Citizen Way, Inc. PRINTED IN THE USA.

BrainWorld Fall 2015

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■ While we think of the mind and body as different places, the two are actually much more con-nected than we often realize. In fact, our bodily sense of wellness has a great deal to do with the brain. If you’re feeling sick, the malady seems to permeate through everything, making it nearly impossible to be yourself — even something as simple as a change in seasons or amount of avail-able daylight can easily affect your mood and overall sense of well-being, though not irreversibly. As we’ve often heard, it’s easy to make yourself sick, agonizing over a project or worrying about test results, but to make ourselves well may not necessarily be so hard to accomplish. We spend a great deal of time worrying about illnesses, sometimes to such a degree that we imagine we actually have them, but meditation has long been regarded as an important restorative practice, revered throughout the centuries by a number of cultures for its ability to renew the body with positive thought. Despite being regarded as an alternative medicine, modern physicians are starting to see its benefits. In fact, the brain’s powerhouse, the hypothalamus, is where chemicals that generate our moods and regulate our health are created and released into the bloodstream

— interestingly, a pea-sized region called the pitu-itary gland is responsible for most of them. While many holistic therapies seem to be focused on the individual, this interest hardly needs to stop there. As modern science repeatedly demonstrates, hu-mans are social beings who depend on each other for help and support, and as such constantly seek social interaction. Rather than solely reflecting on how we can improve our own wellness, the reward for helping others seems to be much more beneficial in the long run — we know how good we feel when we’re fully functional, so why not do what we can to spread this? Relationships can heal, they can improve the workplace and encourage us to work together in an effort of making our com-munities better through realizing our full potential as human beings. It is our sincere hope that you enjoy this issue of Brain World.

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Life expectancies of average Americans have reached unprecedented highs, according to a report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Most of

us are capable of living past their 79th birthday. While this sounds promising, we shouldn’t just assume that longevity will continue to rise infinitely throughout the future. A great deal of how long we live depends on how we take care of ourselves.

1. Drink less milk, but eat more cheese: We might have been raised to believe that milk does a body good, but studies show that exces-sive milk consumption may not be such a good thing. A collection of Swedish studies published in the British Medical Journal found that milk intake was correlated with higher rates of mortality and a greater likeli-hood of bone fractures. This may be due to the presence of a compound known as D-galactose in milk, something associated with natural aging in animals, with effects like shortened life spans, chronic inflammation, neurodegeneration, decreased immune response, and gene transcriptional changes. However, the potential risk posed by milk isn’t true for all dairy products, such as cheese and yogurt. In fact, high intake of fermented milk products lowers the risk of cardiovascular diseases. In order to meet your daily calcium requirements, you need only look to sources like green leafy vegetables.

2. Reduce or eliminate meat consumption: It’s certainly a difficult feat, especially when things like fried chicken exist in the world, but eating a vegetarian, or mostly vegetarian, diet does offer some protec-tive health benefits. A vegetarian diet is associated with lower rates of obesity, diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, and even certain cancers. If you must eat meat, try to avoid animals that are factory-farmed, as these products are more likely to contain E. coli, salmonella, campylobacter, as well as additives like antibiotics and growth hormones.

3. Adopt a pet: According to The Atlantic, “People with pets enjoy superior self-esteem, while suffering less depression due to an optimistic mindset that companionship with animals engenders.” Improved mental health means improved physical health and longevity. Owning a dog in particular can be advantageous to one’s health, as they require daily walks: “Dog owners worldwide enjoy longer lifespans on average. Positive health attributes dogs afford remain a constant for young and elderly alike, including weight maintenance, reduced blood pressure, and improved cardiovascular fitness.”

4. Throw away your TV: I never believed my parents’ warnings that my brain would turn into mush from watching too many cartoons. However, new research suggests they may have been onto something. The Australian Diabetes, Obesity, and Lifestyle Study revealed some shocking data — even more jaw-dropping than the “Orange Is the New Black” finale. Gretchen Reynolds of The New York Times explains the results: “Every single hour of television watched after the age of 25 reduces the viewer’s life expectancy by 21.8 minutes. By comparison, smoking a single cigarette reduces life expectancy by about 11 minutes.” Looking more broadly, an adult who spends an average of six hours a day watching TV throughout their lifetime can expect to live 4.8 years less than a person who does not watch TV. These results hold true, the authors point out, even for people who exercise regularly.

Perhaps at first glance, these tips sound like a recipe for a dull existence. However, the increased health and vitality that come with a vegetarian diet, the unconditionally loyal companionship of a pet, and the added hours for intellectual and spiritual pursuits that will result from turning off the TV, can all help you create not only a life with more years, but years with more life.

FOUR SURPRISING WAYS TO INCREASE YOUR LIFE EXPECTANCY

ONLIVINGWELLBy Betty R. Vine

Fall 2015

While the extra sleep you get from setting your clocks back an hour might be nice, there are a few reasons that this time of year may not agree with everyone. You might find yourself a bit irritated at having to wake up on cold, dark mornings, while the few hours of sunlight are only out when you’re trapped inside at work. Up to 20 percent of people across the globe suffer annually from some form of seasonal affective disorder — better known by the acronym SAD — during the fall and winter months. Fortunately, feeling down during these seasons is for the most part manageable. Here are a few ways to stay upbeat until spring:

1. Get a good night’s sleep: This one may seem obvious, but this can go a long way in keeping

SAD away. When we sleep we produce a brain chemi-cal called melatonin, a hormone which is critical in maintaining a normal daily routine. Try to be consis-tently going to sleep at the same time every night — losing just 38 minutes of sleep can make a big difference in the way your body produces melatonin.

2. Rearrange your lighting: Researchers sus-pect that those with SAD may be less light

sensitive than most people — reacting to artificial light in a different way than to sunlight, and their bodies don’t perceive the day changes during win-ter. You might want to rearrange your furniture or even bed to have it in closer proximity of the available sunlight, so that you can take in greater amounts of light when the sun rises and sets.

3. Eat more fish: Those most vulnerable to sea-sonal changes tend to live further away from

the equator — with Alaska and Canada reporting high numbers of SAD. However, fish rich in omega-3 amino acids could make a difference. Researchers noted that northern countries, where fish are a dietary staple — such as Japan and Iceland — had significantly lower rates of seasonal depression than expected.

4. Exercise can make a difference: While you may feel less motivation for working out,

make sure you get plenty of exercise through the darker months — beyond the inevitable raking of leaves or snow shoveling. It’s ideal to get your ex-ercise outdoors and to keep moving, as workouts allow the brain to produce dopamine as a reward chemical. If it’s too cold, the gym might be more desirable — but try to stay near an open window with plenty of light.

5. Maintain a schedule: In addition to keep-ing regular bedtime hours, try to organize

as much of your day as possible, to help reduce anxiety, which will help keep you as productive as possible throughout the day. Also, keep track of your mealtimes, as many people with seasonal de-pression tend to eat more carbohydrates and gain weight during the winter months.

6. Travel: This seems like a tall order — but seasonal depression may be an evolutionary

leftover from the days when humans were always on the move. Even a change of scenery for a short time can make a difference when battling winter-onset depression. If you need to, try to hold onto a few vacation days from work for some quick travel-ing or sightseeing at a sunnier location during the cold months.

SIX WAYS YOU CAN BEAT WINTERTIME DEPRESSION

By Earl Meagan

FrontalLobes


1. SLEEP ENOUGH, AND WELL: First, check your sleep habits. Do you sleep enough? How’s the quality of your sleep? If your sleep schedule is irregular or if you’re getting to bed too late, you may not be get-ting the rest you need even though you’re getting enough hours. Whenever possible, go to bed before midnight and have some quiet time before you sleep. Eating too late or overstraining your eyes at night are habits that can negatively affect the quality of your sleep. Try five minutes of deep breathing or gentle leg shaking to relax your system if you have difficulty falling asleep.

With the oncoming flu season and lots of inevitable time spent

indoors, fall and winter aren’t for everyone. Whether you’re man-

aging seasonal allergies, recovering from an illness, or just looking

to strengthen your immune system so you don’t get sick next win-

ter, here are seven simple things you can start doing today to make

yourself healthier, happier, and more resilient.

seven tips on healthy livingBy David Driscoll

FrontalLobes

live well, feel well

2. TAKE CARE OF YOUR SPINE: Any and all messages between the body and the brain travel through the spine. And, as you might know from your own experience, the spine can become stiff and blocked by things like too much time spent sitting at a computer, or straining a muscle by slipping in the bathtub. Over time, blockages in the spine lead to imbalances and potential ill-nesses, with symptoms too numerous to list. In order to release blockages in your spine, try these exercises: Stand with your knees bent, gently twisting your upper body — left and right — from the waist, 30 to 50 times, feeling the back muscles squeeze and stretch; or, lie down, hug your knees and try rolling — side to side or up and down — gently on your back while ex-haling through the mouth, doing this daily on a carpet or soft floor, 20 to 30 times. These routines will gradually improve the flexibility and circulation in your spine.

3. PRACTICE PROPER BREATHING: Most people know that breathing is relax-ing. But did you know it also activates a whole range of healing processes in the body? Here are just a few: it cleans out toxins, improves blood circulation and digestion, and reduces joint pain and inflammation. When you’re worn down, deep breathing can help you recharge. Also, the depth of your breath during the day affects how deeply you breathe when you’re asleep. If your breathing muscles are underdeveloped when you’re awake, they won’t magically become stronger while you’re asleep. If you wake up often or suffer from sleep apnea at night, try these exercises: Before bed, breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth very comfortably, at least 20 times, focus-ing on feeling the chest rise and fall — doing this, pay particular attention to the feeling of your chest emptying out and softening as you exhale.

“ Bastyr is giving me the tools to build a career that balances research and seeing patients. ”

Joshua Goldenberg, ND (2013)

Learn more: Batyr.edu/Exercise

Create a Healthier WorldDegrees Include:

Create a Healthier WorldDegrees Include:

Fall 2015

LONGTIME MEDITATION PRACTITIONERS, LIKE BUDDHIST

MONKS, HAVE BEEN FOUND TO ACTIVATE MORE OF THEIR

BRAINS AND HAVE HIGHER GAMMA WAVE ACTIVITY THAN

OTHER HEALTHY PEOPLE.

5. LAUGH: For most people, it’s common sense — it feels good to laugh. But do you laugh enough? Research has found that laughter is a powerful muscle relaxant, that it decreases stress hormones and increases immune cells and antibodies, as well as releases endorphins and improves circulation. See if you can make yourself laugh intentionally. Start with a “fake” laugh, focus on the feel-ing of the laughter becoming more authentic, and as you keep saying “Ha, ha, ha,” you may find yourself genuinely beginning to laugh. This works especially well with a good friend. You might not want to do it in a public place, unless of course you can get everyone to join in!

6. DO VOLUNTEER WORK: Doing volunteer or charity work, or engaging in any kind of effort that aims to help others, is a great thing. The world needs more people taking action for the common good. But there’s another reason to help out — it makes you healthier. Studies at various charities have shown that doing volunteer work can improve your health and happiness. Surprisingly, the people doing the giving often benefit more than the ones receiving it. Perhaps there’s some truth to the old saying, “It’s better to give than to receive.”

7. DEVELOP A SPIRITUAL PRACTICE: Believing in some-thing “bigger” — whether through organized religion, or not — has been shown to positively affect one’s health and well-being. When done in a community, spiritual practice provides a kind of support and peace of mind that goes beyond mere thoughts and emotions. If you’re beginning your own spiritual practice, don’t be discouraged if it at first feels awkward or forced. Like with anything else, spirituality too sometimes requires practice. That doesn’t make it any less authentic. Practice your spirituality like you would practice music — learn some basics, find a teacher and a group to play with, and develop your own particular sense of rhythm and harmony. Most importantly, have fun!

4. MEDITATE: Brainwaves play important roles in main-taining a healthy and positive consciousness. Higher-fre-quency brainwaves are typically associated with learning and organizing information, lower-frequency ones with relaxation and healing. Meditation has been shown to activate a wider range of brainwaves and proven to help individuals recover a more natural balance, especially if they have been subjected to prolonged stress or illness. Longtime meditation practitioners, like Buddhist monks, have been found to activate more of their brains and have higher gamma wave activity than other healthy people. Try your own meditation after doing some gentle exer-cises, deep breathing, or easy dancing.

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THE SCIENCE OF LOVE ADDICTIONBy Lauren Migliore

Anyone that has ever fallen in love knows the feeling — sleepless-ness, loss of appetite, the feeling of euphoria, and the willingness to take risks that you wouldn’t normally consider. It’s an experi-ence of feeling high not unlike the effect induced by narcotics, and it’s mighty addictive.

“Romantic love is an addiction,” says Helen Fisher, a biological an-thropologist at Rutgers University. “My guess is that our modern ad-dictions — nicotine, drugs, sex, gambling — are simply hijacking

this ancient brain pathway that evolved millions of years ago, that evolved for romantic love. The brain system evolved to focus your energy on an individual and start the mating process.”

Coincidently, people in the early throes of love have brain activity identical to that of a drug addict in need of a fix. It’s involuntary. The brain’s fear alert system (the amygdala) along with our judg-ment and reasoning system (the anterior cingulate cortex and pre-frontal cortex) are nearly muted while the neurotransmitter do-pamine (the “pleasure chemical”) floods the brain’s pleasure and reward centers. What’s more, brain circuits associated with states of obsession, mania, and recklessness also become activated. Interest-ingly, amphetamines, cocaine, and opiates like heroin, morphine, and OxyContin, trigger these same neural circuits.

When that rush of dopamine is released and the reward circuit of the brain is triggered, our brain fires a message to our consciousness saying, “Pay attention to what’s happening and start craving this experience because it’s important.” And therein lies the reason we love the excitement and newness of blossoming relationships. The first kiss, cuddling, sex, or even just a mere touch is more exciting during the infatuation stages of relation-ships because the brain recognizes it as reward. As the relationship continues, love addicts need more and more affirmation to keep the high going, not unlike substance abuse users. When the relationship ends, the effects are no different than those felt during a drug with-drawal.

“Nobody gets out of love alive,” Fisher says. “You turn into a men-ace or a pest when you’ve been rejected. That’s when people stalk or commit suicide. There’s a very powerful brain system that has a dramatic effect on your entire life.”

To test this, Fisher recruited 15 college-aged heterosexual men and women still going through the pain of a recent breakup. On aver-age, the participants had separated about two months prior to the study, and all of them said they were still in love. Each participant was given pictures of their ex lover while researchers used functional MRI to take a closer look at the behavior of their brains. The parts of their brain that bustled with activity were the same ones associ-ated with cocaine and nicotine ad-diction, physical pain and distress, and attachment.

Yes, it sounds ridiculous, but love addiction is a thing, and

it can be as destructive,

at least emotionally, as substance

abuse.

■ Have you ever stayed in a bad relationship or repeatedly returned to an ex even when you knew it wasn’t a good idea? When you’re in a committed relationship do you wonder if you’ve chosen the right one? Have you ever fantasized about someone from your past, thinking you should have kept them around? If you answered “yes” to any of the above, you just might be addicted to love.

It may sound ridiculous, but love addiction is a thing, and it can be as destructive, at least emotionally, as substance abuse. Love addicts enter each relationship with desperate hopes and constant fears that may eventually lead to their downfall. Fearing rejection, pain, and having little faith in their ability to receive love, they wait and wish for love, yet when they have it, they sabotage it.

The causes of love addiction are fairly easy to identify: low self-esteem, absence of positive role models for committed relationships, and obsession with the “happily ever after.” But neuroscience is beginning to offer considerable evidence that while love addiction stems from past experiences, it’s also rooted deep in the brain, and more specifically, it’s the result of the brain’s reward circuitry.


“You just crave this person. You’re willing to do crazy things, stupid things,” Fisher says. Just as like someone fighting a drug addic-tion, a lovelorn individual obsesses over their loss, craves the other person, and in this craze distorts re-ality. This in turn arouses desires to repair the broken relationship and repent for past mistakes, as well as a willingness to tolerate anything to re-connect with the lost partner. The second that you see or hear from the ex lover again, this incites hope and your brain automatically recognizes it as a reward — do-pamine is replenished, the high is back, and our better judgment is suppressed.

Similarly, love addicts who are in committed relationships experi-ence these same feelings. Accord-ing to Suzanne Phillips, a licensed psychologist specializing in love addiction, love addicts tend to ob-sess over maintaining the connec-tion, approval, or even fantasized attachment to a partner. These relationships are built on rigid and demanding versions of the other person, but unfortunately, the ability to trust is absent. In-stead, there’s an inability to hold on to positive feelings about one-self or about the love of the partner. Often anxiety is colored by jeal-ousy and paranoid fears. A good evening, or even a great vacation, never holds. It always just ends up being a temporary fix for negative feelings of insecurity, despair, and fear of abandonment. In turn, the relationship is a cycle of euphoria, depression, and self-sabotage — the love addict denies reality and endlessly searches for a flicker of the early magic while tolerating anything to get it. The constant and insistent demands for reassur-ance ultimately ignite rejection, rage, and threaten to disconnect the sufferer from their partner.

