Underground volcanoes spur Antarctic glacier melt

On By A.P.In Antarctica, Climate Change, Don Blankenship, Dusty Schroeder, glacier, Global Warming, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, sea level, Thwaites Glacier, underground volcano, University of Texas, University of Texas at Austin, Volcano1 Comment

Glaciers in Antarctica are being melted not only by warmer ocean waters but also by underwater volcanoes, a change in our basic understanding of what’s happening underneath West Antarctica’s ice sheet, scientists say.

Geothermal heat from underneath is helping melt the region’s Thwaites Glacier, in the headlines recently for its rapid melt and retreat, researchers at the University of Texas at Austin say.

Scientists in the university’s Institute for Geophysics say they used ice-penetrating radar aboard aircraft to find significant geothermal heat sources — hotter and spread over a broader area than previously thought — underneath the glacier.

Caused by magma moving underground and volcanic activity associated with that movement, geothermal heat might represent a significant factor in changing the stability of the ice mass above, they researchers reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Rather than a uniform region of heat beneath, like a pancake griddle, geothermal sources under the Thwaites Glacier more resemble a stove top with a multitude of burners emitting heat in different locations and at different levels, research scientist Don Blankenship says.

“It’s the most complex thermal environment you might imagine,” he says. “And then you plop the most critical dynamically unstable ice sheet on planet Earth in the middle of this thing, and then you try to model it. It’s virtually impossible.”

The geothermal heat under the glacier averages around 100 milliwatts in each square meter, the researchers said, with some hotspots putting out 200 milliwatts per square meter.

Under the Earth’s other continents the average is less than 65 milliwatts per square meter, they said.

The Thwaites Glacer is an outflow glacier — pushing into the Amundsen Sea — that is the size of Florida and hold the key to trying to predict possible future rises in sea levels, they said.

Studying it could help yield clues to the future state of the entire West Antarctic Ice sheet, they added.

A complete collapse of Thwaites Glacier could push global sea levels up by three to six feet, and a melting of the entire ice sheet could double that, the researchers said.

The combination of warm ocean water and underlying geothermal heat makes the future of the glacier difficult to predict, lead study author Dusty Schroeder says.

“The combination of variable subglacial geothermal heat flow and the interacting subglacial water system could threaten the stability of Thwaites Glacier in ways that we never before imagined,” he says.

http://www.techtimes.com/articles/8268/20140610/underground-volcanoes-spur-antartic-glaciar-melt.htm

Gecko-inspired DARPA paddles lets you become Spider-man

On By A.P.In DARPA, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Draper Laboratory, gecko, Geckskin, military, Military Industrial Complex, Nature, Spider-man, Spiderman, Technology, Z-man programLeave a comment

DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, has developed new paddles that allow users to climb vertical walls like Spider-man. For the first time in history, a fully-grown person climbed a glass wall more than two stories in the air.

The Z-man program aimed at designing a new tool for soldiers to use when climbing walls. Traditionally, fighters in wartime have had to rely on ladders and ropes to overcome vertical surfaces. These are both noisy and bulky, making it difficult for warriors to climb quietly when needed.

“The gecko is one of the champion climbers in the Animal Kingdom, so it was natural for DARPA to look to it for inspiration in overcoming some of the maneuver challenges that U.S. forces face in urban environments,” Goodman said.

This challenge was one many species had already faced in the wild. Geckos, able to climb vertical surfaces, were an inspiration to the inventors.

“[N]ature had long since evolved the means to efficiently achieve it. The challenge to our performer team was to understand the biology and physics in play when geckos climb and then reverse-engineer those dynamics into an artificial system for use by humans,” Matt Goodman, DARPA program manager for the Z-Man program, told the press.

The lizard uses microscopic tendrils, called setae, that end with flat spatulae. This dual structure provides the creature with an extremely large surface area coming into contact with whatever it touches. This allows van der Waals forces, a magnetic attraction between atoms, to hold the lizard in place. This same technique is used for the paddles.

Draper Laboratory, headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts assisted the military technology developers in creating the devices. The business developed the unique microstructure material needed to make the design work.

