MRI Scans Detect ‘Brain Rust’ in Patients with Schizophrenia

That is the title of this article I am reviewing today. "'New research has discovered that a damaging chemical imbalance in the brain may contribute to schizophrenia. Using a new kind of MRI measurement, neuroscientists reported higher levels of oxidative stress in patients with schizophrenia, when compared both to healthy individuals and those with bipolar disorder. 'Intensive energy demands on brain cells leads to accumulation of highly reactive oxygen species, such as free radicals and hydrogen peroxide,' said the study’s lead investigator, Dr. Fei Du, an assistant professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.'" I believe this article because they have always said it was chemical imbalance.  It still have to find out what they can do about it.
The article goes on to say: "In schizophrenia, excessive oxidation, which involves the same type of chemical reaction that causes metal to corrode into rust, is widely thought to cause inflammation and cellular damage. However, measuring this process in the living human brain has been a challenge.
Du and his colleagues at McLean Hospital measured oxidative stress using a novel magnetic resonance spectroscopy technique. This technique uses MRI scanners to non-invasively measure brain concentrations of two molecules, NAD+ and NADH, that give a readout of how well the brain is able to buffer out excessive oxidants." It does not disappear in people with mental illness.  It must wear on the brain and that would be what causes a mental illness?
The article ends: "'Among 21 patients with chronic schizophrenia, Du observed a 53 percent elevation in NADH compared to healthy individuals of similar age. A similar degree of NADH elevation was seen in newly diagnosed schizophrenia, suggesting that oxidation imbalance is present even in the early stages of illness, according to the researchers. More modest NADH increases were also seen in bipolar disorder, which shares some genetic and clinical overlap with schizophrenia. In addition to offering new insights into the biology of schizophrenia, this finding also provides a potential way to test the effectiveness of new interventions, according to Du. 'We hope this work will lead to new strategies to protect the brain from oxidative stress and improve brain function in schizophrenia,' he said. The research was presented at the 2016 American College of Neuropsychopharmacology Annual Meeting in Hollywood, Florida.'"This is such a small article and a lot more needs to be said about how this can help.  Also do people still have this oxidation when the are on anti-psychotic medication?

How Exercise May Help the Brain Grow Stronger

That is the title of this article I am reviewing today. "Physical activity is good for our brains. A wealth of science supports that idea. But precisely how exercise alters and improves the brain remains somewhat mysterious. A new study with mice fills in one piece of that puzzle. It shows that, in rodents at least, strenuous exercise seems to beneficially change how certain genes work inside the brain. Though the study was in mice, and not people, there are encouraging hints that similar things may be going on inside our own skulls. For years, scientists have known that the brains of animals and people who regularly exercise are different than the brains of those who are sedentary. Experiments in animals show that, for instance, exercise induces the creation of many new cells in the hippocampus, which is a part of the brain essential for memory and learning, and also improves the survival of those fragile, newborn neurons. Researchers believe that exercise performs these feats at least in part by goosing the body’s production of a substance called brain-derived neurotrophic factor, or B.D.N.F., which is a protein that scientists sometimes refer to as “Miracle-Gro” for the brain. B.D.N.F. helps neurons to grow and remain vigorous and also strengthens the synapses that connect neurons, allowing the brain to function better. Low levels of B.D.N.F. have been associated with cognitive decline in both people and animals. Exercise increases levels of B.D.N.F. in brain tissue."  I used to exercise by taking walks before they took out my left lung.  I cannot do it now but am looking forward to the weather cooling down so I can try again.  I do not know if it is the hot weather or the fires that make it impossible for be to walk like I used to.
The article goes on to say: "But scientists have not understood just what it is about exercise that prompts the brain to start pumping out additional B.D.N.F. So for the new study, which was published this month in the journal eLIFE, researchers with New York University’s Langone Medical Center and other institutions decided to microscopically examine and reverse engineer the steps that lead to a surge in B.D.N.F. after exercise. They began by gathering healthy mice. Half of the animals were put into cages that contained running wheels. The others were housed without wheels. For a month, all of the animals were allowed to get on with their lives. Those living with wheels ran often, generally covering several miles a day, since mice like to run. The others remained sedentary.

After four weeks, the scientists looked at brain tissue from the hippocampus of both groups of animals, checking for B.D.N.F. levels. As expected, the levels were much higher in the brains of the runners. But then, to better understand why the runners had more B.D.N.F., the researchers turned to the particular gene in the animals’ DNA that is known to create B.D.N.F. For some reason, the scientists realized, this gene was more active among the animals that exercised than those that did not. Using sophisticated testing methods, the scientists soon learned why. In both groups of animals, the B.D.N.F. gene was partially covered with clusters of a particular type of molecule that binds to the gene, though in different amounts." Well I see exercise is beneficial for a person.  I used to pride myself on being able to walk all over town.  Maybe this winter I can again.

