Red red wine
"On the Brain" with Dr. Michael Merzenich
by Dr. Merzenich
1y ago
One of the most interesting efforts targeting the development of anti-aging drugs stems from research conducted at Harvard that led to the identication of the compound in red wine (resveratrol) that accounts for its anti-aging properties. This compound is believed to activate a gene called SIRT-1, which appears to have a role in regulating lifespan in mammals. No one knows exactly what this gene does, or how its anti-aging effects are achieved. One hypothesis that has gained some experimental support is that this gene is also activated by caloric restriction, which is known to increase longevi ..read more
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How long-lived was your dad?
"On the Brain" with Dr. Michael Merzenich
by Dr. Merzenich
1y ago
A recent study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy Sciences led by a UCSF scientist Wen-Chi Hsueh has very interestingly revisited the subject of the genetics of human longevity. As you may know, a prominent UCSF colleague, Elizabeth Blackburn, has been in the forefront of a beatiful series of studies that have shown that the DNA structures that cap the ends of chromosomes (“telomeres”) play an important role in cell division, and in the aging process. Dr. Blackburn has analogized the telomere to the plastic tips of shoelaces that, by their presence, prevent the laces (the DNA ..read more
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When brain injury hits home
"On the Brain" with Dr. Michael Merzenich
by Dr. Merzenich
1y ago
Because my research has focused on the neuroscience of rehabilitation for several decades, I have received hundreds of email messages, letters and telephone calls from parents and grand-parents desperately seeking help for their brain-damaged or developmentally-impaired child or grand-child. Because the losses suffered from brain injury and developmental disabilities expressed in this correspondence is usually daunting, and because it is so difficult to understand their nature and their true neurological and experiential origins at a distance, it is usually impossible to provide significant he ..read more
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Therapeutically reliving and elaborating your traumatic experiences CAN be harmful
"On the Brain" with Dr. Michael Merzenich
by Dr. Merzenich
1y ago
In the June 18th, 2007 issue of Newsweek, Sharon Begley wrote an opinion column that must have raised a few hackles in the psychotherapy community. In her words, “…(for) patients seeking psychotherapy….talking can be dangerous … and therapists have not exactly rushed to tell them so.” One well-documented class of examples has come from “stress debriefing”, a standard procedure used to help individuals who have experienced a traumatic event — like the Virginia Tech ‘massacre’, for example. The goal in such therapies is to forcefully encourage individuals to discuss and seriously self-examine th ..read more
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Two additional risk factors for PTSD (one surprising; one mundane)
"On the Brain" with Dr. Michael Merzenich
by Dr. Merzenich
2y ago
Being ambidextrous is pretty useful as a member of your Little League team, but it turns out to be not quite so positive if your brain is later faced with traumatic experiences. Rather surprisingly, a study of 2,490 individuals exposed to combat in Vietnam revealed that an ambidextrous individual is about twice as likely to develop PTSD than is an individual with strong hand dominance. Since I can only offer a hand-waving answer to WHY this might be true, I’ll move on to risk factor number 2: traumatic brain injury. Talk about another “doubly (or triple) whammy”. My head hurts from my brain ha ..read more
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What is wrong with American schools? Part 2
"On the Brain" with Dr. Michael Merzenich
by Dr. Merzenich
2y ago
There are too many answers to this question, and in a sense, THAT’S what’s wrong. I used this ‘headline’ as a cheap trick to get you to read my little story. I have a specific partial answer to this question in mind, which I would like to present to you by way of a little story that perhaps elucidates something not quite right about our public institutions – and about the state of our modern society. In 2007, my then eight-year-old granddaughter Leila’s Oakland, California public school was torched by an arsonist. This school was a typical cheap-construction, low-slung wooden affair, not e ..read more
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Racing through life!
"On the Brain" with Dr. Michael Merzenich
by Dr. Merzenich
2y ago
Race car driving was the last thing Marilyn Kays expected to be doing at the age of 63. Her late husband called her ‘grandma’ because of her pokey driving. After completing BrainHQ, where she made great individual progress, Marilyn felt more confident than ever before. She noticed that she remembered things like her bank account number without trying. Her outlook on life was more positive, and completing the program eased her battle with depression, so much so that she was able to get off her medication. Marilyn was feeling so confident and frisky that she decided to enroll in a driving clas ..read more
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Creating a representation of the world when you can’t see it
"On the Brain" with Dr. Michael Merzenich
by Dr. Merzenich
2y ago
Dan has been making a lot of comments and asking a lot of questions, and I thought I’d take a crack at one of the latter. He specifically asks how a blind individual creates representations of the things of the world. What kind of internal ‘representation’ can the brain make, when it can never see them? You know, intuitively, that if you hold an object and manipulate it in your hand — say a water glass — that you can create a mental construct of it. That construct includes the shape, size, surface texture etc. of the object. What if a blind person could draw that object? How do you think they ..read more
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I think, therefore I am
"On the Brain" with Dr. Michael Merzenich
by Dr. Merzenich
2y ago
There are several highly-ordered neurological representations of the surfaces of your body within a cortical region called “S1”, which occupies a narrow band that roughly bisects the cerebral cortex mantle from a location just above and in front of your ear, and extends from ear to ear. When you stimulate a specific location on the body surface (for example, on the thumb), neurons are selectively excited at specific locations in the brain (the “thumb zones” of body surface ‘representations’). By documenting those responses in detail, a scientist can reconstruct orderly ‘topographic maps’ of th ..read more
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Pride in reading
"On the Brain" with Dr. Michael Merzenich
by Dr. Merzenich
2y ago
In an earlier blog, I recommended that you look at “Children of the Code” as a reference for gaining a deeper understanding of dyslexia and its human costs. I really hope that you’ve taken a look at this wonderful resource. One of the best treatments in this outstanding series of documentaries summarizes the often-tragic human consequences of reading failure that begin with the failed kid being very ashamed of themselves. Every teacher and every clinical professional that is dedicated to helping these children understands that reading failure, with rare exception, has consequences for the kid ..read more
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