"Men, regardless of age group, often don’t recognise when they are depressed. Depression in men is likely to be signalled by anger, so won’t be recognised either by men themselves or by women as depression. Ironically, they may end up in jail rather than a GP’s surgery. For a man to ask for help is seen as failure, because by convention men are supposed to be in control at all times."

Jane Powell, Suicide is a gender issue or, ‘How the Patriarchy is damaging to men too’, am i right? (via mindovermatterzine)

neurolove:

FLASHBACK- Alzheimer’s Brain

Alzheimer’s disease is characterized by neurodegeneration (death of neurons) and the appearance of amyloid beta plaques and tau neurofibrillary tangles thought to cause the neurodegeneration (for more info, go here).  This leads to a variety of cognitive problems- perhaps the most well known is memory loss, but there is also severe cognitive decline (inability to do simple tasks, such as draw a straight line, connect the dots, etc.).

This side by side comparison of an Alzheimer’s brain with a healthy brain really helps to illustrate the severe neurodegeneration that occurs.  The ventricles seem to become bigger (due to loss of the brain tissue that would normally surround them), gray matter decreases a lot- the cell bodies of neurons are dying, and this is what really causes the cognitive decline- for motor tasks, simple thinking tasks, etc.  You can really see how much of the gray matter has disappeared in the above image.  Additionally, the hippocampus (read more about hippocampus here) is almost entirely dead and gone.  The hippocampus is that squiggly thing on the bottom center (on the inside of the section that loops down on the side) that is a hole in the Alzheimer’s brain.  You can see how it kind of resembles the rodent hippocampus in the linked post above.  Hippocampus, which is responsible for memory storage, creation, and some retrieval, really cannot work well when it has degenerated in Alzheimer’s, and it is one of the first places to experience degeneration, which is why memory loss is one of the first symptoms.

[Image Source]

In 1953, Cambridge researchers Watson and Crick published a paper describing the interweaving ‘double helix’ DNA structure - the chemical code for all life. Now, in the year of that scientific landmark’s 60th Anniversary, Cambridge researchers have published a paper proving that four-stranded ‘quadruple helix’ DNA structures - known as G-quadruplexes - also exist within the human genome. They form in regions of DNA that are rich in the building block guanine, usually abbreviated to ‘G’.

The findings mark the culmination of over 10 years investigation by scientists to show these complex structures in vivo - in living human cells - working from the hypothetical, through computational modelling to synthetic lab experiments and finally the identification in human cancer cells using fluorescent biomarkers.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2013-01-quadruple-helix-dna-human-cells.html#jCp

(Source: ohyeahdevelopmentalbiology)

houseofmind:

Hey, thanks! I seem to be getting a lot of questions relating to the criminal mind nowadays…

Here’s an abstract of an article by one of the leading people in that field:

A cognitive neuroscience perspective on psychopathy: evidence for paralimbic system dysfunction.

Kiehl KA.

…

psydoctor8:

Neuroscience of Homewrecking®

…will be a book. And it will be about how you trick yourself in and out of relationships. So an LA Times article talks about a new study published in the Journal of Neuroscience, about a new property in the love hormone, oxytocin, and how it “may help protect monogamous relationships”. Miracle juice! Such a terrible, terrible headline, right? …perking every Cosmo reader and former CIA director’s wife’s ear. If you think a hormone nasal spray will stop your man from cheating or leaving you, sweetie, you may need more than a nasal spray. Ok, backing up…the gist of the experiment is that men in relationships given a little toot of oxytocin spray, distanced themselves from an attractive woman they’d just met. 

This finding is very interesting since it’s a little counterintuitive to what we think oxytocin does.  Instead of just bringing the two together, this love hormone played a role in keeping the relationship man apart from the new pretty lady. Get back you succubus! We know oxytocin plays a role in trust and pair bonding, as it is “released in response to orgasm, early romance, breast-feeding and childbirth“ but, it does more than than this - it enhances empathy, making people “more attuned to social cues, and more inclined to adjust their behavior accordingly”… which is a good reason why it’s currently used trials for patients with autism or schizophrenia.