The article ends with: "In the sedentary mice, these molecules swarmed so densely over the gene that they blocked signals that tell the gene to turn on. As a result, the B.D.N.F. genes of the sedentary animals were relatively muted, pumping out little B.D.N.F. But among the runners, the molecular blockade was much less effective. The molecules couldn’t seem to cover and bind to the entire B.D.N.F. gene. So messages from the body continued to reach the gene and tell it to turn on and produce more B.D.N.F. Perhaps most remarkably, the researchers also found a particular substance in the runners’ brains that fended off the action of these obstructionist molecules. The runners’ brains contained high levels of ketones, which are a byproduct of the breakdown of fat. During strenuous exercise, the body relies in part on fat for fuel and winds up creating ketones, some of which migrate to the brain. (They are tiny enough to cross the blood-brain barrier.) The brain uses these ketones for fuel when blood sugar levels grow low. But it appears that ketones also cause the molecules that hinder the B.D.N.F. gene to loosen their grip, as the scientists realized when they experimentally added ketones to brain tissue from some of the mice. Afterward, their B.D.N.F. genes were not blocked by nearly as many of the bothersome molecules, and those genes could get on with the job of making B.D.N.F. None of this occurred in the brains of the sedentary mice. 'It’s incredible just how pervasive and complex the effects of exercise are on the brain,' said Moses Chao, a professor at the Skirball Institute of Biomolecular Medicine at N.Y.U. who oversaw the study. Whether the same mechanisms that occur in mice occur in our own brains when we exercise is still unknown. But, Dr. Chao pointed out, like the mice, we have more B.D.N.F. in our bodies after exercise. We also create ketones when we exercise, and those ketones are known to migrate to our brains. Generally, however, this process requires exerting yourself vigorously for an hour or more, after which time your body, having exhausted its stores of sugar, starts burning stored fat and making ketones. If an hour or more of intense exercise seems daunting — and it does to me — don’t despair. 'We are only starting to understand' the many ways in which exercise of any kind and amount is likely to alter our brains, Dr. Chao said. For now, he says, 'it’s a very good idea to just keep moving.'" Just keep moving anyway you can.  It all helps for the better.  I would not want to lose my memory or anything because I did not move around or walk. 

