Hi dudes,
...Interesting blog post by Gary Marcus on 'throwing out the baby with the bathwater' regarding the recent TE fashion for neuroscepticism. Excellent quote: "Our aim should not be to pick the brain over the mind, or vice versa, but to build stronger bridges between our understandings of the two." 

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/e … klash.html

Hey Alex, i found this TED talk and i want to know your toughts about it

Kelly McGonigal: How to make stress your friend

http://www.ted.com/talks/kelly_mcgoniga … riend.html

So, basically the talk is about how our perception of stress changes the way that stress affect our body/mind, people who see the biological effects of stress (heart pounding etc) as "bad" (like omg i'm getting nervous this is not good at all) increase our risk of death and getting disease etc.

In one part, this is good in the sense that we have more evidence about the power of perception (beliefs), but i don't like very much in a way that we could argue that a lot of other stuff that we know that are not good for our health can have less harmfull effects if we alter our perception about it, for example we know that junk food every day is bad, yeah probably if we trick ourselves to belief that is the best in the world for our health will have less harmfull effects ... but what's the point?? is not a better choice to eat well and with our perception enhance it even more?

Of course this is just an extreme example, is cool in a way that perception seems that can be used to "hack" reality (if that make sense)

At some point of the talk, maybe i thought that she is overlapping/changing the meaning of stress (good for you) with anxiety (chronic stress) so maybe that confuse a bit.

She says at some point that we should see the effects of the fight and flight response wihout fear because is a way our body/brain is priming us to the challenge that we are facing, she even says that the increase in heart rate is sending more blood flow to our brain (which i suposse is good) but more blood flow in the rear area at the expense of the front end? (not so good), maybe is just a "goldilocks" zone where as long the stress response is not way strong is fine (more blood flow across all the brain, and not only the rear area).

In my personal experience, except that i'm doing some physical challenge i don't like at all the sensation that produce in my body/mind the stress response in a scenario where i need to use my brain more than my body, like i feel i'm losing control, but again, like i said maybe is a matter of "how much" you release, and if you release it when you really need to, or you are just in "protection mode" just getting scared with stuff that don't really need it etc.

Another stuff i didn't understand very well is that she says that oxytocin is a stress hormone, and as far as i know is a relaxation one  (Network 3 cortisol/oxytocin porality) but then again after she say that, she mention all the good effects of that hormone to reduce the harmfull effects of stress and how it help us to bond etc (which we know) but keep me confusing because if she clearly knows that why was mentioned as a stress hormone.

PS: Clever question from the panel at the end.

Thoughts?

Neuroscience pushes meditation into the mainstream
September 5th, 2013 in Psychology & Psychiatry

When the Rev. Ron Moor began meditating 30 years ago, he did so in secret. "When I started, meditation was a dirty word," said Moor, pastor of Spirit United Church in Minneapolis. "(Evangelist) Jimmy Swaggart called it 'the work of the devil.' Because of its basis in Eastern religions, fundamentalists considered it satanic. Now those same fundamentalists are embracing it. And every class I teach includes at least a brief meditation."

The faith community isn't alone in changing its attitude. Businesses, colleges and hospitals not only have become more accepting of meditation, but many offer classes on it. Meditating has gone mainstream.
Why? "Because it works," Moor said.
Adherents have been saying that for centuries, of course, but now there's a difference: Scientists can prove it.

Propelled by technological breakthroughs in neuroscience enabling researchers to monitor brain activity, the medical community is awash in studies showing that meditating has beneficial physical effects on the brain. Those studies are being joined by others demonstrating that advantages include everything from raising the effectiveness of flu vaccines to lowering rejection rates for organ transplants.

"Meditation has become a huge topic" in medical circles, said Dr. Selma Sroka, medical director of the
Hennepin County Medical Center Alternative Medicine Clinic. "The health benefits are so strong that if nothing else, people should learn the relaxation techniques."
The practice is being embraced by an audience that isn't interested in its religious contexts, typically Buddhist or Hindu, but is fascinated by its mechanics and techniques. Sroka compared the West's co-opting of meditation to what happened to yoga, which came to this country as a spiritual discipline and has morphed into a form of physical fitness.