The larger idea here is that:

…if your relationship status affects how oxytocin affects the brain, this provides some evidence that our brains evolved to form long-term romantic relationships.

Nothing is natural and your brain cells are tricking you again. Jolene, you can have him. 

sciencesoup:

Thermal Imaging Inspired By Butterflies

The iridescent wings of the South American Morpho butterflies shimmer in many colours due to tiny, ridge-like structures on their surface that reflect light at some wavelengths and absorb it at others. Altering the temperature of the wings causes the ridges to move, which changes the wavelengths of reflected light and makes the wings change colour—basically, they’re heat sensors. Since they’re also made of chitin, a natural polymer with a low heat capacity, the wings can heat up and cool down quickly, meaning they can respond even to tiny, fleeting temperature changes. This is interesting because current thermal-imaging technology has to be constantly cooled in order to remain sensitive to incoming radiation, otherwise heat residue causes objects to “ghost” across the screen. Liquid-helium refrigeration is used, but it requires a lot of space and energy, so it constrains the size and efficiency of the sensor—which is especially a problem for portable equipment like night-vision goggles. But the Morpho butterflies’ ultra-sensitive wings may provide a solution to this. Researchers have created a material based on this design, then coated it with carbon nanotubes to drastically enhance its ability to absorb infrared radiation—the coated wings can detect temperature differences of just 0.018 degrees Celsius. Researchers are now trying to synthetically construct nanostructured chitin to cool this material—and if they succeed, they could create sensitive, cheap, fast sensors that could be used for medical diagnostics and amazing night-vision goggles.

mindovermatterzine:

“They call it the Abandoned Illness, in the Schizophrenia commission’s report – but not, they emphasise, because it is an illness society can afford to abandon. In fact, schizophrenia costs the health service more than cancer or heart disease. It’s the most common cause of hospitalisation, and – since it won’t go away on its own – will last a lifetime with the level of care patients often receive.”

This article is a really excellent look at the problems faced by people with ‘Severe Mental Illness’ such as schizophrenia in the UK today: intersectional oppressions such as racial discrimination, being placed on poorly managed drug regimes, being more likely to be involuntarily hospitalized due to cuts in other mental health services, finding it hard to receive welfare support…

I thoroughly recommend giving this a read.

mindovermatterzine:

frankocpr replied to your quote: My stepmother, whose son has a diagnosis of…

Most of those questions don’t even make sense. “I am not aware of common dangers” is the worst. If you are unaware of something how could you possibly know to put it down on the form?

Absolutely: it puts you…

"Tanya Marie Luhrmann, a Stanford Anthropologist, told me that “there is something deeply American about the force of our insistence that you should be able to ride it out on your own.” Luhrmann has followed mentally ill women in Chicago through what is known as the “institutional circuit” - the shelters, halfway homes, emergency rooms and jails that have taken the place of mental asylums. Many of the women refused assisted housing, because to gain eligibility they had to identify themselves as mentally ill. They would not “formulate the sentence that psychiatrists call ‘insight’”, Luhrmann said. “‘I have a mental illness, these are my symptoms, and I know they are not real’ - the whole biomedical model. To ask for this kind of help is to be aware that you cannot trust what you know."

Rachel Aviv, ‘What should happen when patients reject their diagnosis?’ (via mindovermatterzine)

"Most people come to us with a perspective on mental health rooted in ‘illness’ and ‘problems’. The challenge is to shift the perspective to ‘well-being’ and ‘recovery’. Everyone has the capacity for well-being, regardless of whether or not they have a diagnosed mental health problem. I’m trying to promote the view that supporting people in ordinary day-to-day activities can improve well-being and assist recovery. In the past this has been undervalued in comparison with the specialist interventions used within mental health services"

Quoting my Dad on tumblr. I am so cool.

He’s totally on point though so whatever.