For young people with schizophrenia, physical and mental exercises offer hope

That is the title of this article I am reviewing today. " Workouts appear to trigger 'Miracle-Gro for the brain' that restores connections between neurons, researchers find.In as little as a few months, antipsychotic medications can tame the delusions and hallucinations that characterize schizophrenia. But the medications do little to reverse the less familiar brain-based problems that accompany the illness. Affecting memory, the speed at which the brain processes information, attention, problem-solving skills and emotional intelligence, these subtle but profound deficits can prove more crippling than schizophrenia's more dramatic and better-known symptoms. 'They tend to be the things that lead people with schizophrenia to go on disability and to become unable to work and to be socially isolated,' said Keith Nuechterlein, a professor at UCLA's Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior. 'Families go through a stage almost like mourning because their loved one changes so dramatically.' Schizophrenia affects 1 percent of the population, and research has shown that computer-based brain games sometimes can reverse one-quarter to one-third of the deficits in the areas of memory, thinking skills and social cognition. But Nuechterlein and a team of researchers at a free schizophrenia clinic at UCLA are finding that those benefits increase dramatically if they are turbocharged with aerobic exercise. It's looking like exercising the body along with the mind has the potential to alter the course of schizophrenia, especially if the treatment is applied early in the disorder,' said Joe Ventura, a senior research psychologist at the Semel Institute.'"It has to be early in the disorder.  If they can reverse it with exercise and computer training games I am all for it. Even though I do not do so bad with this disease I remember when I first was delusional with this disease and it was bad and I do not want anyone else to go through what I went through.
The article goes on to say: "In the current issue of Schizophrenia Bulletin, Nuechterlein reports findings from a recent pilot study conducted at UCLA's Aftercare Research Program, which assesses and treats people who have schizophrenia and conducts research on the disease. Preliminary findings from a second, ongoing study were presented April 2 to 6 at the biennial meeting of the Schizophrenia International Research Society by Nuechterlein, Ventura and Sarah McEwen, an assistant research psychologist who serves as the program's director of exercise. The National Institute of Mental Health funded both studies. In the initial study, which lasted 10 weeks, Nuechterlein and his colleagues treated 16 young adults who had recently experienced their first schizophrenic episode. Nine participated in a computerized course of four hours a week of neurocognitive training for perception and memory skills for five weeks and then four hours a week of social cognitive training for emotional intelligence for five weeks. The other seven took the same computer training and added four sessions a week of aerobic exercise for a weekly total of 150 minutes. Study participants wore monitors to ensure that they exercised in their target aerobic zone.
Over the course of the study, the cognitive performance of study participants who only completed brain training did not budge. But those who participated in physical exercise improved significantly.
One test measured how quickly the individual could finish a complicated dot-to-dot drawing, and the average completion time for those who exercised improved from 37 to 25 seconds. (People of the same age without schizophrenia complete the assignment in an average 22 seconds.) On another test, which measures people's challenges in managing their emotions in social situations, the participants who exercised cut the level of such problems in half. In the second study, which lasted six months, 32 people who had just experienced their first episode of schizophrenia trained for four hours a week with the same computer-based brain games as in the pilot study. Half vigorously exercised in addition to participating in the mental training. The researchers expected to see improvements among the exercise participants, but they were surprised by the magnitude of the results. Among those who exercised, performance on a whole battery of cognitive tests improved three times more than among those who did not do so." Exercise helps a lot it seems. Is aerobic exercise the only one that works with this. If it can help these people not feel the full effects of schizophrenia I hope it finally is something that works.
The article ends: "The researchers say the improvements are due to a brain protein called brain-derived neurotrophic growth factor, which is released during aerobic exercise. A kind of Miracle-Gro for the brain, BDNF stimulates the hippocampus -- the brain's center of learning and long-term memory -- to sprout new neurons, and it increases connections between neurons. Those connections are where learning occurs and memories form. 'In adolescence, all humans lose a certain number of connections between neurons, as the brain prunes redundant or less useful synapses,' Nuechterlein explained.'In schizophrenia, the process goes awry, pruning needed as well as unnecessary connections, so important connections are deleted.' McEwen said that in the second study, the amount of BDNF increased 35 percent in the group that had participated in both cognitive training and exercise -- and half of that increase occurred within the first two weeks of the study. In contrast, BDNF levels did not change among those who only received cognitive training. Researchers believe that helping people with schizophrenia as soon as possible after their first psychotic breakdown is most effective because those in the early stages of disease are more able to make long-lasting improvements.  Our hope is to prevent the chronic disability that is so common in schizophrenia from ever occurring, and to return individuals with schizophrenia to regular employment, regular schooling and normal friendship patterns, and to have them resume as much of a full life as possible,' Nuechterlein said. 'This kind of computer training and exercise -- in combination with antipsychotic medication -- might go a long way toward doing that.'" Ir works with those that had a episode one time.  That is good for them because if they keep it up they can work and have a pretty good life right away and not years down the road after they suffered from this disease.

