photo credit: DeaPeaJay

There’s nothing you can know that isn’t known

There’s nothing you can see that isn’t  shown

There’s no where you can be that isn’t where you’re meant to be

It’s easy

All you need is love—love is all you need

—John Lennon

Written by John Lennon, performed by the Beatles and broadcast to the world via satellite on June 25th 1967,  ”All You Need Is Love” encapsulates the whole of the complexity of the neurochemistry of love with one simple saying—”love is all you need”.

From a more scientific standpoint, functional MRI has shown convincingly that dopaminergic reward pathways in the brain are responsible for romantic love.

In fact, just seeing the object of one’s love will make your right ventral tegmental area glow with pure adoration—and— in less than a nanosecond, immeasurable joy then radiates to the dorsal body of the caudate nucleus……you’re hooked, no escape, no return…….but what keeps your there?

OXYTOCIN: TRUST ME I’M A NEUROTRANSMITTER

What “keeps you there” are giant neurons—specifically magnocellular neurosecretory cells within the hypothalamus.  

These giant neurons synthesize the nine amino acid neuropeptide known as oxytocin.  

Any woman that has given birth will recognize oxytocin as the synthetic medication Pitocin.  Usually given during the third stage of labor, Pitocin is responsible for the powerful uterine contractions resulting in a timely and hopefully healthy childbirth.

That’s where reality recedes and science fiction enters the scene.  

This simple nine amino acid neuropeptide also doubles as a potent neurotransmitter. The power of  oxytocin is evident when couples cuddle, strangers are generous and when trust ensues in romantic relationships.

The ultimate paradox inherent in all human relationships is the fundamental fact that trust is dangerous.  

To “body fluid blend” with a genetically unrelated individual is the penultimate expression of human trust.  The profound pleasure of romantic attachment is the result of the energetic blending of neural substrates and the neural networks responsible for perpetuating the passion……..in other words—neural “love at first sight”.

The Magic Of MDMA 

Better known as “Ecstasy”— 3,4 methylenedioxymethamphetamine is capable of generating a similar sense of love and closeness in both humans and rats.  In a recently published study oxytocin was considered the most likely neural correlate.  In other words, the magic of ecstasy is the simple nine amino acid neuropeptide oxytocin.

Pass The Pitocin Please

In a study published in the Journal Of Psychosomatic Medicine  a simple supportive “warm touch” among couples increased salivary oxytocin levels and decreased salivary cortisol levels, indicating improved social bonding and decreased stress.  

In a double-blind placebo-controlled study, intranasal oxytocin was able to diminish conflict and increase positive communication behavior in 47 heterosexual couples.  Salivary cortisol levels decreased significantly as in the previous study.

Give Peace A Chance: The Neurogenetics Of Sociality

Imagine this—the human hypothalamus and the neuropeptide that  it produces may ultimately hold the key to world peace.  

It is now clear that even  complex social behavior is under the influence of oxytocin.

Since trust is and will always be an indispensable component of friendship, family and by extrapolation international relations—a simple nine amino acid may hold the key to both world peace and love at first sight! 

Maybe—just maybe— all we really need is love…. and a nine amino acid neuropeptide.

This is a post from The Neuroprotective Lifestyle by Kerry Friesen, M.D.

The Neurobiology Of Bonding: All You Need Is Love…. And A Nine Amino Acid Neuropeptide

OZ: THE LAND OF INFINITE MEDICAL ANSWERS
(THAT DOESN’T EXIST)

What does it mean when Comedy Central becomes the voice of reason in all things medical?

Only that when you get to the Emerald City and pull back the curtain and discover the Wizard of Oz is really the Wizard of Biz and incapable of solving all of your problems (but more than willing to take your money), you have finally reached the realm of medical realism rather than some pharmaceutical fantasy land.

Despite all the media hype and medical experts claiming otherwise, the so-called pleiotropic effects of statins are not sufficient to cure cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, osteoporosis, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, aortic stenosis, cardiac myocyte hypertrophy or any other “trophy” for that matter.

Off-label applications excluded, all HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors, in other words, “statins” are effective at lowering LDL cholesterol and raising HDL cholesterol (minimally)—but that’s it.

PHARMACEUTICAL FAIRY TALES

The AstraZeneca claims for Crestor however have to do with the inherent anti-inflammatory property of some statins.

Both vascular and neuro-inflammation are in fact critical risk-factors for cardiovascular and neurodegenerative disease. However, to suggest that everyone would benefit from taking Crestor is bad science and crass commerce.

There are better ways to reduce vascular inflammation. Taking a prescription medicine would be last on my list.

In a Wall Street Journal interview, AstraZeneca CEO David Brennan downplayed the commercial impact of the Jupiter study while simultaneously suggesting that analyst’s forecasts were “pretty bullish”.