The demonstration climb involved a climber weighing 218 pounds, in addition to a 50-pound load in one trial. He ascended and descended the vertical glass surface, using nothing but a pair of the paddles.

Warfare constantly advances in technology and strategies, but ropes and ladders – still needed to scale walls – have not significantly changed in thousands of years.

“‘Geckskin’ is one output of the Z-Man program. It is a synthetically-fabricated reversible adhesive inspired by the gecko’s ability to climb surfaces of various materials and roughness, including smooth surfaces like glass,” DARPA officials wrote on the Z-man Web site.

Advances in this bio-inpspired technology could have benefits beyond the battlefield. Materials similar to the the structure in the pad could be used as temporary adhesives for bandages, industrial and commercial products.

http://www.techtimes.com/articles/8287/20140610/gecko-inspired-darpa-paddles-become-spider-man.htm

New research confirms that looking angry gets people to do what you want.

On By A.P.In Amanda L. Chan, anger, Neuroscience, psychiatrist, Psychiatry, Psychological Science, psychologist, psychology, ScienceLeave a comment

by Amanda L. Chan

If you’ve ever gotten the death glare from your parent, child or S.O., you already know the results of this new study to be true.

New research in the journal Psychological Science shows that people are more likely to give in to an unfair demand when they are presented with a threatening facial expression.

For one of the experiments in the study, 870 people played a negotiation game, which involved deciding how to split $1 between two people. In each scenario, there was a “proposer,” who decided how the dollar would be split and a “responder.” However, before making the decision, the proposer was shown a video clip of the responder making either a neutral facial expression or an angry one. (Little did the study participants know, the responder was actually an actress who was instructed to portray a certain facial expression in each scenario).

In addition to viewing the facial expressions of the responder, the proposer received a written demand from the responder for either half of the amount (considered a “fair” request), or 70 percent of the amount (an “unfair” request). If the responder didn’t accept the proposer’s deal, neither party would get the money.

Researchers found an association between the offer made by the proposer and the facial expression of the responder. If the responder made an angry face and requested the 70 percent, the proposer was more likely to give the 70 percent.

Meanwhile, if the responder made an angry face and only requested the 50-50 split, this didn’t seem to affect how much the proposer offered, likely because the request was already deemed fair. (Something to consider: Because a woman actor was used for the experiment and female and male anger can be perceived differently, the results of the study apply only in the context of a woman’s angry facial expressions being able to influence giving into an unfair demand.)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/09/look-angry-facial-expression-demand_n_5473238.html

To beat a parasite, birds teach their young a password.

On By A.P.In Birds, bronze-cuckoo, brood parasites, CIAF, Diane Colombelli-Négrel, fairy-wren, Flinders University, Mary Bates, parasite, password, Sonia KleindorferLeave a comment

By Mary Bates

I’ve written before about the evolutionary arms race between brood parasites (who lay their eggs in the nests of other birds, leaving them to raise their chicks) and their hosts. In these systems, host birds benefit from recognizing and removing parasite eggs or chicks from their nests. Meanwhile, the brood parasites keep trying to trick the hosts into accepting and caring for their young.

Hosts must walk a precarious line in defending themselves against brood parasites. Too lax, and they end up spending valuable time and energy raising another bird’s chicks. Too strict, and they run the risk of rejecting one of their own eggs by mistake. For the best results, hosts should modify how defensive they are against parasites in relation to the risk they pose.

A few years ago, Diane Colombelli-Négrel, Sonia Kleindorfer, and colleagues from Flinders University in Australia discovered a remarkable way one bird fights back against brood parasites. Female superb fairy-wrens teach their embryos a “password” while they’re still in their eggs. Each female’s incubation call contains a unique acoustic element. After they hatch, fairy-wren chicks incorporate this unique element into their begging calls to ask for food. Colombelli-Négrel, Kleindorfer, and colleagues showed that chicks whose begging calls most resembled their mothers’ incubation calls received more food. But the brood parasites of the fairy-wren, Horsfield’s bronze-cuckoos, produced begging calls that did not so closely resemble the parental password.