Mild Jolt to Brain Can Improve Cognition in Schizophrenia Patients

That is the title of this article I am writing about. " Applying mild electrical stimulation to the brains of schizophrenia patients has been found to improve certain aspects of cognition, according to a new study by psychologists at Vanderbilt University. Specifically, the small jolt allows patients to recognize recent errors and to make the appropriate corrections just as a healthy person would.
One of the core symptoms of schizophrenia is poor cognitive control. This means that patients often have difficulties with working memory, attention, focus, and error-monitoring. Error-monitoring can be measured by “post-error slowing”– the nearly undetectable pause that healthy people take after making a mistake, such as a typo, in order to avoid doing it again. 'It has been known for decades that error-monitoring is reduced in individuals with schizophrenia,” said Dr. Sohee Park, Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Professor of Psychology, who contributed to the research. “This impairment has been extremely difficult to remediate.' In an earlier study, lead author Robert Reinhart, a graduate student in psychology, was able to improve post-error slowing in healthy people by applying a very safe, low-voltage electric current — transcranial direct stimulation, or tDCS — to the medial-frontal cortex (a brain region involved in cognitive control). He wanted to see if people with schizophrenia could benefit as well." It sounds like it would be good.  I would like to hear from some that have used this to see if it brings about results. I do know it has been used for sometime but do not know the results of it.
The article goes on to say: " For the study, participants performed a challenging cognitive control task while wearing EEG monitors. 'We saw a beautiful burst of low-frequency activity [from the medial-frontal cortex] right after someone made a mistake,' said Reinhart. 'But it was deficient in our patients with schizophrenia.'  In healthy subjects, these theta waves were steady and synchronized, but in those with schizophrenia, the waves were weak and disorganized, suggesting that they were having more difficulty processing the mistake.  The participants' outer behavior also reflected the scan findings: The healthy subjects slowed down by a few milliseconds when they made a mistakes and did better in the next round, while patients with schizophrenia did not.  After the electrical stimulation, the picture was dramatically different.  The mild jolts to the scalp significantly improved the strength and synchrony of the brain waves in both groups but most notably in those with schizophrenia.  'We found that medial-frontal stimulation resulted in normalization of patients' post-error slowing such that their performance was identical to that of healthy control subjects at baseline,' the researchers wrote.  'The global burden of schizophrenia is greater that that of untreated AIDS, metastatic cancer or severe dementia,' said Park.  'The results of our study clearly indicate that it is possible to restore error-monitoring with tDCS.'" What about long term memory. I know that fixing mistakes is a big deal also.  If you can remember that you made the mistake then correct it the next time that would be great.
The article ends with: "The findings have important implications for treatment. 'Cognitive deficits in people with schizophrenia are treated with drugs, without significant success,' Park added. 'But I want to emphasize that there is much work to do before we can be certain that tDCS can be used as a treatment.  We need to work out why and how these changes occur, how long these effects last and whether there are no other consequences.' The researchers also warn that the tDCS systems used in research or the clinic shouldn't be confused with consumer devices that deliver current to the brain. 'In the laboratory, tDCS is conducted in a controlled environment, and the safety of specific tDCS protocols are approved by institutional ethics review boards,' Reinhart said.  No one should try to replicate the research themselves." Why and how these changes occur.  That is something I hope they find out soon.  It seems like everything takes time no matter what it is.

Have scientists discovered what causes schizophrenia? Condition may occur because 'gene mutations disrupt chemical balance of the brain'

That is the title of this article I am writing about. "Schizophrenia may be caused by mutations in genes which disrupt the chemical balance in the brain, according to new research.  Scientists say the study produces the 'strongest evidence yet' of what causes the condition, which affects around one per cent of the global population.  They found people with schizophrenia had mutations in their DNA.  These in turn, disrupted genes involved in the transmission of chemical messengers across the brain. The balance of the messengers plays a crucial role in ensuring the brain develops healthily and functions normally.  Some chemical messengers, known as neurotransmitters, 'excite' brain cells into an action, whereas other 'inhibit' the activity of cells, Disruptions to neurotransmitters can therefore change whether cells function, and researchers believe this may be what causes schizophrenia.  They called the finding a 'breakthrough' and said they hoped it could help develop new treatments for the disease. 'We're finally starting to understand what goes wrong in schizophrenia,' said lead author Dr Andrew Pocklington, of Cardiff University."  Well they always said it was a chemical imbalance so I guess they are right.  Now we can hope for better treatments I hope.
The article goes on to say: "What is Schizophrenia?  Schizoprhenia is a long-term mental health condition that causes a range of different psychological symptoms, including: hallucinations-hearing or seeing things that do not exist, delusions - unusual beliefs not based on reality that often contradict the evidence, muddled thoughts based on hallucinations of delusions, changes in behavior.  Doctors often describe schizophrenia as a psychotic illness.  This means sometimes a person may not be able to distinguish their own thoughts and ideas from reality. 'Our study marks a significant step towards understanding the biology underpinning schizophrenia.  'It is an incredibly complex condition and has up until very recently kept scientists largely mystified as to its origins.  ' We now have what we hope is a pretty sizable piece of the jigsaw puzzle that will help us develop a coherent model of the disease, while helping us to rule out some of the alternatives.  He added: ' A reliable model of disease is urgently needed to direct future efforts in developing new treatments, which haven't really improved a great deal since the 1970s.'  The first evidence that schizophrenia mutations interfere with excitatory signaling was uncovered in 2011 by the same team.  The new paper not only confirms the previous findings, but also provides the first strong genetic evidence that disruption of genes controlling the actions of chemical messengers contributes to the disorder." I remember when I could not understand reality and also what was happening to me.  I had never had anything like that happen before.
The article ends with: "To reach their conclusions, scientists compared the genetic data of 11,355 patients with schizophrenia against a control group of 16,416 people with the condition.  They looked for types of mutation known as copy number variants (CNVs), mutations in which large stretches of DNA are either deleted or duplicated.  The team compared the CNVs found in people with schizophrenia to those found in unaffected people.  They found the mutations in individuals with the disorder tended to disrupt genes involved in specific aspects of brain function.  These types of mutations are also suspected to be involved in other neurodevelopmental disorders such as intellectual disability, Autism Spectrum Disorder and ADHD.  Around 635,000 people in the UK will at some stage in their lives be affected by schizophrenia.  The estimated cost of schizophrenia and psychosis to society  is around  11.8 billion a year.  Schizophrenia can cause hallucinations, delusions, muddled thoughts and changes in behavior.  The symptoms can be extremely disruptive, and have a large impact on a person's ability to carry out everyday tasks, such as going to work, maintaining relationships and caring for themselves of others." Lets hope they figure this out soon.  I like to know before I die that the people after me that have this disease can lead as a good of life as I have with this disease or better.