Given our current economy, where will the estimated 10 billion additional health care dollars come from that it would take to implement the plan, enforce compliance and manage the inevitable adverse drug reactions?

And what if the expected health benefits are never realized?

OUR DIRECT-TO-CONSUMER ADVERTISING IDIOCRACY

Pharmaceutical companies spent an estimated $2.5 billion in 2000 on direct to consumer advertising and more than $4 billion in 2005.

In one year, prescriptions written for the 50 most heavily prescribed drugs increased by a whopping 25 percent compared to just 4 percent for all other drugs combined!

While direct-to-consumer advertising is illegal in Canada,it is nearly impossible to enforce.

Meanwhile here in America, pharmaceutical DTC advertising thrives in a virtually unregulated environment, emboldened by PhRMA, the lobbying group of the US drug industry.

THE PAL PROJECT AND THE “BITTER PILL” AWARDS

It has been left to watchdog groups (see PAL—the Prescription Access Litigation Project), to reign in the ridiculous.

For example, in 2006 both AstraZeneca’s Crestor and Pfizer’s Lipitor, received the coveted “Got Cholesterol?” award, given for “overpromoting expensive brand name statins,”.

A total of 5 of the country’s best selling drugs received “Bitter Pill” awards in 2006 for overly agressive and misleading DTC advertising.

That same year, AstraZeneca received a disciplinary letter from the FDA for a DTC advertising campaign claiming Crestor was more effective than other statins.

STEPHEN COLBERT AND THE COLBERT NATION: IS THE DOCTOR OF FINE ARTS IN?

Forget the Mayo brothers, if you need a sound dose of medical realism and a cheap second opinion, head straight to the office of Dr. Stephen T. Colbert DFA.

He may not have the bedside manner of a country doctor, but he at least has his medical facts right.

And except for Prescott Pharmaceuticals, Big Pharma doesn’t own him.

This is a post from The Neuroprotective Lifestyle by Kerry Friesen, M.D.

I’ll See You In Health! Stephen Colbert Rebuts Ridiculous Crestor Claim

“I have always been fascinated by the law of reversed effort.

Sometimes I call it the “backwards law.”

When you try to stay on the surface of the water you sink;
but when you try to sink you float.

When you hold your breath you lose it—”

Alan Watts—
The Wisdom Of Insecurity

Inside The Head Of An Iconoclastic Psychoneurocosmetologist

HOW TO MAKE A DECISION: SERVING SIZE 1—1,000

In a cranial-sized cake pan, combine one ounce of amygdala with 1/2 cup of limbic system, funnel through the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and bake at 37 degrees for a millisecond or so. Add a pinch of social intelligence, a hint of basal ganglia and voila’—one decent decision!

Or is it?

TO FEEL OR NOT TO FEEL:
TWO BIOLOGY OF BUSINESS SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT

No neuroscientist will deny that emotion is an inevitable aspect of real-life decision making. The question has always been whether an individual’s emotional response when faced with uncertainty will facilitate or decimate the process.

Now, contrary to the popular misconception that “cooler heads prevail”, recent studies seem to suggest a more emotionally intense intuitive model for financial decision making may be best.

This is the brave new world of neuroeconomics.

An eclectic blend of neuroscience, economics and experimental psychology, where being emotional is NOT the same as irrational.

THE CENTER FOR NEUROPOLICY

At the Center For Neuropolicy at Emory University, Dr. Greg Berns M.D., distinguished professor of neuroeconomics and psychiatry and author of the recently released, Iconoclast: A Neuroscientist Reveals How to Think Differently (Harvard Business School Press, 2008), uses a combination of computational and functional neuroimaging techniques to explore the neural basis for decision making and human interaction.

If that makes you nervous, remember while we sleep, experimental economists are busy rewriting the financial framework we have all been programmed to live within. Given the current economic crisis, can you really blame them?

Not to worry, here are 4 points to help recession proof your brain:

1. Go with your gut
Your emotional response to a cost-benefit analysis or any financial decision will constitute a “somatic marker“, a visceral measure of “body sensations” as it were to help guide you the next time you are faced with a similar decision.

2. Emotions are information too
Decision making involves assessing all types of information cognitive and otherwise.
Embracing a particular emotion rather than resisting it, places it squarely in the realm of information and assists in the discriminating process.

3. Few decisions are truly individual
Emotional and social intelligence shape the social context that decisions are made within.
Corporate decision making is a good example. The complexity of decision making in the corporate environment is mind-boggling—the best approach is to accept the fact that you are indeed being influenced by outside forces.

4. Failure is not to be feared
Remember our sense of “ownership” is really nothing more than a self-perpetuating delusion. Change is an inevitability—financial status included. Sometimes, “Losing Everything Can Finally Mean Beginning”.