Some would-be meditators opt simply to ignore the religious element, said Mark Nunberg, co-founder of Common Ground Meditation Center in Minneapolis. Although his center is a Buddhist organization, at least half the people who enroll in classes are there just for instruction in meditation, he said.
"It's the same practice" whether it involves religion or not, he said. "It's training the mind to be in the present moment in a relaxed way. It's the most practical thing in the world; some might even say it's just common sense."

WHAT'S IN A NAME?
You don't have to call it meditation. In fact, Sroka said, a lot of people would prefer that you don't.
Terms such as "mindfulness stress reduction" and "relaxation response" are less threatening to some folks. They also make it easier to introduce the practice in offices and schools, where even a tangential reference to religion can raise red flags.

Since 2001, doctors doing their residencies in the alternative-medicine clinic's family medicine program have been required to take a class in meditation, not necessarily to pass on the information to their patients - although they are encouraged to do so, Sroka said - so much as to help them deal with the stress of their jobs. At first, the program ran into resistance. Then the hospital quit calling it meditation.

"I think a lot of it is in the language," she said. Because of meditation's association with Eastern religions, "members of other religions often are uncomfortable with the term. People want to know that I'm not selling them a religion."
The scientific community's interest in meditation springs from tests in which electrodes attached to subjects' heads show their brains calming down during meditation, lowering stress levels and increasing the ability to focus.

The tests are generating so much interest that leading experts have almost become rock stars. In October, 1,200 people turned out for a lecture by Dr. Richard Davidson at the University of Minnesota's Center for Spirituality and Healing. Davidson is a professor at the University of Wisconsin who has been on the cutting edge of using neuroscience to monitor meditation-induced changes in the brain.
He is convinced that the brain can be trained to deal with stress the same way a muscle can be conditioned to lift a heavy weight.
"Training the mind can lead to changes in the brain," he said.

FLEXING YOUR MIND MUSCLE
On the Minneapolis campus of the University of Minnesota, the Mindfulness for Students club meets every Friday for a 90-minute meditation. Attendance tends to surge right before finals.

"It's a great way to deal with stress," said Stefan Brancel, a junior who is president of the club. Meditation "makes you capable of stepping back and taking a bigger perspective instead of getting lost in the stress. Once you step back and see the situation for what it is, you can respond to it."
The surge in scientific research focuses on brain imaging. The best known device is functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI, which produces color-coded cross-section diagrams showing how the neurons in the brain are firing.

Davidson has used this imaging with Tibetan monks. While his findings have been stunning, questions arise over their applicability to the general public. Studying the brain waves of people who meditate for several hours a day is comparable to measuring physical fitness in Olympic athletes, critics say. The results might be impressive, but what do they mean for the average person?

That's why Mary Jo Kreitzer, founder and director of the Center for Spirituality and Healing, is excited about studies of meditation newcomers. Researchers at the University of Massachusetts have documented changes in the brains of novice practitioners who took an introductory eight-week class and meditated as little as 15 minutes a day.

Sroka said that the techniques can become second nature. In times of stress, "you slow down and breathe slowly," she said. "You get to the point where you do it routinely without even being aware of it."
Kreitzer agrees. "Mindfulness is an attitude that you carry with you," she said. "I think mindfulness really helps us move through life with ease."

She also challenges the notion that meditating requires a special room filled with incense, soothing music and floor mats on which practitioners twist themselves into the lotus position.
"You can sit, you can stand, you can walk," Kreitzer said. "I wouldn't advise doing it while you're driving, but other than that, meditation can be done anywhere."

New Emotiv Headset.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tan … ss-and-per

They said is "better" than the old one, but it seems that they have less channels so it's less accurate for reading EEG?

Maybe will be just a cheap alternative (i think the original emotiv is expensive) to start playing with devices like that?

A lot of cool stuff coming =)

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/1-3b-medi … -1.1872652

medical marijuana free market coming to Canada

The Conservative government is launching a
$1.3-billion free market in medical marijuana on
Tuesday, eventually providing an expected 450,000 Canadians with quality weed.

Health Canada is phasing out an older system on
Monday that mostly relied on small-scale,
homegrown medical marijuana of varying quality,
often diverted illegally to the black market.

In its place, large indoor marijuana farms
certified by the RCMP and health inspectors will
produce, package and distribute a range of
standardized weed, all of it sold for whatever
price the market will bear. The first sales are
expected in the next few weeks, delivered directly by secure courier.