Game your brain: the new benefits of neuroplasticity

That is the title of this article I am writing about. “Merzenich runs Posit Science from a suite of offices in downtown San Francisco.  He has a team of 36 people, including neurologists, computer scientists and game designers. Using the same brain plasticity principles that he and Tallal used to treat children with Fast ForWord, Posit has developed an online software package called BrainHQ, a set of brain-training exercises aimed not only at treating neurological conditions, but also to arrest the normal cognitive decline that comes with age, and to improve the cognitive abilities of normal individuals. ‘I’ve looked at old brains, brains of animals we’d expected would die within months,’ Merzenich says. And you look at the various capabilities of these brains and everything that disadvantages them.  And which of these capabilities can we reverse by intensive, progressive training? All of them.  Their decline is inherently reversible.  As far as we can see, the same is true for humans.” I once used a game by Posit my old boss had us try it out.  It had a lot to do with memory and I am pretty good at that.  I have a new computer now and it is not on this one.  It does help I was better if I used it every day.
Why is this article being written because this could help schizophrenia people. “To understand how Posit Science tackles neurological diseases, let’s consider schizophrenia.  Schizophrenics typically suffer from hallucinations, delusion and disorganized reasoning.  These symptoms result from an excess dopamine and noradrenaline, the neurotransmitters that modulate the reward feedback-loop control-arousal levels in the brain.  Underlying this chemical reaction are what Merzenich calls ‘failure modes of plastic brain’: weakness in the neurological apparatus, specifically in working memory- - a cognitive skill that indicates a person’s capacity to manipulate information, such as computing sums- - and the ability to make predictions.  Antipsychotic medication, which suppresses these neurotransmitters, is effective in mitigation symptoms such as hallucinations but doesn’t fix the cognitive structure. ‘Drugs are an extremely primitive method to treat the neurology,’ Merzenich says. ‘We’re manipulating machinery that is controlled by dozens of variables, by powerfully distorting one particular chemical.  What we’re doing instead is replacing that chemical approach with strategies that actually correct the neurological underpinnings of these problems. And the only way is to have the brain correct itself.’”  The only thing I kept is my memory from before my illness. That does not mean I do not have to work on it, I do.  These programs work for a variety of things that we need as schizophrenics.

The article goes on to say: “Using BrainHQ, monitored schizophrenic patients can work on computer exercises that specifically target those cognitive weaknesses.  Two recent studies led by Sophia Vinogradov, vice chair of psychiatry at the UCSF, have shown that 50 to 80 hours of using BrainHQ significantly improved not only patients’ working memory and learning, but also their social functioning and ability to distinguish reality.  Posit Science is currently conduction studies to gain US Food and Drug Administration approval to treat schizophrenia, brain injury and stroke. “We’re transforming neuroscience-based software into medicine,’ Merzenich says.  To show how BrainHQ’s exercises work, Merzenich instructs Wired to take a 36-part cognitive assessment that lasts three hours and purports to measure everything about cognitive abilities.  ‘It allows us to tailor a programme to someone’s specific needs,’ says Merzenich.  In all, there were more than 40 exercises. One, called Hawk Eye, aims to sharpen visual perception and expand one’s field of view.  A set of identical birds flashes briefly on-screen, except for one of a different colour that needs to be identified.  A simpler exercise is Sound Sweeps, which tests auditory accuracy by requiring subjects to identify whether a sound, which might last only milliseconds, is going up or down in frequency.  Even harder is Mixed Signals, which requires subjects to watch a string of symbols, listen to a piece of information and react when they match. As new levels are unlocked, colourful fireworks explode on-screen.  The exercises in Merzenich’s brain gym are simple but strangely compelling.” I used the bird one before it is hard to get used to and find that bird that is different when it flashes.  I would like to be measured to see which I could use and find out a little more about myself.  They came along way since I used their programs.  There is so much information here that this is going to be in three parts.  I will put up part two tomorrow and finish this next week.