This is a post from The Neuroprotective Lifestyle by Kerry Friesen, M.D.

How To Recession Proof Your Brain: The Emotional Side Of Money

Suffering, in this life is an inevitability — happiness on the other hand, is a choice.

The power of positive psychology or “Learned Optimism”, can help you find it.

Consciously or not, most people believe that happiness can be found by either — a lifelong pursuit of “pure pleasure” or simply “getting what you want”. Research done at U Penn’s Positive Psychology Center under the direction of Dr. Marty Seligman however paints a different picture.

Authentic happiness involves living a life full of appreciation — being mindful of each and every moment — and passionately pursuing knowledge, friendships, health and career goals.

The concept of authentic happiness successfully blends the powerful emotional aspects of happiness with the more objective pursuits in life.

In a word – balance, is everything.

Problems arise along the way when we fall into one or more of the five “happiness traps”.

In the book, “What Happy People Know”, Dan Baker lists five very seductive traps that most people regardless of income or intelligence fall into –

FIVE HAPPINESS TRAPS

1. Trying to buy happiness
2. Trying to find happiness through pleasure
3. Trying to be happy by resolving the past
4. Trying to be happy by overcoming weaknesses
5. Trying to force happiness

Just as happiness is a learned process, “learned helplessness” is every bit as real.

We are comforted by the thought that we are not to blame for our own misfortune. Feeling that you’ve been “victimized” and are “entitled” to more, squarely places blame on someone else and temporarily excuses our bad behavior. Ultimately we sabotage our only chance at finding authentic happiness.

So why not get started today with some practical applications of “authentic happiness”.

Practice appreciation -

Appreciation alone is sufficient to retrain your brain and stop the endless cycle of fear-anger and over-reacting that most of us engage in daily.

Practice mindfulness -

Wherever you are, pause for a moment – relax your shoulders – take a deep breath and become an observer to the endless stream of unconnected thoughts that occupy your mind at this very moment – realize these thoughts are not YOU but a constant distractor of who you really are. As you become more mindful, your “inner-critic” and all the negative self-talk will be replaced by positive thoughts of YOUR choosing.

Be passionate -

Make a list of three things you are passionate about. Carry it with you – it will help you create the life you want to live.

This is a post from The Neuroprotective Lifestyle by Kerry Friesen, M.D.

Authentic Happiness And How To Find It

But wait, what I’m I even talking about? Call it “neurofeedback“, “brainwave synchronization”, or “thalamo-cortical resonance”, it’s all the same thing.

photo credit: Brymo

In case you haven’t noticed, the mammalian brain is happiest when it is resonates at about 7.8 cycles per second. In fact all of nature, “mother-earth” included, resonates at about 7.8 Hz. In the fourth century BCE, the Chinese philosopher Zhuangzi developed a “philosophy of mind” based on the “natural order” of the universe – Taoism. In Taoism, man’s central goal is to live harmoniously or “resonate” perpetually with the universe. The concept of wu wei – roughly translated as “effortless doing” is the mind-set required to achieve this natural state of resonance.

If you think I’ve gotten too “new age” for you, consider this. In 1905 the Croatian physicist Nikola Tesla described global electromagnetic resonances, a theory that was later expanded upon and predicted mathematically in 1952 by Winfried Otto Schumann. Schumann was in fact able to measure the frequency of the band of waves that circumnavigated the globe – 7.8 Hz.

You will remember from a previous post that the brain itself is an electromagnetic power-house and oscillates at a variety of frequencies. For example, alpha-waves are associated with “restful alertness” and are present when brainwaves are in the – no surprise, 7-8 Hz range. More importantly, when the brain is subjected to external sound waves, it spontaneously begins to oscillate at the same frequency. Neuroscientists know this phenomenon as “frequency following response” (FFR). This is where the fun begins.

A good deal of the dissonance in our lives is reflective of the loss of resonance with our natural environment. From the Taoist perspective yin and yang forces are not in balance. From a neurobiology point of view, day to day decision-making depends on complete coordination of a variety of brain structures. For example, the hippocampus must resonate with the prefrontal cortex via theta waves in order for “spatial” information to be properly communicated.

Brainwave Entrainment, is all about applying this principle to a number of medical disorders including: depression, generalized anxiety, OCD, ADD to name just a few. Insomnia responds remarkably well to “medical resonance” therapy. Autism, eating disorders, addictions, learning disorders, all can benefit from “sound therapy”.

