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greghough890 · 1 year
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Dr Gregory Hough: Enhancing Healthcare in South Africa
When it comes to healthcare professionals making a difference, Dr Gregory Hough name stands out. With an unwavering commitment to patient care and an impressive track record, Dr Gregory Hough has become a prominent figure in the medical field, particularly in South Africa. This article aims to explore the life and accomplishments of Dr Gregory Hough, shedding light on his contributions to medicine, research, and the community. Let's delve into the inspiring journey of this esteemed medical practitioner.
Who is Dr Gregory Hough?
Dr Gregory Hough is a highly regarded medical professional with extensive experience in various medical specializations. Dr Greg Hough south africa born and raised, his passion for healthcare and helping others began at an early age. Driven by a desire to make a positive impact, he pursued a career in medicine and has since become an influential figure in the field.
Dr Gregory Hough Background and Education
Dr Gregory journey to becoming a respected medical practitioner began with a strong educational foundation. He completed his undergraduate studies at a renowned university, earning a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology. With a thirst for knowledge and a commitment to excellence, he pursued further education and obtained his medical degree from a prestigious medical school.
Engaging with the Facebook Community
Interactive Discussions and Q&A Sessions
Dr Gregory Facebook community through interactive discussions and Q&A sessions. He encourages his followers to ask questions about Dr Gregory images, medical expertise, or any other areas of interest. By fostering these conversations, he creates a sense of connection and invites his audience to be a part of his journey.
Dr Gregory Hough Work in South Africa
Dr Greg Hough impact extends beyond his medical practice. In South Africa, he has actively contributed to the local healthcare landscape, dedicating his expertise and resources to improve the well-being of the community.
Medical Practice and Specializations
Dr gregory Hough South Africa practitioner, has established a thriving practice that serves a diverse range of patients. His areas of specialization encompass various branches of medicine, including cardiology, neurology, and internal medicine. Patients seek his expertise and compassionate care, knowing they are in capable hands.
Community Involvement and Philanthropy
Dr Gregory Hough commitment to the community extends beyond his medical practice. He actively engages in philanthropic endeavors, supporting local initiatives aimed at improving healthcare access and quality. Through partnerships with nonprofit organizations and community outreach programs, he has made a tangible difference in the lives of underserved populations.
Collaborations and Partnerships
Recognizing the power of collaboration, Dr Gregory Hough has formed strategic partnerships with other medical professionals, institutions, and organizations in South Africa. By working together, they combine their expertise and resources to tackle complex medical challenges, enhance patient care, and Drive innovation in the field.
Impact on Patients and Society
Dr Gregory Hough dedication to his patients and the broader society is evident through the positive impact he has made.
Patient Testimonials and Success Stories
Patients who have been under the care of Dr Greg Hough have shared numerous testimonials highlighting his skill, compassion, and the positive outcomes they have experienced. These stories serve as a testament to his commitment to providing personalized, patient-centered care that improves the quality of life for those he serves.
Social and Humanitarian Contributions
In addition to his medical practice, Greg Hough actively engages in social and humanitarian efforts. He volunteers his time and expertise in medical missions, providing essential healthcare services to underprivileged communities. His dedication to making a difference extends beyond the confines of his practice, positively impacting society as a whole.
Healthcare Advancements in South Africa
Dr Gregory Hough contributions to the healthcare landscape in South Africa go beyond individual patient care. Through his innovative approaches, research endeavors, and collaborative efforts, he has played a pivotal role in advancing healthcare practices and standards in the country. His contributions have led to improved treatment options, enhanced patient outcomes, and a stronger healthcare system overall.
Media Presence and Online Engagement
Dr Gregory Hough recognizes the importance of leveraging modern communication channels to engage with patients, raise awareness, and share valuable healthcare information.
Dr Gregory Hough Online Presence
Dr Gregory Hough maintains a strong online presence, utilizing various platforms to connect with patients and the public. His website serves as a comprehensive resource, providing information about his practice, areas of expertise, and patient testimonials. Additionally, he actively shares educational content, health tips, and updates through his blog.
Social Media Influence and Outreach
With a significant following on social media platforms such as Dr Gregory facebook, Dr Gregory Hough effectively reaches a wide audience. Through engaging posts, he adDresses common health concerns, shares the latest medical breakthroughs, and provides valuable insights into maintaining overall well-being. His interactive approach fosters a sense of community and encourages open dialogue.Additionally he shares Dr Gregory images.
Dr Gregory Hough unwavering dedication to patient care, medical innovation, and community well-being has solidified his reputation as a prominent figure in South Africa's healthcare landscape. 
0 notes
houghg · 1 year
Text
Dr Gregory Hough: Enhancing Healthcare in South Africa
When it comes to healthcare professionals making a difference, Dr Gregory Hough name stands out. With an unwavering commitment to patient care and an impressive track record, Dr Gregory Hough has become a prominent figure in the medical field, particularly in South Africa. This article aims to explore the life and accomplishments of Dr Gregory Hough, shedding light on his contributions to medicine, research, and the community. Let's delve into the inspiring journey of this esteemed medical practitioner.
Who is Dr Gregory Hough?
Dr Gregory Hough is a highly regarded medical professional with extensive experience in various medical specializations. Dr Greg Hough south africa born and raised, his passion for healthcare and helping others began at an early age. Driven by a desire to make a positive impact, he pursued a career in medicine and has since become an influential figure in the field.
Dr Gregory Hough Background and Education
Dr Gregory journey to becoming a respected medical practitioner began with a strong educational foundation. He completed his undergraduate studies at a renowned university, earning a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology. With a thirst for knowledge and a commitment to excellence, he pursued further education and obtained his medical degree from a prestigious medical school.
Engaging with the Facebook Community
Interactive Discussions and Q&A Sessions
Dr Gregory Facebook community through interactive discussions and Q&A sessions. He encourages his followers to ask questions about dr Gregory images, medical expertise, or any other areas of interest. By fostering these conversations, he creates a sense of connection and invites his audience to be a part of his journey.
Dr Gregory Hough Work in South Africa
Dr Greg Hough impact extends beyond his medical practice. In South Africa, he has actively contributed to the local healthcare landscape, dedicating his expertise and resources to improve the well-being of the community.
Medical Practice and Specializations
Dr gregory Hough South Africa practitioner, has established a thriving practice that serves a diverse range of patients. His areas of specialization encompass various branches of medicine, including cardiology, neurology, and internal medicine. Patients seek his expertise and compassionate care, knowing they are in capable hands.
Community Involvement and Philanthropy
Dr Gregory Hough commitment to the community extends beyond his medical practice. He actively engages in philanthropic endeavors, supporting local initiatives aimed at improving healthcare access and quality. Through partnerships with nonprofit organizations and community outreach programs, he has made a tangible difference in the lives of underserved populations.
Collaborations and Partnerships
Recognizing the power of collaboration, Dr Gregory Hough has formed strategic partnerships with other medical professionals, institutions, and organizations in South Africa. By working together, they combine their expertise and resources to tackle complex medical challenges, enhance patient care, and drive innovation in the field.
Impact on Patients and Society
Dr Gregory Hough dedication to his patients and the broader society is evident through the positive impact he has made.
Patient Testimonials and Success Stories
Patients who have been under the care of Dr Greg Hough have shared numerous testimonials highlighting his skill, compassion, and the positive outcomes they have experienced. These stories serve as a testament to his commitment to providing personalized, patient-centered care that improves the quality of life for those he serves.
Social and Humanitarian Contributions
In addition to his medical practice, Greg Hough actively engages in social and humanitarian efforts. He volunteers his time and expertise in medical missions, providing essential healthcare services to underprivileged communities. His dedication to making a difference extends beyond the confines of his practice, positively impacting society as a whole.
Healthcare Advancements in South Africa
Dr Gregory Hough contributions to the healthcare landscape in South Africa go beyond individual patient care. Through his innovative approaches, research endeavors, and collaborative efforts, he has played a pivotal role in advancing healthcare practices and standards in the country. His contributions have led to improved treatment options, enhanced patient outcomes, and a stronger healthcare system overall.
Media Presence and Online Engagement
Dr Gregory Hough recognizes the importance of leveraging modern communication channels to engage with patients, raise awareness, and share valuable healthcare information.
Dr Gregory Hough Online Presence
Dr Gregory Hough maintains a strong online presence, utilizing various platforms to connect with patients and the public. His website serves as a comprehensive resource, providing information about his practice, areas of expertise, and patient testimonials. Additionally, he actively shares educational content, health tips, and updates through his blog.
Social Media Influence and Outreach
With a significant following on social media platforms such as Dr Gregory facebook, Dr Gregory Hough effectively reaches a wide audience. Through engaging posts, he addresses common health concerns, shares the latest medical breakthroughs, and provides valuable insights into maintaining overall well-being. His interactive approach fosters a sense of community and encourages open dialogue.Additionally he shares Dr Gregory images.
Dr Gregory Hough unwavering dedication to patient care, medical innovation, and community well-being has solidified his reputation as a prominent figure in South Africa's healthcare landscape.
0 notes
myfeeds · 1 year
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A gene involved in Down syndrome puts the brakes on neurons activity in mice
The gene in question, called Down syndrome cell adhesion molecule, or DSCAM, is also implicated in other human neurological conditions, including autism spectrum disorders, bipolar disorder and intractable epilepsy. The cause of Down syndrome is known to be an extra copy of chromosome 21, or trisomy 21. But because this chromosome contains more than 200 genes — including DSCAM — a major challenge in Down syndrome research and treatments is determining which gene or genes on the chromosome contribute to which specific symptoms of the syndrome. “The ideal path for treatment would be to identify the gene that causes a medical condition, and then target this gene or other genes that it works with to treat that aspect of Down syndrome,” said Bing Ye, a neuroscientist at the U-M Life Sciences Institute and lead author of the study. “But for Down syndrome, we can’t just sequence patient genomes to find such genes, because we’d find at least 200 different genes that are changed. We have to dig deeper to figure out which of those genes causes which problem.” For this work, researchers turn to animal models of Down syndrome. By studying mice that have a third copy of the mouse equivalent of chromosome 21, Ye and his team have now demonstrated how an extra copy of DSCAM contributes to neuronal dysfunction. Their findings are described in an April 20 study in PLOS Biology. Each neuron has two sets of branches that extend out from the cell center: dendrites, which receive signals from other nerve cells, and axons, which send signals to other neurons. Ye and colleagues previously determined that overabundance of the protein encoded by DSCAM can cause overgrowth of axons in fruit fly neurons. Guided by their research in flies, the team has now found that a third copy of DSCAM in mice leads to increased axon growth and neuronal connections (called synapses) in the types of neurons that put the brakes on other neurons’ activities. These changes lead to greater inhibition of other neurons in the cerebral cortex — a part of the brain that is involved in sensation, cognition and behavior. “It’s known that these inhibitory synapses are changed in Down syndrome mouse models, but the gene that underlies this change is unknown,” said Ye, who is also a professor of cell and developmental biology at the U-M Medical School. “We show here that the extra copy of DSCAMis the primary cause of the excessive inhibitory synapses in the cerebral cortex.” The team demonstrated that in mice that had only two copies of DSCAM, but three copies of the other genes that are similar to human chromosome 21 genes, axon growth appeared normal. “These results are striking because, although these mice have an extra copy of about a hundred genes, normalization of this single gene, DSCAM, rescues normal inhibitory synaptic function,” said Paul Jenkins, assistant professor of pharmacology and psychiatry at the Medical School and co-corresponding author of the study. “This suggests that modulation of DSCAM expression levels could be a viable therapeutic strategy for repairing synaptic deficits seen in Down syndrome. In addition, given that alterations of DSCAM levels are associated with other brain disorders like autism spectrum disorder and bipolar disorder, these results shed insight into potential mechanisms underlying other human diseases.” The research was supported by the National Institutes of Health, the Brain Research Foundation and the University of Michigan. All procedures performed in mice were approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee at the University of Michigan and performed in accordance with institutional guidelines. Study authors are Hao Liu, René Caballero-Florán, Ty Hergenreder, Tao Yang, Jacob Hull, Geng Pan, Ruonan Li, Macy W. Veling, Lori Isom, Kenneth Kwan, Paul Jenkins, and Bing Ye of U-M; Z. Josh Huang of Duke University; and Peter Fuerst of the University of Idaho.