Healthy relationships are the opposite. Couples go from the euphoria of the infatuation stage to a loving commitment, understand-ing, and acceptance of the other — faults and all.

WHAT STOPS ADDICTIVE RELATIONSHIPS? Knowing why the brain does what it does during love addiction can-not change the unconscious drive of wanting to attach, at all costs — but it does help. If it really is an addiction, it has to be treated as one. And that’s usually a matter of spending time and space away from what’s causing the addiction.

According to Fisher, the age-old adage that “as time goes on, the pain fades away” is spot on, and there’s scientific evidence to sup-port it. “Time does heal,” Fisher says, explaining that as more time passed, activity in the parts of the brain associated with attachment and addiction decreased. “People have always said time heals and we’ve proven it.”

The point is this: The drive to fall in love will always be hovering in the background. Being in love, however, is an incredibly elusive thing, and its ultimate success de-pends on more than the sporadic, euphoric rush. It requires emotion-ally healthy individuals. As a rela-tionship progresses and the process unfolds, the brain needs less of the pleasure chemicals to spark the reward circuitry. Love evolves into a constant, emotional bond, one that is impervious to temporary highs and lows. We may not strike gold on the first, second, or even the 17th attempt — and that’s OK, because somewhere between time and experience, devastation and despair, we’ll figure things out.

Neuroscience is beginning to offer considerable evidence that while love addiction stems from past experiences, it’s also rooted deep in the brain, and more specifically, it’s the result of the reward circuitry in the brain.

Fall 2015

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GATEWAY TO THE BRAIN?The gastrointestinal tract contains about 500 million neurons, as many as are in the spinal cord. Called the “second brain” by Mi-chael Gershon, M.D., the GI tract houses the enteric nervous sys-tem. The ENS contains many of the same neurotransmitters as the brain, including 95 percent of serotonin, the “feel good” neu-rotransmitter, as well as neurons and proteins. The gut has a mind of its own, and it may be as powerful as the one in your head.

Linking the central nervous sys-tem and the ENS is the vagus (“wandering”) nerve, a two-way street between the brain and abdo-men. Most signals do not travel from the head to the gut, but from the gut to the head. About 90 per-cent of messages are conveyed from the vagal receptors to the CNS. The gut also contains 70 percent of immune cells, along with various chemicals and microbes.

Many inflammatory disorders have been linked to changes in the gut ecosystem, or microbiome (the 100 trillion bugs living on our skin, in our mouths, gut, and elsewhere on our bodies). Gut bacteria are essential to our im-munity, aid digestion, support metabolism, and ward off harmful invaders. Stress, pollution, and processed food can upset the bacte-rial balance, causing the immune system to release chemicals that trigger inflammation and can lead to disease. If communication is bidirectional, stress-related changes to the microbiome may affect brain function and behavior.

This raises the possibility that adding “good” bacteria could re-store gut harmony and mental well-being. “A new class of pro-biotics could be used to address neurodevelopmental, behavioral, and perhaps even neurodegenera-tive disorders,” says Sarkis Mazma-nian, Ph.D., a microbiologist at the California Institute of Technology.

UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF BUGS Everyone is born with a pristine gut. Colonization during birth and shortly afterward helps program one’s responses to stress, and may even influence a person’s behavior.

In 2004, Nobuyuki Sudo, Ph.D., and colleagues at Kyushu University in Japan discovered that introduc-ing bacteria to mice with a sterile gut altered brain chemistry and behavior. They found that germ-free mice were more anxious. Adding the probiotic Bifidobacterium to their gut flora had calming effects on the mice and lowered corticos-terone (the stress hormone) levels.

Over the next 10 years, scientists uncovered further evidence of the interplay between the brain and gut. Mazmanian shifted his earlier focus from immunity to how intestinal bacteria interact with the brain. “Gut microbes were communicat-ing with the nervous system and potentially with the brain itself,” he says. In a 2013 study, Mazmanian and neuroscientist Elaine Hsiao investigated behavior in mice that were bred to exhibit symptoms of autism. Altering bacterial composi-tion reduced gut permeability and caused noticeably profound changes in the behavior of mice that were influenced by the microbiome.

At McMaster University in On-tario, the gastroenterologist Pre-mysl Bercik, M.D., found that harmful bacteria can increase anxi-ety while beneficial bacteria can reduce it. In one study, Bercik and colleagues replaced the gut bacteria in a timid strain of germ-free mice with microbes from fearless mice. Resultantly, the fearful mice were transformed into more adventur-ous creatures, while the bold mice grew anxious after getting mi-crobes from the timid mice.

Yet, how the gut talks to the brain remains largely uncertain. Scientists at the University College Cork, Ireland, severed the vagus nerve in mice before giving them probiotics. The mice had lower anxiety levels — but only if the vagus nerve was intact. The results suggest its importance, but stop short of explaining how bacteria actually influences the brain.

The endocrinologist Mark Lyte, Ph.D., suggested that gut microbes speak to the brain using their own neurotransmitters. Gut bacteria produce and respond to the same chemicals the brain uses to govern mood (e.g., serotonin, dopamine, and GABA). Presumably, the brain might monitor — and react to — “gut feelings” in order to con-trol outside influences. Probiotics may alleviate anxiety by producing anti-inflammatory molecules, such as serotonin, or reducing activ-ity of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, a set of organs whose interaction helps regulate stress.

The fearful mice were

transformed into more

adventurous creatures, while

the bold mice grew anxious after getting

microbes from the timid mice.

■ Many cultures recognize the importance of gut health — but recently it’s attracted the attention of the medical world as well. Scientists are now discovering that the gut may influence our thinking, behavior, and even mental well-being. The state of our insides could in fact shape the way we interact with the outside world.

Fall 2015

TREATING THE GUT TO TREAT THE BRAINThe beneficial effects of prebiotics and probiotics on digestive health in humans are well known. How-ever, there are not too many studies on how they affect the brain.

One research team, led by the neuroscientist Philip Burnet, Ph.D., at the University of Oxford, tested the effects of prebiotics on anxiety in 45 healthy adults. Pre-biotics are carbohydrates (fibers) that feed beneficial bacteria already found in the gut. Participants re-ceived either a prebiotic supple-ment or placebo every day for three weeks. The results were recently published in the Journal of Psycho-pharmacology.

“People who are depressed tend to focus on negative information,” says Burnet. To test emotional pro-cessing, the researchers performed several computerized assessments, such as eliciting responses to posi-tive and negative words. “After us-ing prebiotics people focused more on positive stimuli than negative information,” says Burnet. Saliva cortisol levels were also lower in the prebiotic group than in controls, indicating diminished anxiety.

The reduction in anxiety is likely due to the anti-inflammatory ef-fects of gut bacteria, according to Burnet. The gut responds to stress or infection by releasing inflamma-tory cytokines, these in effect dis-turb brain chemistry and increase susceptibility to anxiety or depres-sion. Prebiotics may increase bacte-rial diversity, which alters the gut ecosystem and helps put out the fire. “The results suggest prebiotics could work on mechanisms that affect mental health,” Burnet says.

A recent study, led by psycholo-gist Laura Steenbergen from the Leiden Institute of Brain and Cognition in the Netherlands, investigated the potential effects of probiotics on depression. For four weeks, 40 healthy partici-pants received either a multistrain probiotic or placebo. The results appeared in the April 2015 issue of Brain, Behavior, and Immunity. “Rumination is one of the most predictive vulnerability markers of depression,” said Steenbergen in a statement. “Persistent ruminative thoughts often precede and predict

episodes of depression.” At the end of the study, the probiotic users had fewer negative thoughts than the placebo group, suggesting that beneficial bacteria have the power to brighten up a dark mood.

Probiotics have also been linked to activation of certain brain areas. A 2013 study by Kirsten Tillisch, M.D., and colleagues used func-tional MRI to measure changes in resting brain activity and emotion-recognition. They gave 36 healthy women probiotics twice daily for four weeks. Twelve consumed a probiotic yogurt, 11 had a non-probiotic yogurt, and 13 received no intervention. The fMRI re-sults showed that probiotics led to reduced reactivity in the brain regions associated with anxiety (in-cluding the insula and somatosen-sory cortex) in response to images of angry or frightened faces. Their research was an important step in demonstrating the influence of gut health on brain circuitry.

Perhaps one day a drug remedy-ing the gut could treat the brain? Most scientists agree it’s too soon to tell. “Probiotics and prebiotics offer a natural option without the side effects of drugs that target the brain, but it is unlikely that they will re-place traditional therapies,” cau-tions Burnet. “They could improve brain function overall, and therefore improve the response to a drug in treatment-resistant patients.”

The results suggest prebiotics could work on mechanisms that affect mental health.

A Brief Historyof Wellness

and the BrainBy Nicole Dean

OnFeeling

Well

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■ Did you know you might be living in the golden age of brain science? Our understanding of the human brain is expanding so rapidly that some scientists are calling it such. Yet, there is so much to discover that oth-ers liken the brain to a vast, unknown frontier. One thing is known for sure, though — to understand the brain is to understand ourselves.

But for much of human history, the brain was not held in such high regard. The ancient Egyptians, when prepar-ing bodies for mummification, would discard the brain while preserving the organs deemed more important for one’s journey into the afterlife, like the heart, lungs, and liver. In some of the most ancient medical texts, the func-tions of the mind are usually assigned to the heart, not to the brain. The brain was dismissed as mere cranial stuffing.

Today, even primary school kids have some idea about the brain and its function — that it’s a gray, wrinkly thing we use to think. And few people would dismiss its importance. For us, to lose our brains’ functions is to lose ourselves, and we thus dread the thought of dementia or brain injury, placing these among the worst of all possible fates. We now know that the brain is not just important, but is the very mediator of wellness. The health of the body can no longer be separated from the health of the brain, and the health of the brain cannot be separated from the health of the body.

continued on next page


The transition of how we gradu-ally came to view the brain so dif-ferently parallels the story of how people have related to health and wellness in general. Like so much else in human cultures, perceptions of what it means to be “healthy” have varied drastically throughout the past. Yet, these views can be generalized into two basic perspec-tives — holistic and mechanistic.

For much of human history, the conception of health has been ho-listic — focusing on the totality of the human being, rather than look-ing for the root cause of an illness within a particular organ or bodily function. In tribal societies, to this day, when someone is sick, no dis-tinctions are made between body, mind, and spirit. An illness rep-resents a disruption in the proper natural balance of things, and the individual is likely to be brought back into balance through the use of herbs, spiritual rituals, and energetic purification. Maintain-ing health, therefore, is a matter of understanding one’s relationship to the whole — to the whole of one’s tribe, to the whole of the earth, and to the whole of one’s own being.

The mechanistic point of view, which rose to prominence in the Western world along with indus-trialism, perceives the body as a machine. Symptoms of diseases are singled out for direct treatment, and the causes underlying the disorders are assigned to malfunctioning pro-cesses in the body. This viewpoint, at least at first glance, seems the most scientific — isolating and quantifying everything according to its separate form and function.

For those of us growing up in the Western world, this viewpoint now seems normal, even “tradi-tional.” Yet, the holistic view (the truly traditional one of the two) has persisted, leading to a kind of intellectual battle between those who advocate a holistic approach to health and those who prefer the mechanistic one. In the 20th century especially, attempts were made by the medical establishment — which advocates the manage-ment of symptoms through phar-maceuticals and other scientifically

validated treatments — to limit the practice of more holistic approach-es to health, such as naturopathy. In the 21st century, our healthcare professionals have arrived at some-thing of an uncomfortable truce. Medical doctors admit to the value of chiropractic with varying degrees of enthusiasm and/or skepticism, while celebrity advocates of “alter-native medicine,” like Dr. Andrew Weil and Dr. Mehmet Oz, receive only occasional derision from the American Medical Association.

Part of the reason for this reluc-tant acceptance is simple. We’re living in a small world these days. While a mechanistic view may continue to be the preferred West-ern approach, the lines between East and West are no longer as defi-nite as they once were. What was 50 years ago part of the “far out” counterculture of the beatniks and hippies — yoga, chakra balancing, medicinal herbs, acupuncture, and the like — has become much more mainstream. In fact, the word “wellness,” which connotes a more holistic approach to human health, was not at all common in English usage before the 1950s. At that point, its use increased exponen-tially, right alongside the soaring

interest in Eastern perspectives.The Eastern take on medicine is

essentially a highly developed, ho-listic view of human health. There are many variations of Eastern medicine in different Asian cul-tures, but they are all united by the idea of life energy, known as “qi.” This vital life energy is an invisible source of power that runs through our bodies and ties our health to our mind and spirit. As such, there is no concrete separation between mind, body, and soul. Rather than having been discovered through

scientific inquiry, the Eastern tra-ditional approach has evolved over thousands of years of observation, trial, and error. Science, however, has confirmed the efficacy of some of its practices, such as acupunc-ture along with certain Chinese medicinal herbs. They don’t know how all of it works, but they can’t deny that it is effective … at least some of the time.

But what does all of this have to do with the brain? Well, the brain is where holistic and mechanistic views converge. Since all other bodily functions are dependent on the brain, the brain is the single uniting organ — an individual part which is the ultimate unifier of all bodily processes, and the apparent seat of consciousness as well. Previ-ously, Western scientists separated the mind from the body into the dualistic “Cartesian split.” But the study of the brain will not support such a false dichotomy. Without a shadow of a doubt, neuroscientists

know that the mind influences the physical functioning of the brain and vice versa — they can see it right there on the CT scans. And what is the most basic functional element of the brain, the substance that jumps a million times from synapse to synapse every time we form a thought? That’s right … good old bioelectricity. There it is, energy — perhaps a confirmation of the qi life force running along a meridian system.

In discovering what is good for the brain, we are finding out what is good for the body and the spirit. In studying the effects of stress on the brain and body, for ex-ample, it has been impossible to separate the processes of our mind from the health of our bodies. And some of the best, scientifically con-firmed remedies for our stressed-out brains and bodies have come straight from spiritual practices, as in the case of meditation and yoga, ones which have proven ef-fective for treating issues like post-traumatic stress.

In the future, neuroscience will likely answer questions that we thought science could not answer, questions once thought better left to philosophers and gurus. What will we learn about ourselves in our quest for total wellness? When neuroscientists figure out what’s re-ally going on between our synapses on the quantum level? What will science tell us about how these energies interact with the energies that physicists tell us our entire universe is made out of? Will the gurus be saying, “I told you so,” or will science tell a different story en-tirely? Only time will tell, and what exciting times those will be.

Maintaining health, therefore, is a matter of understanding one’s

relationship to the whole — to the whole of one’s tribe, to the whole of the earth, and to the whole

of one’s own being.

On Feeling Well cont’d

WORLD LEADERSHIP PROGRAMBrain Education in the United NationsWhat if a critical mass of people...1. woke up their bodies and brains?2. learned to live in a way that creates health, happiness and peace for

themselves and those around them?3. centered their daily lives and choices in solving the problems of humanity

and the earth?IBREA believes that the world would fundamentally change

DO YOU WANT TO BE ONE OF THEM?You can start by doing our World Youth Leadership (WYL) Program! Join an international group of young people from the US, Korea, Japan, Europe, Latin America and Africa in an experience that will transform your view of yourself and the world

Contact [email protected] or call 2123190848 for more information

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I’ve always really wanted to like yoga. And with its growing popu-larity, there are at least seven yoga studios within a five-mile radius of me. I have no excuses. Unfor-tunately, it’s never held my interest much. Where’s the fast-paced cir-cuit training? The loud music? The squats, sprints, and supersets? Yoga feels slow and it requires patience. And I’m not the patient type. I’m a Type A.

But I’m here for a reason. Over the past decade, there have been countless reports linking various personality traits — nervousness, anxiety, impatience, as well as those labeled as Type A behaviors — to heart disease, in both men and women alike. Given that heart dis-ease runs in my family, and I’m not growing younger, it’s time I learn how to relax and manage my stress.

According to the American Jour-nal of Epidemiology, “Continuing to over-activate the sympathetic nervous system increases the threat of heart attacks, heart rhythm disturbances and sudden cardiac deaths.” This is especially true for people who experience an exagger-ated heart rate and blood pressure in response to stress. You know the kind — it’s the quick-tempered hotheads. During stressful situa-tions, overstimulation of the SNS causes blood vessels to constrict too much, too little, or too often, leading to elevated blood pressure and cardiovascular damage.