So how do you do it? The technology is vast and varied, but in essence it all boils down to the same thing – frequency training. A forty-five minute session utilizing acoustically acceptable headphones and an mp3 sound file that is able to generate alpha, theta, delta or beta waves is all that is needed to get started. Binaural beats are a special effect consisting of two sounds with a slightly different pitch played in two separate ears. A third pitch is then generated in the auditory cortex as the brain attempts to resolve the difference in pitch. It is well known for example that pyramidal neurons in the hippocampus resonate happily in response to binaural beats thus encouraging memory consolidation and peak learning performance.

Better than sex? Maybe not, but better than drugs and endless psychotherapy sessions of questionable benefit. Remember, the brain is fully capable of healing itself, if first we get out of the way.

If you want to know more, check out the link in the side-bar (MIND STEREO) and do as the Taoists do – resonate freely!

This is a post from The Neuroprotective Lifestyle by Kerry Friesen, M.D.

Forget Sex! Try Brainwave Entrainment Tonight

The electromagnetic waves generated by the brain and revealed by EEG are divided into five main categories based on amplitude and frequency. They are the same regardless of culture, gender or country of origin.

Here are some classic brainwave patterns:

BETA – 12-30 cycles per second – active conversation, logical thinking (sudoku puzzling)

ALPHA – 8-12 cycles per second – restful alertness, quiet focus, hypnosis

THETA – 4-7 cycles per second – day dreaming, creativity, insight meditation, out of body experiences, mystical experiences.

DELTA – 1.5-4 or less cycles per second – deep dreamless sleep

GAMMA – 26-100 cycles per second – perception, neural synchrony, consciousness

By combining fMRI with our understanding of brain wave activity, researchers at Harvard, Yale, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have produced convincing neuroimaging evidence that meditators grow bigger brains. Measurements of cortical thickness confirm it. But how is this possible? How is the brain able to “pick itself up by its own bootstraps”, so-to-speak?

neural networks are established with repeated behavior patterns
say it again
neural networks are established with repeated behavior patterns
say it again…you get the idea.

We’ve known it all along. Every culture, every world religion teaches it:

“as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he” Proverbs 23:7

“all that we are is the result of what we have thought” Buddha 563 BC – 483 BC

“unto the pure all things are pure; but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure; but even their mind and conscience is defiled” Titus 1:15

Jon Kabat-Zinn, emeritus professor of medicine at the University of Massachusetts established the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine to this very end.

In short, like the blog says, “forget what you’ve heard-you CAN change your brain!”

Developed in 1979, Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn’s Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program, has been featured in the Bill Moyers’ PBS documentary Healing and The Mind, on NBC Dateline, on ABC’s Chronicle and in various national print media and is the subject of Jon Kabat-Zinn’s best selling book, Full Catastrophe Living and Saki Santorelli’s book, Heal Thy Self. Since its inception, more than 17,000 people have completed our eight-week Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Program and learned how to use their innate resources and abilities to respond more effectively to stress, pain, and illness. The central focus of the Clinic is intensive training in mindfulness meditation and its integration into the challenges/adventures of everyday life.

This is a post from The Neuroprotective Lifestyle by Kerry Friesen, M.D.

Want A Bigger Brain? Just Say ‘OM’

To quote the late great Funkadelic (a 70’s funk phenom that my daughter recently re-introduced me to), “ya’ll feel what I mean?”.

If you can’t then it’s entirely possible you’re a spindle neuron or two short of what it takes to connect the sensory and motor components of your limbic system. Ultimately, the limbic motor and limbic sensory system represent the neuroanatomical basis for all human emotion. No matter, if your spindle cells are frankly even finely tuned, without “self-awareness”, empathy just doesn’t happen. “Lesion studies” have been able to confirm this over and over again. Patients with damaged amygdalas are unable to discern fear despite severe facial grimacing. Ordinarily pain would trigger a whole host of neurophysiological signals resulting in “caring” behavior. While self-awareness has no specific neuroanatomical correlate and empathy does, empathy ultimately remains an intentional capacity. In other words, it is under conscious control.

That homeless person you see on the way home from work, will most likely go hungry. Hurry home. The stranded motorist with a cardboard sign and a plea for help will likewise suffer. Sleep tight. By choice then we occupy the same “emotionless” continuum as the Antisocial, Autistic and Borderline personality disorder sufferer. Autistic individuals for the most part remain emotionless. Antisocial and Borderline personality individuals suffer from a hyprevigilant limbic system and an underfunctioning prefrontal cortex. They simply “can’t” without conscious effort “feel what I mean”.

Call it alexithymia (the opposite of emotional intelligence) cause’ that’s what it’s called. The inability to process, describe, or understand emotions in the self. Without it, no bliss no internal resonating chord of love…just the question, “What’s empathy got to do with it?”.

The answer…? Everything.

This is a post from The Neuroprotective Lifestyle by Kerry Friesen, M.D.

Brain Bliss: What’s Empathy Got To Do With It?