"We're fairly confident that we'll have a healthy
commercial industry in time," Sophie Galarneau, a
senior official with the department, said in an interview.

"It's a whole other ball game."

The sanctioned birth of large-scale, free-market
marijuana production comes as the Conservatives
pillory Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau's campaign
to legalize recreational marijuana.

Health Canada is placing no limits on the number
of these new capital-intensive facilities, which
will have mandatory vaults and security systems.
Private-dwelling production will be banned.
Imports from places such as the Netherlands will be allowed.

Already 156 firms have applied for lucrative
producer and distributor status since June, with
the first two receiving licences just last week.

'Enormous' potential profit
The old system fostered only a cottage industry, with 4,200 growers licensed to produce for a maximum of two patients each. The Mounties have complained repeatedly these grow-ops were often a front for criminal organizations.

The next six months are a transition period, as Health Canada phases out the old system by March 31, while encouraging medical marijuana users to register under the replacement regime and to start buying from the new factory-farms.
There are currently 37,400 medical marijuana users recognized by the department, but officials project that number will swell more than 10-fold, to as many as 450,000 people, by 2024.

The profit potential is enormous. A gram of dried marijuana bud on the street sells for about $10 and Health Canada projects the legal stuff will average about $7.60 next year, as producers set prices without interference from government.
Chuck Rifici of Tweed Inc. has applied for a licence to produce medical weed in an abandoned Hershey chocolate factory in hard-scrabble Smiths Falls, Ont.

Rifici, who is also a senior adviser to Trudeau, was cited in a Conservative cabinet minister's news release Friday that said the Liberals plan to "push pot," with no reference to Health Canada's own encouragement of marijuana entrepreneurs.
Rifici says he's trying to help a struggling community by providing jobs while giving suffering patients a quality product.
"There's a real need," he said in an interview. "You see what this medicine does to them."

Revenue to hit $1.3 billion
Tweed Inc. proposes to produce at least 20 strains to start, and will reserve 10 per cent of production for compassionate, low-cost prescriptions for impoverished patients, he says.

Patients often use several grams a day to alleviate a wide range of symptoms, including cancer-related pain and nausea. They'll no longer be allowed to grow it for themselves under the new rules.
Revenues for the burgeoning new industry are expected to hit $1.3 billion a year by 2024, according to federal projections. And operators would be favourably positioned were marijuana ever legalized for recreational use, as it has been in two American states.

Eric Nash of Island Harvest in Duncan, B.C., has applied for one of the new licences, banking on his experience as a licensed grower since 2002 in the current system.
"The opportunity in the industry is significant," he said in an interview.
"We'll see a lot of moving and shaking within the industry, with companies positioning. And I think we'll see some mergers and acquisitions, strategic alliances formed."
"It'll definitely yield benefits to the consumers and certainly for the economy and society in general."

Competition to keep prices in check
Veterans Affairs Canada currently pays for medical marijuana for some patients, even though the product lacks official drug status. Some provinces are also being pressed to cover costs, as many users are too sick to work and rely on welfare.

Health Canada currently sells medical marijuana, produced on contract by Prairie Plant Systems, for $5 a gram, and acknowledges the new system will be more expensive for patients.
But Galarneau says competition will help keep prices in check.
"We expect that over time, prices will be driven down by the free market," she said. "The lower price range will likely be around $3 a gram. ... It's hard to predict."

Saskatoon-based Prairie Plant Systems, and its subsidiary CanniMed Ltd., were granted the first two licences under the system and are already advertising their new products on the web.
Prospective patients, including those under the current system, must get a medical professional to prescribe medical marijuana using a government-approved form.

Health Canada only reluctantly established its medical marijuana program, driven by court decisions from 2001 forward that supported the rights of suffering patients, even as medical science has been slow to verify efficacy.

© The Canadian Press, 2013

It's November, and I seriously needed a dose of good news! Here is some:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQo2FJPLeQk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ja9BFx5Mhqo

http://upbeat.net/oasis_armada.php

http://positivenews.org.uk/2013/economi … %82-trees/

http://www.dailygood.org/story/530/the- … -stafford/

http://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/civics/e … hours.html

http://positivenews.org.uk/2013/blogs/p … tionships/

http://peacenewsnow.com/dalai-lama-likes-weed/

http://www.sunnyskyz.com/good-news/406/ … Philosophy

http://optimistworld.com/growth-hair-baldness-cure/

enjoy,
AR

Hi dudes

wow long time ago i don't enjoy a brain lecture so much!