To counte rac t th i s , we’re equipped with the parasympa-thetic nervous system. It’s com-monly known as the body’s repair system, stepping in when necessary to help calm things down. It relaxes muscles, improves blood flow and oxygen delivery, and stabilizes the body into a quieter, less stressful state. The more time the body spends with the PNS activated, the easier it is to feel rested and relaxed. These periods of calmness help bal-ance your nervous system and keep your entire body, including your heart, in a healthier state.

However, the obstacle in all of this is that the PNS takes more effort to stay active. When you’re operating in a chronically stressed state, your body’s repair systems aren’t running. Think about it — it’s far easier to become and stay frustrated while sitting in a traffic jam than it is to feel relaxed, right? It also doesn’t help that our lives have become a never-ending rou-tine of multitasking and juggling various assignments. Our to-do lists are endless, our schedules are overbooked, and we constantly op-erate in overdrive. Consequently, our SNS often lingers in the “on” state at times when all we really need is some time off.

And so, this begs the question, how do we use the PNS to keep stress at bay? The key is to pur-sue activities that reactivate this hampered system — but there is one activity in particular, involving various positions, deep breathing, and stretching, that more and more physicians are getting excited about.

Stop it — we’re not talking about that.

How is yoga so effective? It

reduces and balances out the levels of cortisol in our bodies,

a hormone that fuels our

split-second stress reactions.

In turn, this dampens the

body’s response to stress.

■ It’s time. I grab my mat, walk into the dimly lit studio, and find a place in the back. The instructor turns on soft background music reminiscent of a mountain retreat, and the class begins. We start out kneeling on our mats in the resting child’s pose, with our head down and arms stretched out in front. Deep breath in, and slow exhale. “I can totally do this,” I think to myself.

And in no time at all, I let my mind begin to wander. “It’s warm in here. Are all of these people regulars? Can they tell I’ve never done yoga before? I should get new yoga pants. I wonder if those expensive workout brands are worth the price. At least they’d make me look like I’m a regular. Did I turn my phone off? I hope. Did I lock my car? What time is tomorrow’s meeting? I still have to edit that report for the meeting. Have I really only been here for two minutes? I’m hungry. I hope my stomach doesn’t start growling. I don’t know what to make for dinner. A salad? But then I’ll have to stop at the store. What else could I make? Take-out? I really need to finish that report. What if my boss hates it and I lose my job, and, seriously, how have I only been in here for two minutes and 47 seconds?”

Here’s how it works: Every single time you are hassled, ir-ritated, worried, anxious, impa-tient, threatened, injured, upset, or stressed, your sympathetic ner-vous system revs up. Wait — the sympathetic what?

The SNS, put simply, manages our fight-or-flight response and prepares the body for action. It has evolved to keep us safe from preda-tors and threats. When the SNS is active, your blood pressure increas-es, your heart beats faster, digestion slows down, and you experience a surge of adrenaline — all ideal for helping you escape danger.

The problem lies in the fact that in today’s world, we use this survival mechanism less to flee from predators and more to fight off rush-hour traffic, meet work deadlines, stay alert during meet-ings, and endure the frantic ticking of the clock. As a result, our SNS stays on overdrive as we put our body under constant stress for reasons that are hardly life-threat-ening. What is life-threatening is our cardiovascular health that we’re putting at risk.

Fall 2015

We’re talking about yoga. Yoga is qualitatively different from any other type of physical activity in that it consists of a unique combi-nation of muscular contractions, stretching workouts, relaxation techniques, and breathing exer-cises. It’s not just some popular fad — it’s been around for thousands of years and its benefits go far beyond just feeling more relaxed. However, only recently have stud-ies convincingly proven that prac-ticing yoga on a regular basis can bring about measurable changes in the body’s SNS, helping to increase activity in our PNS while warding off symptoms of stress-related ill-nesses. Additionally, studies, espe-cially ones focusing on the impact of the autonomic nervous system on the heart, prove that yoga has an enormously positive effect on heart health.

How is yoga so effective? It re-duces and balances out the levels of cortisol in our bodies, a hormone that fuels our split-second stress reactions. In turn, this dampens the body’s response to stress. Yoga also boosts levels of the feel-good brain chemicals like GABA, se-rotonin, and dopamine — all re-sponsible for feelings of relaxation and contentedness. And, notably, it’s those three neurotransmitters that various mood-altering medica-tions like antidepressants and anti-anxiety drugs try to target.

Published in Alternative Thera-pies In Health And Medicine, a recent study examined the effects of yoga on patients with early and moderate stages of hypertension (high blood pressure). After the sessions, most patients were able to reduce their dose of blood pressure medications (or, in some cases, eliminate their intake altogether).

During a similar study, research instructor Paula R. Pullen, Ph.D., from the Morehouse School of Medicine, looked at yoga’s impact on inflammation by observing what happens in the bodies of heart failure patients attending

yoga classes. Pullen randomly as-signed some patients to yoga ses-sions while having others undergo standard medical care. Unsurpris-ingly, it was the patients attending yoga who experienced significantly improved levels of hormones, neu-rotransmitters, and biomarkers. Her findings illustrate how yoga can actually affect the tiniest mol-ecules, ones that are widely known to predict risk for serious diseases.

“People tend to think of yoga as being all about flexibility — it’s not,” says Pullen. “Yoga balances the body, the hormonal system, and the stress response. It’s about rebal-ancing and healing the body.” Plus, by reducing inflammation — a ma-jor health adversary, responsible for many problems, ranging from heart disease to diabetes to depression — the risk for the onset of major diseases is effectively lower.

And if that’s not enough, yoga has also been shown to boost im-mune functioning. Researchers speculate that this is due to a re-duction in the levels of cortisol — a stress hormone — in our bodies. Too much circulating cortisol can diminish how well the immune

The problem lies in the fact that in today’s world, we use this survival mechanism less to flee from predators and more to fight off rush-hour traffic, meet work deadlines, stay alert during meetings, and endure the frantic ticking of the clock.

system functions because it puts up a barrier against certain white blood cells that help fight off ill-nesses. By practicing yoga, we can boost our body’s defenses, and in turn, boost our health.

Back at my yoga class, we’re finishing up with “pranayama,” a standing pose focusing on deep breathing. I made it through an entire class, and despite the physi-cal and mental exertion, I actually do feel better — more relaxed and less stressed. I know one class isn’t a cure-all, nor will it eradicate all of life’s stressors, but it’s a start. And if anything, it’s taught me how to harness the power to make myself feel better. Plus, now I know it’s possible to get to a place where the L.A. rush hour won’t drive me off a mental cliff.


How Self-Aware Are We?By Drew Turney

■ In the movie “Self/less,” Ben Kingsley plays a wealthy industrialist who has only a few months left to live. So he hires an enigmatic medical organization to transfer his consciousness into the body of a younger man, one they tell him has been grown in a lab, an empty vessel of youth, strength, and vigor waiting for him to enjoy.

In terms of plot lines, the idea of transferring the mind into a new body — or even another substrate, like an electronic machine — isn’t new. We saw it in the most successful film of all time — James Cameron’s “Avatar,” as well as in the clas-sic anime “Ghost in the Shell,” and even in last year’s “Transcendence.”

But with our expanded knowledge of neuroscience and computing power, whose prospects today would have seemed like science fiction just a decade ago, might such a transposition be at all possible?

Some of the breakthroughs of the late 20th century in both data processing and cognition were achieved following the realization that brains and computers are actually quite similar. The on/off states of a computer bit are uncan-nily like the firing/dormant states of neurons.

If such mechanics gave rise to something as detailed and rich as human consciousness in the latter, couldn’t this awareness somehow be captured and transposed onto the digital body of the former?

LIFTING THE GHOST FROM THE MACHINEWhen it comes to capturing and transferring the activity of the mind, imagine some sort of neural scanner that can read the on/off states of every neuron in your brain, and is then able to trans-pose these into a computer program or even into another human brain. Might the “I” you can feel living in your body shake its new head, blink its eyes, and say “I think, therefore I am”?

Even if we’re not at that stage yet, surely we have the computing power to isolate and transport a certain “piece” of “mind stuff” — an individual instance of subjective, conscious experience, an element referred to by analytic philosophy as “qualia.”

Why isn’t there an iPhone app that can scan and send me the knowledge of your spouse’s birthday you hold inside your head, or send you a few seconds of my experience of the immedi-ate environment I was in while writing this very paragraph?

Baroness Susan Greenfield is a British scien-tist and author who’s been writing about minds and brains for decades. Besides her controversial views on how exposure to technology affects development in the young, her research also fo-cuses on the effects of Parkinson’s and Alzheim-er’s disease — and she reminds us that the brain isn’t a Google database where something like a fact can simply be downloaded and transmitted.

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“Say you know the word for ‘table’ in French,” she says. “That’s called semantic memory, which is memory for facts that aren’t re-ally personal to you. Now say you went to the seaside with Auntie Flo when you were 5 years old. Each time you recall it, it will be from a different perspective colored by changing attitudes to Auntie Flo, changing attitudes to holidays and other associations. Every memory you have is nested in other memo-ries and other values, so it’s not as if you can take a snapshot and download it.”

As such, the memory of that sea-side holiday when you were 5 years old isn’t a discrete “piece” of infor-mation, and, as it turns out, qualia is only a philosophical term. In the world of physics and biochemistry, a subjective memory or any other qualia (and the changes it under-goes) might be located in neural networks or maps spread all over the physical brain, an organ which itself changes its shape, position, and configuration all the time.

As a matter of fact, it’s the only way a brain is like a computer — that icon for a file on your desktop may look like a singular entity, but the bits and bytes that comprise it are spread all over your computer’s hard disk as magnetic impulses, and moreover, the file’s position and arrangement shifts every time you edit and re-save it or any other file on your system.

THE BRAIN AS DISTRIBUTED PROCESSORAll of which means that no mem-ory, thought, or emotion exists in isolation. Omit one neural impulse that fires when a memory is re-called or an incident experienced and you’re likely to miss or mix up critical data in the transfer. Maybe, as a result, you’ll end up with a memory of a holiday with Uncle Max, even though he wasn’t there. Maybe you’ll be certain that it was Martha’s Vineyard and not Laguna Beach that you visited. Maybe you’ll recall the ocean being purple.

So might the obvious solution be — as we wondered above — to scan the entire brain and take a “snapshot” of the brain’s state? If the particular arrangement of your brain in any given moment gives rise to a specific state of mind, won’t capturing this neural ar-rangement theoretically let you move your state of consciousness somewhere else?

We’ve entered the realm of func-tionalism, a school of thought that everything we think, feel, remem-ber, and know indeed arises simply from the mechanical architecture of brain cells and electrical signals between successive synapses.

Let’s say we had the technology to replace a single neuron and have its job be done exactly the same way by a futuristic version of a vacuum tube or microprocessor. In this way, as you would get older and succumb to the inevitable physical breakdown caused by ag-ing, this exchange would be done to more and more components, until eventually your entire biolog-ical brain will have been replaced with bits of machinery. Will the “I” you can feel living inside you still be there?

Functionalism says it will, and it’s a belief we ascribe to the rest of the body with surprising conviction. If you lost an arm in an accident and received a prosthetic implant, would you feel any less “you”?

As such, functionalism contends that if we can create a brain from a lab-grown sample or computer program and then move the “brain state snapshot” of your mind onto it, it will go on to feel, emote, and experience everything to the same degree you can.

THE ILLUSORY SOULA follow-on effect of functional-ism many find disturbing is that the “I” inside us is just a byproduct of the brain reacting instinctively to the environment, no differently than we assume it does in an earth-worm or flea.

Computer scientist Anthony Simola’s book, “The Roving Mind: A Modern Approach to Cognitive Enhancement,” explains more. On the subject, cognitive scientists Marvin Minsky and Steven Pinker have both argued that conscious-ness is an illusion constructed by the brain’s subcomponents, and as such there is no real “I” inside our heads making independent decisions: “Indeed, one of the long-standing tenets of neuroscience and philosophy is that minds are what brains do — in other words, our consciousness arises from electrical signals and there is no soul or ghost in the machine, so to speak. Con-sciousness, then, is a mere halluci-nation — we only feel like we are in charge and make free decisions, whereas in reality our decisions are dictated to us by the laws of phys-ics and the motion of particles that were put in place 13.7 billion years ago at the birth of our Universe.”

Along these lines, Simola ex-plains that if functionalism works, it’s because we actually can’t replace bits of your brain with technology and expect “you” to remain inside it because there’s no “you” to begin with. “What does exist — and only as an abstraction — is a pattern of continuation that can be stored somewhere as information, includ-ing your DNA, your memories, and the infinite number of itera-tions of your persona that followed each other.”

“Consciousness, then, is a mere hallucination

— we only feel like we

are in charge and make

free decisions, whereas in reality our

decisions are dictated to us by the laws of

physics and the motion of particles that were put in place 13.7

billion years ago at the birth of

our Universe.”

Transposed Mind cont’d


But the paradox proposed by functionalism is that the being cre-ated when we somehow transpose a mind will actually think and feel, at least as we understand these terms. Regardless of whether the above is true, we’re still machines whose purpose is to think and feel, reacting to outside stimulus and deceived by the illusion of a free will. Granted, this implies that the facsimile will act and feel the same.

Joel Richeimer, co-chairman of the neuroscience department at Kenyon College, Ohio, says that if we gradually replaced the necessary parts with machinery the result wouldn’t be a human because of the unique confluence of what it is that makes something human to begin with.

“A human is a member of a spe-cies that has a specific evolutionary history,” he says. “A robot won’t be human, but maybe that’s not the question.” But he agrees that — ac-cording to functionalism — if we created a functional equivalent to a human being, placed it in a human environment and gave it the proper inputs, it would “think” and “feel” inasmuch as we know what such qualities mean.

“What is pain? It’s the function to warn us of possible tissue dam-age. If that’s the correct analysis of pain, then it’s theoretically possible to build a machine that experiences pain,” he says.

THE NUANCE OF FLESHWhich brings us to the next hurdle. Those scientists excited by the ad-vent of mind transplantation, arti-ficial intelligence, and every other technology that would be enabled by the brain’s alleged similarity to the computer, were actually dead wrong — the two are nothing alike.

Rather than the neuron being a chemical-based instrument no different than the electromagnetic-based computer byte, Greenfield reminds us that brains have far more analogue gradients than the binary on/off states of a machine.

“An action potential is the uni-versal signature of a neuron,” she says, “so it made it easy for peo-ple to draw parallels with on/off switches, but we know there’s a lot more going on than just the generation of an action potential.”

Meaning that when we scan our hypothetical brain state, we have to do much more than just see whether all 100 billion neurons are switched on or off and which of the 7,000 synaptic connections they have committed to at the same instant. To move or digitize the complete consciousness, we’d have to account for every possible chemical reaction and behavior, no matter how small.

THE MIND IN SITUGiven the technological advance-ments of computing power, maybe we can get over the issue of the massive memory space needed for capturing an individual state, nev-ertheless, a whole new problem awaits us. The brain doesn’t exist in isolation. It both receives and sends a constant stream of communica-tion to and from every other system in the body. One view of anatomy might be that the brain is merely a clearinghouse for disparate bits of information, with consciousness being a mere foil for driving the body to meet its needs (one of the views of functionalism).

You’re hungry or sexua l ly aroused in response to needs com-municated by the body, but they’re felt as brain states — some would say emotions — that are as much a part of your sense of self as your political views or career ambitions.

It works the other way too. Study after study confirms that married people live longer, and that religious people are more satis-fied, not because of their piety, but because they feel they belong to a supportive community.

“Think of the placebo effect,” Greenfield says. “We know your mental state can change things like your immune system physically. If you’re depressed you get more ill and so on.”

Perhaps all this means is that to take a complete copy of the brain we’d also have to scan and capture the complete state of everything connected with it (central nervous

system, reproductive system, diges-tive system, etc.)?

If you transposed the mind state onto another body without all that, might you end up with a catastrophic system crash, because every individual body is so com-pletely different? And not just at the microscopic cellular level. Put the confident mind of a tall, strap-ping man into a short, pudgy body of a boy, and who knows what kind of psychosis might result?

The memories and the sense of self forming your brain state right now have been inextricably informed and construed by every-thing from your upbringing to the foibles of your immune system, all of it a roiling cauldron of instincts and intents particular to your ana-tomical nexus.

Richeimer agrees, saying that the “meaning” of brain events de-pends on a working body interact-ing with the world. “Without it, a brain would be a bit like your desktop computer,” he says. “I can ask Google a question, but the answer would mean nothing to the computer, even if it is correct.”

ALL OR NOTHINGAll of which brings us to new ter-ritory entirely. In trying to transfer a mind and a sense of self success-fully, it seems we have to take ev-erything — every neural impulse, heartbeat, muscle tension, and skin temperature reading down to the molecular level — and make a complete copy of it, either digitally or anatomically.

It could be said that once we reach that stage of technology we’re not transplanting a mind at all but simply cloning an organism. Even if we manage to make a perfect du-plicate of you with your particular experiences, memories, and sense of self, it would only be for an instant.