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becreativeradio · 6 years
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One Show Golds
Tumblr media
vimeo
Agency: Akestam Holst Stockholm
Client: EuroPride 2018
Title: The voice of change
vimeo
Agency: Fitzgerald+ CO (USA)
Client: Coca Cola
Title: 1,000 Name Celebration
Agency: Rethink Canada
Client: Branch Out Neurological Foundation
Title Campaign: Stranger´s Voice
Radios here: Mom, Friends, Brother
youtube
Agency: Ogilvy Johannesburg
Client: KFC
Title: KFC DOUBLE DOWN - SAD MAN
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ebonysword0 · 5 years
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Talentswap AU. Most Likely, Least Likely and Why? The Final Part
Here's the fourth and final part of the list for which talent both the students and former students from both the Danganronpa 3 anime and the novel Danganronpa Zero I think would most likely, or least likely have based on a few things like researching the facts about the character. The actions they make. Or due to their talents being similar to another. I started including Ultimate Bodyguard and Ultimate Secret Agent, so Part 1, 2, and 3 are edited.
Ryota Mitarai
Most Likely:
Ultimate Fanfic Creator
Ultimate Gamer
Ultimate Artist - Because of his brainwashing techniques
Least Likely:
Ultimate Detective - He has a weak stomach
Not Sure
Ultimate Cosplayer
Ultimate Anthropologist - Due to his position as the leader of the 10th Division in Future Foundations
Ultimate Programmer
Juzo Sakakura
Most Likely:
Ultimate Wrestler
Ultimate Aikido Master
Ultimate Martial Artist
Ultimate Bodyguard
Not Sure:
Ultimate Biker Gang Leader
Ultimate Detective - Due to his position as the leader of the 6th Division in Future Foundations
Ultimate Team Manager
Kyosuke Munakata
Most Likely:
Ultimate Moral Compass
Ultimate Swordsman
Ultimate Affluent Progeny
Not Sure:
Ultimate Adventurer - He wants to open an overseas branch of Hope's Peak Academy
Ultimate Martial Artist
Chisa Yukizome
Most Likely:
Ultimate Maid
Ultimate Cook
Ultimate Secret Agent - Has shown to be an expert infiltrator. Acts as a spy for Kyosuke in Despair Arc and Ultimate Despair in Future Arc.
Not Sure:
Ultimate Therapist
Ultimate Musician - She has a guitar that has the kanji for 'Kyosuke' (京助) printed on the body, seen in episode 1 in Despair Arc.
Ultimate Child Caregiver
Ultimate Swordswoman - She carries a wakizashi
Daisaku Bandai
Most Likely:
Ultimate Breeder - Loves nature, to the point he even cries if he sees the environment in poor condition.
Ultimate Entomologist - Same as above
Least Likely:
Ultimate Soldier - Dislikes violence and conflict.
Ultimate Martial Artist
Ultimate Biker Gang Leader
Ultimate Swordsman
Ultimate Yakuza
Ultimate Aikido Master
Ultimate Wrestler
Ultimate Bodyguard
Ultimate Boxer - They're all same as above
Great Gozu
Most Likely:
Ultimate Martial Artist
Ultimate Aikido Master
Ultimate Boxer
Ultimate Bodyguard
Least Likely:
Ultimate Soldier - Dislikes weapons
Ultimate Swordsman
Ultimate Yakuza
Not Sure:
Ultimate Farmer - He helped Daisaku in farming various vegetables all around the Future Foundation building
Miaya Gekkogahara
Most Likely:
Ultimate Robot - Because of Monaca's Robot!Miaya
Not Sure:
Ultimate Programmer - Because of her position as the leader of the 7th Division in Future Foundations
Ultimate Inventor - She could've been the one to give her wheelchair weapons.
Ultimate Mechanic - Same as above
Ruruka Ando
Most Likely:
Ultimate Cook
Not Sure:
Ultimate Farmer - Because of her position as the leader of the 8th Division in Future Foundations
Seiko Kimura
Not Sure:
Ultimate Breeder - Loves animals. Got upset when she failed to save a dog.
Ultimate Neurologist - Because of her position as the leader of the 4th Division in Future Foundations
Ultimate Nurse - Same as above
Sonosuke Izayoi
Not Sure:
Ultimate Swordsman
Ultimate Soldier
Ultimate Bodyguard
Sōshun Murasame
Most Likely:
Ultimate Moral Compass
Not Sure:
Ultimate Lucky Student - Lucky enough to survive The Tragedy of Hope's Peak Academy, but unlucky enough to be killed by Yasuke after it.
Isshiki Madarai
Not Sure:
Ultimate Martial Artist
Ultimate Aikido Master
Ultimate Wrestler
Ultimate Boxer
Ultimate Secret Agent - Due to the octuplets ability to expertly communicate and synchronize with each other, they can pretend to be in several places at once. Which is useful for a spy to gain information.
Yūto Kamishiro
Not Sure:
Ultimate Detective - Due to his role in investigating The Tragedy of Hope's Peak Academy in Danganronpa Zero.
Ultimate Lucky Student - He's described as being so featureless and average, that it’s hard to remember him or even notice him in the first place. He's lucky enough to be seen as a potential secret agent in Danganronpa Zero.
Ultimate Photographer - Maybe with him having a ‘lack of presence’, people won't notice him taking pictures of them
Yasuke Matsuda
Most Likely:
Ultimate Nurse
Ultimate Pharmacist
Not Sure:
Ultimate Fanfic Creator - His liking to Mangas
Ultimate Blacksmith - Due to his Precise Aim. He uses scalpels as projectile weapons by using them like throwing knives, very much similar to Sonosuke Izayoi.
Ultimate Detective - Due to his childhood where Yasuke tried to find the one who destroyed Junko's sand sculpture. But then again, he dislikes gore
Ryoko Otonashi
Most Likely:
Ultimate Lucky Student - Her grades are so terrible that she should have been kicked out of school, however Yasuke talked to the higher ups and convinced them to let her stay under the claim that he would like to study her unique neurological disorder.
Not Sure:
Ultimate Farmer - She once dreams about going to America with Matsuda to start a corn farm...on the moon. (You don't have to take this seriously).
Ultimate Astronaut - Same as above (Again you don't have to take this seriously)
At last it is all done! I have to say this part is the most difficult of all. What do you guys think? What talent do you think suits the characters and what reasons?
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bluewatsons · 5 years
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Ib Bondebjerg, The embodied mind: when biology meets culture and society, 1 Palgrave Communications 15015 (2015)
Abstract
Since the 1980s the study of the brain has developed from being a primarily biological field to a significant interdisciplinary area with a strong influence on the humanities and social sciences. In this article I describe fundamental elements in what I call the embodied mind paradigm, and new understanding of the relation between mind, body and emotions. The new paradigm challenges certain notions of constructivism in the humanities and social sciences, but also opens up fruitful venues for new interdisciplinary research. Here I outline such possibilities in the particular areas of linguistics, philosophy, sociology and film studies. This article is published as part of an ongoing collection dedicated to interdisciplinary research.
Introduction
In a recent portrait of and interview, the young, very successful Danish theatre director, Elisa Kragerup, was asked what influenced her decision over which plays to put on stage: “Working with theatre is for me a way to engage in what it is to be human. When my passion for something is awoken, it is because I feel it in my body, when it gives me a physical feeling (...). It is a very physical thing to work with both the higher and the deeper aspects of being human (...) The body is a language, which can be used to tell transformation stories” (Skotte, 2015). It is not often that we hear a person working with an art form, such as the theatre, talk so directly about the body and emotions when defining creative work. Some theatre or film directors, or some authors might tend to talk about the more rational, abstract and intellectual dimensions of art and creativity. Yet most creative people know that the body, the emotions, what we feel about something, are deeply imbedded in all forms of art and communication. Indeed, the ancient Greek and Roman rhetorical traditions talk about logos, ethos and pathos as part of a successful communication.
Two cultures revisited
In a way it should not be controversial to point to biology and neurology as a fundamental dimension for research in the humanities and social sciences. It ought to be common sense to connect elements from biology, the natural sciences, humanities and social sciences to get a deeper understanding of how our society and culture, our art forms and types of communication, are linked to the concept of our embodied mind. However, the split and controversy, pointed out by Snow in his original lecture and the book that followed, The Two Cultures (1956/59, republished 2012), between natural sciences and the humanities and social sciences still exist. In the humanities and social sciences there is a strong trend towards constructivist views, and biology and neurology often signal a kind of determinism to those in these fields of research. It should not, however, come as a surprise to researchers in the humanities and social sciences, that the human mind and body are the result of a very long and slow evolutionary history. After all, Darwin was not born yesterday, and Darwinism is a firmly established paradigm for the under- standing of how humans develop and the interaction between our biology and the natural and social context work. It is not a deterministic theory, but a theory that teaches us to look carefully into both the very fundamental dimensions of how our body and mind functions, and the social, historical and cultural context in which we live.
C P Snow was already wondering why it was expected that people in the natural sciences should know the fundamentals of culture and society in order to be considered educated citizens, whereas those in the humanities and social science considered some of the most basic aspects of natural science irrelevant. What we see today in the new interdisciplinary embodied mind paradigm is often that across the split, which Snow described, the humanities, social sciences and natural sciences collaborate and enter one another’s territory. Researchers with a natural sciences background—like for instance the Danish neurologist and Oxford professor Morten Kringelbach or the American neurologist Antonio Damasio—enter art studies and philo- sophy through books like Mind Space. The Emotional Brain (Kringelbach, in Danish, 2004) and Self Comes to Mind. Constructing the Conscious Brain (Damasio, 2010). Conversely, linguists, such as American Lakoff and philosopher Johnson, start developing an embodied theory of language and meaning in Metaphors We Life By (1980). Furthermore, in film, media and literary studies, and studies of creativity, the embodied mind paradigm is strong, for instance in Turner’s The Literary Mind (1996), Ed Tan’s Emotion and the Structure of Narrative Film (1996) or the more popular book by Gottschall, The Storytelling Animal. How Stories Make us Human (2012), which combines psychology, sociology, aesthetics and neurology.
Descartes’ error: the neurological turn
From 1994 to 1997, I was a member of European Science Foundation’s Standing Committee for The Humanities. ESF-Humanities has always been very dedicated to the development of interdisciplinary research, not just with the social sciences, but also the various branches of natural sciences. ESF was located in Strasbourg, and in 1995 a strike made the trip back to Copenhagen very long. However, I had brought with me Damasio’s book Descartes’ Error. Emotion, Reason and the Human Brain (1994), simply because I found the title so intriguing, and I had plenty of time to read what for me became a bit of a revelation and led to my own personal neurological turn. What the book does is to use compelling neurological research to raise and give answers to questions that have profound importance for the understanding of humans, culture and society. The fascinating thing about the book is that Damasio can move seamlessly between biology, neurology, philosophy and psychology. His introduction is also a personal story of factors that changed his own understanding of things and the fundamental way in which we generally look upon and evaluate, for instance, the relation between rationality and emotions:
I had grown up accustomed to thinking that the mechanisms of reason existed in a separate province of the mind, where emotion should not be allowed to intrude, and when I thought of the brain behind that mind, I envisioned separate neural systems for reason and emotion. This was the widely held view of the relation between reason and emotion, in mental and neural terms. (Damasio, 1994: xii)
What the book argues for, through different case studies of persons with specific forms of brain damage and more general neurological arguments, is that this widely held concept is completely wrong. Feelings, memory and perceptual images play an important role for our reasoning, and because the body and the mind are so connected, feelings and reasoning interact; feelings play an important role for our minds and for our ability to act in society. As Damasio points out, feelings and emotions are not a luxury, they are in fact as “cognitive as other percepts” (xv), and they guide our decision making and reasoning in important ways. So Descartes’ error was that his sentence “Cogito ergo sum” (I think therefore I am) created an “abyssal separation of body and mind (...) the separation of the most refined operations of the mind from the structure and operation of a biological organism” (Damasio, 1994: 249–250).
This general argument for an embodied mind, for the biological basis of both reason and emotion has been taken further and discussed in many books both with a philosophical agenda and with a more creative and communicative agenda. In one of his later books, Self Comes to Mind. Construction the Conscious Brain (2010), Damasio himself develops a theory of the self that is based on the embodied mind framework. The self, who we are and what we feel and think as a “me”, is, according to Damasio (2010: 22–23), a very complicated process in which the self is constituted by three different kinds of self: the “protoself” with the primordial feelings, mainly in the cerebral cortex and brain stem; the “core self” or what he calls a “material me” where interactions between the organism and objects take place, and “the autobiographical self”, which is our aggregated knowledge and memory of both the past and projections of the future. Finally we have what Damasio calls “a knower”, where the core and autobiographical self give our minds a “subjectivity”.
