Does Dance Help Huntingtons Disease

I love it when I learn new things or how new things connect with stuff I already know.  One such article just came across my desk this morning and caught my attention.  An assistant professor of dance at the University of Massachusetts believes that dance can help Huntington's Disease.

Before today, I think I had heard of Huntington's Disease but like most things, that is about all I had heard about it.  In the article it explains that this disease causes a progressive degeneration of nerve cells in the brain.  It impacts a person's ability to function and causes difficulties in movement and thinking.

In the article, Paul Dennis explains that dance can help in balance, posture, coordination, motor learning, cognition and emotional well being.

One of the things I know from my own personal life healing from Conversion Disorder, is that in addition to healing the mind, I had to work on the body.  In the body centered therapy created by Dr. Paul Canali of Miami, FL, I learned that movement connected with the felt sense of the body could yield significant changes quickly for myself.

When I read about Paul Dennis and the work he is doing for a condition such as Huntington's Disease, it made perfect sense to me.  In the case of trauma, the body freezes and so if you offer the body something different than a freeze response, it can be life changing.  Movement of any type in that moment is what helps bring us out of freezing.

It isn't just movement by itself that I have seen others helped by, but the connected movement where the conscious brain of awareness is engaged.  Together, these things through the felt sense brings about a radical shift right before your eyes.

Healing is not just about following a standard protocol of paradigms that we know.  Healing is about advancing into the unknown thoughts that may present a fertile ground of moving through some of the physical limitations and difficulties we encounter.  There is much more than I think we realize alive in our bodies and so the work that Paul Dennis is doing is encouraging to me.

Article Source:  

Umass Assistant Professor Believes Dance Can Help Those With Huntington's Disease 


Paul A Dennis, Assistant Professor, University Of Massachusetts

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Neuroscience In The News On April 4

These are articles that I found of interest relating to news about Neuroscience.  In this issue, I have highlighted articles about the how dance may help Huntington's Disease and the role of altruism and brain activity.  Last but not least is how a bird dances to a beat and the insights that are learned from this for neuroscience.

Please check out the article links below and feel free to comment with other information related to these subjects.  I enjoy learning as much as I can about the brain and passing this information on to everyone else that shares these passions.

This is for the week beginning April 4, 2016.

Please come back each week and hopefully I will have some more highlights.  Feel free to share with me ones that you have found and I may highlight those as well.

Feel free to check out the highlighted articles from March 14, 2016

Can Dance Help Huntington's Disease?

Huntington's disease is an inherited disease that causes the progressive degeneration of nerve cells in the brain. It has a broad impact on a person's functional abilities and usually results in movement, thinking and psychiatric disorders.

Dennis, of Amherst, says dance can help in the maintenance of balance and posture, coordination of voluntary movements, motor learning, cognition and emotional well being.

Article Link:

• Umass Professor Believes Dance Can Help Huntington's Disease
• Paul A. Dennis, Assistant Professor of Dance, University of Massachusetts

Altruism and Brain Activity

However, subjects who showed the greatest activity in areas of the brain linked to pain perception, emotion and imitating others gave away an average of 75% of their funds. The researchers say this behavior can be referred to as "prosocial resonance" - a type of mirroring impulse that they believe is a key driver for altruism.

Based on their results, the researchers suggest we may be hard-wired for altruism. What is more, they believe the results indicate that it may be possible to make people less selfish and more generous toward others.

"This is potentially groundbreaking," says Christov-Moore. Senior author Marco Iacoboni, a psychiatry professor at UCLA

Article Link:

• Altruism Could Be Increased By Reducing Specific Brain Activity
• Leonardo Christov-Moore, University Of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)
• Source:  Medical News Today

The Beasts That Keep The Beat

For Irena Schulz, one of those moments happened on an otherwise ordinary day in August, 2007.  Schulz was someone who already had a deep appreciation for the intelligence and myriad talents of birds. She had even seen some parrots sway and bob to music. But Spudic’s claims seemed a bit hyperbolic. “We were humoring him, saying, ‘Sure, sure,’” Schulz recalls. Later that evening, she and her husband popped Spudic’s CD into the computer in their living room. “Everybody (Backstreet’s Back)” by The Backstreet Boys started playing. Immediately, Snowball, who was perched on Schulz’s arm, began kicking up his feet and bouncing his head with great zeal — and precision.

Make sure you check out the video posted in the story.

Article Link:

• The Beasts That Keep The Beat, New Insights From Neuroscience
• John Iversen and Aniruddh Patel at Neurosciences Institute, La Jolla CA.
• Source:  Quanta Magazine

A Time For Everything

Normally I don't quote the Bible in this blog, but I think the following from Ecclesiastes Chapter 3 is appropriate based upon the post from yesterday. Sometimes, there are parts from the Bible that just speak so eloquently of what is on my mind.

Most likely we have all heard this in some form or another but I thought it was a good time to just state the obvious.

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heave:
a time to be born and a time die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to weep and a time to laugh
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain,
a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace




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http://www.donshetterly.com

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