“Let’s just say every last molecule of you at this very moment was somehow trans-located to another place,” Greenfield suggests. “As soon as that copy is in a different environment and a different place it would be a different person because the brain reacts to the environ-ment. It will start to have a different experience from the real you.”

But is that finally a glimmer of hope in our endeavor? Does Greenfield therefore admit the copy would be living, feeling, and conscious? “By definition if it’s a simulacrum of the brain rather than a model and identical in every regard then of course it would be, there’d be no difference between the two,” she says.

To Richeimer, the key might be in how close the theory of func-tionalism is in its understanding of the way brains really work. “All the current evidence — which is of course not the same thing as all the evidence — is that such an entity would consider itself alive, think-ing and feeling,” he says. “The issue is whether functionalism is true.”

For now it seems we’ll just have to rely on authors and Hollywood to paint for us visions of the im-mortality that we hope to achieve, but who knows how far behind science might actually be?

Fall 2015

UNCOVERING THE EPIDEMIC OF TRAUMATIC BRAIN INJURY

BY CHARLENE SMITH

HEALING ALL

WOUNDS

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The reason for the spike? The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq had the military start to screen for TBI in 2006. The Pentagon says it has documented half a million cases of TBI. But it is still an injury we don’t understand very well.

There are probably around 8 million Americans living with TBI, and many have not been accurately diagnosed. Their mood swings, anger, concentration problems, depression, clear fluids draining from their eyes or nose, headaches, persistent nausea, tiredness, and sleeping problems (among other issues), are often wrongfully diag-nosed. The impact of a TBI can often reveal itself as late as two decades after the traumatic event. It also mirrors symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, and can even coexist with or add to those symptoms, according to the Na-tional Institutes of Health.

Among adolescents and adults

who receive rehabilitation for TBI, two in 10 will die five years post-injury, and nearly four in 10 will experience declines in function from the level of recovery one to two years after their injury. The leading causes of non-fatal TBI within the United States are falls (35 percent), motor vehicle-related injuries (17 percent), and strikes or blows to the head from or against an object (17 percent), such as sports-related injuries.

However, according to research by Johns Hopkins University, since 2001 at least 260,000 injuries re-sult from wars. Many victims are like Chief Petty Officer John Flem-ing, recipient of a Bronze Star with Valor after accompanying the Navy SEALs on more than 77 missions. An explosives ordnance disposal technician, during his service he unearthed and destroyed many improvised bombs. Years later, he began forgetting things and having trouble organizing ideas. He was demoted. Medical tests revealed that he had suffered a mild TBI, likely from a truck rollover in Iraq nine years before combined with being so close to countless explo-sions.

His brain injury is similar to those sustained by many football players and is almost a guarantee of dementia (whose onset could occur as early as at age 36). Notably, one does not have to experience an ac-tual concussion for a TBI to occur, sub-concussive injuries as well as other unseen damage can have just as bad effects.

Fleming’s medical diagnosis did not impress his military superiors and he is now locked in a legal battle with them, as are thousands of others documented by research-ers at Baltimore’s Johns Hopkins Hospital — not merely in an ef-fort of retaining their jobs, but in hopes of receiving the medical care they desperately need. Johns Hopkins has found that only one in five veterans who sustained TBI between 2003 and 2010 actually had their issues documented. It is estimated that some 32,822 sol-diers did not receive the treatment they deserved.

For most, their worst battle is to get the military to acknowledge the damage and give them the medical

Johns Hopkins University has

found that only one in five

veterans who sustained a

traumatic brain injury between

2003 and 2010 actually

had their issues documented. It

is estimated that some 32,822

soldiers did not receive the treatment they

deserved.

■ In 1992, Alan Beck injured his head in a car accident. Despite months of rehabilitation, the incident has left him forgetful. He recently lost $3,000 cash that he’d just been paid. His marriage ended because his wife couldn’t cope with his mood swings. He couldn’t maintain his job as a TV producer on a prestigious show.

“Twenty-three years later, it is still impacting my life,” says Beck. His face is drawn older than his 53 years. His words sometime slur and his struggle to speak can make him ap-pear drunk. He hasn’t had alcohol since he was injured. He hasn’t been able to hold down a steady job and relies on his gift for photography to pay most of his bills. He is usually even-tempered but irritability can flare up quickly, a hallmark in three-quarters of those who have a traumatic brain injury.

TBI is, scientists tell us, an unseen epidemic. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that it sees 2.2 mil-lion emergency room visits a year — 280,000 hospital stays, and 50,000 deaths. These figures do not include veterans. “Total combined rates of TBI-related hospitalizations, ER vis-its, and deaths climbed slowly from a rate of 521 per 100,000 in 2001 and then spiked sharply in 2008 and continued to climb through 2010 to a rate of 823.7 per 100,000.”

treatment and care they deserve, according to the Journal of Head Trauma Rehabilitation.

Sports injuries, especially hard contact sports like boxing and football, are primary villains of TBI. As the evidence has been ac-cumulating, some key players have withdrawn from the game and many parents are concerned about the impact that playing a contact sport may have on their kids’ fu-ture. The 2016 presidential budget included a $5 million increase for research into sports-related TBI in children.

Lisa McHale, director of family relations for the Sports Legacy In-stitute, works as a liaison with fam-ilies who donate brain tissue sam-ples to Boston University. Here, chronic traumatic encephalopathy, often caused by repetitive trauma to the brain, is studied. Her hus-band, NFL player Tom McHale, was diagnosed with CTE after his death. This discovery explained the years of progressively puzzling behavior leading up to his death. She believes that children should not be allowed to play football and that there should be programs to counsel young people about the potential risks involved and how to avoid them.

It is difficult to treat TBI. There are cognitive therapies available, along with other rehabilitation approaches and medication, but for some like Beck, they find that meditation, eating only organic foods while avoiding meats with hormones or antibiotics, and tak-ing a combination of 1,000 mil-ligrams of vitamin C along with 1,000 milligrams of fish oil a day, may help alleviate the symptoms. While little has been understood about the specific nature of TBI until now, great strides in neurosci-ence are being made every day, and with greater scrutiny of the dis-order and the people at risk, help may soon be on the way.

Traumatic brain injuries, scientists tell us, are an unseen epidemic. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that it sees 2.2 million emergency room visits a year — 280,000 hospital stays, and 50,000 deaths.

A number of therapies have been developed over the past years to help combat the effects of TBI:

Gaming and virtual reality-based treatment methods are emerging as an adjunct to physical therapy, an innovative approach noted for helping improve gait, posture, and eye focus.

Tests conducted at Harvard-affiliated Spaulding Reha-bilitation Hospital in Boston showed the benefits of home-opathy. Specifically, during the study the researchers used:

ARNICA (MOUNTAIN DAISY): To “significantly reduce swelling, pain, and complications from a head injury.”

BELLADONNA (DEADLY NIGHTSHADE): For when a patient with TBI is distressed and lashing out.

HYPERICUM (ST. JOHN’S WORT) OR CICUTA (WATER HEMLOCK): To lessen shooting pains or seizures after a head injury or spinal cord injury.

NATRUM SULPHURICUM (SODIUM SULPHATE): To reduce depression, irritability, and confusion.

HELLEBORES (WHITE HELLEBORE): To increase mental sharpness.

The study demonstrated that these remedies should show an effect in 48 hours, and if they don’t, try something else. The National Institutes of Health recommends omega-3 fatty acids, and the Vermont Center for Integrative Herbal-ism says that turmeric and ginkgo biloba help reduce inflam-mation in the brain and improve circulation. Acupuncture and massages, by good therapists, are also beneficial.

The Veterans Health Administration encourages the use of meditation. The Real Warriors Campaign launched by the Defense Centers of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury advise:

Get plenty of rest. Increase activity slowly. Carry a notebook — write things down if you have trouble remembering. Establish a daily routine. Do only one thing at a time if you are easily distracted. Check with someone you trust when making decisions. Avoid activities that could lead to another brain injury, e.g., contact sports, motorcycle riding, and skiing. Avoid alcohol because it may slow healing. Avoid caffeine or “energy-enhancing” products because they may increase symptoms. Avoid pseudoephedrine — check the labels on cough, cold, and allergy medicines. Avoid excessive use of over-the-counter sleeping aids, because they slow thinking and memory.

Additionally, the Brain Injury Association of America should have resources near you, go to www.biausa.org.

THERAPIES TOCOMBAT TBI

Fall 2015

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easternmedicineternr

the jury is still outby betty vine

ancient


■ Crystal healing, Reiki medicine, homeopathy, massage therapy, hypnosis, pilates, shamanism … the list of alter-native medicines appears to be expanding into perpetuity, and the distinctions that separate them grow increasingly abstruse. It’s hard to tell which are just fads with no empiri-cal evidence, and which have merit as a legitimate treatment. The National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (an arm of the National Institutes of Health) esti-mates that over 38 percent of American adults utilize at least one type of alternative medicine. Given the popularity of this industry, it is imperative that we evaluate these methods — their efficacy, side effects, and contraindications — us-ing the same degree of scientific rigor applied to all medical treatments. In this article, we will examine two of the most popular alternative therapies: Ayurvedic medicine and tradi-tional Chinese medicine.AYURVEDAOriginating in India, Ayurveda is perhaps one of the oldest alterna-tive medicines. It dates back 8,000 years — indeed, “original medi-cine” might be a more appropriate term than “alternative.” Ayurvedic practitioners believe in three fun-damental energies governing our inner and outer environments: movement, transformation, and structure. Known in Sanskrit as “Vata” (wind), “Pitta” (fire), and “Kapha” (earth), these primary forces are responsible for the vari-ous characteristics of our mind and body. Each of us has a unique proportion of these three forces whose particular combination shapes our nature. These elements are collectively known as the three “doshas.” Illness arises when the doshas are thrown out of balance. Re-correction to one’s original state is required to restore health.

Arguably the most well-known components of Ayurveda are yoga and meditation. There are well-established healing and neuropro-tective effects associated with these practices. The problem is that no study has closely examined how all of Ayurveda’s practices work as a whole.

Despite this, there are still some potentially promising results one can draw from the tangled mo-rass of research. To begin with, preliminary studies suggest that some of the compounds within certain herbs may be implicated in the treatment of cancer; these include Withaferin A, Sanjeevani, Mangosteen, MAK-4 and -5, and AKBA. According to the organiza-tion Cancer Research UK, all of these substances retarded or even halted the growth of some can-cerous cells in laboratory studies. Another study conducted by the World Health Organization found that Ayurvedic medicine might be effective in treating rheumatoid ar-thritis and even Parkinson’s disease.

One Ayurvedic herb in par-ticular stands out above the rest — Withania somnifera, also known as Ashwagandha, which offers a variety of therapeutic effects. A report in the African Journal of Tra-ditional, Complementary, and Alter-native Medicines lists the results of a number of animal studies, which found that Ashwagandha may be able to increase stamina, ward off stomach ulcers, treat ovarian and

lung cancers, promote memory and the growth of dendrites, lessen anxiety, and improve prognosis in neurodegenerative disorders, in-cluding Alzheimer’s disease. How-ever, it is important to remember that this is all deduced from the available scientific data, and as we have established, the accuracy of such data may leave something to be desired.

Moreover, some treatments pre-scribed by Ayurvedic practitioners may actually be harmful. The Cali-fornia College of Ayurveda sug-gests that purification of the body via enema may be useful in treating Parkinson’s disease. Administering enemas for reasons other than its indicated uses can result in dehy-dration as well as damage to the organs of the lower gastrointestinal tract. Also alarming, according to the University of Washington, is the presence of dangerous heavy metals in unregulated Ayurvedic herbs — 20 percent of tested prod-ucts contained lead, mercury, or arsenic, or a combination of these heavy metals. Thus, it is unclear if the potential risks of Ayurvedic medicines outweigh the benefits. The gaping deficiencies in research make it difficult to establish the ve-racity of claims made by Ayurveda’s proponents as well as its critics.

TRADITIONAL CHINESE MEDICINETraditional Chinese medicine is an ancient practice with roots in Tao-ism. It is associated with a lexicon of esoteric terms; these include qi (the energy in all things), yin and yang (the balance of oppos-ing energies), and meridians (the channels through which energy flows). Practitioners believe that the human body is an integrated whole. Connected to nature, you have an innate natural self-healing ability. There are a number of prac-tices that fall under the umbrella

There are several derivatives of Chinese herbs

that may be useful in treating the

aggressive brain tumors known

as gliomas.

Fall 2015

of TCM, but for the purposes of brevity, we will be limiting our dis-cussion to Chinese herbal medicine and acupuncture.

As is the case with Ayurveda, it is difficult to conclude anything with certainty based on TCM re-search alone. The NCCIH states, “In spite of the widespread use of TCM in China and its use in the West, rigorous scientific evidence of its effectiveness is limited.” However, several Chinese herbal compounds do seem capable of producing therapeutic effects. For example, one study published in the journal Restorative Neurology and Neuroscience found that an herbal medicine known as Ji-Sui-Kang improved the prognosis of spinal cord injuries in rats.

Notably, there are also several derivatives of Chinese herbs that may be useful in treating the ag-gressive brain tumors known as gli-omas. Yong Lu, of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, found that gallic acid, ursolic acid, polyphyl-lin D, Spica prunellae, and Paris polyphylla, all had cytotoxic effects on tumor cell lines. However, these compounds were also found to be capable of destroying healthy brain cells (of course, the loss of healthy cells is a side effect in many stan-dard cancer treatments already in use). Other Chinese herbs may be useful in the treatment of Parkin-son’s and Alzheimer’s diseases.

Despite the potential benefits offered by these herbs, there are concerns regarding their safety. A review of alternative medicines in The Scientist details the dangers of the Chinese herbal byproduct, aristolochic acid. It’s used to heal wounds, soothe arthritis, expel the placenta after childbirth, and repel snakes, but it has documented carcinogenic and renotoxic effects.

Stephen Bent, M.D., voices his concerns: “There are thousands and thousands of products being sold through all different kinds of channels and there isn’t the safety framework to capture and monitor how often people are having side effects or problems.”

Conversely, the ancient practice of acupuncture is generally regard-ed as safe, if not necessarily effec-tive. Data is once again conflicting. This therapy involves inserting

micro-needles into the skin at pre-scribed points along the meridians; a more modern variation known as electroacupuncture applies electri-cal currents to the acupoints.

The problem in determining the potential value of acupuncture is the “efficacy paradox,” according to The Scientist: “Either acupuncture exerts a powerful but reproduc-ible placebo effect in patients, or inserting needles randomly has the same effect as inserting needles into some 400 acupuncture points that traditional Chinese practi-tioners believe help unblock one’s qi, or life force.” The other funda-mental problem with acupuncture research is due to the fact that “researchers still don’t have a good idea what acupuncture’s mecha-nism of action might be, which makes it extremely difficult to cre-ate an appropriate control.”

If acupuncture does, in fact, offer relief for various ailments, what could explain its success? The Scientist proposes two possible theories. It could be related to the “localized release of adenosine,” or it could have something to do with the relaxing of connective tis-sues. Cancer Research UK asserts that acupuncture causes the nerves to release endorphins as well as serotonin.

Clearly, there is not enough data to make any definitive statements about acupuncture, or TCM as a whole. Bruce H. Robinson, a bio-physical chemist at the University of Washington, puts it best: “There are thus at least 1000 trillion syn-apses (1,000,000,000,000,000 synapses) in one human nervous system: 1 quadrillion. This is 100 million synapses per cubic mil-

The problem is that no study has closely examined how all of Ayurveda’s practices work as a whole.

limeter of brain (smaller than a pinhead of brain tissue). Most of these connections simply enable the brain’s neurons to talk to each other, as 99 percent of the neurons in the cortex connect only to one another. The other 1 percent con-trol the rest of the body. All this working together creates waves of energy we don’t really understand.”

The same can be sa id for Ayurvedic medicine. Though some research suggests these alternative medicines may offer a degree of healing value, their potential is seemingly shrouded in ambiguity — an obscurity that results from the scarce, fragmented, and some-times fallacious body of evidence in which the subject is currently mired. Then again, these ancient systems are rooted in mystical and metaphysical doctrines, and it seems unlikely that science and spirituality will ever truly see eye to eye. This does not mean we should abandon the pursuit of reconciling the two — or in this case, the pur-suit of finding empirical evidence that proves or disproves the efficacy of traditional Eastern medicines. It simply means we should bear in mind the understanding that there are some things we can never discern through reason; there may exist some ancient knowledge that transcends our logical realities.