Different use of brain areas may explain memory problems in schizophrenics

That is the title of this article I am writing about.  I hear about people with schizophrenia and other mental illness that have memory problems.  It would be nice if they can figure out why and know how to fix it. “The enduring memory problems that people with schizophrenia experience may be related to differences in how their brains process information, new research has found.  We found that schizophrenic patients use different areas of their brain than healthy individuals do for working memory, which is an active form of short-term memory,” Sohee Park said.  “Both groups used their frontal cortex while remembering and forgetting.  However, while healthy subjects groups used the right side of this brain areas when asked to remember spatial locations, the schizophrenic patients used a wider network in both hemispheres.”  Schizophrenics use a different part of the brain.  Nothing infuriates me more than when I cannot do something because of my mental illness.

This is very interesting. “This suggests that while healthy people recruit a specialized and focused network of brain areas for specific memory functions, schizophrenic patients seem to rely on a more diffuse and wider network to achieve the same goal. The researchers also found a fundamental difference in the way healthy people and schizophrenic patients made errors.  When healthy people forgot, they had no confidence in their response for that trial and the brain areas that were recruited during correct memory trials remained inactive.  A more complex picture emerged for schizophrenic patients.  When healthy people are correct, there is an increased activation of the right frontal cortex.  When they forget, there is no such increase.  Their brain activation pattern is tightly coupled with their memory performance.  Not so with schizophrenic patients,” Park said. My memory for numbers is great.  For other things I just keep reminding myself that I have to do something.  Or remember something. I do not know how I would do on a test like that.
The article says: “Schizophrenic patients may encode and remember incorrect information.  The brain activation pattern during such error trials indicates that indeed they were remembering something. Albeit incorrect,” she continued “Such coupling of storing incorrect information and feeling confident of one’s response may be one way to think about how delusions get initiated,” Park said.  “Researchers have known since the early 1990s that working memory problems are a consistent symptom of schizophrenia.  The researchers sought to better understand what is occurring in the brain that may be causing these problems.  The right hemisphere is usually recruited during spatial information processing but if it is malfunctioning, as it may be in schizophrenia, the left hemisphere may also be recruited,” Park said.” The brain is not processing right.  You believe something is true and then you have a delusion.
They did tests to figure this out. “Another possible explanation is that schizophrenic patients may have more difficulty with these tasks, and as a result recruit more brain areas to assist them. In the experiment, the subjects were shown a point on a computer screen and told to concentrate upon it.  Three identical black circles were then flashed on a gray background, each in a different location.  After a short delay, the subjects were shown a probe and told to press one key if the probe matched one of the circles show earlier and another if it did not.  They then were told to press another key ranking on a scale from one to five their confidence in their answer about the probe.   The researchers captured images of brain activity during these tasks using functional magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI.  They repeated the experiment to capture data using another tool, near infrared spectroscopy, or NIRS.  NIRS is a new and promising way to study schizophrenia, the researchers believe.”  I hope this works so they can find ways to help people with schizophrenia.  We all could use our memory. It is something that worries me about growing old what problems will I also develop? Or is schizophrenia my only problem in life?

7 Types Of Experience Your Brain Needs To Function At Its Best

That is the title of this article I am going to let you read as we all need help in making our brain work better.  Why this article?  I know I lost a lot of my brain with this mental illness.  I used to be better at math than I am today.  I am glad that I did not lose my memory of numbers.  As far as English all I remember is the speed reading classes and I thought I was doing well at that subject.  Although when I took English in college the professor said that the only reason I passed was I was always in class and did the work not because I have a grasp on English.

With all that I lost would I return to those days the answer is no.  My life was miserable all I wanted to do was drink.  I could not hold down a job because when payday came around that money was spent drinking in a day.  Then I was borrowing for the lunch and everything for the following week.  I had tried college although when my friend came to pick me up after class I was drinking and forgot about college.  All I ever thought about was why things did not work out and my dreams did not work out.  Do I miss my friends from those days who are still in the same rut?  Hearing about them dying.  The getting high for them has not changed.  I had to and I am glad I have my dreams I have my daughter and grandkids that I hope and pray they do not have to go through what I have been through.
Last week I wrote about aging in blog a did you know that was the way I thought when I was younger it was a song by Blondie live fast die young.  I did a lot of crazy stuff that is lucky that I am still alive. You know that is something I never was able to make my old friends understand is that I had to change for me.  I was the one in trouble I was the one that was going to die young or be in prison for life.  When I was at the state hospital I seen a way to have a better life and I took that road instead of the one I was on.  If I did not change would my friends have accepted me with a mental illness? Yes and I would still be destroying my life that is why I had to change because it was destroying me who I am.
Is life a bed of roses?   No but when I see my grandkids watching their show and on the computer at my house I am glad.  If it was the old me I would not have fifty cents to my name because I would get it and it would go to getting high.  I never thought that I would out live some of my friends that were younger than me. To see the youngest die from a heroin overdose that is bad those powders are the worse drugs ever made.  When you hear about those kinds of deaths it does make you stop and think.  Now I look forward to a good life it only gets better for me. You just have to think positive in a world that can be kind to you.