Damasio is not a philosopher, but his theories and biological empirical evidence has been taken up and critically discussed by some of our most interesting new philosophers, for instance in Zahavi’s new book Self and Other (2014). Zahavi’s book represents an important interdisciplinary attempt to connect classical phenomenology and philosophy with the new trends in the philosophy of the mind. Such an attempt to expand the embodied mind theory into philosophy and challenge the whole Western tradition for understanding rational and cognitive processes is also strongly represented in Lakoff and Johnson’s Philosophy in the Flesh. The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge to Western Thought (1999). In effect what the book says is: the mind is inherently embodied, thought is mostly unconscious and abstract concepts are largely metaphorical. What the book also argues for, based on cognitive science, is that commonalities and universality, when we talk of human societies and culture, are much more dominant and important than differences. This again does not mean that culture and society are not important; it simply means that the social and cultural diversity, or the historical and national differences, we can observe, are built onto our embodied minds, which ensure a strong commonality beneath our variations.
The social mind: new cognitive sociology
Generally speaking the new embodied mind paradigm is not an erosion of the things humanities and social sciences have been researching for years: how cultures communicate and interact, how the creative and artistic dimension of our life, how societies and politics are formed, and so on. Rather, this new cognitive- emotional theory offers a new foundation of cultural and social studies of societies and historical development. Damasio (2010), who is in fact very conscious about the kind of controversy his theory and biological framework can create outside natural sciences, has said this very explicitly:
Naturalizing the conscious mind and planting it firmly in the brain does not diminish the role of culture in the construction of human beings, does not reduce human dignity, and does not mark the end of mystery and puzzlement. Cultures arise and evolve from collective efforts of human brains over many generations, and some cultures even die in the process. They require brains that have already been shaped by prior cultural effects. The significance of cultures to the making of the modern human mind is not in question. Nor is the dignity of that human mind diminished by connecting it to the astonishing complexity and beauty to be found inside living cells and tissues. (27)
This strong statement from Damasio is reflected in different forms of cognitive sociology, an already firmly established subdiscipline represented, for example, in a text-book like Fiske and Taylor’s Social Cognition (1991, and many later editions). Here social cognitive processes are described through, for instance, schema theory, the social categories we use in social interaction, in connection with self-understanding and memory, attribution theory, and affects and cognition and their role in the building of attitudes for instance. Although social cognition like this is not directly linked to the new dimensions of the embodied mind framework, and the link to biology and neurology is thinner, there is definitely a shared common ground that can be developed further. This is also the case with other approaches to cognitive sociology, for instance Zerubavel’s Social Mindscapes. An Invitation to Cognitive Sociology (1999).
Zerubavel’s book offers what he calls a general outline of a “sociology of the mind”, and in the opening chapter he argues that the need for a cognitive sociology really stems from a still very dominant trend in cognitive science to study individual brains and forms of cognition, “cognitive individualism” (Zerubavel, 1999: 2). Like Damasio (but without direct reference) he sees the rise of modern cognitive science as coinciding with the decline of the “Romantic vision of the individual thinker” (Ibid.). In a model of dimensions cognitive sociology, Zerubavel (1999) talks about three fundamental dimensions of cognitive sociology: cognitive individualism, cognitive sociology and cognitive universalism (20). These dimensions on the one hand point to very subjective, personal dimensions of our social cognition, and on the other hand to universal cognitive commonalities that are related to the deep biological dimensions of social cognition that we share as human being, despite our differences. At the centre we then find the more collective, historical, subcultural dimensions of social cognitions, the things that are formed by our being members of “thought communities”.
Therefore, despite his attack on the romantic notion of the individual and his strong argument for cognitive theories that play down our cognitive individualism and differences and support the cognitive universalism or our cognitive commonality as human beings, Zerubavel (1999) focuses on the interplay between cognitive universalism and a cognitive sociology focusing on cognitive diversity and differences (10–11). In an almost paradoxical way Zerubavel actually argues that being aware of what is universal and common for all human beings makes it much clearer how we can approach collective processes of cognitive socialization and formation of social though communities, subcultures and structures of collective memory or shared cultural experiences. The universality of our embodied mind and foundation for our experiences is not in opposition to the analysis of the cognitive diversity and pluralism we find in modern cultures.
When cognitive sociology and linguistics is used in actual research of contemporary matters, such as it is the case with George Lakoff’s The Political Mind (2008), the reaction can, however, be quite strong. In his review in the New York Times, Saletan (2008) simply called the book “Neuro-Liberalism”, and what happens in this review is basically that Saletan reacts against the biological dimensions as if they form a deterministic framework for Lakoff’s comparative analysis of Republican and Democrat political discourses:
In place of neoliberalism, he offers neuroliberalism. Since voters’ opinions are neither logical nor self-made, they should be altered, not obeyed. Politicians should “not follow polls but use them to see how they can change public opinion to their moral worldview.” And since persuasion is mechanical, progressives should rely less on facts and more on images and drama, “casting progressives as heroes, and by implication, conservatives as villains.” The key is to “say things not once, but over and over. Brains change when ideas are repeatedly activated. (Saletan, 2008)
What Lakoff is trying to analyse, however, are different political discourses and how they relate to the way our brain basically works through links between emotion and reason, through metaphor, narrative and dramatic oppositions. He is, in a way, just continuing the work done by rhetorical research for centuries on which speeches have had an impact and which have not, and why that is. Abstract facts and arguments are not enough in themselves, and to state that is not deterministic, but based on solid neurological research, and which is not in opposition to demands for truth, facts and reason.
Moving images, culture and the mind
The study of moving images, of film, television and more recently the internet and social media have gone through some of the same theoretical main trends as other areas of the humanities and social sciences: strong aesthetic, cultural paradigms have existed alongside more sociological approaches. Around 1985 cognitive theory developed rapidly in film and media studies. Bordwell’s book Narration in the Fiction Film (1985) became an influential starting point for theories of genres and narrative structures in film and other media that combined both formalist, structural analysis and cognitive and psychological ways of describing film comprehension. By defining and describing very fundamental and universal forms of film narration (for instance classical narration and art cinema narration) he went against a tendency to see genres primarily as historically and culturally constructed. The viewer here emerged not primarily as a socially and culturally constructed viewer, but as a viewer constituted by the fundamental dimensions of cognitive and emotional involvement in film and narrative structures.
This attempt to establish very fundamental, universal genres and modes of reception in film is further developed in Grodal’s two books Moving Pictures. A new Theory of Film, Genres, Feelings and Cognition (1997) and Embodied Visions. Evolution. Emotion, Culture and Film (2009). Grodal defines basic genres through the emotional responses and typical moods activated in the spectator of different types of films. The different genres also involve aspects of active and passive relations with narrative forms and characters. Besides the classical, canonical narrative Grodal deals with classical genres also described in other film theories such as comedy and melodrama. However, he also talks about, for instance, associative lyricism, obsessional paratelic fictions and metafiction. Such genres, defined by specific cognitive and emotional elements, have universal dimensions, but they are also influenced by historical, social and cultural factors, which create variations. Visual fiction is thus seen as mental structures modelled on the basis of a simulated reality of actions and emotions to which we react with much the same experiences and capacities as in real-life experiences. The book thus argues that many of the fundamental structures of film experience are based on embodied emotional and cognitive patterns that interact with the concrete social and historical context of audiences.
Grodal’s theory of film genres as embodied flow (see also Bondebjerg, 2015) explains the popularity of specific genres and their relation to basic mental and emotional activities and experiences. However, there is no fundamental conflict between a cultural, historical and stylistic approach to visual fictions and Grodal’s position, but the experience and processing of moving images cannot be described as culturally constructed in any short- term sense. In the introduction to his second book Grodal makes the same statements, as those researchers already cited, about why the embodied mind theory represents a major shift in the humanities and social sciences. He refers to Damasio’s statement that film is actually a good illustration of how consciousness functions, because the filmic experience in many ways simulates the real-world experience, and because it illustrates that levels of a bodily and biopsychological nature, far below language and consciousness, are activated (Grodal, 2009: 13).
As such, when traditional film scholars—or language and literature scholars—only see a culturally and historically constructed language, they miss the dialectic between mind, body and society. Both social theory and constructivism tend to see the mind as a blank slate from birth on which culture and society make their imprints (see Barkow et al., 1992). But as the embodied mind theory has shown through both experimental, clinical research and empirical sociological research this is out of touch with the fundamental dynamic between biology, sociology and culture. Humans come with a very strong biological framework that is by nature universal and interacts with society and culture in much more complex ways. In film research this problem has been studied theoretically and experimentally by Ed Tan in Emotion and the Structure of Narrative Film (1996)—the subtitle “Film as an Emotion Machine”, indicates what it is about. He is not trying to deal with all aspects of film experience and cultural and social aspects of cinema; rather, he is trying to focus on how viewers emotionally involve with classical narrative films and how those emotions are created between screen and viewers both bodily and mentally.
This is also very much the agenda for Carl Plantigas’s Moving Viewers. American Film and the Spectator’s Experience (2009). He criticizes the main trend in cultural studies and aesthetic theories of cinema and media and the way in which they primarily look for hidden meanings and tend to look for abstract propositions, messages and themes. Furthermore, he criticises the dominant forms of empirical audience research for not dealing with emotions. He sees the cultural studies paradigm as a result deep down of the same dichotomy between biology and culture, between reason and emotion that for decades have haunted Western thought and have led to a misunderstanding of emotions as counterproductive for logical and critical thought (Plantinga, 2009: 4).
Towards a new interdisciplinary agenda: biology, culture and society We are biological creatures just as much as we are cultural and social creatures. We are born with a brain and a body before we are even defined as individuals and citizens in a specific society; we are universal in the making, before we get a specific language and are formed by the circumstances and times we live in. Modern theories of cognition and emotion point to the fact that we have much the same emotions, although different societies and social circumstances can teach us and influence how we control or exhibit them. Since man developed language, we have always told stories, drawn pictures in ways that have strong universal elements, and this has also been a basis for great diversity and historical variation. There seems to be strong universal patterns beneath the way these creative and communicative formats are developed.
Unlike what traditional cultural studies and sociology tend to infer, biology and evolution show that we are not born like a blank slate, and constructed from scratch as cultural and social beings. Our body, biology, brain and neural system play a very crucial role for how we are formed, but at the same time biology, culture and society certainly interact in very specific ways. We are not just individuals created by our own history and development, we are not just social and group-determined individuals—we are in fact also individuals with a strong evolutionary ballast of biological nature and with universal dimensions. Emotions are not just a byproduct of evolution, only there to be controlled or suppressed, fiction and narratives are not just entertainment to be avoided by rational thought, they are actually very basic and universal structures through which we understand and make sense of the world. Reason, logic, facts and so on are just as necessary, but they exist as part of the same biological make up of all human beings, and they are historically equally as important for our cultural and social life.
Interdisciplinary collaboration and dialogue across disciplines are more important than ever for the understanding of humans in culture and society, and biology is an integrated dimension in that understanding (Bondebjerg, 2000). Biology and neurology have made major advances in knowledge of the human body and brain over the last five decades. Technologies to study the living brain are beginning to appear, and this development will make it the emotional and thinking parts of our experience in focus. Research in film and media studies, but also in social media and networking, in game studies, memory studies, and in the creative arts, offer much potential in such an interdisciplinary endeavour.
References
Barkow J, Cosmoses L and Tooby J (1992) The Adapted Mind: Evolutionary Psychology and the Generation of Culture. Oxford University Press: New York.
Bondebjerg I (2000) Moving Images, Culture and the Mind. University of Luton Press: Luton.
Bondebjerg I (2015) Film: genres and genre theory. In: Wright J D (ed). International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, 2nd edition, Vol. 9. Elsevier: Oxford, pp 160–164.
Bordwell D (1985) Narration in the Fiction Film. The University of Wisconsin Press: Madison–Wisconsin.
Damasio A (1994) Descartes’ Error. Emotion, Reason and the Human Brain. Avon Books: New York.
Damasio A (2010) Self Comes to Mind. Construction the Conscious Brain. Vintage Books: New York.
Fiske S T and Taylor S E (1991) Social Cognition. McGraw Hill: New York. Grodal T K (1997) Moving Pictures. A New Theory of Film, Genres, Feelings and Cognition. Oxford University Press: Oxford.
Grodal T K (2009) Embodied Visions. Evolution. Emotion, Culture and Film. Oxford University Press: Oxford.
Gottschall J (2012) The Storytelling Animal. How Stories Make us Human. Mariner Books: New York.
Kringelbach M (2004) Hjernerum. Den følelsesfiulde hjerne/Mind Space. The Emotional Brain. People’s Press: Copenhagen.
Lakoff G (2008) The Political Mind. New York: Penguin Books.
Lakoff G and Johnson M (1980) Metaphors We Live By. Chicago University Press: Chicago.
Lakoff G and Johnson M (1999) Philosophy in the Flesh. The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge to Western Thought. Basic Books: New York.
Plantiga C (2009) Moving Viewers. American Film and the Spectator’s Experience. University of California Press: Berkeley.
Saletan W (2008) Neuro-liberalism. New York Times, 22 June.