In a new study, Colombelli-Négrel, Kleindorfer, and colleagues again looked at the relationship between superb fairy-wrens and Horsfield’s bronze-cuckoos to see if a greater threat of brood parasitism would cause the fairy-wren to up its teaching efforts.

First, the researchers recorded calls from 17 fairy-wren nests in South Australia. They found the similarity between the mother’s password and the chick’s begging call was predicted by the number of incubation calls produced by the mother: If females made many incubation calls, their chicks ended up producing more similar begging calls.Next, the researchers conducted a playback experiment at 29 nests. They broadcast either the song of Horsfield’s bronze-cuckoo or a neutral bird. After the cuckoo calls, but not after the neutral bird calls, female fairy-wrens made more incubation calls to their embryos. In other words, female fairy-wrens that heard a cuckoo near their nest increased their efforts to teach their password to their embryos.

Colombelli-Négrel and Kleindorfer say their results provide a mechanism for how fairy-wrens could get better at decision-making and lower the probability of committing an acceptance error for a cuckoo chick or a rejection error for one of their own chicks.“When there are cuckoos in the area, you should call more to your eggs so that they have a higher call similarity after hatching and you can decide if the offspring is yours,” Colombelli-Négrel and Kleindorfer wrote in an email. “We show a mechanism that starts in the nest and involves active teaching and sensorimotor learning in embryos.”Colombelli-Négrel, Kleindorfer, and their colleagues are continuing to study how fairy-wrens teach their passwords to their chicks. They’re currently looking at how the fairy-wren embryos learn using heart rate and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans, and whether parents do anything special to help their offspring learn, such as investing in egg nutrients that promote learning.

To beat a tricky brood parasite, superb fairy-wrens have to start teaching their offspring early and often. And when they detect a threat, these dedicated parents double-down on their teaching efforts to make sure their chicks get the message.

References:

Kleindorfer, S., Evans, C. and Colombelli-Négrel, D. (2014). Females that experience threat are better teachers. Biology Letters 10: 20140046. doi: 10.1098/rsbl.2014.0046.

Colombelli-Négrel, D., Hauber, M. E., Robertson, J., Sulloway, F. J., Hoi, H., Griggio, M. and Kleindorfer, S. (2012). Embryonic learning of vocal passwords in superb fairy-wrens reveals intruder cuckoo nestlings. Current Biology 22: 2155-2160. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2012.09.025.

http://www.wired.com/2014/06/to-beat-a-parasite-birds-teach-their-young-a-secret-password/

Fasting for three days can regenerate entire immune system, study finds

On By A.P.In ageing, aging, fasting, Food, immune system, Medicine, Sarah Knapton, Science, starvation, Valter LongoLeave a comment

A person’s entire immune system can be rejuvenated by fasting for as little as three days as it triggers the body to start producing new white blood cells, a study suggests.

By Sarah Knapton

Fasting for as little as three days can regenerate the entire immune system, even in the elderly, scientists have found in a breakthrough described as “remarkable”.

Although fasting diets have been criticised by nutritionists for being unhealthy, new research suggests starving the body kick-starts stem cells into producing new white blood cells, which fight off infection.

Scientists at the University of Southern California say the discovery could be particularly beneficial for people suffering from damaged immune systems, such as cancer patients on chemotherapy.

It could also help the elderly whose immune system becomes less effective as they age, making it harder for them to fight off even common diseases.

The researchers say fasting “flips a regenerative switch” which prompts stem cells to create brand new white blood cells, essentially regenerating the entire immune system.

“It gives the ‘OK’ for stem cells to go ahead and begin proliferating and rebuild the entire system,” said Prof Valter Longo, Professor of Gerontology and the Biological Sciences at the University of California.

“And the good news is that the body got rid of the parts of the system that might be damaged or old, the inefficient parts, during the fasting.

“Now, if you start with a system heavily damaged by chemotherapy or ageing, fasting cycles can generate, literally, a new immune system.”

Prolonged fasting forces the body to use stores of glucose and fat but also breaks down a significant portion of white blood cells.

During each cycle of fasting, this depletion of white blood cells induces changes that trigger stem cell-based regeneration of new immune system cells.

In trials humans were asked to regularly fast for between two and four days over a six-month period.