Research Attributes High Rates of Smoking among Mentally Ill to Addiction Vulnerability

Well this article talks about how smoking is not self-medicating when the person is mentally ill. “People with mental illness smoke at much higher rates than the overall population.  But the popular belief that they are self-medicating is most likely wrong, according to researchers at the Indiana University School of Medicine.  Instead they report, research indicates that psychiatric disease makes the brain more susceptible to addiction. As smoking rates in the general population have fallen below 25 percent, smoking among the mentally ill has remained pervasive, encompassing an estimated half of all cigarettes sold.  Despite the well-known health dangers of tobacco consumption, smoking among the mentally ill has long been widely viewed as ‘self-medication’ reducing the incentive among health care professionals to encourage such patients to quit.” It has been fifteen years since I quit and I do not miss it.  I do not spend all my money on cigarettes.  I buy more food now.

The article says: “This is really a devastating problem for people with mental illness because of the broad health consequences of nicotine addiction, said R. Andrew Chambers, M. D., associate professor of psychiatry at the IU School of Medicine.  Nicotine addiction is the number one cause of premature death in the United States, and most of that morbidity and mortality is concentrated in people with mental illness.  In a report published recently in the journal Addiction Biology, the research team lead by Dr. Chambers reported the results of experiments using and established animal model of schizophrenia in which rats display a neuropsychiatric syndrome that closely resembles the disease.”  I for one want to live as long as I can.  I have said before that I want to be there when my youngest grandson grows up.  As I have said before I took wellbutrin to quit because of the side effects of taking it for a month I quit smoking and I quit the wellbutrin. I just put both out of my mind.
It goes on to say: “Both the schizophrenia-model rats and normal rats were given access to intravenous self-administration of nicotine.  The mentally ill rats acquired nicotine use faster and consumed more nicotine, Dr. Chambers said.  Then when we cut them off from access to nicotine, they worked much harder to restore access to nicotine than did the normal ‘control rats.’ In additional testing, the researchers found that administration of nicotine provided equal, but minimal, cognitive benefits to both groups of rats when performing a memory test. When the nicotine was withdrawn, however, both groups of rats were more cognitively impaired, so that any cognitive benefits to nicotine administration were ‘paid for’ by cognitive impairments later.”  When I smoked I can remember waking up I would have to have at least three to four cigarettes right in a row.  A friend from college would say as soon as we have a break Charles is smoking.
The article says: “These results strongly suggest that what has changed in mental illnesses to cause smoking at such high rates results in a co-morbid addiction to which the mentally ill are highly biologically vulnerable.  The evidence suggests that the vulnerability is an involuntary biological result of the way the brain is designed and how it develops after birth, rather than it being about a rational choice to use nicotine as a medicine, Dr. Chambers said.  The data, he said, point to neuro-developmental mechanisms that increase the risk of addiction. Better understanding of those mechanisms could lead to better prevention and treatment strategies, especially among mentally ill smokers, Dr. Chambers said.”  When you are mentally ill you smoke like a train.  That is what I used to do.  I do know I suffered those thirty days trying to quit.  I do not know to this day what made it so easy to quit besides the thirty days.  Having my baby granddaughter come over on weekends and anytime I could babysit or was it the wellbutrin.  In which the side effects were bad. I do know I am better off having quit.