TUNNEL OF

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Benedict was clinically dead. His nurse rushed to his bedside and found no v ita l signs, no blood pressure or cardiac activity. Shortly after leaving the room, she heard a loud crash. Upon return-ing, she found him lying on the floor, trying to reach the window. Within three days, Benedict was discharged from the hospice and felt better than he had ever felt before. Three months later, follow-up brain scans were performed and astonishingly showed no signs of the tumor. Benedict’s physician referred to this occurrence as a “spontaneous remission” (which is commonly known as a spontane-ous regression: the spontaneous cure or improvement of a severe disease). But Benedict chose to call it a miracle.

ence, one which included all of the common motifs: “I quickly came to a place which appeared to my eyes as a level plain, so extensive that my sight was not able to reach its limits, filled with all sorts of de-lightful fruit trees and which sent forth such fragrant odors that all the air was filled as with incense.” Fast-forward about two and a half centuries, and we find that soldiers and ministers aren’t the only ones having near-death experiences. One of the most fascinating groups of individuals to have undergone such events are neurologists.

Dr. Eben Alexander, appointed professor of neurology at Harvard Medica l School and best-sel l-ing author of the autobiographi-ca l book “Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon’s Journey into the Afterlife,” was skeptical about near-death experiences — until Nov. 10, 2008, when he became comatose due to a rare form of meningitis. Despite multiple pro-cedures and antibiotic treatments over a seven-day period, Alexan-der’s body deteriorated fast and his team of physicians soon gave up hope. Then on Nov. 17, 2008, Al-exander miraculously awoke to the amazement of his family and doc-tors and realized that his previous notions of near-death experiences were totally wrong. He described his enigmatic incident as being transformative and “indescrib-able.” He experienced a unified consciousness and was aware of “a divine presence” which conveyed thoughts of love and peace: “You are loved. You are cherished for-ever. There’s nothing you can do wrong. You have nothing to worry about. You will be taken care of.”

Alexander also described the occurrence as being “hyper-real and extremely crisp and vivid.” In a conversation with Diana DiFranco — holistic psychothera-pist and frequent lecturer at the American Center for the Integra-tion of Spiritually Transformative Experiences — she described to me how near-death experiences are commonly felt as being “more real than everyday life.” Colors, smells, and sensations become fully optimized like never before.

After this event, Alexander had to change his previous thoughts

Soldiers and ministers

aren’t the only ones having near-death experiences.

One of the most fascinating

groups of individuals to

have undergone such events are

neurologists.

■ In 1982, a young stained-glass artist by the name of Mellen-Thomas Benedict lay dying of an inoperable brain tumor. In order to have the best quality of life before his im-manent death, Benedict declined chemotherapy treatments. After about 18 months of hospice care, Benedict woke up one day around 4:30 a.m., knowing he was going to die. A few hours later, Benedict had a near-death experience in which he perceived being surrounded by a beautiful shining light that he automatically felt was a symbol of “the Source” or “Higher Self.” He described the experience as one of joy and peace: “It was just overwhelming. It was all the love you’ve ever wanted, and it was the kind of love that cures, heals, regenerates.” He described feeling a strong desire to communicate and travel toward this light that emanated love, peace, harmony, as hu-man souls swam around him. Benedict’s own consciousness expanded — perceiving and knowing all things from all time. It was this stage of infinite consciousness that revealed to him that death should not be seen as an “end” but instead as a transition into the infinite reality of being: immortality.

Within the last two decades, there has been a significant increase in people reporting near-death ex-periences like Benedict’s. Multiple surveys conducted throughout the United States, Australia, and Germany suggest that four to 15 percent of the population has had near-death experiences. One study found that nearly 800 people in the United States encounter a near-death experience every single day. Even though there have been an increasing number of people willing to “come out of the closet” and talk about these “higher con-sciousness” incidents, near-death experiences have been occurring for thousands of years.

Back in the year 300 B.C., Plato described the near-death experi-ence of a warrior named Er, who, after being slain in battle, woke up on his funeral pyre to tell the surrounding crowd about meeting deities and fallen companions in the afterlife. In 1741, George de Benneville, a physician and lay minister in Europe, wrote a vivid account of his near-death experi-

Fall 2015

about near-death experiences and invite a new understanding of the brain into his work: “That hyper-reality that people describe … is not something that is going to be explained by [this] little simplistic talking about CO2 and oxygen levels. That just won’t work. I promise you that won’t work.”

This statement directly chal-lenges the notions of Dr. Lakhmir Chawla, an associate professor of anesthesiology and critical care medicine at George Washington University. Chawla asserts that near-death experiences are simply caused by a surge of electrical activity as the brain runs out of oxygen before death. However, the oxygen-depletion theory is only one of many classical neuro-physiological theories challenged by people who have undergone near-death experiences.

Many neuropsychologists still believe that our consciousness is a product of the proper func-tioning of our brains — with the death of our brains comes the death of our consciousness. This notion falls under the realm of “material science,” where mate-rial (i.e., the brain) gives rise to mind and consciousness. However near-death experiences support the notion that consciousness is in fact non-local (i.e., not confined to the brain) and that death is only a moment of transition from a tem-poral consciousness to a timeless experience of it. This new notion of consciousness has produced an emerging movement called “post-materialist science,” lead by internationally renowned scientists from a variety of scientific fields in-cluding biology, neuroscience, psy-chology, medicine, and psychiatry. Dr. Gary Schwartz — professor of psychology, medicine, neurology, psychiatry, and surgery at the Uni-versity of Arizona — is one of the pioneering researchers and sup-porters of post-materialist science.

During a conversation I had with Schwartz at the Spirituality Mind Body Institute at Colum-bia University, he spoke of how the brain seems to be more like a receiver of consciousness than an actual producer of it. As such, the brain is similar to a TV set. It merely picks up the signal of

consciousness and has nothing to do with actually creating it. “The claim that staunch materialists would like to make is that near-death experiences can be explained as residual firing of either the cor-tex or subcortical structures after it has been damaged or the heart stopped. But the problem with that wishful thinking is that all electrical activity ceases within 40 seconds to a minute of the time that blood flow has stopped. There is no evidence of electrical firing of the brain at all.” Schwartz argues that materialists simply find it impossible to believe that consciousness continues after the brain has stopped functioning, even though new research clearly shows that consciousness survives physical death.

In 2001, Dr. Pim van Lommel — researcher and retired cardiolo-gist at the Rijnstate Hospital in the Netherlands — investigated near-death experiences in cardiac arrest patients. Of the 344 patients who were successfully resuscitated af-ter suffering cardiac arrest, 41 of them reported undergoing vivid near-death experiences that in-cluded out-of-body sensations. The patients were able to describe details of their conditions during their cardiac arrest, despite being clinically dead as indicated by their flatlined brain-stem activity. Even though these findings clearly point toward the post-materialist notion that consciousness does not solely reside in the brain, van Lommel’s results were critiqued on many grounds.

In 2008, Dr. Jason Braithwaite — senior lecturer in cognitive neuroscience at University of Bir-mingham’s Behavioura l Brain Sciences Centre — published a critique of van Lommel’s study in the journal Skeptic. In his critique he states how van Lommel and his team misconstrued the dying-brain hypothesis by mistakenly interpreting the f lat readings of an electroencephalogram test as

Recently, doctors discovered deep-level brain activity in comatose patients.

correlating directly to “no brain activity.” (Recently, doctors dis-covered deep-level brain activity in comatose patients.) Yet, this cri-tique seems weak. Although there may be some brain activity during flatline periods, this insignificant activity would most likely be un-able to account for the highly com-plex thought processes, visions, insights, and sensations that occur during near-death experiences.

Organizations such as the Spiri-tuality Mind Body Institute at Teachers College, Columbia Uni-versity, labs like the Laboratory for Advances in Consciousness and Health at the University of Arizona, and conferences as for example the American Center for the Integration of Spiritually Transformative Experiences are capturing the minds and hearts of many researchers and healthcare providers who are beginning to understand the importance of recognizing and allowing near-death experiences to change the current neurophysiological model of consciousness, life, and death. It seems that both materialists and post-materialists have a long way to go when it comes to un-derstanding what happens when the brain begins to die. Maybe the answer isn’t so elusive, and we will perhaps find it sooner than we think, in this life, or the next.


UNDERSTANDING THE MASTER GLANDby James Sullivan

THE PITUITARY

GLAND

■ The vast size of the human brain and its ever-growing network is astound-ing enough to imagine — a large piece of gray matter that continuously builds new connections between the 100 billion neurons it houses; the key to how our brains got to grow so large in just a few million years of evolution. However, in a powerhouse of this size — controlling our day-to-day decisions, motor func-tions, vision, and nerves — so much depends upon a small gateway, known as the third eye for its location between the eyes, nestled just below the center of your forehead. It’s only about the size of a pea, controlled by the hypothalamus (which itself is only about one three-hundredth the weight of the brain) and is heavily guarded by a bony structure within the skull, the sella turcica.

Perhaps most striking about this so-called third eye is that humans are one of the few spe-cies in which the three lobes are less distinct, with the intermediate lobe being only a few thin cell layers apart from the anterior and posterior lobes. Think of the structure as a traffic light — blinking signals from three different directions. The pituitary gland’s functioning is closely connected with the hypothalamus region of the brain, which supplies it with oxygenated blood, along with the anterior lobe and the sex organs.

Due to the pituitary’s constant interaction with messages from glands throughout the brain — relayed from all three of its lobes — it is known as the master gland. Those who have heard of it usually know of the pituitary in the way that it affects growth (the result of hor-

mones secreted from the anterior lobe) — the overactive kind, meaning sudden, raging and out of control growth spurts — but the master gland’s job isn’t all that simple. It also regulates body temperature, blood pressure, water and salt concentrations throughout the body — as well as the kidneys, thyroid, and some functions of the sex organs. Even our sleep patterns are the result of the pituitary gland, as it works with the pineal gland to produce the sleep-promoting hormone melatonin, setting our bodies into rit-ual circadian rhythms every night. Therefore, its regular functioning as a glandular switchboard is the key to our well-being.

For many years, its functions were not fully understood. Claudius Galen, an ancient Roman physician (a team doctor for the gladiators, as it


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were), thought that it was merely the source of nasal mucus, and ac-cordingly its name comes from the Latin phrase: “Gland from which the slime drips.” It took nearly 2,000 years for physicians to refute this claim. Galen did, however, correctly identify the central ner-vous system, to which the pituitary is connected.

In India, the gland was held in higher regard, having been called “the seat of the mind,” a critical energy point for practitioners of chakra for attaining the state of pure consciousness — a condi-tion in which one experiences the revelation of absolute truth. To this day, modern practitioners of chakra hold that the frontal lobe regulates emotional intelli-gence — the driving force that sees the poetic part of life, perceiving the world through metaphor and music — while the anterior lobe focuses on concrete problems and intellectual thoughts.

Things became a bit more com-plicated, however, in the 19th cen-tury, when epidemics of tubercu-losis wiped out nearly one quarter of Europe’s adult population. By 1918, the outbreak accounted for one-sixth of all deaths in France alone. Patients that became co-matose due to this disease showed signs of anomalies in the hypothal-amus — betraying an important mind and body connection in the pituitary gland. It was hardly the first case demonstrating this either. An examination of nearly 30,000 brains revealed that patients who suffered ulcers also had abnor-malities in the same region. What could this small structure within the brain have to do with such a remote part of the body?

In 1971, Andrew Schally recog-nized the gonadotropin-releasing hormone as a crucial chemical mes-senger within the hypothalamus. Six years later, Schally discovered that it was secreted into the ante-rior pituitary via the bloodstream, through which it would then reach the sex organs. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in medicine for his work. Thanks to Schally, a great deal of physical conditions could be understood in greater depth — why strokes or sudden weight gain can cause a loss of sexual desire, and why cutting off blood circu-lation can cause damage to the reproductive organs and digestive system — paving the way for new possible treatments.

We now know that the anterior lobe is associated with hormones released in response to physical stress, and that in many ways the lobe is responsible for how the body deals with reacting to anxiet-ies, while the frontal pituitary is in charge of the production of oxyto-cin, the chemical inducing feelings of intimacy as well as strengthening social bonds — interestingly, this friendship-fortifying ability of the chemical works on humans and animals alike, as studies conducted on people who petted their dogs for five minutes effectively found higher than normal levels of oxy-tocin in both the owners and their dogs compared to subjects who had not engaged in this exchange. Oxytocin was later synthesized in laboratories for the purpose of starting and increasing the speed of labor during childbirth, as well as to stop the rate of bleeding that follows delivery.

However, this is only scratching the surface of what the chemical has to offer. If it can help with physical complications when synthesized, it also might play an important role when it comes to psychologi-cal and personality disorders. Two important studies have found that it reduces the symptoms of autism. Little is understood at the moment regarding autism, a behavioral disorder in which patients limit their degree of interaction with other people, confining themselves to little beyond a narrow set of in-terests. It is a neurodevelopmental disorder, with an onset in early

childhood, leading many people to incorrectly attribute its symptoms to vaccinations.

In 2007, a study sponsored by the National Institutes of Health and the Children’s Brain Research Foundation found a connection between the symptoms of autism in children and a lack of func-tion in the genes that produce oxytocin — and further research showed that oxytocin is also di-rectly related to regulating levels of fear and trust, the latter of which tends to be built up more with high concentrations of oxytocin, while minimizing fear and uncer-tainty. It has also shown to help with the recognition of emotions, which autism patients typically have difficulty with. Even empathy has been shown to increase due to changes in levels of oxytocin, the lack of which has been attributed to a number of social problems of the day, such as school bullying.

Since the beginning of time, people have sought to understand emotions — a thirst that has echoed throughout the humanities for centuries, but has long been a perplexing struggle for the sciences. While there’s an evident disconnect between the practice of medicine and the discipline of psychology, it seems that perhaps the golden age of neuroscience in which we live is gradually bridging that gap — find-ing a way to uncover the ingredi-ents behind sadness and feelings of joy, and with this correcting some of the long-term trends molded by centuries of evolution, changing life and the experience of being alive for the better.

Pituitary Gland cont’dThe frontal pituitary is in charge of the production of oxytocin,

the chemical responsible for both building

feelings of intimacy as well as strengthening

social bonds.


Personality

■ Dr. Lucy Brown is currently a clinical professor in neurology at Einstein Col-lege of Medicine in New York City. She also served as the director of the Labora-tory for Functional Neuroanatomy and Movement Disorders for over 20 years — though admits that her greatest challenge was studying the neurophysiological basis of romantic love.

The difficulty was convincing others that studying something as personal, pow-erful, and subjective as love would actually be possible. “We did the study and tried to publish the paper,” she recalls. “The reviews that came back were hilarious and I really should have saved them, because some of the people said that there was no such thing as romantic love.”

A CONVERSATION WITH LUCY BROWNby Liz Belilovskaya


And yet, these studies ended up pioneering what we now commonly refer to as the neuro-science of romantic love. The research proved to be relevant for studying other important aspects of human experience too: the neuroscience of drug addiction, suicide, and post-breakup depression.

Brain World recently had the pleasure of dis-cussing with Dr. Brown the conundrum that is romantic love.

Brain World: When did you discover your interest in neuroscience, or science in general?Lucy Brown: I was in New York feeling very depressed after the death of a family member, so I went to a psychiatrist who gave me an antidepres-sant that totally changed my entire outlook on life. I said, “Wait a second! You mean a chemical can change the way I think so drastically? I have to find out more about this.” Although I was a philosophy major, once I had this experience I

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did something very daring for my-self then, which was to take a course in physiological psychology at New York University. And I loved it.

BW: How did you get into studying the neurological basis of romantic love? LB: It’s a classic pioneering story. Ten years ago, no one wanted to accept that you could study ro-mantic love, and now it’s kind of its own field. I heard the term about two years ago and nearly fell to my knees! “What? Neuroscience of relationships?” So, it’s been a lot of fun and a lot of trouble.

It was just not a popular subject to study. At the time, people were looking into drug-induced eupho-ria, and I wanted to see natural euphoria. The magic of love seemed to me to be the best natural eupho-ria there is. Certainly we needed to know when someone was in that state. When I met Art Aron — who had been studying romantic love for years, and was coming up against terrible problems in getting money for research — I learned about something called the Pas-sionate Love Scale, which has been around since 1986. People had re-ally looked at this and could quan-tify the feeling, in some way. I mean there was a number we could put to this, and I said, “Aha! I’m in.”

BW: How does one quantify love? LB: It’s hard. There are many dif-ferent kinds of love, and it’s very important that we studied early-stage intense romantic love. It is a very specific kind of love that changes lives. It’s when people fly from New York to San Francisco just to see somebody. People do amazing things when they are in these early stages of romantic love, when they can’t think of anything else. So, that’s the easier type of love to study really.

BW: Why?LB: Every aspect of who you are is based on your brain physiology. One of the things that made me op-timistic about doing this study from the very beginning was that I real-ized people would change their lives because of a feeling — a very strong feeling. It was obviously going to change some brain system activity, because if you change your life, it’s going to show up in the brain.