Scientists found that prolonged fasting also reduced the enzyme PKA, which is linked to ageing and a hormone which increases cancer risk and tumour growth.

“We could not predict that prolonged fasting would have such a remarkable effect in promoting stem cell-based regeneration of the hematopoietic system,” added Prof Longo.

“When you starve, the system tries to save energy, and one of the things it can do to save energy is to recycle a lot of the immune cells that are not needed, especially those that may be damaged,” Dr Longo said.

“What we started noticing in both our human work and animal work is that the white blood cell count goes down with prolonged fasting. Then when you re-feed, the blood cells come back. So we started thinking, well, where does it come from?”

Fasting for 72 hours also protected cancer patients against the toxic impact of chemotherapy.

“While chemotherapy saves lives, it causes significant collateral damage to the immune system. The results of this study suggest that fasting may mitigate some of the harmful effects of chemotherapy,” said co-author Tanya Dorff, assistant professor of clinical medicine at the USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center and Hospital.

“More clinical studies are needed, and any such dietary intervention should be undertaken only under the guidance of a physician.”

“We are investigating the possibility that these effects are applicable to many different systems and organs, not just the immune system,” added Prof Longo.

However, some British experts were sceptical of the research.

Dr Graham Rook, emeritus professor of immunology at University College London, said the study sounded “improbable”.

Chris Mason, Professor of Regenerative Medicine at UCL, said: “There is some interesting data here. It sees that fasting reduces the number and size of cells and then re-feeding at 72 hours saw a rebound.

“That could be potentially useful because that is not such a long time that it would be terribly harmful to someone with cancer.

“But I think the most sensible way forward would be to synthesize this effect with drugs. I am not sure fasting is the best idea. People are better eating on a regular basis.”

Dr Longo added: “There is no evidence at all that fasting would be dangerous while there is strong evidence that it is beneficial.

“I have received emails from hundreds of cancer patients who have combined chemo with fasting, many with the assistance of the oncologists.

“Thus far the great majority have reported doing very well and only a few have reported some side effects including fainting and a temporary increase in liver markers. Clearly we need to finish the clinical trials, but it looks very promising.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/10878625/Fasting-for-three-days-can-regenerate-entire-immune-system-study-finds.html

New research suggests that rats experience regret, like humans.

On By A.P.In Adam Steiner, choice, CIAF, David Redish, LiveScience, Nature, Nature Neuroscience, Neuroscience, Rat, regret, Science, Tanya Lewis, University of Minnesota1 Comment

By Tanya Lewis

Just as humans lament not pursuing a lover or bemoan having eaten that extra slice of chocolate cake, rats may experience feelings of regret, too, new research suggests.

When rats were given the option of visiting rooms that contained different foods, and they skipped a good deal for a worse one, they glanced back at the former room, rushed through eating the snack and were more likely to tolerate longer wait times for what they considered the more desirable food , researchers found.

Furthermore, the rats’ brain activity represented the missed opportunity, suggesting the animals were, in fact, experiencing regret over their choice.

“The rat is representing the counterfactual — the ‘what might have been,'” David Redish, a neuroscientist at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, and senior author of the study detailed today (June 8) in the journal Nature Neuroscience.

No other studies have shown convincingly that any animal besides humans experience regret, though some studies hinted it was possible, the researchers said.

How do you define regret? You can’t exactly ask a rat if it feels regret, but even if you could, it wouldn’t be proof, just as it can be difficult to tell if a human feels regret just by asking them.

It’s important to distinguish between regret and disappointment, Redish told Live Science. Regret occurs when you make a mistake, but recognize there’s an alternate action you could have taken that would have resulted in a better outcome, he said. Disappointment happens when “the world’s just not as good as you hoped, but it’s not necessarily your fault,” he said.

To test whether rats could feel regret, Redish and his graduate student Adam Steiner designed a kind of “restaurant row” for the animals — a circular enclosure with pathways leading off it to “restaurants” with different kinds of food, which were dispensed after some delay.