Skotte K (2015) Vi lyver for at få sandheden frem. Interview med Elisa Kragerup/We lie to reach the truth. Interview with Elisa Kragerup. Politiken, 9 March.
Snow C P (1956/59, 2012) The Two Cultures. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge–New York.
Tan E (1996) Emotion and the Structure of Narrative Film. Routledge: New York and London.
Turner M (1996) The Literary Mind.The Origins of Thought and Language. Oxford University Press: Oxford.
Zahavi D (2014) Self and Other. Oxford University Press: Oxford.
Zerubavel E (1999) Social Mindscapes. An Invitation to Cognitive Sociology. Harvard University Press: Cambridge, MA.
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seniorcaresolution · 4 years
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The Duty of a Caretaker —-- American Liver Foundation
The absence of self-care is an issue that caregivers should solve and also recognize. To start, caretakers ought to begin to notice the food that they consume.
Time Administration.
As my father was transferred from healthcare facilities and helped living houses, I normally obtained involved with the other people, both the literally and also psychologically ill. I intended to come to be well-informed of each condition I came across.
I withstood physical and psychological misuse at the hands of my mommy as well as stepfather from the ages of four to 11. When, at the age of 11, I called the authorities to save me from my very own "moms and dads" she made a decision sufficient was enough and also she took me in, taking over every parenting role after that. My mom as well as I deal with looking after my papa's requirements that I can't do on my very own like showering him, and also feeding him. We are tied with the exact same drive, stitched with a similar genuineness to aid and also heal.
The Caretaker Duty.
Talk to your medical professional if you have difficulty getting a great evening's rest. Numerous neighborhoods have classes specifically regarding the illness your enjoyed one is facing.
to look for the HCBS Waiver and the Neighborhood Care Program. Call the Department of Human Being Provider' Adult Safety as well as Area Providers Branch at for qualification details and just how to make an application for the Hawaii Job Provider Program. to get more information about the Grownup Family Living program, qualification criteria, and just how to use.
78% of adults staying in the community and looking for long-lasting care depend upon family and friends as their only source helpful. 14% of family caretakers take care of a special requirements child with an estimated16.8 million caring for special requirements childrenunder 18 years old. Household caretakers are thefoundation of long-term carenationwide, exceeding Medicaid long-term care costs in all states. 1.4 million childrenages 8 to 18 provide take care of an adult relative; 72% are taking care of a moms and dad or grandparent; and also 64% live in the same house as their treatment recipient. If you or the person who requires caregiving additionally requires health insurance, learn about solutions covered under Market plans at HealthCare.gov.
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Many caretakers battle to make ends meet while still offering appropriate care, creating a tough scenario for those without other forms of financial backing.
Caregivers might be partners, relative, or buddies.
You could have to be well-skilled in this location if you are not a normally hopeful kind of person.
I am unsure how we can afford to pay for my tuition, due to the fact that I wish to avoid taking on financings and I additionally want to dedicate my restricted leisure time to studying.
Caring for a loved one stress even one of the most resilient people.
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General home care is not permitted, like paying a caretaker to clean up or run tasks, yet choices like home treatment registered nurses or adult day cares are included. The ordinary caregiver invests 24.4 hours a week supplying straight care-- the equivalent of a https://familytreeinhomecare.com/uber-family-tree-home-care/ part-time job.
Existing Caregiver Tax Obligation Advantages.
Corrine Morales never ever desired me to lose out on the possibility to be much like every other youngster on the block. Regrettably, growing up at a rapid price comes with the area of being a young caretaker. Recognizing that the experience of caring for her and providing for us had a positive impact in my life is the very best gift she could ever obtain.
You could locate that the person you're taking care of is acting different-- angry, peaceful as well as withdrawn, or just unfortunate. If you assume they aren't speaking with you since they intend to save your sensations, ensure they recognize that you are always open up to paying attention, also about tough subjects. You may desire to speak to the cancer care team regarding what can be creating it and also what can be done if they keep acting really sad or taken out.
What do you call a caregiver?
The definition of Mdlg is mommy dom little girl, mdlb is mommy dom little boy, ddlg is daddy dom little girl, ddlb daddy dom little boy, and there are also non binary and transgender little's. The definition of Mommy Dom or a. Daddy Dom is a dominant who happens to love taking care of a submissive in a younger mindset.
This often consists of providing support with financial and legal events too. Erin Pratt is a pupil at Life College who is learning chiropractic care neurology and caring for her 95-year-old granny. Rashelle Quinn is a pupil at Regis College who is learning nursing and also caring for her daddy, that endured an extreme mind injury in a car crash when she was a child. By being a caregiver for my mommy and father I obtain the special capability to exercise healthcare as well as refine my nursing ability on practically an everyday basis. When either of my moms and dads have inquiries on drug, I have the sources offered to me via my education to aid them recognize every little thing they need to recognize concerning their medications.
Family Tree In-Home Care Denver
3600 S Yosemite St Suite 320, Denver, CO 80237, United States
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+1 303-791-3155
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wavelengthintl · 5 years
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The Mixed Bag Fundraiser For MS Returns With New Focus
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On June 16th Sled Island, CJSW, and proHAB Helmet Society are teaming up to present the Mixed Bag Fundraiser for MS at the Ship and Anchor.
The free mid-day event, which runs from 2 p.m. to 8 p.m., features live performances by Mark Mills, Dark Time, Paradise, and Mademoiselle, making it the first instalment in the fundraiser’s three year run to feature live music.
According to the event’s founders Jesse Lee Mason, Shane Rempel, and Jared Andres, the event has progressed substantially in scope and organization since its launch.
“I think it’s just part of evolving, I think we learn something new every year we do it, says Rempel.  
“The music format previously was just DJing rap music, and I think as we get older we try to cater to a more diverse crowd.”
The fundraiser initially took place at the now-closed Local 510, an intimately-sized venue. The increase in space afforded by the move to The Ship and Anchor opened the possibility to explore new musical options.
“We wanted to do something a little bit different, and having the bands at a place like The Ship and Anchor, I think it’s something that a lot of people can get onside with,” says Rempel.
“The Ship has been majorly helping us out with the bands, they’re donating a soundguy, donating a stage,” says Andres.
The idea for The Mixed Bag initially emerged in response to Rempel himself being diagnosed with MS.
“Well Shane got diagnosed with MS, and then I remember we were at a show or something, and I was talking to you [Shane] and I was like I want to do something,” says Mason.
Rempel has spent the last ten years running proHAB, a non-profit that aims to make bike helmets accessible, and already had intimate knowledge of how to launch a fundraiser. Andres, meanwhile, had extensive experience on running music events through his role as a DJ and drummer for local electronica group BLVD NOIR.
“We like to throw parties too right, get everybody together, get all our pals together, we’re all going to the bar anyways might as well do it for a good cause,” says Rempel.
“Between the three of us we have so many friends in the music industry, and in the restaurant industry so it just kind of made sense,” says Mason.
Even with their combined experience as event promoters the group wasn’t expecting the higher than anticipated response they received, and vowed to continue it as an annual event.
“I think the first year I was personally a bit surprised by how many people were so down to donate,” says Andres.  
“It was a really good response, that made us realize we could do it.”
From the onset the fundraiser has always been envisioned as a grassroots, community-driven event. It’s in keeping with these values that the team decided to make local non-profit Branch Out Neurological Foundation the benefactor of the donations generation.
Rempel met Branch Out’s founder Crystal Phillips at a bike swap last year and saw parallels between her story and his own.
“She’s got MS as well, and so what she did was try to make a good thing out of a bad thing by starting Branch Out Foundation,” says Rempel.
“So yeah it seemed like a good fit for us because she was very much entrepreneurial, but also very much rooted in the community and also had that lived experience with MS, and that really resonated with me.”
“In terms of our values and what we like to support Branch Out was more aligned with that,” says Andres.
The community-based aspect is also represented in the fundraiser’s musically and socially diverse lineup. Many of the performers are also friends of the organizers who share their taste and passion for local live music.
“We wanted to have it mixed up a little bit and have mixed representation,” says Andres.
“We try to think about what party would we want to go to, let’s make that party happen,” says Rempel.
In addition to collecting donations at the door The Mixed Bag also boasts a hefty silent auction that includes items like a Discovery Pass for Sled Island, two passes for FrogFest, a brewing lesson at Last Best, and numerous prize packages from other local businesses.
Children are also allowed to attend the event until 6 p.m.
For more information visit https://www.facebook.com/events/607846933069415/
Donations are also being accepted online at https://tinyurl.com/y4yspecl
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gwarren-smith-blog · 6 years
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Cognitive Control in an Attention Economy
‘Attention and Memory in the Digital Age’ was a well attended event opening up an intriguing array of questions about our present and future in a technologically saturated society. The event took place at THECUBE on the 21st January, a night of extreme conditions, bringing us our first taste of sleet and snow for 2019. Despite the weather, the four anchor speakers and audience soon warmed up over an enthusiastic debate, bringing together a range of perspectives, sometimes somewhat contrasting.
The real focus of this roundtable discussion was the function of attention. I originally selected this subject for its basis in neuroscience, and because of its popular presence in the great neurological debate investigating the impact of digital technology. Having not yet lived a lifetime alongside our handheld devices, this debate is a contentious one. Many of the scientists who are brave enough to predict these effects, put their reputation at risk, as without hard evidence this research can only be read as a prediction.
One of these scientists, Richard Cytowic, claims that amongst the growing debate which questions; the addictive quality of our devices; whether the internet weakens our memory or makes it smarter by showering us with facts; or if social apps connect or isolate us; “what no one seems to dispute us that our attention spans have gone to hell” [1]. We will address the function of attention from a range of contexts, beginning with this statement and the biological perspective.
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Nilli Lavie, UCL Professor of Psychology and Brain Sciences, with a specialism in attention and cognitive control, opened with a definition of attention which helped ground our foundational knowledge of the subject. Attention, she explains, has a capacity limit which cannot be affected by what we do. Neurologically, Lavie held the option that technology couldn’t have an impact on its capacity, as attention is something biological with a genetic component. There are certainly different strategies that can help one focus, and there are some who are simply more susceptible to this ability, but we cannot create or generate more attention.
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Cytowic similarly states that attention has a limited capacity, and cannot be altered by any level of exercise or lifestyle choice. He emphasises that one must approach the relationship between technology and attention through the consideration of energy cost. Digital applications promote media multitasking, which requires a high level of task switching and the spreading of one’s attention across a number of tasks. Cytowic explains that the average human brain, which accounts for 2% of the body’s mass, consumes 20% of the daily glucose consumed by a human [2]. To be energy efficient, the brain must use the least amount of cell signalling at one time, which although uses the least amount of energy, carries the most amount of information. Multitasking therefore consumes more energy, as our brains must increase signalling across an increased number of neurons. Every time we switch a task, our neural circuits must take a break, which can reduce brain efficiency by up to 50% [1].
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The response to Cytowic’s research, sparked off a central debate to the discussion: is technology really the problem that is causing us to act in a certain way, or should we be blaming ourselves?
Lavie stated with conviction that we are responsible for our own actions, and just as we have the power to control ourselves with alcohol or sugar, we can do the same with technology. This draws upon the fact that technology doesn’t have the capacity to want to us to do anything, as it has no logic or direction of its own. Just as critical theorist Dale Carrico emphasises, there is no such thing as technology as something in its own right. It makes no sense to state whether one is ‘for’ or ‘against’ technology as there are many existing technologies advancing and stagnating at different rates [3]. Professor of Physics, Richard Jones, adds to this interpretation, and stresses that:
‘The agency belongs to the people who make technology and the people who use it. Technology doesn’t want anything, people do’ [4].
This is perhaps a mistake that I sometimes make myself, forgetting the generalisation that is easily assumed whilst describing the effects of our digital devices.
Vanessa Bartlett, UNSW researcher and curator, raised a similar point during the discussion about the language we were using, and that technology is not a thing in itself, but an infrastructure. If technology really is having an adverse affect on its user’s attention spans, whose interest does this fulfil? The ecosystem behind technology is built through forms of power, data and advertising, and it is these components that manipulate what we pay our attention to. Human behaviour is a key driver in the design of digital applications, because of the financial interest that is at stake. Perhaps our immersion in the attention economy stems from the marketing campaigns that lead our digital devices.
Btihaj Ajana, KCL lecturer in digital culture, held the opinion that we have a shared responsibility with technology, and that neither party is blameless. Digital technology as an application, is designed to frame the way the user acts. For example, Twitter only allows its users to write posts with a very short word count, and process posted information in small bites. If a particular social media happens to be the current dominant site for social interaction, its format will influence the way that we engage with each other.