And so, for the purpose of our experiment the people who were in love were shown a picture of their romantic partner. They had to think about that person and the romantic times they had together. Not sex. The idea we had was that sex and romance were different. People can have sex without romance, and feel romance without sex. And when you are feeling attached to some-one, that is different too.

You may think that everyone loves differently — that every per-son has a different response and that no two people can ever be the same. There are parts of the brain where no two people are the same, but there are some parts of the brain where we are all the same. They are these really primitive parts of the brain, parts that we share with other mammals.

Our original hypothesis was that romantic love is a developed form of a mammalian drive to pursue preferred mates. The data is pretty much consistent with this idea. Romantic love is an elaboration of what we see in other animals, other vertebrates. Birds have all kinds of behaviors that they engage in to try to attract a mate, and some birds mate for a lifetime. They still go off and have little affairs, but they’ll stick pretty much with one other bird. Swans do this. I have come to think of it now as a survival system. It’s a drive like hunger or thirst.

BW: Why don’t some people fall in love?LB: That is a big question, which I cannot answer. Some people never experience romantic love.

What happens very often, by the way, is that people don’t experience romantic love until they turn 60-65 years old. Then they’ve grown older, and maybe have been in a marriage before, but the spouse had died and suddenly, they fall in love for the first time.

I have no idea as to why it hap-pens later in life when it could have happened earlier, but romantic love isn’t necessary for marriage — that’s for sure! It can help marriages tremendously, because people stay together and remember the roman-tic times. I know some people who say they’re in happy marriages, but insist that they didn’t fall in love and that they’ve never been in love. They seem to me to be completely normal people and emotionally intact, but I have no idea why.

BW: You say some people have never experienced romantic love, and that love is a drive and not a feeling. It’s an interesting paradox. LB: Right, it’s a drive more than a feeling. We think of it as a feel-ing, but feelings come and go. The strict definition of an emotion is an expression you can see on a face. Things like anger, fear, or surprise. When you’re in love, emotions or feelings could be euphoric or anxious, or you can feel a little bit depressed. You have many feelings around romantic love — the core of romantic love is the goal of at-taining an emotional union with the other person. But we know from the brain systems involved in rewards and motivation that the parts of the brain which are com-mon to everyone were not consis-tent with classical emotion.

BW: How do you do the studies? LB: We show a person (the brain) a picture of their romantic part-ner. The control is a picture of someone who they know but have no emotional feelings for. It has to be a familiar face. We had one person bring a picture of her door-man — only in New York would someone do that. So, when you do a functional MRI study, the signals

Brown cont’d

“You may think that everyone

loves differently — that every person has a

different response and that no two people can ever

be the same. There are parts of

the brain where no two people

are the same, but there are some

parts of the brain where we are all the same. They are these really primitive parts

of the brain, parts that we

share with other mammals.”

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we can get out of the brain are very small. It is a tall miracle that we can get signals from the brain from an awake, behaving human at all. You don’t compare a group of people in love to a group of people who are not in love. You compare the response of how one person reacts to someone they love versus someone they don’t love (that’s just a familiar face).

One of the problems though, is that you’re asking people to look at a picture of their romantic partner for 20 seconds and think romantic thoughts, and then you’re asking them to cut that feeling off and look at another face and just feel neutral. The problem is that the person could still be thinking of their partner, so how do you cut off that romantic feeling? A great way to cut it off (this is a practical note for people who want to cut off a romantic feeling) is to count backwards by seven from a large number like 2011.

So, we alternatively showed the subjects a picture of their romantic partner, and then a number like 2011. The instructions were to then count back by seven. After this, they were shown a picture of the neutral person (emotion-ally neutral), for 20 seconds. They either recall memories of that per-son, or just keep looking at their face. Then we had them do the counting backwards task, and then had them look at a picture of their romantic partner again, and so on.

The person is in that scanner do-ing that task for about 15 minutes. We also collect an anatomical scan, and then merge the anatomical data with the functional data from the scanner. You are inducing these feelings of romance in a person and then you’re comparing those feelings of romance to feelings of another neutral person.

BW: Once you have the two com-parisons, what are you looking for in the fMRI? LB: We are looking for changes in blood flow, which means there will be changes in oxygen and glucose demand. It’s just like using a muscle. When you use it a lot, you get increased blood flow and therefore increased oxygen and glucose delivery to it. Nerve cells,

when they work hard, need oxygen and glucose too and right in that moment. Muscles actually take a little longer and we’re lucky that we can see these changes in the brain right away. So that is the signal that we are looking at. It’s an index of the metabolic demand made by the nerve cells, and what we find is that — this has been replicated many times — people who are in the early stage of romantic love, even if they have been in a loving marriage for 20 years, say that they are still in love with their partners. They increase activity in these primitive reward systems of the brain.

BW: Does dopamine and oxytocin play a role in the formation of ro-mantic love? LB: Hormones like dopamine and oxytocin are critical for romance and attachment. We just don’t know what comes first and how these things start really. We just have hypotheses about it. For ex-ample, we know that big parts of the dopamine system are activated, but we don’t even know for sure that it is dopamine. We’re assum-ing this because it is involved in many addictive behaviors consid-ered so typical of romantic love.

Also, we think of oxytocin as being more involved in attachment and longer-term relationships. That’s because it has been shown in animals in instances of long-term pair bonding. We’ve seen in some of the human studies that the part of the brain that contains the oxytocin receptors is active later in relationships. And the trouble is that it’s pretty critical to have the dopamine system active in order to have this system.

BW: So when you do the fMRIs, what parts of the brain are the most activated? LB: So it’s the ventral tegmental area, which is part of the brain stem and is involved in romantic love, and the caudate nucleus. This nucleus receives messages from the ventral tegmental area and it all happens in milliseconds. So, you’re able to look at the entire brain, and you look for areas of the brain that have changed consistently over repeated trials.

When the subject is looking at the person they don’t know or have no attachment to, there is almost no reaction. Now, when the person is looking at their romantic part-ner, there is a clear reaction.

BW: Has anyone observed this reac-tion in any other mammal, like a dolphin? LB: No, there have never been any other studies about this. But there’s a huge body of research pertaining to attraction and pair bonding in prairie voles. There are two types: mountain prairie voles and meadow voles. They are genetically just a little bit different. One is promiscuous and the other practices pair bonding — and there is a part of the brain that is respon-sible for this. Oxytocin is on the map because of these studies. And they then went in and changed the gene in the promiscuous ones and made them pair bonding voles, so this research influenced our whole idea a lot.

BW: What are some observations you may have made about the process of falling in romantic love? LB: Romantic love is part of the brain’s survival system. Even the people who go without romantic love have a community or some sort of attachments that are help-ing them survive. When you pair up with someone, it’s protection. It also helps you find resources. If it’s more than one person looking for food, it’s more likely that they’ll find it and share it. I mean, you

don’t necessarily need romantic love but it is helpful, especially if you’re going to have children.

BW: How does the beginning stage of romantic love flourish into a long-lasting, emotionally lucrative bond? LB: [Laughs.] Everyone would like to know that. Relationships in-volve laying down memories about your experiences with the other person. The more developed parts of your brain, those that are newer, make decisions about whether these experiences are really such a good idea. It can take a while to find out about people.

By the way, another important thing about this is that these sys-tems are at the unconscious level, which makes them so hard to con-trol.

Over time, experiences with that person play on the attachment sys-tems, which are newer parts of the brain. The attachment system needs a lot of positive reinforcement. You need a lot of positive experience with the other person in order to keep the relationship going.

We were built to be addicted to people and I consider love a natural addiction.

By Younglim Lee

MAKING A DIFFERENCE IN LIBERTYVILLE

Bringing Neuroscience to the Community

■ It has been a long journey, a journey driven by my heart and maneuvering my way from the science lab to the community. After receiving my Ph.D. and postdoctoral training in neurosci-ence from Yale University, I taught and trained students and psychiatric resi-dents at the Indiana University School of Medicine. Then I moved to Chicago and worked as a senior research scien-tist at Abbott Laboratories. Throughout my 23-year career as a neuroscientist, I dedicated myself to preclinical research in anxiety, depression, and other mood disorders. My goal was to develop a better drug to help patients overcome mood disorders instead of simply treat-ing their symptoms.

In my search of conquering anxiety itself, I started training at a Body & Brain center in Chicago, where they use a methodology that consists of traditional Eastern mind and body training integrated with neuroscientific findings. People participate in physical, emotional, and cognitive exercises, as well as postures, breath-ing techniques, along with guided imagery and games designed to improve sensory awareness, motor control, and balance while sharpen-ing your emotional regulation, attention, and powers of imagination and creativity. Through this training, I understood and experienced the power of utilizing the “qi” energy system — a term originating from Chinese philosophy and medicine — to heal my mind and body.

This experience profoundly changed my overview and approach to understanding dis-ease. So in the summer of 2011, I decided to quit my job to become a full-time instructor at the Body & Brain center in Libertyville, Ill. You can imagine how my mother reacted at my decision to “throw away the degree from Yale.” But after experiencing the power of this train-ing, my heart knew exactly what I needed to do. I realized there is no need for a particular drug, or a particular technique, when it comes to solv-ing most of our society’s problems. All we have to do is unleash our own capacity and power to overcome illness — however it strikes. Our brains and bodies have this technology built-in within themselves.

As manager at the Libertyville center, I met so many people who were eager to help oth-ers in their healing process too. This collective desire created an environment that naturally encouraged me to do community outreach. It was through my fellow members that I could understand the reality surrounding the center. I felt their passion to serve those most in need. Moved by their stories and by their will to help, I just let things happen through them.

Libertyville and the neighboring community have a number of high schools that are academi-cally excellent, but are not without problems. Stevenson High School, one of the most well-known high schools in Illinois due to its high standards, is also known for its competitive environment that brings out high levels of stress upon its teachers and students. Christina Tu, an instructor at the Libertyville center, and a Stevenson graduate herself, decided to create a mindful, living environment within the school for the students to thrive. Through one of her former teachers, she contacted the school and was able to present our training program to the

school’s dean and a school psychiatrist, both of whom fully supported the idea and decided to bring the program aboard as an after-school activity. Christina offered free classes to the general student population but specifically tar-geted the varsity basketball and lacrosse teams. Students immediately became interested in the idea, and their focus in other classes quickly improved. The basketball team even won state championships this year!

Another member of the center engaged us to empower youth in the community. We started with the nearby Hulse Juvenile Detention Cen-ter, which receives more than 300 minors per year, all of whom are placed within the facility for issues including chronic delinquency, serious property crimes, as well as sex- and weapon-related offenses. Many of the inmates suffer from mental health issues, besides having special education needs, coming from backgrounds with severe family dysfunction. Starting in the fall of 2013, Libertyville center volunteers have been teaching weekly brain-based mindful yoga classes to minors both in the detention center and in a residential program called FACE-IT (Family and Community Engaged in Treat-ment). At first, it was very difficult to engage these minors, particularly those in the detention center facility.

Christina reflected on her experience: “They are visibly anxious and having difficulty to even close their eyes for breathing. I could see how brain education and its broad range of exercises and techniques can help anyone quiet their mind even if it is just for a while. Some of the boys who were extremely shy could open up and focus well on the meditation. They were able to express their experience through drawing and writing in their journals.” Working with Susan Korpai, the superintendent of the detention center, our Body & Brain volunteers are preparing to provide a more intensive four-hour workshop that will teach effective tools for physical and emotional grounding in an effort of helping participants unleash their brains’ in-ner inspiration, all in hopes of creating a better life for themselves.

For the last 18 months, another one of our volunteers, Claudette A. Loiacono-Walker, has been working weekly with children from underserved populations in the community. As a retired lawyer and long-time piano teacher, she has a great affinity and patience for work-ing with children. When one of our members mentioned a local shelter in need of a volunteer to help young children and mothers, Claudette was there for them. The shelter (which will not be named to protect its confidentiality) is for families of domestic violence. It offers a refuge to families for about six months, until moms and their children are able to leave to begin new lives. The ages of the children in a class are between 3 and 11. The older ones learn to help

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the younger ones. These children are not used to structure in their lives and are very apprehensive about physical touch. The first class we offered was “hands are not for hitting,” to let the chil-dren know that hitting is not the only thing that hands can do.

Claudette said: “My class can best be de-scribed as playful mindfulness. My goal is to help the children relax, to have fun and laugh, to become aware of their bodies, to introduce them to mindful movement and breathing, to allow them to take leadership in the yoga class and to stimulate their self-worth.”

At the beginning of working with a new group, it can be a challenge to get the partici-pants to engage in exercises because of their past trauma and living circumstances. However, as the weeks pass on, they learn to trust and sur-render into the activity just because they don’t want to miss out when the other kids are having

fun falling over or laughing. When I ask her what motivates her most, Claudette responds: “Although my time is short with each child, I can see little changes in them as they grow. I also see myself growing and learning in my response to them. I truly believe that in some small way their hearts have been touched with light and as they develop that light they will spread it to others.”

Facilitating the volunteer work from the Body & Brain training center for the various groups within the surrounding community is very natural and deeply meaningful to me. What can be more significant than increasing overall awareness within one’s community in an effort of enabling a more sustainable living in all physical and emotional aspects? The ultimate goal of Libertyville’s Body & Brain center is

for us to grow and inspire each other through completely aligning with our mission state-ment, whose objective is benefiting humanity, as widely as possible, and creating a better world by awakening the potential of our brain and body, and bringing to surface the best in the human spirit.

More than anything, action in the commu-nity makes my heart sing and fills me with hope. Science is just science, but when used to help, science becomes energy, and energy becomes spirit. And mental and physical diseases simply melt away. What this experience has taught me is that, when your mind connects with others, we can make magic.

All we have to do is unleash our own capacity and power to overcome illness – however it strikes. Our brain and

body have this technology built up inside.


by James Sullivan

Combatting Worldwide Poverty

■ Since the days of the Great Recession to Occupy Wall Street, from the crash of markets in Europe to the latest cycle of presidential campaigning in the United States, poverty has been a hotly discussed issue throughout the world, with rhetoric getting much stronger over the past decade. Particularly in the United States, it’s no secret that there’s a growing gap between the wealthiest citizens and the poorest, as the middle class is gradually disappearing. While the debate has been left up to econo-mists and political analysts, some of the effects of poverty may require more than just a change in fiscal policy.

A study published last month in JAMA Pediatrics suggests that living in poverty might actually be quite expensive — at least in terms of health and development. In addition to the har-rowing stress that comes along with being poor, the effects may be more deep-rooted — halting brain development in children. We’ve under-stood that those who are socioeconomically underprivileged tend to do poorer in school, but the reasons have long been attributed to those well-off having access to school facilities with larger budgets, smaller classroom sizes, or parents who could afford private schools or tutoring services, but the newest findings in neuroscience suggest that up to 20 percent of the gap between students from low- and high-income families could be attributed to brain development.

“Poverty has a pervasive influence on a child’s health,” says Dr. James M. Perrin, a professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and former president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, who addressed the issue last year at the Aspen Brain Forum. “Every chronic disease in children is both more common and worse if you are poor, and treatment is less effective if you are poor. It is absolutely critical that we come together and develop ways to break the cycle before another generation of children grows into adulthood suffering the long-term impact of childhood poverty.”

Perrin and his colleagues feel that the time has come for doctors to stop being apathetic toward economic issues — that the evidence shows a real reason to attack poverty as though it were any other debilitating childhood disease. The experiment demonstrating this was led by psychologist Seth Pollak, from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and included 389 healthy children and adolescents as test subjects, with participants ranging between 4 and 22 years of age. They were given age-appropriate cognitive skills tests and their results were matched with MRIs that checked for gray matter in their tem-poral and frontal lobes.

Subjects from families in households living below the U.S. federal poverty line had levels of gray matter 8 to 10 percent lower than those with normal brain development. There wasn’t enough correlation between gray matter when it came to comparing children of middle-class families and those of affluent ones, suggesting that although money hardly guarantees a better outcome, a lack of financial resources clearly has a negative effect. “The reason I think we’re not seeing a continuum is that humans are very hardy,” said Pollak about his study, “I think the human child can learn to accommodate quite a wide variety of circumstances — what’s happen-ing in extreme poverty is that we’re moving out of the range where the human brain can cope.”

Pollak hoped that the effects were only tem-porary — but 22-year-olds still had the same

developmental issues as they had while growing up. Researchers looked at other possibilities such as being raised up within abusive homes, which tend to be associated with poverty, but even in children who were otherwise healthy, this deficiency was still observed. Joan Luby, a psychiatrist from the Washington University School of Medicine in Saint Louis, Mo., sup-ports the findings of Pollak’s team, believing it emphasizes an important roadmap to combat-ing poverty worldwide.

