Resilience is in psychiatry the positive capacity of people to cope with stress and catastrophe. In this post it’s used as having an adaptive system that uses exposure to stress to provide resistance to future negative events.
Stress can lead to depression accompanied by atrophy and loss of neurons in the adult hippocampus in experimental studies. The effect of stress or whether you can become depressed due to stress seem to depend on individual characteristics. One characteristic is gene expression. Is it in your genes?
Moreover, environmental factors like stress can also improve the brain’s ability to adapt, this is what we call resilience.
Diffusion tensor imaging is a brand new imaging method that calculates the random movement of water inside the human brain. Diffusion tensor MRI can provide information about connections among brain regions. In recent research they compared the brains of unaffected healthy relatives of patients with depressive disorder with the brains of healthy subjects without any familial risk for psychiatric diseases..
The researchers were surprised by finding a better white matter integrity in the unaffected healthy relatives compared to the healthy controls in certain brain areas linked to depressive disorder. In depression these white matter integrity is far worse compared to healthy controls. When looking at childhood stress in relation to these findings with diffusion tensor imaging they were even more surprised. In healthy controls the white matter integrity was worse with childhood stress compared to those healthy subjects without childhood stress. At the same time those unaffected relatives with childhood stress had a better white matter integrity in certain brain areas compared to those unaffected relatives without childhood stress.
Larger tracts or tracts with higher white matter integrity in unaffected healthy relatives with childhood stress compared to healthy controls with childhood stress resides in the right inferior fronto-occipital fascicilus. Now where the hack is that? Here it is in a child’s brain.
In the words of the authors this could be the place were resilience for depression might resides in the brain:
These findings might indicate that unaffected healthy relatives who did not become depressed, while more likely to carry a high genetic risk, may have some neurobiological characteristics that are associated with increased resilience. The stronger fibre connections seem to be associated with resilience and might render subjects more stable against environmental stressors suggestively through epigenetic mechanisms
The unaffected relatives suffering childhood stress could manage more early life adversity due to stronger fibre connections. This might be mediated by epigenetic processes, mediating the social environment during childhood on gene expression which persist into adulthood and may be even to be passed on to next generations.
Thomas Frodl,, Angela Carballedo1,, Andrew J. Fagan,, Danusia Lisiecka1,, Yolande Ferguson,, Ian Daly,, James F. Meaney,, & Dermot Kelleher (2010). Microstructural Correlates of Resilience against Major Depressive Disorder: Epigenetic Mechanisms? Nature Precedings
A number of studies have shown cardiovascular benefits of eating flavanol rich cocoa. Cocoa is the important substance of chocolate. Especially dark chocolate can contain high levels of flavanols. The possible underlying mechanisms of these cardioprotective properties of chocolate can be several.
The biggest question that remains is about the right dose of dark chocolate. From prior publications suggestion were made about the right dose:
an average amount of 6.7 grams of chocolate per day, corresponding to a small square of chocolate twice or three times a week
no more than 25 gram, or 2.5 squares of dark chocolate, a day
up to 1 serving (20 g) of dark chocolate every 3 days
Until now I’m still holding on to “the more the better”. A recent publication suggested to me by my colleague Cryptocheilus followed 31,823 women 48-83 years old without diabetes or a history of Heart Failure or myocardial infarction. They were participants in the Swedish Mammography Cohort. The researchers categorized the women according to their chocolate intake.
Chocolate intake was categorized as no regular chocolate intake, 1-3 servings of chocolate per month, 1-2 servings per week, 3-6 servings per week and one or more servings per day.
They followed these women up to nine years and their outcome measures were hospitalization for heart failure or death. The rate of heart failure was lower in the group who consumed 1-3 servings of chocolate per month (26%) and those who consumed 1-2 servings per week (32%). The rate of heart failure was not reduced and similar among women with no regular chocolate intake and those who consumed chocolate 3-6 servings per week and those who consumed one or more servings per day.
The advantage of this study is that they took into account several confounding factors such as milk consumption, consumption of snacks, physical activity, smoking, social status. Although it’s a prospectiove cohort study the result should be taken cautiously. It’s not a dose finding study, still waiting on that one. So until then I’ll stick to my 1-2- servings per week, the more the better dose. What about you?
Mostofsky, E., Levitan, E., Wolk, A., & Mittleman, M. (2010). Chocolate Intake and Incidence of Heart Failure: A Population-Based, Prospective Study of Middle-Aged and Elderly Women Circulation: Heart Failure DOI: 10.1161/CIRCHEARTFAILURE.110.944025
Despite it being summer holidays there were a lot of submission for the latest Scientia Blog Carnival: Scientia Pro Publica. So let’s start.
If you want to know more about the dance of bees, the waggle dance (yes it really exists) have fun over at More than Honey, The Making of a Bee Documentary and it’s post Out with the Radar Bees. It has all the ins and outs on he famous „dance-language“ of the honeybees.
As human beings, believe it or not, we’ve a lot of microorganisms living on and in us. Their is a name for those studying these microorganisms, they study human microbiome. A recent publication about the difference between bacteria living in western kids compared to kids with a complete other diet living in Burkina Fasso showed that the two populations had very different compositions of bacteria. But is this sound evidence or did they mess up the statistics? The answer is in Some Thoughts About the Statistics of the Human Microbiome by Mike the Mad Biologist.
Influenza or not influenza, a case report of 2000 years ago in Biblical time, substantiated with bible text was published in Virology Journal and critically commented on This Scientific Life. The article has been retracted. Read the comments on this post The Virology of Christ.