Ajana also reflects upon the often cautious approach people feel against digital technology, and reminds us that our fears of modern technologies are historical and our anxieties aren’t new. If we were to look at patterns of behaviour in our relationship with technology, humans have historically feared modern tools before they are accepted as the norm. Plato once predicted that writing would one day weaken memory, causing us to ‘mistake the truth for its shadow’. In reality, Ajana reflects, writing has instead re-mediated memory. We have replaced mental arithmetic with calculators, hand-drawn maps with GPS systems, and even writing with the printing-press and the keyboard. At the centre of all these tools are their power in freeing the brain from their tasks, enabling room for us to carry out other forms of cognition.
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Designer Ben Koslowski, who holds a PhD in Communication Design from the RCA, questions how bad distractions really are, as they help formulate new journeys of discovery. Through a traditional setting such as a library, Koslowski has previously found himself searching for a book, and coming across additional sources of interest along the way. After spending several more hours than expected, searching and reading, although Koslowski hadn’t event found the book he had been looking for, he had gained a far richer experience uncovering the unexpected information and unknown sources. This is no different from searching on one’s computers, and becoming distracted by related articles or tasks along the way. He also points out that in the busy, fast-paced information society, losing focus could be a refreshing break for an overactive mind.
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Another argument put forward in the discussion stressed that it is the cultural expectation that drives the force behind the digital age. Many corporations now expect employees to take part in their digital health schemes, where the tracking and monitoring of staff physiological levels and exercise have become the norm. Ajana describes how opting out reflects negatively upon your career, as you’re at risk of no longer being seen as an active team player.
In China, they have introduced a new social scoring system, which plans to rank all of its citizens by their ‘social credit’ by 2020 [5]. Ajana describes how citizens will be ranked according to factors such as their use of internet, smoking habits or bad driving, and can be punished or rewarded depending on their score. The system is mostly run by city councils or private tech companies which hold personal data, and will penalise the individuals who decide to ‘opt out’. Ajana illustrates that what we perceive as a choice is slowly shrinking, and that before we know it, it will be an expectation.
Analogue alternatives are disappearing as their technological replacements become the accepted norm. Online banking has risen, resulting in many bank branches closing. The elderly generation, who until this point haven’t always needed the resources given by technology, are now being forced to learn and adapt, as their physical alternatives diminish. In contrast, the younger generation, who many describe as digital natives, have been brought up on this digital diet, and are well accustomed to a society where spending time on one’s smartphone is the accepted norm. In their case, not being on one’s phone could have serious implications relating to what they are missing out on. What do you lose when you don’t join?
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The core essence needed to maintain these pressures of digital social presence lies in discipline. One audience member questions what it takes to decide what we assign our attention to. It’s not just the younger generation whose peers expect them to be online, this also exists within adults. Particularly for freelancers, who in a way, can never switch off the clock from their working hours, instant messaging has instilled a certain expectation in society, that we are always online, and therefore always available. At times, not answering an email can seem like putting yourself at risk of seeming disengaged.
This social expectation is another driver behind our constant immersion in the digital age, and another nudge towards a behaviour which can be easily distracted. What happens in the virtual realm will often influence what happens to us in the physical realm. The two are not separate, they are often inter-related.
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Attention is part of an ecosystem that is economical, social, political and ethical, it is not purely about biology. Technology serves the purpose behind its maker’s intentions, which can also be measured through economical, social, political and ethical means. It is evident through the examples discussed, that we won’t always have the option to maintain complete control over our experiences with technology, as it’s evolving to become such an integral part of our health and professional life. With a future that will one day be reshaped by the minds and motives of our current digital natives, it may take some discipline to truly overcome the powers in control of attention, but it really is down to the individual to assess how they will direct and share their attention.
We must therefore consider in our behaviour with technology, what this relationship means to us and to the people behind it. Assessing an appropriate level of commitment and contact with our devices will help us maintain control, and put us in the driver’s seat over how we manage our attention. Although sometimes we might not have no option to ‘opt out’ of certain systems, we do have the discipline and power to choose what we assign our attention to, and should exercise this ability to help maintain a healthy relationship with our digital devices.
This essay is part of a series, examining the research evolved through the programme Cognitive Sensations. To read Fields of Perception, an essay exploring the impact of virtual reality and digital technology on the relationship between perception and the environment, please click here.
To listen to the audio recording of this talk, please click here.
References
1.  Cytowic, R (2015) “Your Brain on Screens. The American Interest”  Vol 10(6) June 9, 2015, [Available online]
2.  Cytowic, R (2015) What percentage of your brain do you use? Ted Ed. [Available online]
3. Carrico, D (2013) Futurological Discourses and Posthuman Terrains. International Journal in Philosophy, Religion, Politics, and the Arts. Volume 8, No 2, Fall 2013 [Available online]
4. Jones, R (2016) Against Transhumanism: The delusion of technological transcendence. Soft Machines. [Available online].
5. Ma, A (2018) China has started ranking citizens with a creepy 'social credit' system — here's what you can do wrong, and the embarrassing, demeaning ways they can punish you. Business Insider. [Available Online]
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ohsoethical · 7 years
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The Shy Activist- Beware of the Plastics
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The world is in love with plastics for many reasons. Not the Mean Girls plastics, everyone hates them. 
But the water bottles, shavers, cutlery, toothbrushes etc. It’s lightweight, flexible, durable and versatile. It’s advanced medicine, transport, electronics – and food packaging. It’s great right!
But did you know that the demand for these disposable items mean that plastic is produced at 350m tonnes per years and it’s continuously increasing. 
The trouble with this is that plastic never breaks down and every piece of plastic ever made is still living somewhere on our planet. Some of these plastics can be recycled and continue living on earth as a new product. Margarine and ice cream tubs, yogurt pots, fruit punnets and ready meal trays, drink, shampoo and detergent bottles could be reincarnated if you like. 
However, there are many different types of plastic and the sorting process is very labor intensive.
“Only 14 per cent of plastic packaging is recycled, with the remainder, worth £60-90 billion worldwide lost as waste.”
There are plastics that can’t be recycled including plastic wrap, cling film, bubble wrap (I know it hurts, I'm sorry), plastic bags, crisp packets, sweet wrappers, polystyrene, soft plastic/metallic packaging, plastic bottle caps TO NAME BUT A FEW.
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Simon Ellin the Chief of the Recycling Association singled out Pringles, Lucozade, supermarket black plastic meat trays and cleaning spray bottles to be themes difficult/impossible to recycle.
So one major problem is that we keep producing tonnes and tonnes and tonnes of plastic and were just leaving it around the world. But there are other negative impacts.
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Look at this little guy. He shouldn’t be eating plastic. He should be eating plants and insects! But the poor thing and 100,000 other marine creatures like him are eating plastic and 10% of marine life have died from being entangled in plastic bags that we are manufacturing and not taking responsibility for. It’s said that by 2050 there could be more plastic in the sea that fish! 
It also pollutes the air, land and water as well as exposing worker to toxic chemicals when it’s being manufactured and incinerated. “Serious accidents have included explosions, chemical fires, chemical spills, and clouds of toxic vapor. These kinds of occurrences have caused deaths, injuries, evacuations and major property damage.”
Plastics used in cooking and food storage is also affecting our health. Chemicals that are typically hormone-mimicking and endocrine disrupters are evidenced to be coming from plastics. 
There is a link between these chemicals and health problems “chromosomal and reproductive system abnormalities, impaired brain and neurological functions, cancer, cardiovascular system damage, adult-onset diabetes, early puberty, obesity and resistance to chemotherapy. Exposure to BPA at a young age can cause genetic damage, and BPA has been linked to recurrent miscarriage in women. The health risks of plastic are significantly amplified in children, whose immune and organ systems are developing and are more vulnerable.  The evidence of health risks from certain plastics is increasingly appearing in established, peer-reviewed scientific journals.”
We can tackle plastic pollution and we should as soon as possible. In fact there is a prize of £1.5million prize for environmentally friendly packaging design, backed by the conservation charity the Ellen MacArthur Foundation - New Plastics Economy Innovation Prize.
Chris Grantham from the London branch of the global design consultancy Ideo said, designers would need to produce items that could be used again and again as pressure on materials increases from a growing population. Mr Grantham’s ideas about how to tackle the issue include; if products are bought online products do not need branding and complex designs; supermarkets can fit a mini projector to project branding onto blank containers.
Here’s a short list of ways to reduce plastic pollution with your own bare hands from the Natural Resources Defences Council:
1. Wean yourself off disposable plastics. Ninety percent of the plastic items in our daily lives are used once and then chucked: grocery bags, plastic wrap, disposable cutlery, straws, coffee-cup lids. Take note of how often you rely on these products and replace them with reusable versions. It only takes a few times of bringing your own bags to the store, silverware to the office, or travel mug to Starbucks before it becomes habit.
2. Stop buying water. Each year, close to 20 billion plastic bottles are tossed in the trash. Carry a reusable bottle in your bag, and you’ll never be caught having to resort to a Poland Spring or Evian again. If you’re nervous about the quality of your local tap water, look for a model with a built-in filter.
3. Boycott microbeads. Those little plastic scrubbers found in so many beauty products—facial scrubs, toothpaste, body washes—might look harmless, but their tiny size allows them to slip through water-treatment plants. Unfortunately, they also look just like food to some marine animals. Opt for products with natural exfoliants, like oatmeal or salt, instead.
4. Cook more. Not only is it healthier, but making your own meals doesn’t involve takeout containers or doggy bags. For those times when you do order in or eat out, tell the establishment you don’t need any plastic cutlery or, for some serious extra credit, bring your own food-storage containers to restaurants for leftovers.
5. Purchase items secondhand. New toys and electronic gadgets, especially, come with all kinds of plastic packaging—from those frustrating hard-to-crack shells to twisty ties. Search the shelves of thrift stores, neighborhood garage sales, or online postings for items that are just as good when previously used. You’ll save yourself a few bucks, too.
6. Recycle (duh). It seems obvious, but we’re not doing a great job of it. For example, less than 14 percent of plastic packaging is recycled. Confused about what can and can’t go in the bin? Check out the number on the bottom of the container. Most beverage and liquid cleaner bottles will be #1 (PET), which is commonly accepted by most curbside recycling companies. Containers marked #2 (HDPE; typically slightly heavier-duty bottles for milk, juice, and laundry detergent) and #5 (PP; plastic cutlery, yogurt and margarine tubs, ketchup bottles) are also recyclable in some areas. For the specifics on your area, check out Earth911.org’s recycling directory.
7. Support a bag tax or ban. Urge your elected officials to follow the lead of those in San Francisco, Chicago, and close to 150 other cities and counties by introducing or supporting legislation that would make plastic-bag use less desirable.
8. Buy in bulk. Single-serving yogurts, travel-size toiletries, tiny packages of nuts—consider the product-to-packaging ratio of items you tend to buy often and select the bigger container instead of buying several smaller ones over time.
9. Bring your own garment bag to the dry cleaner. Invest in a zippered fabric bag and request that your cleaned items be returned in it instead of sheathed in plastic. (And while you’re at it, make sure you’re frequenting a dry cleaner that skips the perc, a toxic chemical found in some cleaning solvents.)
10. Put pressure on manufacturers. Though we can make a difference through our own habits, corporations obviously have a much bigger footprint. If you believe a company could be smarter about its packaging, make your voice heard. Write a letter, send a tweet, or hit them where it really hurts: Give your money to a more sustainable competitor.
So you know what to do. Go do it. Please.
FAIR FAVOURITES
Mean It fashion- it was hard to stop choosing things I like from here. What a great selection!
“Our mission is to source ethical fashion around the world and offer well-designed, desirable and luxurious pieces in one marketplace. Clothing and accessories designed and produced in a sustainable way, using environment-friendly materials. Vegan pieces. Fair trade and upcycled items. All made by teams that have control over the production process, making sure there is no wrongdoing in any sense. Brands we are very proud to sell.”
