Electrical stimulation of areas deep within the brain could improve memory, early research suggests. A team of doctors in Canada were attempting to treat a morbidly obese man through deep brain stimulation (DBS) for his obesitas. Their long-standing interest in functional neurosurgery and DBS made them consider the possibility of a neurosurgical treatment. They wanted to stimulate the hypothalamus for appetite control. Hypothalamic lesion surgery had been used previously to treat obesity. Hypothalamic stimulation was proposed based on experimental studies of appetite control in rodents, dogs, and nonhuman primates.DBS electrodes were implanted bilaterally in the ventral hypothalamus with the patient .....read more »

Elderly residents in a care home are being given Nintendo Wiis to help keep them physically and mentally active.They hope it will especially help those with dementia.On BBC NEWSRelated posts: Vitamine D for Depression in the Elderly? Elderly couple of 62 years married plays piano Dutch elderly afraid of electroshock ..read more »

Dr Shock is a Google adept. Fortunately Firefox and Google match well together. For blogging I solely rely on Google reader, Google notes and Blogger, all integrated in Firefox. Off line so now and then I use Marsedit and Devonthink for blogging.What do you use, let me know in the comments Mozilla just announced that they are planning on having the first Release Candidate build of Firefox 3 Beta 3 coming next Monday. Two new features:new Windows themesAdd-ons manager for finding extensions without ever going to the add-ons siteFor screen shots see CybernetRelated posts: Migrating From Google Notebook To Evernote Google Body .....read more »

On Vicarious Therapy there was an important question raised: Early Medical Intervention for Major Depression. I kept thinking about it, the answer is: I don't know. Here is the problem:Now, six plus years into this MDE I'm still searching for something that will help me, but I believe I at least FINALLY, in the psychiatrist I see, have the knowledgeable and completely supportive help I needed all along.I often wonder, had I received help at 18 or 19, instead of 36, would I be better today? Would I be struggling so hard to find something to help me?That is why .....read more »

Some tech talk now. The web has very useful information about health, medication, and illness to name a few.Problem:Del icio.us is ideal for storing all the links for these websites. Nevertheless the web is also rapidly evolving, links can vanish, so clicking the link in del.icio.us delivers a blank page, link gone.Solution: Diigo: a social bookmarking service that caches a full version of each bookmarked page with all the graphics and formatting intact. No more lost links. Moreover it is much faster than del.icio.us according to the comments on this post about Diigo at LifeClever. Also some suggested uses from .....read more »

Curious about these addictions? Is chocolate in them? These addictions account for a large share of addictions-related online searches. The most common substances found in online searches for addictions on clearhavencenter.comWhile many of these searches may spring from harmless situations, the pattern of abusing substances to cope with stress is a more common social issue than addiction to one specific substance.Related posts: Drug Use Not Related To Drug Policy Doctors and Drug Companies — Scrutinizing Influential Relationships What do drug addiction and running have in common? ..read more »

For a while now the New England Journal is testing a new website with all kinds of widgets and many Web 2.0 and interactive features.I liked the specialised RRS feeds: NEJM Online Feeds. You can select: Current Issue Feed, Four Most Recent Issues Feed and Image of the Week Feed.The “Image of the Week” feed contains information about, and a link to the most recent Image in Clinical Medicine. Four times a year, this feed will also contain information about a current “Medical Mystery.”Another thing I liked is the: Drag and Drop Images to Create a PowerPoint Slideshow .....read more »

In an Editorial in the American Journal of Psychiatry the author recommends the use of five psychological symptoms of depression as sufficient for the diagnosis of Major Depression. Diagnosing Major Depression on the basis of a restricted symptom set. Moreover, the justification for this restriction according to the author, is based on studies that showed that psychiatry and primary care trainees could not remember the nine symptoms.That's why they are traineesHe replicated the findings of Zimmerman et al, using the 12 month version of the Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI), famous for the inclusion of false positivies. In the process .....read more »

Which human behaviors are unique compared to other primates such as monkeys and apes?Advanced planning. We humans are able to plan ahead. Planting crops for harvests later on. Humans have a ability to trade immediate gratification for long term rewards.Culture innovation and teaching through language. Apes show some signs of rudimentary culture, such as different traditions in the use of tools to crack nuts. But the complex cultures produced by humans societies are unique to our species.Humans are good imitators, they accumulate culture and knowledge over generations.Altruism. Humans can a lend a helping hand to another without expecting anything in .....read more »

In pictures in the 2 largest medical journals in Sweden over a period of 1 year the majority (64%) of women doctors were dressed in white coats. The majority of male doctors (59%) appeared in civil dress.The author of the letter to the editor in Medical Education asks herself if women still need to wear a white coat to be recognized as doctors and not be mistaken for nurses. Such images may maintain and reinforce gender inequalities. High-prestige specialties such as cardiology and neurosurgery are dominated by men, whereas psychiatry, dermatology and geriatrics are dominated by women. The role .....read more »