As a rat passed each pathway, it heard a tone that told the animal how long it would have to wait for the food (like being told the wait time at a restaurant). Each rat had its own favorite food, such as banana or chocolate, and would wait longer to get it, Redish said. Each rat was given an hour to explore the enclosure, during which it could only move in one direction between restaurants.

If the rat passed up a good deal — for instance, bypassing a food it liked in favor of a shorter wait time — and encountered a worse deal at the next restaurant, it would glance backward at the one it passed up. Not only that, the rat rushed through eating its chosen food, much like a regretful human would, and was more likely to take a “worse deal” in the future, the researchers said.

But the rats’ behavior was only part of the story. The researchers also made electrical recordings of the rats’ brains during the task, from neurons in the orbitofrontal cortex, the part of the brain that is active in human brain scans when people feel regret. Decoding these signals allowed the researchers to “read the rat’s mind,” Redish said.

Surprisingly, when the rats were looking back at the restaurant they ultimately passed up, their brains showed a representation of entering that restaurant — not of the food they missed. The findings suggest the animals were expressing regret over their actions, rather than just disappointment, the researchers said.

If rats can feel regret, what about other animals? Redish speculates that any mammal might be capable of the feeling, because they have many of the same brain structures as rats and humans.

“Regret is something we think of as very human and very cognitive,” Redish said, but “we’re seeing that the rats are much more cognitive than we thought.”

http://www.livescience.com/46184-rats-experience-regret.html

Brief History of 8 Hallucinogens

On By A.P.In acid, amphetamine, angel dust, Arizona, ayahuasca, Banisteriopsis caapi vine, cannabis, Central Intelligence Agency, CIA, counter-culture, Delysid, Drugs, enlightenment, ergotamine, euphoria, glutamate, hallucinogen, ibogaine, Ken Kesey, Kira Salak, LSD, lysergic acid diethylamaide, magic mushrooms, marijuana, MDMA (Ecstasy), mescaline, Methamphetamine, MKULTRA, Nature, Neuroscience, neuroscientist, peyote, Peyote Way Church of God, phencyclidine, psilocin, Psilocybin, salvia divinorum, serotonin, South America, synesthesia6 Comments

Humans have been ingesting mind-altering substances for a very long time. Hallucinogen-huffing bowls 2,500 years old (http://www.livescience.com/5240-ancient-family-heirlooms-snort-hallucinogens.html) have been found on islands in the Lesser Antilles, and traditional cultures from the Americas to Africa use hallucinogenic substances for spiritual purposes. Here are some notable substances that send the mind tripping.

LSD is commonly known as “acid,” but its scientific name is a mouthful: lysergic acid diethylamaide. The drug was first synthesized in 1938 from a chemical called ergotamine. Ergotamine, in turn, is produced by a grain fungus that grow on rye.

LSD was originally produced by a pharmaceutical company under the name Delysid, but it got a bad reputation in the 1950s when the CIA decided to research its effects on mind control. The test subjects of the CIA project MKULTRA proved very difficult to control indeed, and many, like counter-culture writer Ken Kesey, started taking the drug for fun (and for their own form of 1960s enlightenment).

ayahuasca-vine-110929

Ayahuasca is a hallucinatory mixture of Amazonian infusions centered around the Banisteriopsis caapi vine. The brew has long been used by native South American tribes for spiritual rituals and healing, and like other hallucinogens, ayahuasca often triggers very intense emotional experiences (vomiting is also common). In 2006, National Geographic writer Kira Salak described her experience with ayahuasca in Peru for the magazine.

” I will never forget what it was like. The overwhelming misery. The certainty of never-ending suffering. No one to help you, no way to escape. Everywhere I looked: darkness so thick that the idea of light seemed inconceivable,” Salak wrote. “Suddenly, I swirled down a tunnel of fire, wailing figures calling out to me in agony, begging me to save them. Others tried to terrorize me. ‘You will never leave here,’ they said. ‘Never. Never.'”

Nonetheless, Salak wrote, when she broke free of her hallucinations, her crippling depression was alleviated. It’s anecdotal experiences like this that have led researchers to investigate the uses of hallucinogens as therapy for mental disorders such as anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Peyote is a cactus that gets its hallucinatory power from mescaline. Like most hallucinogens, mescaline binds to serotonin receptors in the brain, producing heightened sensations and kaleidoscopic visions.