Maya Day Dreamer Maxi Dress
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Kelly Cotton Chambray Shirt Dress
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Queenie Dress
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Verushka Denin Skirt
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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/may/16/toxic-timebomb-why-we-must-fight-back-against-the-worlds-plague-of-plastic
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-39953209
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4519380/Prince-Charles-Dame-Ellen-MacArthur-tackle-plastics.html
https://www.lifewithoutplastic.com/store/the_plastic_problem#.WSAkiXeZPqQ
http://www.plasticsindustry.com/plastics-environment.asp
http://www.therecyclingassociation.com/latest-news/ceo-simon-ellin-picks-out-worst-packaging-offenders-for-recyclability-for-the-bbc
https://www.nrdc.org
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downloadebooks · 4 years
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The Power of Posture: The Ultimate Guide for Building a Functional Body
New Post has been published on https://joinbooksclub.com/downloads/the-power-of-posture-the-ultimate-guide-for-building-a-functional-body/
The Power of Posture: The Ultimate Guide for Building a Functional Body
The purpose of this book is to use muscular structural integration to implement the physical aspects of biological stainability to the human body
The concept of biological stainability is perhaps the most pressing issue presently facing us as humans, more so than any other point in our species’ existence. For the majority of our existence, we adapted to an environment that was much different to the one we live in today. We evolved into a world where our primary adaptations were biological in regards to our natural environment. We worked as tribal civilizations that would hunt and gather in a cooperative manner within our tribe, while competing with other species for survival. Due to the competition with other species, the slow progressive inclusion of technology would slowly start to influence our biological adaptations. For example: roughly 1 million years ago, man discovered how to use and manipulate fire. This discovery led a human to figure out how to cook meat, which invariably brought about a change in human evolution via the influence of diet. Since the changes at this point in time were still relatively gradual, humans were capable of making effective adaptations with very few negative byproducts. However, in recent times, making these seamless adaptations has proven to be a much more difficult task to accomplish. For example, if we fast track to 100 years ago, the industrial age was in full effect. This brought about a much different culture and environment than anything our species’ previously encountered. With agriculture, automobiles, electricity and other various technologies available to
humans, it changed the scope of how we interact with our environment. Rather than walk, we drive. Rather than eat nutrient dense food, we eat factory farmed food. Rather than react to stressors with motion, we react to stress in stagnation. These are the types of issues most influential to human health at this stage of our existence.
Everything in our reality operates solely under the context of environmental interdependence. As humans living in this environment, we are not exempt from this phenomenon in nature. Even if we were to analyze light, it needs to operate within the confines of a gravity field. It cannot exist in isolation from the rest of its environment. This indicates that all things in the universe, including the human species, are interlinked deeply with their external surroundings. The universe itself runs on a set of rules that all things inhabiting its structure must abide by. When we analyze this from a standpoint of health, the person who can effectively incline their behavior towards the physical rules existing in nature is more likely to emerge as a healthy, adaptable human. The further humans decouple themselves from these natural laws, the more likely it is that they will fall victim to the symptoms of biological inefficiency (pain, illness, injury, etc.). Finding this point of harmony when adapting to the laws of nature is the ultimate guide to attaining a functional body that will perform optimally without pain and most importantly, sustain life for an extended period of time.
To grasp the base point of what efficiency means for our species, we must first
10 | Integrating To A New World
determine what functionality is relative to human biology. Every organism has a structural foundation written in its DNA. Learning what the foundation is for a human will require us to look back at our ancestral roots so that we can attain a better understanding of where efficiency lies relative to human biology. Only then can we have a starting point when attempting to condition a human towards good health and biological sustainability.
Structurally speaking, before we make a distinction upon what a human being is, we have to understand the causative mechanisms that make humans unique. From what we know through research, it is indicated that we are very closely related to the chimpanzees found in Africa. Although we see a resemblance in looks and behavior, we also see that we are obviously different in a few regards. The main influence that affects these differences are attributed to environment. Around 4-6 million years ago, the woodlands of east Africa were evolving into grasslands. The monkeys living in that transitioning territory dealt with a pressing issue that ended up being a pivotal point in shaping their evolution. For several million years, they lived in a habitat which was full of trees. They would swing from branch to branch (or tree to tree) with very little usage of walking on flat ground, since the trees in their environment were in close proximity to one another. This made movement on flat ground unnecessary. As the climate began to shift and the trees became sparser, the game changed for a portion of those monkeys. This change in environment invariably led certain monkeys from swinging on branches to
eventually walking upright on two feet. For the next few million years, there were several different human hominids who moved in a bipedal fashion as a result of these changes. These hominids were able to evolve their structural path of movement integration and build a center of gravity into their musculoskeletal system (along with all the other systems). Over the course of a few million years, Homo Sapiens became the dominant bipedal human hominid at the top of the food chain due to the process of natural selection. Natural phenomena like this must shape the way we look at conditioning a human if we want them to run on optimal efficiency.
Humans have a biomechanical blueprint primarily catered towards standing and moving in a bipedal fashion (on two feet). Besides breathing, it is quite likely that standing and walking are the most common actions done by humans on a daily basis. This is the foundation we must work around if we expect to come to a definitive conclusion of conditioning a human body towards its biological strengths. Since standing upright is the fundamental element that shapes us as the human species, it has to be the base point of efficiency for any sustainable training system. Through my experience working with all types of individuals young and old, I have found that optimizing the standing position is the root of developing effective movement patterns, which in turn sets the foundation up for a neurologically and physiologically healthy human being. After the standing position has been mastered to its fullest extent, the tasks of bending down to lift, squatting deeply, jumping,
11 | Integrating To A New World
twisting, and throwing, along with many other bodily actions become streamlined almost automatically. Once this Human Foundation of efficient posture is wired in, the body becomes immediately more adaptable because it is operating efficiently from its biological base point.
Although the importance of posture may be acknowledged by most health/wellness practitioners, most are unaware of what an actual efficient posture is supposed to look like. I would attribute this to the fact that humans are unaware of how out of balance their body is in relation to the adaptations that have been made to the current environment. It is hard to measure one’sowndistortionsonwhat“normality” or “efficiency” are if our perspectives are skewed due to our inability to witness personal shortcomings, even for us health professionals. If we as the professionals are operating out of imbalance, it will become very difficult for us to determine what balance is. To the somewhat educated practitioner, it becomes obvious that there is a disharmony between us as a human species and the way we interact with our environment. To gain a deeper understanding of the crucial mechanisms of why posture is so negatively ingrained in a human body and why it is so unclear what efficient posture is, we will have to delve deeper into the rabbit hole.
All species have lived in scarcity and have made adaptations based on scarcity over a very long period of time. When we analyze the more complex life forms (animals) that have a nervous system, we begin to see that biology physically morphs
to its environment. The stress from living in scarcity becomes the sculptor of an organisms mechanical structure. Stress is the ultimate mechanism behind shaping biology. If we expect to understand why we are so biologically decoupled from our homeostatic and foundational posture as human beings, we will have to examine how we orient to our stressors in scarce environments.
In order for an organism to adapt to anything, it has to do so within the context of the environment in which it inhabits. All organisms must adapt in accordance to a situational stressor, otherwise the organism will eventually go extinct. Neurologically, when natural life stressors affect an organism, it directly sculpts the way that organism will behave.
https://joinbooksclub.com/downloads/the-power-of-posture-the-ultimate-guide-for-building-a-functional-body/
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The Final Border. ACU Sunday Series.
The Final Border. ACU Sunday Series.
  The Final Border: Peter Fenwick at TEDxBerlin.
I See Dead People: Dreams and Visions of the Dying | Dr. Christopher Kerr | TEDxBuffalo
  The Final Border: Peter Fenwick at TEDxBerlin.
https://youtu.be/tTj2TEHVqTc
TEDx Talks
Crossing borders physically, emotionally, culturally, artistically -- all these aspects were widely explored on the 23rd of November by an array of international, truly inspirational speakers that received standing ovations from an electrified audience.
    I See Dead People: Dreams and Visions of the Dying | Dr. Christopher Kerr | TEDxBuffalo
https://youtu.be/rbnBe-vXGQM
TEDx Talks
Dr. Christopher Kerr speaks at a 2015 TEDx event Buffalo, New York. Dr. Christopher W. Kerr is the Chief Medical Officer at The Center for Hospice and Palliative Care, where he has worked since 1999. His background in research has evolved from bench science towards the human experience of illness as witnessed from the bedside, specifically patients’ dreams and visions at the end of life. Although medically ignored, these near universal experiences often provide comfort and meaning as well as insight into the life led and the death anticipated. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx
   -----------------------------------------------------------------------
Dr. Peter Brooke Cadogan Fenwick – President of the Scientific and Medical Network – is a graduate of Trinity College, Cambridge, where he studied Natural Science. He obtained his clinical experience at St Thomas’ Hospital
Career
Peter Fenwick was a senior lecturer at King’s College, London, where he worked as a consultant at the Institute of Psychiatry. He was the Consultant Neuropsychologist at both the Maudsley and John Radcliffe hospitals, and also provided services for Broadmoor Hospital. He worked with the Mental Health Group at the University of Southampton, and held a visiting professorship at the Riken Neurosciences Institute in Japan. Peter is the president of the Horizon Research Foundation, an organisation that supports research into end-of-life experiences. Before this he was the President of the British branch of the International Association for Near-Death Studies.
  Peter has been part of the editorial board for a number of journals, including the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry, the Journal of Consciousness Studies and the Journal of Epilepsy and Behaviour.
Near-death research
Fenwick’s interest in near-death experiences was piqued when he read Raymond Moody’s book Life After Life. Initially sceptical of Moody’s anecdotal evidence, Fenwick reassessed his opinion after a discussion with one of his own patients, who described a near-death experience very similar to that of Moody’s subjects. Since then, he has collected and analysed more than 300 examples of near-death experiences.
  He has been criticised by the medical community for claiming that human consciousness can survive bodily death, but Peter argues, and the evidence supports, that human consciousness may be more than just a function of the brain.
  “The plain fact is that none of us understands these phenomena. As for the soul and life after death, they are still open questions, though I myself suspect that NDEs are part of the same continuum as mystical experiences.”
  Fenwick and his wife, Elizabeth are co-authors of The Art of Dying, a study of the spiritual needs of near-death patients. The Fenwicks argue that modern medical practices have devalued end-of-life experiences, and call for a more holistic approach to death and dying. In 2003, Fenwick and Sam Parnia appeared in the BBC documentary The Day I Died. In the documentary Parnia and Fenwick discussed their belief that research from near-death experiences indicates the mind is independent of the brain.
  Bibliography
The Art of Dying 
The Truth in The Light 
How to Get Out of This World Alive 
The Hidden Door: Understanding and Controlling Your Dreams 
Past Lives: An Investigation into Reincarnation Memories 
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bharatiyamedia-blog · 5 years
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New clues for a way situation begins -- ScienceDaily
http://tinyurl.com/y22fyhd7 UNC College of Medication scientists unveiled how a specific gene helps set up the scaffolding of mind cells referred to as radial progenitors obligatory for the orderly formation of the mind. Earlier research have proven that this gene is mutated in some individuals with autism. The invention, printed in Neuron, illuminates the molecular particulars of a key course of in mind growth and provides to the scientific understanding of the organic foundation of autism spectrum dysfunction (ASD), a situation linked to mind growth and estimated to have an effect on about one in 59 youngsters born in the USA. “This discovering means that ASD could be brought on by disruptions occurring very early on, when the cerebral cortex is simply starting to assemble itself,” mentioned research senior writer Eva S. Anton, PhD, professor of cell biology and physiology on the UNC College of Medication and member of the UNC Neuroscience Middle and the UNC Autism Analysis Middle. The cerebral cortex — which in people is answerable for greater mind capabilities together with notion, speech, long-term reminiscence, and consciousness — is comparatively massive and dominant in comparison with different mind buildings. How the cortex constructs itself within the growing mind of a human or different mammal is much from totally understood. However scientists know that early in cortical growth, precursor cells referred to as radial glial cells (RGCs) seem on the backside of the growing cortex in a usually spaced or tiled sample. Every RGC sprouts a single stalk-like construction, referred to as a basal course of that extends to the highest of the cortex. Collectively these RGCs and their basal processes type a scaffold, very similar to the scaffolds of a building website. RGCs divide to type younger cortical neurons, and these child neurons climb the scaffold to search out their correct locations within the growing mind. The cortex, because of this scaffolding system, usually develops a extremely common construction with six distinct layers of neurons required for the traditional formation of practical neural cortical circuits. Anton and colleagues found {that a} gene encoding for a protein referred to as Memo1 is required to prepare the tiled radial glial cell scaffold. Mutations within the Memo1 gene even have been present in some individuals with autism and are suspected of inflicting the situation. To discover Memo1’s function in mind growth and autism, Anton’s crew first engineered mice wherein the Memo1 gene is deleted early in mind growth in RGCs. They discovered the ensuing RGC scaffold is disrupted. Every RGC’s stalk-like basal course of shaped too many branches and now not kinds a guiding scaffold, leading to neuronal misplacement and disorganized layers. The scientists traced this unwell impact, partly, to unstable microtubules, which usually assist reinforce the scaffold construction and function railways for the interior visitors of key molecules obligatory for RGC operate. Intriguingly, research of the brains of youngsters with autism discovered patches of comparable neuronal disorganization. The scientists then analyzed MEMO1 gene mutations reported not too long ago in people with autism behaviors and mental disabilities. They found the human MEMO1 genetic mutation resulted in a shortened type of the Memo1 protein and this may disrupt RGC growth Additional supporting the autism connection, Anton and his colleagues found the mice missing Memo1 of their RGCs behaved abnormally, displaying an absence of explorative exercise much like these seen in some individuals with autism. The findings total counsel that Memo1-associated autism could also be wired into the mind very early in growth than are different types of autism with origins in disrupted neuronal differentiation and connectivity. “For issues of mind growth reminiscent of ASD, it is very important perceive the origins of the issue even when we’re nonetheless far-off from having the ability to appropriate developmental disruptions occurring in utero,” Anton mentioned. “We want this foundational information if we’re to really get to the basis causes of those circumstances and finally develop higher diagnostic or therapeutic methods.” Anton and colleagues are persevering with to judge MEMO1 in cortical growth and autism, and as extra human mutations are being recognized on this gene household and different ASD genes, they plan to shift from experiments in mice to the research of human mind organoids — sort of mini brains that may be grown from affected person derived stem cells with ASD associated mutations. The analysis was supported by grants from the Nationwide Institutes of Well being (MH060929) and the Nationwide Institute of Neurological Problems and Stroke (5P30NS045892-12). The co-authors had been Naoki Nakagawa PhD, Charlotte Plestant PhD, Keiko Yabuno-Nakagawa PhD, Jingjun Li PhD, Jason L. Stein PhD, all of UNC-Chapel Hill; Zoltan Molnar of College of Oxford, and Ali Badache PhD, of Centre de Recherche en Cancérologie de Marseille. Source link
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tatumwellness-blog · 5 years
Text
7 Key Motives To are Looking for Chiropractic Care
Chiropracticis a fitness care profession that makes a speciality of issues of the musculoskeletal device and the frightened device. those that use chiropractic care often advise it rather for a selection of reasons. here are the seven satisfactory motives to discover a chiropractor whilst you aren't feeling your very pleasant.
