Neuroscience In The News On March 14

These are articles that I found of interest relating to news about Neuroscience.  In this issue, I have highlighted articles about the individual nerves of a 520 year old fossil, how dopamine helps us avoid unpleasant experiences and how long term stress causes inflammation in our brain.

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 March 14, 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 7, 2016

Individual Nerves Of 520 Year Old Fossil

The nervous system of one 520 million-year-old specimen shows some of the best and most well-preserved nerves ever seen in an animal of that era. The fossil may be the oldest and most detailed example of a central nervous system yet identified, with even individual nerves -- rarely preserved soft tissue -- visible enough to study.

Article Link:

• Exquisitely detailed 520 Million Year Old Fossil
• Reported in the Washington Post on March 1, 2016

Dopamine Helps To Avoid The Unpleasant

We showed in mice that a special circuit in the hippocampus has flexibility in combining with environmental input to shape behavior during an experiment in which the mice learn to avoid an unpleasant experience," Dani said. "This is the first time that we have been able to show, as proof of principle, that the dopamine circuitry is also involved in learning to avoid aversive situations.

Article Link:

• Dopanmine, The Brain's Reward Also Helps Avoid Unpleasant Experience
• Dr. John Dani, University Of Pennsylvania School Of Medicine

Long Term Stress

Long-term stress can cause memory loss and inflammation in the brain - and the immune system is to blame.

This led to the conclusion that post-stress memory trouble is directly linked to inflammation, and the immune system, rather than brain damage.

Chronic stress causes the brain's immune response to make macrophages
Increase in immune cells lead to inflammation takes four weeks to reduce

Article Link:

• Long-Term Anxiety Causes Inflammation In The Brain
• Ohio State
• Associate Professor Of Neuroscience, Jonathan Godbout

What Impacts The Spine

The other day, I was checking out local Chiropractor websites and saw the following Spine Simulator for the Lechmaier Family Chiropractic Center in Orange City, Florida.

For the link to their website, click here

For the link to the Spine Simulator, click here

The interesting thing to note about this spine simulator is just how different impacts on the spine, affect various organs, nerves and systems of the body. By clicking on each of the areas, you'll quickly see just what is impacted. It is a pretty interesting simulation.

Make sure you check out all the other wonderful information that is on the main website.

The Pulse Of Autonomic Arousal

The past several weeks and especially the past few days, I've been under a tremendous amount of stress. I could feel it building up within me. The overall tension in my body was building and making it difficult to just enjoy living in my body. My nerves were on end and I could feel an overall agitation knowing that there were many things to get done and not enough time to do them in. I felt the pressures of the world, of daily life, responsibilities coming down on me as well as things that various people were expecting me to get done.

It seemed like no matter what, finding a moment of peace was almost as difficult as finding a four leafed clover. Yet, I longed for peace, for rest and even just some tranquility in my life. It had been far too long because I had been just pushing myself hard and for good reason.

Then I grabbed my pulse meter and went into my massage room to just give myself a moment of saying, this is my time. I didn't care what I had to do at that moment, but I just wanted some time of rest for myself. The pulse meter of course showed exactly what I felt in my body with my pulse being around 110 beats per minute. Of course, I've been down this road and so I didn't freak out from fear of my pulse being so high.

As I went into my body and connected with all the shaking, tremors and movements, I began to feel some pain and the tension really deep within me. It was at that moment, that my body began to violently shake and move almost as if the movements were coming from deep within my core. I allowed this to take place and just road it through as a surfer riding a wave. For I knew that at some point, it would dissipate and subside. It was potential energy that needed to get released. My body continued to twist and turn with moments of extreme shaking and movements then letting go and sinking down in to the table.

My pulse after a few minutes had come down from 110 to 103 which is still high but an improvement. Than as I continued to lay there listening to the relaxing sounds I had going, my pulse slowly began to come down to around the low 90's. Again, that is still a high pulse and shows that there is autonomic arousal in my nervous system. The best thing would be for me to go further into this but the time doesn't permit me to do this at the moment.

The feeling though of my body at 110 bpm and then at the low 90's felt like a nice wave of relaxation to me. It felt refreshing and welcoming to me. It gave me a breath of fresh air knowing that I could drop my pulse down and dissipate some of the stored energy that was locked up in my body. Tomorrow, I will do more with this and drop it further but for now, I'll just enjoy the feeling of my body coming down and letting go and traveling deeper into relaxation, rest and peace.


*For more articles, check out the Mind Body Thoughts Blog

Pain, It Does A Body Good

Pain.. ahh yes, you might be saying. I've got pains here and there and in places I didn't even know could hurt. Then you might go on to tell me that you've been to the doctor and the doctor has all kinds of fancy names for your pain as well as medications to take to "rid" your body of the pain (also known as numbing the body from the pain).

But.. that's a loaded word and I would agree. Have you ever stopped to consider what's behind the pain? I mean, it is usually there for a reason. Sure we tend to know that but do we really know that that means. Come on be honest. Be totally 100% honest now.

You see, our bodies are made up of a lot of sensory nerves and tissue that brings information back to the brain. For the sake of an example, let's say you smash your thumb with a hammer. Now most of us realize that this hurts like everything and most of us would know that the pain information gets sent back to the brain and then the mouth usually goes "OUCH THAT HURT". In a simplistic way, that's how our body works. The pain is there to tell us something is wrong and it needs attention or correction pretty darn quickly.

Of course though, in our modern times, we're too busy or too preoccupied or have a zillion and one other reasons why we just want this pain to go away that invades our body. Some of it may be conscious and most likely a fair share of it is unconscious. That is, we really don't know why we have the pains we do. And while people may want to attach all kinds of reasons for what this pain or that pain means, it is much more deep than that.

So let's get back to the pain we feel and what's the first reaction we have: how do I make this pain go away. You reach for the meds or the aspirin and hope that it will make the pain disappear. If that doesn't work, you try and live with it hoping it will go away. And if all else fails, you make an appointment with a doctor to get some more meds and find a way to attach a cutesy little label to your condition. So now you've got it all taken care of right? Well as long as you take your meds and remember to tell everyone what cutesy name is attached to your condition.

What if there would be another way to deal with the pain. One that you might not have thought about before. And yet, it is one that is built in to our biological systems we call our body. What is this other way, you ask? It's all about going into the pain and letting your body feel it. But not just feeling the pain and stopping there. Letting it go all the way through until you've reached the dark side so to speak. When you can allow yourself to push through any fears that may arise and go into the pain, you will have much greater awareness of yourself and your body, thereby giving you the opportunity of making new choices to free yourself from the pain. I'm not saying this is easy for most people to do but with a little training and support, this is not some pie in the sky concept. It is a very viable way to give freedom to yourself.

You know, there are times when medications and doctors and surgeries are necessary. I'm not saying that it is all one way or the other. What I am trying to say is that all too often, we as a society tend to focus on masking the pain instead of truly going in and freeing ourselves from the pain. It is a choice that we make every day we are alive. While we may not fully understand how this process can unfold, we do make a conscious choice of what information we allow into our lives and what we allow ourselves to experience.

So the next time you have pains or you feel sick or whatever is going on, try to take a moment and see what's behind the pain. Maybe it is something in your current situation that if you made a change, the pain would go away. Sometimes just stopping and listening to our bodies can be one of the best gifts that we could ever give ourselves. It is in that moment, that we allow ourselves to become so much more unified and have greater awareness. The more awareness we have, the more information we can access to make much more informed decisions about our lives.

What are the possibilities?