Category: anxiety

To Understand Facebook, Study Capgras Syndrome

We start with the case of a woman who experienced unbearable tragedy. In 1899, this Parisian bride, Madame M., had her first child. Shockingly, the child was abducted and substituted with a different infant, who soon died. She then had twin girls. One grew into healthy adulthood, while the other, again, was abducted, once more replaced with a different, dying infant. She then had twin boys. One was abducted, while the other was fatally poisoned.

Madame M. searched for her abducted babies; apparently, she was not the only victim of this nightmarish trauma, as she often heard the cries of large groups of abducted children rising from the cellars of Paris.

As if all this pain was not enough, Madame M.’s sole surviving child was abducted and replaced with an imposter of identical appearance. And soon the same fate befell Madame M.’s husband. The poor woman spent days searching for her abducted loved ones, attempting to free groups of other abducted children from hiding places, and starting the paperwork to divorce the man who had replaced her husband.

 

Nautilus

Turning off this newly discovered brain pathway could help us block fearful memories

Scientists now know how to make you forget your fears — at least if you’re a mouse. By turning off a newly discovered brain pathway, scientists were able to make mice lose their fear of a shock. It’s early research, but it may point toward methods that could help people with anxiety and PTSD.

After finding a new pathway in the brain important for creating fearful memories, scientists trained mice to fear a high-pitched tone by shocking the rodents every time they heard it, according to a study published today in Nature Neuroscience. They waited til the rodents would freeze in fear even without the shock before proceeding to the next stage: viewing the mouse brains. Using a specialized microscopy technique, the scientists observed that there was growth in the neurons along that pathway. So what would happen if they could turn that pathway off?

TheVerge

My Sleep Button: for Insomniacs

The purpose of this web page is to explain the scientific rationale of mySleepButton.

mySleepButton is based on a new super-somnolent mentation theory of sleep induction proposed by CogSci Apps Corp. co-founder, Luc P. Beaudoin. Beaudoin published this theory in an open-access paper on March 31, 2013 at Simon Fraser University where he is adjunct professor:

The possibility of super-somnolent mentation: A new information-processing approach to sleep-onset acceleration and insomnia exemplified by serial diverse imagining (MERP Report No. 2013–03).Meta-effectiveness Research Project, Faculty of Education, Simon Fraser University.

MySleepButton

Response to PTSD Treatment Associated With Size of Hippocampus

The study, from researchers at Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) and New York State Psychiatric Institute (NYSPI), was published online in Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging on May 4, 2016.

Previous research has shown that having a smaller hippocampus is associated with increased risk of PTSD. In this study, the researchers examined the relationship between hippocampus volume, measured with MRI, and response to treatment in 50 participants with PTSD and 36 trauma-exposed healthy controls. The participants were evaluated at baseline and after 10 weeks, during which time the PTSD group had prolonged exposure therapy, a type of cognitive behavioral therapy that has been shown to help patients with PTSD discriminate between real and imagined trauma.

The study found that patients with PTSD who responded to treatment had greater hippocampal volume at the beginning of the study than non-responders to treatment.

The findings add to growing evidence that the hippocampus is key to distinguishing between cues that signal safety and those that signal threat.

“If replicated, these findings have important implications for screening and treating patients who have been exposed to trauma,” noted Yuval Neria, PhD, professor of medical psychology at CUMC, director of the PTSD Program at NYSPI, and senior author of the paper. “For example, new recruits for military service may be scanned before an assignment to determine whether they are capable of dealing with the expected stress and trauma. Having a smaller hippocampus may be a contraindication for prolonged exposure to trauma.”

Neuroscience News

Chew Yourself a Better Brain

Would you believe that while standing in line to pay for your groceries, you are but an arm’s length away from a potent neurochemical catalyst that costs less than a single pill of any antidepressant?

Yes, gum – wonderful, flavorful, get-your-jaws-moving gum — is an unlikely object of  cognitive science research that turns out to possess qualities Mr. Wrigley would never have guessed.

Gum has been studied for its beneficial effects on memory, alertness, anxiety reduction, appetite suppression, mood and learning.  Attributes of gum that have gone under the microscope include its flavor, texture and density, to name a few.

Forbes

It’ll be alright on the night: how musicians cope with performance stress

Jonas Kaufmann was 26 when he forgot how to sing. Kaufmann, who headlines at the Last Night of the Proms on Saturday alongside soprano Danielle de Niese and pianist Benjamin Grosvenor, is today a hugely acclaimed and in-demand tenor, described by the New York Times as one of the most versatile performers of his generation. But 20 years ago, he experienced a bout of stage fright so crippling it almost ended his career.

Kaufmann was singing in Richard Wagner’s Parsifal. With Act III approaching its climax, his voice simply deserted him. He stood paralysed, unable to utter a single sound, as the orchestra repeated his cue and the conductor gestured to him in increasing bemusement.

Kaufmann’s moment of paralysis was a common symptom of extreme performance anxiety, a physiological reaction to nerves which manifests itself as hoarseness and, at worst, losing the ability to sing altogether. He was, of course, able to overcome it after working with a vocal coach who helped him rebuild his technique so he felt completely secure in it, and thus confident on stage.

Kaufmann’s experience is more common among professional musicians than you might think. While some seem apparently immune to the pressures of a crowd, many of the greatest soloists in history.

The Guardian

How a Human Scream Uniquely Activates the Fear Response in Your Brain

We know human screams are jarring. They’re loud, occasionally shrill, and tend to make us feel stressed, or even fearful. What’s unclear is why they elicit anxiety. But a new study suggests this response may have something to do with the acoustic quality of human screams, and how they trigger the brain’s fear response.

News360