1. Chiropractic Has Been verified safe
Chiropractic is one of the safest treatments to be had in case you are tormented by any neuromusculoskeletal problems such as returned, neck, joint, or head pain.
What exactly does safe imply? if you want to talk numbers, then the danger of harm is 1 in 286,000,000, or 0.0002%. examine that to conventional treatments together with medicinal drug and surgical operation wherein the hazard of injury is 1 in 1428. it really is proper - chiropractic manipulation is that a lot safer, and as you may research later on this file, greater effective as properly.
The most common trouble concerning chiropractic isn't always an harm at all. it's far really some moderate discomfort after adjustment. consider how your muscle groups feel if you've carried out something you don't typically do. You experience sore because your muscle groups, bones, and ligaments have moved in approaches they are now not used to shifting. this is what happens at some stage in a chiropractic adjustment but on a minor scale. Any pain you sense may be long past within 24 hours and most patients feel straight away better without a discomfort in any way.
Why is chiropractic so safe? There are 4 important reasons:
Chiropractors have years of education with coursework that consists of lessons on all elements of the backbone. Chiropractors had been skilled, doing medical paintings lengthy earlier than turning into certified. Chiropractors keep their education long after commencement, completing publications every year that allows you to maintain a license to exercise. finally, and most significantly, a chiropractor's basic philosophy is that the frame is able to recovery itself. The cause of a chiropractor is without a doubt to get rid of the subluxations, or blockages, that occur in spine in order that the body can do its activity. Chiropractic is so safe that organizations unassociated with chiropractic tout its blessings. for example, the business enterprise for fitness Care policy and research (AHCPR), part of the usa branch of health and Human services, discovered that complications are rare. now not best that, they advocate that chiropractic ought to be used earlier than surgical treatment is taken into consideration. And subsequently, they country that prescription drugs aren't advocated for maximum lower back pains.
2. Chiropractic Has Been demonstrated effective for pain when you have ache, chiropractic may be simply what you want. research within the united states and different components of the sector display that chiropractic manipulations are powerful. One examine in California discovered that chiropractic was effective 86% of the time for trendy decrease again pain.
however what of acute lower lower back pain? A document released with the aid of the corporation for health Care policy and research endorsed chiropractic as the quality remedy for this sickness. A study from the university of Pittsburgh medical middle and the Jefferson County (Missouri) Rehabilitation Centre showed that there has been instantaneous development while chiropractic became used to deal with acute low lower back pain.
have a look at after have a look at has been performed and take a look at after observe has concluded that spinal adjustment is superior to different treatments for acute ache. but chiropractic is useful to greater than simply wellknown, chronic, or acute lower returned pain.
sufferers of chiropractic are seeking for help for neck ache or discomfort as nicely. In reality, 19% of patients report neck pain at the first session. This ache is generally due to coincidence or damage but can also be introduced on by using every day living.
The current scientific remedy for neck pain is both immobilization or bodily remedy. but, research have proven that spinal changes are extra effective. as an instance, a take a look at carried out within the Netherlands located patients receiving one of the 3 remedies. They found that spinal adjustments progressed general bodily functioning greater than the alternative treatments.
beyond the lower back and neck, patients frequently seeks chiropractic take care of complications, along with migraines. For chiropractic patients, migraines are regularly reduced or resolved with out using pain killers or different prescription medicines. A examine was posted by means of chiropractic medical doctors at college of Odense and the Nordic Institute of Chiropractic and clinical Biochemist in Denmark displaying that spinal adjustments and gentle tissue therapy allowed for regular development.
Many people apprehend the function of chiropractic in the again, neck, and head due to the fact chiropractors are seen as "again doctors." however, chiropractic has demonstrated powerful for lots different conditions which include carpal tunnel syndrome, fibromyalgia, childish colic, and plenty more.
For pain related to a diffusion of situations, chiropractic is verified powerful, regularly more powerful than contemporary clinical treatments. Coupled with the safety of chiropractic, it have to be your first preference while dealing with pain.
three. Chiropractic is much less Invasive and Drug unfastened
in case you go to a scientific physician because of neck and returned ache, you are probably to take delivery of nonsteroidal 07b031025f5f96dfa8443f843db463b6 tablets, called NSAIDS. although those capsules are given out regularly, they do have considerable dangers t hat are a ways greater than the typical trouble, pain, visible with chiropractic.
NSAID dangers include:
allergies, a number of which can be lifestyles threatening Hives or rashes extended risk of heart assault accelerated threat of stroke Gastrointestinal issues which include bleeding or ulcers cancer another typical treatment is mattress relaxation. but this, too, can purpose problems including muscle groups atrophy, coronary heart and lung weakness, bone loss, and blood clots.
let's no longer forget surgical operation. surgery is used for neck and back pain whenever painkillers and bed rest do not paintings and the dangers of surgical procedure are remarkable. They encompass:
respiration issues because of anesthesia - a affected person can stop respiration completely Blood loss leading to transfusions Cardiovascular risks consisting of heart attack or stroke Scar tissue pain contamination Blood clots Lung fall apart damage to different areas of the body Paralysis Numbness and tingling of elements of the body Swelling and bruising or even demise Chiropractic has none of those risks because it is not invasive. there may be no slicing at the body and there is no medicine prescribed. To keep away from the risks associated with NSAIDS and surgical treatment, chiropractic is an amazing choice.
4. Chiropractic is less Disruptive for your lifestyle
Chiropractic is finished on an outpatient foundation and has smooth recuperation, regularly less than 24 hours of minimum pain. recall this in comparison to the recuperation of surgical procedure.
After any surgical procedure, the body wishes time to restore tissues broken at some stage in the surgical operation in order that the body can return to regular. Surgical recovery is a manner that can take time, often lengthy periods of time requiring medicinal drug and bed rest. In truth, pushing yourself too difficult after surgical treatment will purpose setbacks and make your recovery time longer.
Chiropractic, on the other hand, has restricted recuperation time. At most, chiropractic sufferers may additionally sense some mild discomfort in the region of the manipulation. This discomfort is typically gone in a rely of hours, now not days or perhaps weeks as with surgical procedure.
moreover, surgical sufferers which are older, out of shape, overweight, or typically in poor health will take a long way longer to heal and be prepared for each day existence. despite the fact that various factors will dictate how quickly you're ache loose, the potential to resume your way of life takes place fast with maximum patients, frequently with as little as one manipulation.
five. Chiropractic is much less high-priced
In August 1999, Blue pass/Blue guard (BCBS) of Kansas provided a take a look at titled "Lumbago remedy." whilst regarded in keeping with remedy episode, chiropractic turned into shown to be more fee powerful than anesthesiology, neurosurgery, neurology, registered bodily remedy, orthopedic reconstructive surgical treatment, bodily medication and rehabilitation, and rheumatology.
Why so fee powerful? clinical doctors and bodily therapists depend on:
Referrals Prescriptions surgical treatment MRIs CT scans Hospitalization Over 50% of the fees are surely for diagnostic strategies and no longer for actual ache comfort.
then again, the majority of chiropractic rate comes from workplace primarily based treatment with less than 10% of prices springing up from diagnostics, usually within the form of spinal x-rays.
A take a look at inside the may also 2007 magazine of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics showed that chiropractic resulted in a 60.2% reduction in health center admissions, fifty nine.zero% discount in clinic days, sixty two.zero% discount in outpatient surgeries and procedures, and eighty three% discount pharmaceutical charges whilst compared with traditional medicine.
by way of lowering those objects, average prices related to chiropractic care are notably less than that of conventional hospital treatment.
6. Chiropractic enables With injuries because of accidents
Chiropractic is beneficial in treating numerous accidents consisting of sprains, pulled muscle groups, and joint problems due to vehicle, sports activities, paintings, and regular accidents. The most commonplace injuries due to accidents are:
Whiplash decrease back misalignment top again and neck misalignment Repetitive movement injuries Whiplash is the unexpected motion that reasons distortions to the neck. This kind of surprising motion often happens at some point of a automobile crash, even one at very low speeds. despite the fact that you can now not initially sense any pain, the vertebrae that flow out of region will in the end purpose troubles with the nerves and reason you ache from misalignment or subluxations. clinical doctors prescribe pain meds and bed rest for whiplash, which may be accurate for a day or two, but not for the long run. there may be no way to remain in mattress indefinitely nor is it possible to feature often on pain medications. A chiropractor will help you with the purpose of the problem in preference to help you manipulate the signs and symptoms.
lower again misalignment can appear abruptly or over a long time frame. for example, you may improperly raise something heavy resulting in instantaneous lower back ache, or you could sincerely have negative posture that outcomes in lower back ache through the years. The misalignment reasons subluxations that may be corrected using chiropractic.
lower back ache is made up of several exceptional low lower back issues inclusive of:
Vertebral subluxations Injured discs Muscle strain Ligament sprain Scoliosis Sciatica And greater. The potential to correct injuries holds true for the top again and neck as properly.
Repetitive motion injuries are a quick growing supply of ache within the u.s.a. regularly associated with the workplace, particularly sitting at a pc terminal for lengthy durations of time. Repetitive motion accidents cause much less oxygen to get into the muscle mass and this causes scar tissue to increase. Chiropractic releases the subluxations inflicting the pain.
So, whether your pain is from a car coincidence or merely sitting incorrectly at work, chiropractic is a manner so that you can feel better rapid.
7. Chiropractic: due to the fact You live, flow, and Breathe
because you are alive and move approximately, you are certain to purpose a misalignment of your spine at one time or another. simple actions together with sitting or bending can reason problems. So can on foot, going for walks, stretching, and lifting. In reality, any motion can create a subluxation and subluxations motive pain while left by myself. So, in case you circulate, then you can advantage from chiropractic.
whether you are out walking each day or see your self greater as a sofa potato, chiropractic can be beneficial to you. it's miles the simplest herbal healthcare to be had. And, as you've got found out, it's far safe, effective, non-invasive, cheaper, and remarkable for any injuries you can have. in case you live, flow, or breathe, you should have a health practitioner of Chiropractic as a member of your personal health care group.
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elajyoti-blog · 5 years
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Nahas Hospital | IVF Centres in Malappuram | Elawoman
Nahas Hospital
Nahas Hospital is a Multi claim to fame Hospital arranged in Parappanangadi, IVF Centres in Malappuram. The medical clinic is the best social insurance focus in Kerela. It has been serving its patients for some excellent years with quality treatments and different tasteful administrations which add to its renowned element. Nahas clinic conveys reliable consideration and backing with the usage of different best in class innovations. The medical clinic likewise offers a wide scope of administrations, for example, IVF treatment, Maternity Services, Obstetrics and Gynecology related treatment. Along, with these administrations the emergency clinic likewise offers various offices, for example, work ward, careful and concentrated consideration, ECG ultrasound. Nahas emerges as a Center of Excellence in Maternal and Child Health Care and Reproductive Medicines (NCARE) that builds a prominent of effective social insurance mediations. The emergency clinic additionally give its patients specific consideration OPDs. NCARE hosptial guarantees the best foundation of 7 storied structure alongside 100+ bed space separated from general wards and modern courtesies that meets the necessities of its patients. The mission of the medical clinic is to serve all parts of society with confided in administration and quality treatment. Dr. Rajina E P rehearses her best at this clinic. Dr. Rajina E P is a standout amongst the best pioneers of Ncare IVF Center at Parappanangadi, Calicut and Kannur.