There has been written a lot about the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico after the destruction of the Deepwater Horizon but what about green project management? How Green Project Management could assist in incorporating environmental thinking in any project at earthpm.com.
Are scientists caught up in an ivory tower of academia and thus have difficulties relating to the lowly, common woman and man? No they use complex grammatical structures to express complicated ideas in as few words as possible.
This specialized way of communicating impedes the dissemination of science to students and the average Janes and Joes. So what to do?
This blog will be the location for the next edition of the Scientia Pro Publica blog carnival on August the 30th. You can submit your posts by using this automated submission form . They are still seeking hosts for upcoming issues; we still have some open hosting slots through the end of 2010 [see schedule]. If you have always wanted to host an issue of Scientia Pro Publica on your blog, now is your chance!
The purpose of this blog carnival is simple: to provide a large public platform that celebrates the best science, nature and medical writing published within the previous month in the blogosphere. This means the host should be able to understand what you’ve written. If the host can’t understand it, neither will the public. Acceptable submissions include “translations” of scientific papers, original essays about a scientific topic or theme, and reviews of books about science. Other submissions may or may not be accepted at the current host’s discretion. Topics range from basic to applied sciences; from physics, chemistry and biology to pharmacology and medicine.
Now that’s a very interesting idea. The end of the social media decade, starting the new decade: The Decade of Games. How to use this layer to get people to take their medication on time? Watch this video and enjoy.
By now, we’re used to letting Facebook and Twitter capture our social lives on the web — building a “social layer” on top of the real world. At TEDxBoston, Seth Priebatsch looks at the next layer in progress: the “game layer,” a pervasive net of behavior-steering game dynamics that will reshape education and commerce.
In normal every day life with face to face contact the physical characteristics and knowledge about social background form the identity of your contact. It’s stable and three dimensional. You know that person, it’s therefor very difficult for the other to claim another identity or create impressions inconsistent with how you know him or her. Online identity is a different topic. You can create ideal identities not necessarily overlapping your real identity. It’s a controlled setting in which you can create different identities from the person you really are. Moreover, from research it has been shown that people act differently in social networking environments when compared to those interacting in anonymous settings. Online self representation can vary according to the nature of the setting.
What is the relationship between offline personality and online self representation on facebook?
A recent study looked at the effects of narcissism and self esteem on online social activity and self promotion. The researchers included 50 male and 50 female facebook owners, they were randomly recruited at York university, their age ranged from 18 to 25 years. The facebook pages were rated and the participants took 4 questionnaires about demographic information, facebook activity, self esteem (the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale) and narcissism (the Narcissism Personality Inventory).
Five features of the Facebook page were coded for the extent to which they were self-promoting: (a) the About Me section, (b) the Main Photo, (c) the first 20 pictures on the View Photos of Me section, (d) the Notes section, and (e) the Status Updates section.
Self promotion was distinguished as any descriptive or visual informationthat appeared to attempt to persuade others about one’s own positive qualities. For instance posting ‘‘My Celebrity Look-alikes”. Use of picture enhancement etc.
They found a strong relationship between narcissism and lower self esteem with greater facebook activity as well as more promotional self content. Gender did not influence these relationships.
This is another study implying that narcissism can be detected in facebook, the previous study is also discussed on this blog: The Dangers of Facebook. Gender differences were found in another study but on risk taking attitudes. Men with profiles on social networking sites are higher in risk taking behavior and less worried about privacy issues compared to women.
Mehdizadeh, S. (2010). Self-Presentation 2.0: Narcissism and Self-Esteem on Facebook Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 13 (4), 357-364 DOI: 10.1089/cyber.2009.0257
These terms are used for those children in their twenties. They are also sometimes called “boomerang kids”, meaning those kids that start or finish college or jobs and decide to move back in with their parents. I read this excellent article about it in the New York Times Magazine. It’s about the age group of my children, my friends children and even my residents.
When we were in our twenties this period of our lives was marked with: completing school, leaving home, becoming financially independent, marrying and having a child. In these days and age, the twenty something are characterized by:
One-third of people in their 20s move to a new residence every year
Forty percent move back home with their parents at least once
They go through an average of seven jobs in their 20s, more job changes than in any other stretch.
Two-thirds spend at least some time living with a romantic partner without being married
The median age at first marriage has climbed from 21 for women and 23 for men in the seventies of the previous century, to 26 for women and 28 for men in 2009
The question discussed in this article is whether emerging adulthood should be viewed as a new development stage in growing up, like adolescence did in the beginning of the previous century. For parents the most important question is whether it’s a good thing to let 20-somethings meander or not?
maybe if kids take longer to choose their mates and their careers, they’ll make fewer mistakes and live happier lives.
Or should parents cut them off and tell them just to find a job and get on with their lives.
As the settling-down sputters along for the “emerging adults,” things can get precarious for the rest of us. Parents are helping pay bills they never counted on paying, and social institutions are missing out on young people contributing to productivity and growth.
I think somewhere in between, what do you think? The article goes further about the neuropsychological and sociological explanations of this new phenomenon with interesting interviews of scientists. So enjoy over at NYT.
Another magnificent pen. Very robust, to use outside and inside, good weather, bad weather, you name it. Been drooling a couple of days since I first saw it on Uncrate. Haven’t been writing on this pen fetish for a while but now you have it. I am not going to buy it, ehhhh.
Built for the government and looking every bit as official as you’d expect, the Embassy Pen ($40). The pen itself is made from anodized aluminum, and features a knurled grip, a medium black SPR4 pressurized Fisher Space Pen ink cartridge, and a built-in stainless steel clip for affixing to a shirt pocket, belt loop, or top-secret file.