Native groups in Mexico have used peyote in ceremonies for thousands of years, and other mescaline-producing cacti have long been used by South American tribes for their rituals. Peyote has been the subject of many a court battle because of its role in religious practice; currently, Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada and Oregon allow some peyote possession, but only if linked to religious ceremonies, according to Arizona’s Peyote Way Church of God.

The “magic” ingredient in hallucinogenic mushrooms is psilocybin, a compound that breaks down into psilocin in the body. Psilocin bonds to serotonin receptors all over the brain, and can cause hallucinations as well as synesthesia, or the mixture of two senses. Under the influence, for example, a person might feel that they can smell colors.

In keeping with the human tradition of eating anything that might alter your mind, people have been ingesting psilocybin-continuing mushrooms for thousands of years. Synthetic psilocybin is now under study as a potential treatment for anxiety, depression and addiction.

Best known by its street name, “angel dust,” PCP stands for phencyclidine. The drug blocks receptors in the brain for the neurotransmitter glutamate. It’s more dangerous than other hallucinogens, with schizophrenia-like symptoms and nasty side effects.

Those side effects are why PCP has no medical uses. The drug was tested as an anesthetic in the 1950s and used briefly to knock out animals during veterinary surgeries. But by the 1960s, PCP had hit the streets and was being used as a recreation drug, famous for the feelings of euphoria and invincibility it bestowed on the user. Unfortunately, a side effect of all that euphoria is sometimes truly destructive behavior, including users trying to jump out of windows or otherwise self-mutilating. Not to mention that high enough doses can cause convulsions.

Derived from the African iboga plant, ibogaine is another hallucinogen with a long history of tribal use. More recently, the drug has shown promise in treating addiction, although mostly in Mexico and Europe where ibogaine treatment is not prohibited as it is in the U.S.

Using ibogaine as therapy is tricky, however. The drug can cause heart rhythm problems, and vomiting is a common side effect. The Massachusetts-based Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Research (MAPS) reports that an estimated 1 in 300 ibogaine users die due to the drug. The group is studying the long-term effects of ibogaine on patients in drug treatment programs in New Zealand and Mexico.

Salvia divinorum, also known as seer’s or diviner’s sage, grows in the cloud forest of Oaxaca, Mexico. The native Mazatec people have long used tea made out of the leaves in spiritual ceremonies, but the plant can also be smoked or chewed for its hallucinogenic effects.

Salvia is not currently a controlled substance, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, but it is under consideration to be made illegal and placed in the same drug class as marijuana.

Ecstasy, “E” or “X” are the street names for MDMA, or (get ready for a long one) 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine. The drug acts on serotonin in the brain, causing feelings of euphoria, energy and distortions of perception. It can also nudge body temperatures up, raising the risk of heat stroke. Animal studies suggest that MDMA causes long-term and potentially dangerous changes in the brain, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

MDMA was first synthesized by a chemist looking for substances to stop bleeding in 1912. No one paid the compound much mind for the next half-decade, but by the 1970s, MDMA had hit the streets. It was popular at raves and nightclubs and among those who liked their music psychedelic. Today, ecstasy is still a common street drug, but researchers are investigating whether MDMA could be used to treat post-traumatic stress disorder and cancer-related anxiety.

http://www.livescience.com/16286-hallucinogens-lsd-mushrooms-ecstasy-history.html

Electromagnetic helmet provides possible new treatment for depression.

On By A.P.In Depression, Dr. Rajadhyaksha, Medicine, mental health, mental illness, Neuropsychiatric DiseaseLeave a comment

A high-tech helmet has reduced symptoms of depression in two-thirds of people who’ve worn it, BBC reports. Now undergoing clinical trials, the hood works by sending electromagnetic impulses to the brain to activate the formation of new blood vessels. Patients who wear the device daily for half an hour to an hour show mood improvement in as little as week, according to the results, published in Acta Neuropsychiatrica.