Today, in vitro fertilization (IVF) is for all intents and purposes a family word. However, in the relatively recent past, it was a strange strategy for infertility that delivered what was then known as “unnaturally conceived children.” Louise Brown, conceived in England in 1978, was the principal such infant to be imagined outside her mom’s belly.
In contrast to the less complex procedure of manual semen injection - in which sperm is put in the uterus and origination happens generally regularly - IVF involves combining eggs and sperm outside the body in a research facility. When an embryo or embryos structure, they are then put in the uterus. IVF is a mind-boggling and costly strategy; just about 5% of couples with infertility search it out. Be that as it may, since its introduction in the U.S. in 1981, IVF and other comparable procedures have brought about in excess of 200,000 infants.
What Causes of Infertility Can IVF Treat?
With regards to infertility, IVF might be a choice on the off chance that you or your accomplice have been determined to have:
IVF is never the initial phase in the treatment of infertility aside from in instances of complete tubal blockage. Instead, it’s saved for cases in which different techniques, for example, fertility medications, medical procedure, and manual semen injection haven’t worked.
In the event that you think that IVF may bode well for you, cautiously survey any treatment focus before undergoing the system. Here are a few things to ask the staff at the fertility clinic:
What is your pregnancy proportion per embryo exchange?
What is your pregnancy rate for couples in our age gathering and with our fertility issue?
What is the live birth rate for all couples who experience this system every year at your office?
What number of those conveyances are twins or other various births?
What amount of will the method cost, including the expense of the hormone medicines?
What amount does it cost to store embryos and to what extent would we be able to store them?
Do you take an interest in an egg gift program?
What Can I Expect From IVF?
The initial phase in IVF involves injecting hormones so you produce numerous eggs every month instead of just one. You will at that point be tried to determine whether you’re prepared for egg recovery.
Preceding the recovery system, you will be given injections of a prescription that matures the developing eggs and begins the procedure of ovulation. Timing is essential; the eggs must be recovered just before they rise up out of the follicles in the ovaries. In the event that the eggs are taken out too soon or past the point of no return, they won’t grow ordinarily. Your specialist may do blood tests or an ultrasound to make certain the eggs are at the correct phase of development before retrieving them. The IVF office will furnish you with exceptional instructions to pursue the prior night and the day of the technique. Most ladies are given pain drug and the decision of being gently quieted or going under full anesthesia.
During the methodology, your specialist will find follicles in the ovary with ultrasound and expel the eggs with an empty needle. The system ordinarily takes under 30 minutes, however, may take as long as 60 minutes.
Quickly following the recovery, your eggs will be blended in the research facility with your accomplice’s sperm, which he will have given around the same time.
While you and your accomplice return home, the prepared eggs are kept in the clinic under perception to guarantee ideal development. Depending on the clinic, you may even hold as long as five days until the embryo achieves a further developed blastocyst organize.
When the embryos are prepared, you will come back to the IVF office so specialists can exchange at least one into your uterus. This methodology is faster and simpler than the recovery of the egg. The specialist will insert an adaptable cylinder called a catheter through your vagina and cervix and into your uterus, where the embryos will be saved. To increase the odds of pregnancy, most IVF specialists prescribe transferring up to three embryos at any given moment. Nonetheless, this implies you could have various pregnancy, which can increase the wellbeing dangers for both you and the infants.
Following the methodology, you would commonly remain in bed for a few hours and be released four to six hours after the fact. Your specialist will most likely play out a pregnancy test on you around about fourteen days after the embryo exchange.
In situations where the man’s sperm tally is incredibly low, specialists may combine IVF with a system called intracytoplasmic sperm injection. In this methodology, sperm is taken from semen - or sometimes directly from the gonads - and inserted legitimately into the egg. When a practical embryo is delivered, it is exchanged to the uterus using the typical IVF technique.
What Are the Success Rates for IVF?
Achievement rates for IVF rely upon various variables, including the purpose behind infertility, where you’re having the strategy done, and your age. The CDC gathers national insights for all helped regenerative innovation (ART) methodology performed in the U.S., including IVF, GIFT, and ZIFT, despite the fact that IVF is by a long shot the most widely recognized; it represents 99% of the techniques. The latest report from 2009 found:
Dr. Rajina E.P
Dr. Rajina E.P is a profoundly experienced IVF Specialist and Gynecologist in Parappanangadi, Malappuram. She finished her MBBS and DGO from Calicut Medical College in 1994 and 1998, separately. She further did DRM from a similar college and represented considerable authority in infertility treatments. She presently spends significant time in IVF, IUI, Polycystic Ovarian Disorder (PCOD) treatment, Obstetrics Care, Normal conveyance methods, and Menopausal consideration and the executives. Dr. Rajina E.P was granted Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam Award for commitments in the field of drug. She has additionally gotten an honor from Sanofi Pharmaceutical Company for leading Hysteroscopy workshop at NCare. She has make immense progress in the restorative business and is broadly known for her mastery in Obstetrics and Gynecology. She is as of now rehearsing at Ncare IVF Center as an infertility specialist.
Moulana Hospital
Moulana Hospital is a Super Speciality Center situated in Perinthalmanna, Malappuram. It appeared in the year 1990. From that point forward, they have developed complex and picked up the certainty of the general population far and wide, particularly the penniless in the Malabar Region. The medical clinic is giving 28 years of devoted administrations in numerous fields. It is furnished with the most exceptional analytic and Medical Care Facilities. The obstetrics and gynecology branch of Moulana Hospital gives administrations like Infertility evaluation, In Vitro Fertilization (IVF), Intrauterine Insemination (IUI), Gynecology issues treatment, Gynecology Laparoscopy, Antenatal Care, and Pregnancy conveyance systems. The emergency clinic likewise offers administrations identified with therapeutic divisions, for example, Dermatology, Plastic medical procedure, Endocrinology, Pulmonology, Rheumatology, Neurology, Nephrology, Cardiothoracic medical procedure, Cosmetic medical procedure, Gastroenterology, and Anesthesiology.
ARMC AEGiS Hospital
ARMC AEGiS Hospital is an IVF and Fertility Center situated in Perinthalmanna, Malappuram. The emergency clinic was set up in the year 2009 as a chain by ARMC gathering. Since the season of its foundation, the emergency clinic has recorded in excess of 10,000 labors accordingly achievement of infertility treatments. The medical clinic contains in excess of 40 fertility specialists and 12 Embryologists alongside other paramedical, nursing and managerial staff who are devoted to give benefits nonstop. Different administrations gave at the medical clinic incorporates Assisted Reproductive Techniques (ART, for example, Intrauterine Insemination (IUI), Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection (ICSI), Gynecology issues treatment, Pediatrics care, Genetics, and Andrology. The clinic additionally gives meeting offices at Doha and Dubai to make it a problem free treatment for NRI patients and outside nationals visiting the inside. The medical clinic is additionally outfitted with best in class offices and insignificantly obtrusive surgeries for treatment of Gynecology related issues.
Dr. Jeetendra Behera
Dr. Jeetendra Behera is an IVF Doctor at present working in ARMC IVF Fertility Center which is an IVF focus in Perinthalmanna, Malappuram. He represents considerable authority in Infertility appraisal, In Vitro Fertilization (IVF), Intrauterine Insemination (IUI), Testicular Sperm Aspiration (TESA), Testicular Biopsy, Microsurgical Epididymal Sperm Aspiration (MESA), Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection (ICSI), Reproductive Healthcare and Maternal Fetal Medicine. Dr. Jeetendra treats fruitless patients with IVF and IUI methodology with acknowledging achievement rates. Dr. Jeetendra has finished his MS in Obstetrics and Gynecology without a hitch. Further, he sought after Fellowship in Minimal Access Surgery (FMAS) and FRM from famous schools over the world. ARMC IVF Fertility Center has absolute 7 branches spread crosswise over various pieces of South India.
If you have any double about IVF Centres in Malappuram. You can contact us
+91-8929020600
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dorcasrempel · 5 years
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Study reveals how glial cells may play key epilepsy role
A new study provides potential new targets for treating epilepsy and new fundamental insights into the relationship between neurons and their glial “helper” cells. In eLife, scientists at MIT’s Picower Institute for Learning and Memory report finding a key sequence of molecular events in which the genetic mutation in a fruit fly model of epilepsy leaves neurons vulnerable to becoming hyperactivated by stress, leading to seizures.
About 60 million people worldwide have epilepsy, a neurological condition characterized by seizures resulting from excessive neural activity. The “zydeco” model flies in the study experience seizures in a similar fashion. Since discovering zydeco, the lab of MIT neurobiologist Troy Littleton, the Menicon Professor in Neuroscience, has been investigating why the flies’ zydeco mutation makes it a powerful model of epilepsy.
Heading into the study, the team led by postdoc Shirley Weiss knew that the zydeco mutation was specifically expressed by cortex glial cells and that the protein it makes helps to pump calcium ions out of the cells. But that didn’t explain much about why a glial cell’s difficulty maintaining a natural ebb and flow of calcium ions would lead adjacent neurons to become too active under seizure-inducing stresses, such as fever-grade temperatures or the fly being jostled around.
The activity of neurons rises and falls based on the flow of ions — for a neuron to “fire,” for instance, it takes in sodium ions, and then to calm back down it releases potassium ions. But the ability of neurons to do that depends on there being a conducive balance of ions outside the cell. For instance, too much potassium outside makes it harder to get rid of potassium and calm down.
The need for an ion balance — and the way it is upset by the zydeco mutation — turned out to be the key to the new study. In a four-year series of experiments, Weiss, Littleton, and their co-authors found that excess calcium in cortex glia cells causes them to hyper-activate a molecular pathway that leads them to withdraw many of the potassium channels that they typically deploy to remove potassium from around neurons. With too much potassium left around, neurons can’t calm down when they are excited, and seizures ensue.
“No one has really shown how calcium signaling in glia could directly communicate with this more classical role of glial cells in potassium buffering,” Littleton says. “So this is a really important discovery linking an observation that’s been found in glia for a long time — these calcium oscillations that no one really understood — to a real biological function in glial cells, where it’s contributing to their ability to regulate ionic balance around neurons.”
Weiss’s work lays out a detailed sequence of events, implicating several specific molecular players and processes. That richly built knowledge meant that along the way, she and the team found multiple steps in which they could intervene to prevent seizures.
She started working the problem from the calcium end. With too much calcium afoot, she asked, what genes might be in a related pathway such that, if their expression was prevented, seizures would not occur? She interfered with expression in 847 potentially related genes and found that about 50 affected seizures. Among those, one stood out both for being closely linked to calcium regulation and also for being expressed in the key cortex glia cells of interest: calcineurin. Inhibiting calcineurin activity, for instance with the immunosuppressant medications cyclosprorine A or FK506, blocked seizures in zydeco mutant flies.
Weiss then looked at the genes affected by the calcineurin pathway and found several. One day at a conference where she was presenting a poster of her work, an onlooker mentioned that glial potassium channels could be involved. Sure enough, she found a particular one called “sandman” that, when knocked down, led to seizures in the flies. Further research showed that hyperactivation of calcineurin in zydeco glia led to an increase in a cellular process called endocytosis, in which the cell was bringing too much sandman back into the cell body. Without sandman staying on the cell membrane, the glia couldn’t effectively remove potassium from the outside.
When Weiss and her co-authors interfered to suppress endocytosis in zydeco flies, they also were able to reduce seizures, because that allowed more sandman to persist where it could reduce potassium. Sandman, notably, is equivalent to a protein in mammals called TRESK.
“Pharmacologically targeting glial pathways might be a promising avenue for future drug development in the field,” the authors wrote in eLife.
In addition to that clinical lead, the study also offers some new insights for more fundamental neuroscience, Littleton and Weiss said. While zydeco flies are good models of epilepsy, Drosophila’s cortex glia do have a property not found in mammals: They contact only the cell body of neurons, not the synaptic connections on their axon and dendrite branches. That makes them an unusually useful test bed to learn how glia interact with neurons via their cell body versus their synapses. The new study, for instance, shows a key mechanism for maintaining ionic balance for the neurons.
In addition to Weiss and Littleton, the paper’s other authors are Jan Melom, who helped lead the discovery of zydeco, postdoc Kiel Ormerod, and former postdoc Yao Zhang.
The National Institutes of Health and the JPB Foundation funded the research.
Study reveals how glial cells may play key epilepsy role syndicated from https://osmowaterfilters.blogspot.com/
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