BARBARA'S TCHATZKAHS

from PhysOrg.com People who have the common chronic pain condition fibromyalgia often report that they don’t respond to the types of medication that relieve other people’s pain. New research from the University of Michigan Health System helps to explain why that might be: Patients with fibromyalgia were found to have reduced binding ability of a type of receptor in the brain that is the target of opioid painkiller drugs such as morphine. The study included positron emission tomography (PET) scans of the brains of patients with fibromyalgia, and of an equal number of sex- and age-matched people without the often-debilitating condition. Results showed that the fibromyalgia patients had reduced mu-opioid receptor (MOR) availability within regions of the brain that normally process and dampen pain signals – specifically, the nucleus accumbens, the anterior cingulate and the amygdala. “The reduced availability of the receptor was associated with greater pain among people with fibromy...

For years I would say to people, "I can't sit/ be near you. You're giving me a headache." They'd get mad - then later I'd find out they had some horrible illness. They'd make me think I was crazy... but I'm not! If you've ever thought that you literally feel other people's pain, you may be right. A brain-imaging study suggests that some people have true physical reactions to others' injuries. Using an imaging technique called functional MRI, UK researchers found evidence that people who say they feel vicarious pain do, in fact, have heightened activity in pain-sensing brain regions upon witnessing another person being hurt. The findings, published in the journal Pain, could have implications for understanding, and possibly treating, cases of unexplained "functional" pain. "Patients with functional pain experience pain in the absence of an obvious disease or injury to explain their pain," explained Dr. Stuart W. G. Derb...

Abuse changes the brain. Thank you modern science for proving correct what I have been saying for years. And the more I work with other abuse victims, the more I see proof that this is so. Abuse victims are not stupid, nutjobs, obsessive, crazy, scorned or naive . Suicide victims or contemplaters are not insane, cowardly or crying for attention. As someone who contemplated suicide a few times for a variety of reasons ( none of which had to do with attention-getting or cowardice ) and who attempted it once (to get away from the 2 sociopaths in my life who had pushed me to the edge) I am grateful to my late therapist and those who made me see my life still had value. I was stuck in cognitive loops from which I couldn't escape through shear strength of will. At the bottom of this article is a link to my friend Iddybud 's recent post on the PTSD related suicides of Iraq War soldiers/ survivors. Please read and pass on. Don't pass judgment on those of us whose lives have...

Having a child with ADD, when you're not - can be a challenge. Trying to work with the NYC School System can be frustrating and rage-inducing. My child has been profoundly lucky to have teachers who really care and last year, one who is passionate about teaching and reaching the minds of all his students... No matter how far outside the box he had to reach. My child is dynamic, frustrating, creative, imaginative, crazy-making and infinitely charming, loveable and full of compassion. Last year, they designed their own Halloween costume, sketched it, helped me get the fabrics for it and gave it to their very resourceful and innovative Aunt - who painstakingly brought it to life. My Nana, of blessed memory, (who was a clothing designer and made 90% of my clothing for me until she passed in 1981) - would be very VERY proud. For them & my other friends and childrens' friends with ADD, I post this article: by Ben Goldfarb A few years ago, my wife was waiting patiently for me...

By Ed Edelson -- HealthDay Reporter Ever get a gut feeling something just isn't quite right, and make a decision accordingly? Science is beginning to suggest those instincts may have roots deep in the brain. Research in young volunteers points to some kind of "sixth sense" -- a mechanism in the brain that picks up on subtle clues, then sends out subconscious signals of trouble ahead. The finding could help explain certain intuitive phenomena seen among humans. For example, in the recent Asian tsunami, aboriginal people sought out higher ground in the moments before the disaster, as did many wild animals. Could subtle changes in weather or the environment have warned them early on? Just such an early warning system may exist in the anterior cingulate cortex, a brain area important in processing complex information, according to a report by psychologists at Washington University in St. Louis. Their findings appear in the Feb. 18 issue of the journal Science. In their experi...

Scientists have long known that the nervous system receptor known as TRPV1 can affect sensations of pain in the body. Now a group of Brown University scientists has found that these receptors - a darling of drug developers - also may play a role in learning and memory in the brain. In surprising new research, published in the journal Neuron, Julie Kauer and her team show that activation of TPRV1 receptors can trigger long-term depression, a phenomenon that creates lasting changes in the connections between neurons. These changes in the brain - and the related process of neural reorganization known as long-term potentiation - are believed to be the cellular basis for memory making. "We've known that TRPV1 receptors are in the brain, but this is some of the first evidence of what they actually do there," Kauer said. "And the functional role we uncovered is unexpected. No one has previously linked these pain receptors to a cellular mechanism underlying memory. So we may...

YOUR BRAIN - ON NEOCON PUNDITRY New Study of Talk Show Host Brains Calls For Compassion, Not Scorn by Steve Young "You Wouldn't Ridicule Someone With Parkinson's*, Then Why Mock Anyone With A Brain Disease," says a should be Nobel Prize winner A new study released by Bio-psychological Medicine (BM) Journal offers clear evidence that the brains of the radio/TV talk show host/pundit, thought to be synthetically influenced by environmental and partisan pressure, is fundamentally hardwired differently than the normal human brain due to in utero developmental malformation of the embryonic nervous system in the first three months of fetal development. (See: Rosemary Baby's brain) The study calls for a new category within the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) to cover the brain-behavioral syndrome (see map and legend below) with the oral and anal local ganglia, the term "Cephalinguanal Syndrome" (Ceph/Syn) is proposed by the research team due to d...