Thanks to Dr. Rajadhyaksha for bringing this to the attention of the It’s Interesting community.

http://news.sciencemag.org/sifter/2014/05/watch-electromagnetic-helmet-treats-depression

Inner-City Oakland Youth Suffering From Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

On By A.P.In Anxiety, California, Crime, Depression, discrimination, Hood Disease, Howard Spivak, Jaliza Collins, Jasmene Miranda, Jeff Duncan-Andrade, Kebmodee, Medicine, mental health, mental illness, Murder, Neuropsychiatric Disease, Oakland, Olis Simmons, post-traumatic stress disorder, Prostitution, PTSD, racism, safety, suicide, Violence, Youth UpRisingLeave a comment

In the inner city, a health problem is making it harder for young people to learn. inner-city kids suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

“Youth living in inner cities show a higher prevalence of post-traumatic stress disorder than soldiers,” according to Howard Spivak M.D., director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Division of Violence Prevention.

Spivak presented research at a congressional briefing in April 2012 showing that children are essentially living in combat zones. Unlike soldiers, children in the inner city never leave the combat zone and often experience trauma repeatedly.

One local expert says national data suggests one in three urban youth have mild to severe PTSD. “You could take anyone who is experiencing the symptoms of PTSD, and the things we are currently emphasizing in school will fall off their radar. Because frankly it does not matter in our biology if we don’t survive the walk home,” said Jeff Duncan-Andrade, Ph.D. of San Francisco State University.

In 2013, there were 47 recorded lockdowns in Oakland public schools – again, almost all in East and West Oakland.

Students at Fremont High showed where one classmate was shot.

“If someone got shot that they knew or that they cared about… they’re going to be numb,” one student said. “If someone else in their family got shot and killed they will be sad, they will be isolated because I have been through that.”

Gun violence is only one of the traumas or stressors in concentrated areas of deep poverty.

“Its kids are unsafe, they’re not well fed,” Duncan-Andrade said. “And when you start stacking those kids of stressors on top of each other, that’s when you get these kinds of negative health outcomes that seriously disrupt school performance.”

Duncan-Andrade said doctors at Harvard’s School of Public Health have come up with a new diagnosis of complex PTSD, describing people who are repeatedly re-exposed to trauma, which Duncan-Andrade said, would include many inner-city youth.

In Oakland, about two-thirds of the murders last year were actually clustered in East Oakland, where 59 people were killed.

Teachers and administrators who graduated from Fremont High School in East Oakland and have gone back to work there spoke with KPIX 5.

“These cards that (students) are suddenly wearing around their neck that say ‘Rest in peace.’ You have some kids that are walking around with six of them. Laminated cards that are tributes to their slain friends,” said teacher Jasmene Miranda.

Jaliza Collins, also a teacher at Fremont, said, “It’s depression, it’s stress, it’s withdrawal, it’s denial. It’s so many things that is encompassed and embodied in them. And when somebody pushes that one button where it can be like, ‘please go have a seat,’ and that can be the one thing that just sets them off.”

Even the slang nickname for the condition, “Hood Disease,” itself causes pain, and ignites debate among community leaders, as they say the term pejoratively refers to impoverished areas, and distances the research and medical community from the issue.

“People from afar call it ‘Hood Disease,’ – it’s what academics call it,” said Olis Simmons, CEO of Youth UpRising working in what she describes as the epicenter of the issue: East Oakland.

She said the term minimizes the pain that her community faces, and fails to capture the impact this has on the larger community.

“In the real world where this affects real lives, people are suffering from a chronic level of trauma that doesn’t have a chance to heal because they’re effectively living in a war zone within your town,” said Simmons.

“Terms like ‘hood disease’ mean it’s someone else’s problem, but it’s not. That’s a lie. It’s a collective problem, and the question is what are we prepared to do about it?”

Thanks to Kebmodee for bringing this to the attention of the It’s Interesting community.

http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2014/05/16/hood-disease-inner-city-oakland-youth-suffering-from-post-traumatic-stress-disorder-ptsd-crime-violence-shooting-homicide-murder/

Mice run for fun on wheels out in the wild.