In a developed country like the United States, 51 percent of students attending public schools come from low-income families, according to the National Center for Education Statistics — a large number who may be suffering from hindered brain development. For Pollak, the next question his team intends to investigate is what social policies are most beneficial to children living below the poverty line. He’s also not the first person to have seen these unsettling results either.

The journal Nature Neuroscience published a pertinent study this spring, conducted on a larger scale by neuroscientists Kimberly Noble, of New York City’s Columbia University, and, from the opposite coast, Elizabeth Sowell of the Children’s Hospital in Los Angeles, both

HOW NEUROSCIENTISTS CAN HELP

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of whom looked into the biological underpin-nings related to poverty. Their effort spanned several American cities — scanning the brains of 1,099 individuals as their controls — and included children, adolescents, as well as young adults. Genetic ancestry was also factored in, to account for variance in brain structures among ethnic groups.

The lowest income bracket in the study — families earning below $25,000 — showed 6 percent less surface area than the families that earned over $150,000. The research was con-sistent with other studies, particularly one by Martha Farah, a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. Her research concerned 44 African-American female infants, roughly a month old, and coming from a mixture of socioeconomic backgrounds throughout Philadelphia. Even this early in development, those from low-income milieus evidence having smaller brains than the infants from wealthier contexts.

Farah and her team presented the research in March during a meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development. Their work, however, is far from over, still planning to fol-low the infants chosen for the study for an ad-ditional two years — as only Pollak’s study has

offered some insight into how children with an economic disadvantage develop over time, and not much of the existing literature explicitly isolates the causes.

We do see a correlation in the numbers, but what, if it can be ruled as a single cause, is re-sponsible for this gap in the first place? Among the causes that Farah suspects is the degree of interaction between parents and their children, as this form of socialization increases the likeli-hood of infants being more regularly exposed to language, allowing their brains to build as they recognize and connect with new sounds. The access to toys can also be a crucial factor — par-ticularly how stimulating the toys that they’re given are for their developing brains. Farah will also factor in regular visits to their home environment.

Jamie Hanson, a psychologist at Duke Uni-versity, has reckoned many of the researchers’ sentiments as evidence that poverty indeed has an adverse effect, which may make it all the more difficult to eliminate through social policy alone: “These early life circumstances make it tougher for many children and it’s on many of us in society to make sure that children have equal possibilities.”

While the social implications of the work can

be significant, and the precise causes remain to be still seen, it would be far from the truth to say that all is lost for those born into a lower-in-come bracket. While the damage shows signs of persisting, this does not mean that it isn’t revers-ible. To this end, a study in Mexico revealed that supplements provided to the incomes of poor farmers led to an improvement in the cognitive skills of their children, in just a mere 18 months — all of which suggests that the focus might be better placed on families in general rather than just examining their children.

According to Hanson, we could be seeing an-other instance of environmental factors impact-ing DNA — a problem that could arise even before the children are born — and intervention into areas of nutrition and stress management could go a long way in terms of breaking the vicious cycle of poverty.

“IT IS ABSOLUTELY CRITICAL THAT WE COME TOGETHER AND DEVELOP WAYS TO BREAK THE CYCLE BEFORE

ANOTHER GENERATION OF CHILDREN GROWS INTO ADULTHOOD SUFFERING THE LONG-TERM

IMPACT OF CHILDHOOD POVERTY.”

■ As great as your new job may be, it’s inevitable that at some point you’ll end up experiencing the pressures of work-related stress — the strains of deadlines, having to work late, or being overworked are all elements that come with the new reality, even for people who love what they do.

A 2013 “Stress in the Workplace” survey, conducted by the American Psycho-logical Association’s Center for Organizational Excellence, found that more than one-third of working Americans reported chronic work stress. And 65 percent of the respondents to their 2012 survey cited work as their top source of stress. This is not surprising, especially considering that we tend to spend the majority of our waking hours at work. Consequently, we often take work-related stress home, along with that overdue project.



WORKING WELL by Temani F. Aldine

MANAGING WORK STRESS

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Many studies have shown the ways this can affect our mental and physical health — anxiety, insomnia, high blood pressure, and a weakened immune system, to name a few. The damage is com-pounded by the detrimental ways we deal with stress, such as overeat-ing, binging on unhealthy foods, along with overindulging in ciga-rettes, alcohol, or other drugs.

In their 1995 study on stress and cognitive function, Dr. Bruce McEwen and Dr. Robert Sapolsky, Ph.D.s, found that some aspects of the body’s response to stress — such as heightened sensory awareness and mental acuity — can actually have benefits for the short term. Not all forms of stress are necessarily bad either, with eustress being the body’s response to excitement or events like an-ticipating a party. The difference between good stress and bad stress, however, relates to the duration of the stress and how the individual perceives it. “Bad” stressors tend to be chronic, long-term, and persistent, and lead to a more destructive response — having a breakdown and turning into that co-worker that everybody tries to avoid. Each one of us has a bad day, but when you find out your projects are becoming inescapable thoughts — even after they’re completed — it could be a symp-tom of high-volume workplace stress. All of this of course has much more to do with the nature of the reaction to the stressor than the stressor itself.

Work stress is inevitable, but it doesn’t have to run your life. We can learn how to reduce chronic stress and increase our overall sense of health and well-being.

Working Well cont’d ACTIVATE THE MIND-BODY CONNECTIONNew research in brain functioning allows us to understand how our bodies react to various stressful circumstances. This is also a benefit of mind-body practices like yoga, tai chi, and qi gong. Knowledge is power, and getting to know your own patterns of responding to stressors can help you take charge of the stress in your work life.

What can you do? Breathe. One thing that many practices have in common is the importance of breathing. We take it for granted. It is something that all of us do, but we don’t do it consciously. In your breathing lies the power to change your perspective. Simple acts like slowing down breathing or counting your breaths can have a calming and clarifying effect on your mood.

From the awareness of your breathing, you can shift to be-come more aware of your body. The quickest way to develop this awareness is to place your hands on your lower abdomen. Then, check in with different parts of your body. Do you feel pain or tension anywhere? Is there any change in your body’s temperature? Even if you do not sense what is going on inside your body, the shift in attention can affect your approach in responding to outside stressors.

You will fare better at this if you practice doing it before you encounter the obstacles that make your day stressful. Start by taking a few minutes each day to focus on your breathing, on walking, or just by quietly enjoying your lunch. Being able to focus purposefully on a single activity is a skill that develops with experience.

DON’T UNDERESTIMATE THE POWER OF ATTITUDEIn the workplace, you may experi-ence pressure to meet a deadline or to fulfill a challenging obligation. This is “normal” work life, but it is stress. It can be good stress in the short term. It can invigorate you, or help you develop expertise, or even force you to devise more economical and efficient ways for dealing with the tasks at hand. However, when this work-related stress is recurring or prolonged, it

can start to impact you in a nega-tive way. In the long run, it can also impact the way you deal with more trivial problems. It would seem that chronic stress, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.

Job demands are the roots of psychological stressors in the work environment. However, something that could easily become a source of chronic stress can turn out to be something temporary, followed by the opportunity for recovery and an adaptive response. Good stress can work depending on how you interpret and react to your reality. What is your task? How important is it? And how much control do you actually have over the final outcome? Bearing in mind these three questions — and their potential answers — can make a difference.

According to Robert Karasek’s demand-control model of occupa-tional stress, bad stress can result from a combination of a sense of high responsibility and low con-trol. This has as much to do with the prior experiences of the indi-vidual as it has to do with stressors in one’s current environment.

Your response to a stressful event (both its source and signifi-cance) is shaped by how you per-ceive it. Many stress-management techniques feature a way to recog-nize the difference between what is and what is not within your control. You must then identify the extent to which your inter-pretations, beliefs, and judgments about circumstances contribute to your stress. Finally, you must learn how to consciously adjust your re-actions and perceptions in a more empowering way so that you feel less stressed.

There are many factors that con-tribute to work stress, and it’s un-reasonable to think that you can avoid them all. However, there are ways to manage work-related stress that can not only improve how you experience your job, but also your overall quality of life.

What is your task? How important is it? And

how much control do you actually have over the final

outcome?

Fall 2015

Workplace stress comes in many forms, but most stress has physical manifesta-tion. So, one of the most effective ways to reduce bad stress at work is to incorporate physical activity into your day. Last year, a unique group of truck drivers at Lockheed Martin’s, Sunnyvale, Calif., facility started their mornings with the Body & Brain yoga program. This resulted in a more positive work engagement and fewer injuries.

Without special preparation or equip-ment, they quickly began to integrate stretching and breathing exercises into their daily routine. The group was led by Patrick O’Donnell — a senior manager who had discovered the Body & Brain yoga pro-gram while recovering from a serious inju-

ry. He got so much out of it that he himself became an instructor. Because O’Donnell had worked on Lockheed Martin’s shipping docks early in his career, he understood the truck drivers’ work environment and felt that his co-workers could benefit from yoga techniques.

O’Donnell said: “I started it as an initia-tive to help prevent injuries. These guys are getting older, and they’d go out in the cold weather and twist the wrong way and end up injured. I implemented yoga to stretch them in the morning and help them become more present-minded.” They’ve had wonderful results: According to O’Donnell, there were zero injuries in the first six months of Truck Driver Yoga.

YOGA GOES TO WORK WITH

TRUCK DRIVERS

by Earl Meagan

A CONVERSATION WITH DRS. PAUL AND EVELYN MOSCHETTA

Self-Transcending Love

■ It’s fair to say that one doesn’t have to be married to realize how much hard work marriage takes. With nearly half of all marriages ending in divorces, it makes one wonder if more people are in love with the idea of being married than they actually are with their part-ner. It’s hardly a surprise that marriage counseling has been such a thriving business, despite the ongoing economic hardship, and few have been in the business for as long as Drs. Evelyn and Paul Moschetta.

Their practice, based in Manhattan’s Mid-town East, has flourished for over 40 years, and their names are among the most recognizable in the business, with accolades that include the Marriage Counselor of the Year award, pre-sented to them by the Long Island Association for Marriage and Family Therapy. As a husband-and-wife team, together the Moschettas have saved countless marriages, collaborated on three

books, and for many years contributed to an ad-vice column in the Ladies’ Home Journal, titled “Can This Marriage Be Saved?” with stories and suggestions based on the problems of their former clients who are proud of the progress they’ve made. In addition to being featured in the press, they have also contributed articles with their advice to the Huffington Post.

Is it all really just too much of a struggle to maintain a marriage? Does it serve no other purpose aside from being a perpetual contest between two people with a marriage counselor or therapist acting as a referee? The Moschettas disagree, as their books assert. Their commit-ment to their job resides in the fact that a happy marriage can be a continuous source of joy and renewal, so long as couples are willing to work out their differences.

Their own marriage, 38 years strong, is testi-mony to this. When their book, “The Marriage Spirit,” was released in 1998, a reviewer from The New York Times was so impressed with their way of speaking that she likened it to a well-orchestrated musical duet. Each takes a thoughtful pause to listen to the other as they speak, perfectly complementing one another. Indeed, when I spoke with them over the phone, I can attest that this harmony certainly remains true. Few people have evidenced the same level of success in their personal lives and business endeavors as the Moschettas have over the years.

One could even go so far as to say that they were destined to do this in tandem. They both met while completing postgraduate studies in psychology as Yeshiva University. Together, they continued their studies at the American Acad-emy of Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis, and later on at the Alfred Adler Institute. Both had been through difficult marriages when they were younger (their current partnership being their second marriage), and it was while finishing their studies in psychotherapy that they became the go-to experts for all of their friends strug-gling with relationship problems.

Their practice is closely based on Maslow’s famous hierarchy of human needs, a crucial part of humanist psychology: Basic physical needs such as food and shelter ranking at the bottom of the list, while self-actualization, nestled right at the top, is needed for people to realize their full potential as human beings. Among those considered to be self-actualized — capable of pursuing their life’s dreams — instances of neuroses are rare. At the time the Moschettas

were starting, there was little research in the existing literature about successful marriages, or the functionality of a successful marriage. Terms pertaining to these states were rarely defined, and so they had to set about creating a defini-tion for happy and successful marriages, while doing an extensive survey of people across the country who were happy.

The more research the Moschettas conduct-ed, the more they saw the possibility of someone achieving self-actualization through mastering a successful marriage — a goal entailing stepping outside of the comforts of the ego and finding the support needed in reaching one’s potential, all the while satisfying the need for loving and being loved. Both Evelyn and Paul found each other after unsuccessful first marriages — and the goal is far from an easy one.

In fact, recent research suggests that biologi-cally, people were hardly meant to be monoga-mous. After all, we fall into the minority — only 9 percent of animal species are known to share breeding grounds for longer than one season. Like our primate ancestors, and even our closest living relatives, the chimpanzees, humans are thought to have originated as a largely polyam-orous species.

Looking at prehistoric cultures, you’ll likely find that tribal chieftains took several wives at a time, a practice that in some places continues to this day. Queens in ancient Egypt (and much of the Nile Valley) were also known to entertain several lovers at a time. In fact, only something like 17 percent of human cultures today place a strict emphasis on monogamy.

How monogamy came up in evolution (just a short 3.5 million years ago) seems unclear, but unlike chimps, humans form bonds with each other, even in instances of polyamory. A leading hypothesis is that while polygamy would pro-vide the most opportunities for reproduction, in the case of animals like the golden lion tamarin, monogamous arrangements are able to boost the odds of their offspring surviving until matu-rity, provided that both parents stick around to help raise their young.

Throughout evolution, this type of compan-ionship may have offered us something more advantageous. After all, humans are by nature social animals, and in their various pursuits depend on vast networks of people — this being one reason for which our brains are so much larger than even those of our closest relatives. In the generations before we arrived on the scene, the reason for monogamy probably became so-cially ingrained — a type of modeling behavior wherein hominids, like our ancestor the Aus-tralopithecus, realized that members of the tribe who mated for life lived longer and were happier.

Much has happened since then — even in the four short decades that the Moschettas have had their practice: “We’re acknowledging traditional marriage counseling, but we’re also adding an-


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other perspective to enrich what most people are doing,” says Paul, who notably has also looked to the goals of Eastern philosophy and its ideas about the self to supplement his practice.

The key is to find the mechanism of the at-tachment bond. As he likes to say, “The current of unselfish love flows through every strong, healthy marriage.” One of their recent success stories involves a man who after 20 years of marriage had an affair. However, after several months of counseling sessions with the Mos-chettas, the trust between the couple was rebuilt — something that was achieved only after the husband made himself completely open and available, letting his wife see his email, phone, and Internet history. Six months later, they paid the Moschettas a visit, sharing the good news that their marriage has never been stronger.

All too often, the problems that Evelyn and Paul see are what Evelyn refers to as “room-mate marriage,” in which the careers and family responsibilities of the couple in question take center priority, and when all is said and done,

spouses end up being merely people that live to-gether. The first thing a couple should do when they get home is embrace and kiss — appreciat-ing the time that they have together and having had made it through the day. If they don’t have this moment, however brief it may be, one im-mediately proceeds to daily tasks like opening the mail, and as such you’re likely to fight over things like the bills and so forth.

Their services and guidance are of course hardly limited to married couples. They’ve also regularly seen same-sex couples as well as a number of clients in long-term relationships, in increasing numbers, all to whom their advice often applies equally. Among other welcomed changes, they recall that when the practice started it was more often women who made the first call — in recent years, it’s typically been the men who call first, taking the initiative in heal-ing their relationships.

Most importantly, the Moschettas sum up their therapy in this way: It’s easy to get lost in the moment — to become irritated with what-ever it is your partner is doing. In that instance, your brain forms an image of your partner, dif-ferent from the one you know — so the key is to lose the new mental image, to not let it skew the way you see your significant other. Instead, try to focus on what it is you like about them — the wonderful person that you’re continuously find-ing new things about. The best way to keep your relationship going strong, is to keep it alive.

■ Imagine if you could instantly and effortlessly access all of your brain cells, every memory and experience you’ve ever had, just by taking a pill. That’s the intriguing premise of the 2011 movie “Limitless,” and its television adaptation coming to CBS this fall. The feature’s original star, Bradley Cooper, who remains involved as an executive producer (and appears in the premiere episode and may recur), will be taken over by Jake McDorman, who will be playing the central role of Brian Finch, a protagonist whose intelligence quotient rises stratospherically when he takes the illegal drug NZT.

“He’s down on his luck and has reached that point in life where all the dreams he thought would come to fruition don’t, and he feels he has noth-ing to lose by taking this drug,” executive producer Alex Kurtzman sets the scene. “It gives you total recall of everything that has happened to you, including memories of what it was like to be in the womb before you were born and even things you weren’t paying attention to, and you can call upon all of that. But there are major downsides. Like any drug, when you


stop taking it you go through with-drawal, and there are tremendous side effects. Most people that take it get sick and die. There’s a big risk,” continues Kurtzman. “There is an antidote, but no one knows what the long-term repercussions are. He has only the benefits, but how long will that last?”