Meditation for Consumers of Mental Health

If you are a mental health consumer such as myself, whose mind wanders to and fro’, know that there is further help besides Cognitive Therapy or DBT. Meditation is an ancient practice which began in the Eastern part of the world and it is a philosophy which helps you find inner peace and silence of mind as well as helping you to focus on the physical nature of yourself, such as breathing and thinking.
The conscious mind wanders day to day and time out by meditation helps you to bring your world into focus. Meditating throughout the day helps you to gain calmness and brings you to a higher attentiveness. It has been understood that meditation helps reduce stress that exist in parts of the brain. This stress and anxiousness is caused by parts of the brain which are overactive and meditation is known to reduce this activity.
There are parts of the brain which are involved in very intense emotions, our emotions escalate and we feel love or pain, all of this is emotional. We live these emotions over and over again and our thinking feeds these emotions until we become overwhelmed.
Once dismissed as pretentious but now brain scans prove Eastern philosophies can be effective in treating mental illness Mail Online
Meditation doesn’t stop a person from feeling or thinking, it just gives you more control over what you are experiencing. “Further to that, we have discovered in clinical trials that mindfulness works as well as antidepressants in preventing relapse of depression. It can also be used alongside of drugs.”
Written by Donald S

Changing the Brain

In this article they would like to change the brain to be more empathetic, appreciative and compassionate. There are other ways to change the brain to feel better. “Practices like physical exercise, certain forms of psychological counseling and meditation can all change brains for the better…moreover, given advances in neuroscience, these changes can now be measured” They know doing these practices can change the brain. They say the brain is constantly changing. They would like to enhance the brain to other qualities and not skills. “Modern neuroscience research leads to the inevitable conclusion that we can actually enhance well-being by training that induces neuroplastic changes in the brain.” The changes enhance well-being and that will be well. They go on to tell you what neuroplasticity does to the brain. “Neuroplastic” “changes affect the number, function and interconnections of cells in the brain, usually due to external factors.” It rewires the brain. It is very good for people with mental illness if you can change the brain. Especially if you can change the way they have negative symptoms. They did not use the practices of modern neuroscience. “Although the positive practices reviewed in the article were not designed using the tools and theories of modern neuroscience, these practices which cultivate new connections in the brain and enhance the function of neural networks that support aspects of prosocial behavior, including empathy, altruism, kindness,” They do say prosocial behavior. I am wondering if it could be used to help people with mental illness. The article goes on to talk how brain training is the new physical exercise. “If you go back to the 1950s, the majority of middle-class citizens in Western countries did not regularly engage in physical exercise. It was because of scientific research that established the importance of physical exercise in promoting health and well-being that more people now engage in regular physical exercise. I think mental exercise will be regarded in a similar way 20 years from now.” When I was growing up you never saw joggers or anybody exercising. This might become a regular way of life for some. Most people think the brain ages and that is it. “Rather than think of the brain as a static organ, or one that just degenerates with age, it’s better understood as an organ that is constantly reshaping itself, is being continuously influenced, wittingly or not, by the forces around us.” I believe that this neuroplasticity and mental illness have a long way to achieve the good this can bring. Although it will be worth the wait if it is good news, I am closing with a youtube video that is a feel good story. It may have a little to do with this story as it is of an old man in a nursing home that does not come to life until he hears music that he likes. Does the brain react to this?

Aging Brain-More Shrewd

I came across this article about the aging brain. We did an earlier blog on training the brain. I thought this might be just as interesting. They give us the bad news in the article first: “Reaction time is slower,” for middle aged people. They go on to say: “We’re quick, but we’re sloppy when we’re in middle-age. We make more errors when we’re in middle-age,” It makes coming up with the word that is on the tip of our tongue harder to say. Sometimes for me when I see someone I have not seen in a while it may take a minute to remember their name.
Here is a graphic about the aging brain that might be of interest. There is not all bad news about the brain aging though: “..Points to a continues improvement in complex reasoning skills as we enter middle age…this increase may be due to a process in the brain called “myelination” Myelin is the insulation wrapped around brain cells that increases their conductivity- the speed with which information travels from brain cell to brain cell. And the myelination doesn’t reach its peak until middle age.” We can then know when problems might come up and reason them out.
Here is the part about brain cells dying off: “is that once a brain cell dies off you can’t replace it. But many studies have now shown … that there is, in fact, brain cell growth throughout life.” You may continue learning and changing your brain like in the computerized brain games. There is also another part that helps in changing your brain and that is exercise. They gave treadmill training to “aging couch potatoes,” this is what they found: “Those who’d trained had larger hippocampi, the brain area key for memory. Other brain regions too – central for decision-making, planning and multi-tasking- were also larger in the treadmill exercisers.” More reason to make sure you work out.
The two scientists that did this research also exercise four or five days a week and do crossword and numbers puzzle every day. “… not only talk the talk, they also, quite literally walk the walk.” It would not be right if they just said do it and did not also work out and try and change their brain. The treadmill is good to work out on it helps with your body and brain.