On By A.P.In Dr. Nakamura, Exercise, Gene D. Block, Huda Akil, James Gorman, Johanna H. Meijer, Konrad Lorenz, Leiden University Medical Center, Marc Bekoff, mice, Nature, Netherlands, neural activity, Neuroscience, neuroscientist, Proceedings of the Royal Society B, Russell Foster, Science, wheel running, Yuri RobbersLeave a comment

By James Gorman

If an exercise wheel sits in a forest, will mice run on it?

Every once in a while, science asks a simple question and gets a straightforward answer.

In this case, yes, they will. And not only mice, but also rats, shrews, frogs and slugs.

True, the frogs did not exactly run, and the slugs probably ended up on the wheel by accident, but the mice clearly enjoyed it. That, scientists said, means that wheel-running is not a neurotic behavior found only in caged mice.

They like the wheel.

Two researchers in the Netherlands did an experiment that it seems nobody had tried before. They placed exercise wheels outdoors in a yard and in an area of dunes, and monitored the wheels with motion detectors and automatic cameras.

They were inspired by questions from animal welfare committees at universities about whether mice were really enjoying wheel-running, an activity used in all sorts of studies, or were instead like bears pacing in a cage, stressed and neurotic. Would they run on a wheel if they were free?

Now there is no doubt. Mice came to the wheels like human beings to a health club holding a spring membership sale. They made the wheels spin. They hopped on, hopped off and hopped back on.

“When I saw the first mice, I was extremely happy,” said Johanna H. Meijer at Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands. “I had to laugh about the results, but at the same time, I take it very seriously. It’s funny, and it’s important at the same time.”

Dr. Meijer’s day job is as a “brain electrophysiologist” studying biological rhythms in mice. She relished the chance to get out of the laboratory and study wild animals, and in a way that no one else had.

She said Konrad Lorenz, the great-grandfather of animal behavior studies, once mentioned in a letter that some of his caged rats had escaped and then returned to his garden to use running wheels placed there.

But, Dr. Meijer said, the Lorenz observation “was one sentence.”

For the experiment, the wheels were enclosed so that small animals could come and go but so that larger animals could not knock them over. Dr. Meijer set up motion sensors and automatic video cameras. Several years and 12,000 snippets of video later, she and Yuri Robbers, also a Leiden researcher, reported the results. They were released in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

Gene D. Block, chancellor of the University of California, Los Angeles, was not involved with the paper but knows Dr. Meijer and had seen the wheel set up in her garden. He said the study made it clear that wheel-running is “some type of rewarding behavior” and “probably not driven by stress or anxiety.”

Mice accounted for 88 percent of the wheel-running events, and spent one minute to 18 on the wheel. The other animals each accounted for less than 1 percent. Frogs, though there were very few, were seen to get on the wheel, get off and get back on.

Russell Foster, a circadian rhythm researcher at Oxford University, said he read the paper and sent it out to other scientists on behalf of the Proceedings and was delighted when peer reviews from other scientists were positive.

Marc Bekoff, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Colorado who is active in the animal welfare movement, said in an email that he thought the paper did show that wheel-running could be a “voluntary activity,” but that mice in labs may be doing more of it because of the stress of confinement.

“Wild bears will often pace back and forth,” he wrote, “but in captivity, the rate of doing it seems to be greatly heightened.”

As to why the mice, frogs or perhaps even slugs run, or move, on the wheel, Dr. Meijer said she thought that “there is an intrinsic motivation for animals, or should I say organisms, to be active.”

Huda Akil, co-director of the Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience Institute at the University of Michigan, who has studied reward systems, said: “It’s not a surprise. All you have to do is watch a bunch of little kids in a playground or a park. They run and run and run.”

Dr. Akil said that in humans, running activates reward pathways in the brain, although she pointed out that there are innate differences in temperament in all sorts of animals, including humans. Rats that do not like to run can be bred. And plenty of people do all they can to avoid jogging, cycling and elliptical machines.

Presumably, the same is true of wild mice. While some were setting the wheel on fire with their exertions, others, out of camera range, may have been sprawled out on the mouse equivalent of a lounge chair, shaking their whiskers in dismay and disbelief.

Thanks to Dr. Nakamura for bringing this to the attention of the It’s Interesting community.