Meanwhile, the murder of a friend puts Finch on the FBI’s radar, and realizing his value as an asset, the Feds get him to work for them. “It puts him in compro-mising positions that are going to test him. He’s thrown into it. He’s a total fish out of water,” says Kurtzman, who believes audiences will empathize with him, while enjoying the what-if aspect of the plot. “It’s a bit of a make-believe

wish fulfillment thing, but it’s al-ways couched in a way that makes it credible and believable and grounded in an emotional reality.”

The ethical dilemmas will be food for thought as well. “One of the core questions is what makes you, you? And how much of your-self do you end up compromis-ing and giving away by allowing yourself to take this drug?” posits Kurtzman. “On the drug, you might do great good, but at what personal cost?”

While he’s relishing the role, Jake McDorman would himself hesitate to take a drug like NZT, if it ever existed. “The drug will change your life,” he acknowl-edges. “But the side effects could be fatal.”

‘LIMITLESS’ POSSIBILITIES BRAIN-BOOSTING DRUG CHANGES LIVES IN NEW TV SERIESby Gerri Miller




OF THE HUMAN BRAIN



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Book Roundup

Worrying: A Literary and Cultural HistoryBy Francis O’Gorman (Bloomsbury, 2015)

■ When I first opened the pages, it took me a while to determine what exactly it was that I was reading. A self-help manual? Not exactly. A book about depression? In a way. A popular science book? Almost. An ethnogra-phy? There’s some of that, too. Let it be said that this wasn’t exactly a deter-rent — actually, it proved O’Gorman’s point rather well, mainly, that worry is a rather hard concept to pin down. In recent years, it’s been somewhat in vogue to write about disease and epidemics, as though they were the protagonists, or at least a great nar-rative thread. As horrific as the Black Death pandemic was, it revealed some-thing about the precarious nature of being human, and its presence can be felt through much of the literary and artistic sphere of the late Middle Ages.

The concept of worry is a bit dif-ferent, and slightly more elusive. It’s one of the rare words that doesn’t really translate outside of the English language, nor do there really seem to be any synonyms for it. The Oxford English Dictionary gives the Old English verb “wyrgan” as its origin word, meaning “to seize, or to cause fear” — safe to say that the word has evolved to other connotations since then. It does not necessarily mean the same thing as being anxious — a state wherein what-ever it is you happen to be concerned about is usually on the verge of hap-pening, and it’s definitely not the same as depression, as both can be defined as states of being, whereas worry is by turns a noun and a verb. It’s definitely something that frequently occupies our minds, but is despite this somewhat hard to delineate. The size of the worry, which varies from person to person, is an object of curiosity, too. There’s wor-

rying about leaving your plane tickets at home, and worrying while waiting for results on a cancer test — yet the same verb describes both scenarios.

The word actually didn’t reach its present meaning until the Victorian era, yet the feeling seems to have been with us from the very beginning — didn’t our ancestors worry from time to time that predators might be hiding in the grass, or later, when they had trouble sleeping on the night leading up to a battle? Therefore, O’Gorman has to become somewhat of a forensic historian to try and find the connotations that would mean the same thing — one possibil-ity comes from the Good News Bible translation, within the Book of Kings: “heavy and displeased.” Going further in the present, the escalating tensions throughout Europe in the years between World War I and II have been described as times when worry was the disease of the age.

Worry isn’t a psychological disorder — if anything, it represents what is going through the minds of otherwise normal people. In fact, it’s merely part of what makes us human — to go about our day and worry over whether we’ve left our doors locked, and then go back to double-check this only to start won-dering if we remembered to turn off the stove. In his own words, O’Gorman seeks to bring this perennial issue to light, to see worry as it really is, and open the discussion on what for many people can be an embarrassing aspect of life. Not necessarily in an attempt of curing it, but to simply understand why it occurs so often, how it can be used as a common ground among people who are afraid to talk about it, and how it may even be beneficial — that is, how its ubiquity may serve as a pretext for further connecting us with our fellow human beings.

—James Sullivan

Spring 2015

No Sweat: How the Simple Science of Motivation Can Bring You a Lifetime of FitnessBy Michelle Segar, Ph.D. (Amacom, 2015)

■ As crucial as exercise is for both mental and physical well-being, we tend to write it off as just some sort of chore that needs to be done, once we’re finished with work, or when we finally have enough time to go to the gym. It becomes more of a reminder of “That’s important, I’ll focus on it later” rather than being something that we attempt to incorporate into our day without forcefully setting time aside for it. Such would be the approach of Dr. Michelle Segar, chair of the U.S. National Physical Activity Plan’s Communications Committee. Segar asserts that even non-vigorous movement can make a big impact on our health and physical appearance — that merely being active during the day can add up significantly.

While many people who are serious about losing weight and getting in shape tend to look to an expert to design a plan for them, Segar instead places an emphasis on finding the physical activ-ity you most enjoy doing — whether it’s bicycling, playing tennis, swimming, or focusing more on aerobic exercises. She believes in taking a 360-degree per-spective, and that the system should be physically and emotionally rewarding in its own right, rather than driving toward an unreachable goal. Why kill yourself to look like a fitness model when you could instead be making every moment matter?

Her plan consists of four core prin-ciples — or MAPS:

Meaning: Instead of concentrating on what you “should do,” make a list of the right reasons for regularly engaging in exercise and healthy living.

Awareness: Take note of the physical activity your day consists of already —

perhaps change things in your routine like taking stairs rather than an elevator, or consider walking instead of taking the subway.

Permission: Make your self-care needs a priority, and take advantage of movement to lift positive emotions and thoughts.

Strategy: Your exercise plan is going to run into some roadblocks — you’ll have a friend who wants to go out for drinks, you’ll probably end up having to work late at least one day this week, etc. While consistency is important, it doesn’t mean you have to say no to everything. Calmly negotiate how to compromise and change your plan to adapt to these changes as they come.

A lot of these seem like common sense, but considering that more and more people work jobs that are largely sedentary — sitting behind a computer and so forth — Segar’s book offers a wealth of advice for how you can rebound against this unhealthy trend:

Office Sprints: Rather than sitting, try standing and working every once in a while — you might even want to consider getting a slow treadmill for when you’re at your desk, or take the stairs and walk around whenever you need a break.

Cleaning Calisthenics: Routine household chores provide more exer-cise than you think — just the practice of pushing around a vacuum can burn some calories. You might want to try things like carrying smaller loads of laundry at a time, making you go back and forth on multiple trips to the laun-dry room — especially beneficial if you have stairs.

The Leisurely Stroll: This is particu-larly great if you happen to live in the city, or even simply know of a nice downtown area. Rather than sitting in a cafe when meeting a friend, why not take your tea or coffee to go, and take a relaxing walk around the block, particu-larly on a day with beautiful weather?

—Earl Meagan


Wellness by Jeremy Fuscaldo




OF THE HUMAN BRAIN



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Thessaloniki

FALL 2015

Events

October September 29 - October 3 Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y., USANeurobiology of DrosophiliaCold Spring Harbor Laboratory

September 30 - October 2 Bordeaux, FranceGliSyn: Astrocytes and Microglia, Key Partners in Synaptic Trans-missionInternational Bordeaux Neuro-campus

1-3 Singapore, SingaporeRegional Congress of the World Federation for Mental HealthWorld Federation for Mental Health

1-6 Erice, ItalyStress, Behavior and The HeartEttore Majorana Foundation and Centre for Scientific Culture

3-6 Quebec City, Canada4th International Frontiers in Neurophotonics SymposiumUniversite Laval and Universite de Bordeaux

4-8 Izmir, Turkey43rd Annual Meeting of the In-ternational Society for Pediatric NeurosurgeryInternational Society for Pediatric Neurosurgery

5-6 Jersey City, N.J., USA16th International Conference on Alzheimer’s Drug DiscoveryAlzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foun-dation

7-10 Thessaloniki, GreeceFENS Featured Regional Meeting 2015Federation of European Neurosci-ence Societies and The Hellenic, Israel and Serbian Societies for Neuroscience

8-11 Cagliari, Italy16th Congress of the Italian Soci-ety of NeuroscienceItalian Society of Neuroscience

9-10 Riverside, Calif., USAFall Global Psychology Sympo-sium 2015University of Riverside School of Health and Human Services

11-14 Copenhagen, DenmarkThe Neurobiology of Sleep and Circadian RhythmFederation of European Neurosci-ence Societies

13-16 Berlin, Germany2015 IPA International Confer-enceInternational Psychogeriatric Association

14-16 Jerusalem, Israel10th International Congress of the International Neuropsychiatric AssociationInternational Neuropsychiatric Association

15-16 Chicago, USA25th Neuropharmacology Confer-ence Elsevier

17-21 Chicago, USANeuroscience 2015Society for Neuroscience

21-23 Riga, Latvia4th European Conference on Men-tal HealthEvipro

22-23 Dubai, United Arab Emirates3rd Middle East & North Africa Stroke Conference Conf Med

23 Brussels, BelgiumInvestigation of Resting State Functional Connectivity with MEG: From Theory to Clinical Applica-tionsEuropean MEG Society

Riga

Honolulu


23-24 Los Angeles, USAA Critical Moment: Sex/Gender Research at the Intersection of Culture, Brain, & BehaviorFPR-UCLA

26-27 Bangkok, Thailand3rd Annual International Confer-ence on Neuroscience and Neuro-biology ResearchGlobal Science and Technology Forum

26-30 Suzhou, ChinaBiological RhythmsCold Spring Harbor Asia Confer-ences

28-31 Honolulu, USAAANEM Annual MeetingAmerican Association of Neu-romuscular & Electrodiagnostic Medicine

29-30 Bern, SwitzerlandEndocannabinoid Pharmacology Meeting University of Bern

October 30 - November 2 Aguascalientes, MexicoSocial Psychology ConferencePraxeologica

October 31 - November 3 Istanbul, Turkey7th World Congress of the World Sleep FederationWorld Sleep Federation

October 31 - November 5 Santiago, Chile22nd World Congress of Neurol-ogyKenes International

November 1-4 Ashburn, Va., USAEmerging Tools for Acquisition and Interpretation of Whole-Brain Functional DataJanelia Research Campus, HHMI

4-7 Austin, USANAN Annual ConferenceNational Academy of Neuropsy-chology

4-7 Hammamet, TunisiaCem15 International Congress on Cognition, Emotion, MotivationUniversite de Tunis Department of Psychology

5-7 Vietri sul Mare, Italy5th International Conference on Cognitive Infocommunications IEEE

6-7 Barcelona, Spain3rd International Spinal Cord Re-pair Meeting Step by Step Foundation

7-8 Cambridge, Mass., USA36th Annual Neurorehabilitation Conference on Traumatic Brain Injury, Stroke and Other Neuro-logic DisordersBraintree Rehabilitation Hospital

8-11 Ashburn, Va., USAHippocampal-Entorhinal Com-plexities: Maps, Cell Types and MechanismsJanelia Research Campus, HHMI

11-14 New Orleans, USAAcademy of Psychosomatic Medi-cine 2015 Annual MeetingAcademy of Psychosomatic Medicine

12-15 Orlando, Fla., USANEI Psychopharmacology Con-gressNeuroscience Education Institute

15-18 Ashburn, Va., USAMammalian Circuits Underlying SomatosensationJanelia Research Campus, HHMI

16-17 Bristol, U.K.Colston Research Society Sympo-sium: New Developments in PTSD Research and TreatmentUniversity of Bristol

17-20 Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y., USABehavior & Neurogenetics of Nonhuman PrimatesCold Spring Harbor Laboratory

19-21 Madrid, Spain1st International Congress of Clini-cal Psychology with Children and AdolescentsAitana Research

November 29 - December 4 Cambridge, U.K.Molecular Neurodegeneration Wellcome Trust

December 2-5 Cancun, Mexico2nd Zing Neurodegeneration ConferenceZing Conferences

3-5 Coral Gables, Fla., USAAnnual Miami Neuro Symposium and 3rd Annual Miami Neuro Nursing SymposiumBaptist Health South Florida Neu-roscience Center

3-5 Las Vegas, USAPsychiatry Update Encore Pre-sentationAmerican Academy of Clinical Psychiatrists, Current Psychiatry, and Global Academy for Medical Education

5 Vilnius, Lithuania6th Conference of Lithuanian Neuroscience Association Lithuanian Neuroscience Associa-tion

6-13 Fort Lauderdale, Fla., USAPsychotherapy, Psychiatry and Counseling in the Digital Age Eastern Caribbean Cruise Continuing Education, Inc.

7-9 Strasbourg, FranceFrom Maps to Circuits: Models and Mechanisms for Generating Neural ConnectionsWellcome Trust, et al

14-17 Queensland, AustraliaSystems and Computational Neu-roscience Down UnderQueensland Brain Institute

Fall 2015

Singapore


Even with advances in technology, not much is known about the exact cause for meningio-mas. It was thought they could be passed down genetically, but no one in my family had ever had one before. It is thought that persons who suffer traumatic brain injury through war, do-mestic violence, or car accidents are also at risk.

I looked into the possibility that the batteries in the headphones that I wore while running were passing a current through my head. I me-ticulously checked the location and contents of state and federal toxic waste sites, against cancer and brain tumor statistics in my area, and made a grid of the results but there was no correlation. I did not use a microwave nor a cell phone. I ate mostly organic foods, drank filtered water, and hardly used plastic containers or wrap, so I ruled out pesticides, preservatives, and plastic carcino-gens. I examined my life for unforgiven or un-resolved traumas and forgave others and myself.

The game changer was when I read about Dr. Judah Folkman’s research on angiogenesis, or the formation of new blood vessels. In 1971, Folkman reasoned that by cutting off the blood supply to tumors, a cancer could be starved into remission. Tumors give off chemical signals that stimulate new blood vessels to “feed” growing tumors with oxygen and nutrients, like copper, allowing the cancer cells to form new colonies or metastases. By the early 1990s, the American

Cancer Society endorsed anti-angiogenesis ther-apy and tested synthetic drugs in clinical trials.

I decided to try to starve my tumors through this new, aggressive therapy. My doctors shrugged and said it was worth a try. I had my blood tested for C-reactive protein to measure the level of in-flammation in my body and for ceruloplasmin, a copper-carrying protein, so that I would have enough empirical data. I squeezed every possible milligram of copper from my food, drinking and bathing water. I stopped eating chicken livers, avocados, most shellfish, as well as beer and chocolate. I switched from drinking filtered or sparkling mineral water to distilled water. I installed a carbon filter in my shower head.

My subsequent MRIs have shown no new tu-mor recurrences. My blood test results show de-creases in inflammation and copper. My doctors said to keep doing whatever I was doing. And I have. So far, the body has been fighting back, and each day signifies another battle won.

Laila Bramwell Yasin graduated from Vassar College and Boston College Law School, taught at Harvard Law School, and is a legal consultant in Boston while writing her memoir, “New Normal: It’s Not the Setback, It’s the Get Back.”

■ I never once asked, “Why me?” In-stead, I say, “Better me than someone else.” Every year more than 795,000 Americans have a stroke and 130,000 of them will die from it, according to the American Stroke Association. That’s one American who dies from stroke every four minutes.

I taught law at Harvard when I had the first of what would be seven separate brain surgeries to remove recurrent tumors and three strokes. One paralyzed me from the neck down for a time. The fact that I am writing this is not only miraculous, but it shows how the brain, even when under attack, fights back.

The American Brain Tumor Association says nearly 70,000 new cases of primary brain tumors will be diagnosed this year and nearly 14,000 people will lose their battle. There are more than 120 different types of brain tumors, and meningiomas are the most common. Nine-ty-two percent are benign. The rest are either atypical or malignant, like mine is.

I see setbacks as challenges. I even saw the ini-tial brain tumor as a blessing to the extent that it was found before it killed me. It was operable and it was a one-time occurrence, supposedly. I saw subsequent recurrences as new obstacles to overcome.

The Brain Fights Back

by Laila Bramwell Yasin, Esq.

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IBREAInternational Brain Education Association

“If youchoose,f yf

it willhappen”

We need your support to help Laura be a role model for many others in El Salvador

In 2011, Laura was one of our students when we implemented brain education in El Salvador. Her changes were transformational and she made her mind to create a better life for herself and her child. Despite many odds in 2012-2014, including the loss of her mom, Laura worked hard to finish her school and get ready for college. Currently she is also taking care of her baby, her grandmother and her sister with a small job selling candy in her community. Due to these circumstances, she does not have the means to pay for her college years.

With a vision to create a better world and to initiate significant changes in the lives of young girls like Laura, our project Send Laura to College will fundraise to provide for her study and living costs during her 5 years of university in San Salvador.

Total Funding Goal: $20,000To know more about her story or to DONATE: https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/send-laura-to-college/

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brain world fall 2015

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