A lot of cool info about embodiment, language, and conduits, containers, sets (i think he call it "frames"), roles etc!

George Lakoff on Embodied Cognition and Language

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWYaoAoijdQ

Enjoy!

Does Singld Out, a gene-based dating service, pass the sniff test?

September 9th, 2014 by James M. Sherlock in Other Sciences / Other

'Singld Out', an online dating service based on 'cutting edge' science, has the solution for busy singles to sniff out the perfect companion. Literally.

The dating site, in conjunction with a company called Instant Chemistry, offers its subscribers a DNA-based compatibility check of the genes underlying natural body scent. The site promises better sex, healthier children and greater long-term satisfaction than genetically-incompatible schmucks who stupidly rely on meeting people to start relationships.

Just order a DNA kit, spit in the tube, mail it in and wait for the verdict.

So, should you drop US$299.99 a year for a perfect match and eternal happiness – or is Singld Out s(m)elling a load of crap?

The evolution of odour preference
In humans, cellular and antibody immune responses are regulated by products of the genome called the major histocompatibility complex (MHC).

What does any of this have to do with dating?

Mating with a partner whose immune system is different might provide benefits to offspring. This is because more varied MHC genes may code for antibodies that are better able to detect and respond to a wider range of pathogens. Evolution may have selected for this attraction to dissimilar immune systems in mates, producing offspring with greater MHC diversity. One method of assessing immune function is through sense of smell, as MHC-byproducts occur in bodily fluids such as sweat and saliva.

Singld Out proposes that by typing these genes, they are able to find perfect matches based on genetic MHC dissimilarity. Multiple studies have actually observed such MHC-dissimilar odour preferences across numerous animal species.

Frustratingly though, human relationships tend to be a lot more complicated than your average rat pairing (no offense to rodent readers). Support for the idea that our ancestors were immune-system discriminant lovers following their noses to an ideal relationship, and that we still are today, is a lot more mixed.

The science of sexy smells
The first human experiment testing MHC-dissimilarity odour preference is known affectionately as the smelly t-shirt study. Researchers had 44 men wear the same t-shirt for two consecutive nights without bathing, washing or otherwise preventing their stench from thoroughly seeping into their clothes. A group of lucky women then rated the pleasantness (or chose the least awful) of the shirts – and the study did indeed find a preference for men with dissimilar MHC-genes. Good news for Singld Out and their customer base, right? Well, no.

See, the researchers found a preference for dissimilarity, but only sometimes. It turns out that women who were using an oral contraceptive while assessing potential mates' body odour were actually more inclined to prefer similar MHC smells. Further research has, if anything, only complicated interpreting how odour affects attractiveness.

Over a number of studies, researchers have found conflicting results. For example, one study found a preference for dissimilarity in male raters of female odour but not for female raters, while another observed preference for similarity only of genes inherited from the father.

Other research has found preferences for odour shift across  relationship status, contraceptive use, and ovulatory cycle, while one study has shown indifference towards similarity altogether.
Safe to say, there is little consensus amongst the scientific community as to how, and even if, MHC-dependent selection operates in humans.

Smell preference outside of the lab
To see if people actually do match based on MHC, scientists have genotyped multiple populations and tested the similarity of partners. Most of these results have either found no effect of MHC genes or found that populations are actually more similar in MHC genes than expected by chance. Only one study has shown convincing evidence of MHC-dissimilar preferences.

But the population studied was a highly separatist, religious community where the use of contraception was not allowed; hardly an accurate model for Singld Out's demographic. MHC-dissimilarity preference in this case may have been a method of avoiding inbreeding, rather than a search for diverse immune system partners.

Singld Out's strongest case for matching based on MHC-dissimilarity comes from a single behavioural study. Women reported lower levels of sexual responsiveness and sexual satisfaction when they shared MHC genes with their partners. No effect was found for males, though, and the strength of this effect in women varied over the ovulatory cycle.

Making sense of smells
From a comprehensive review of a large number of studies from multiple populations, across multiple methodologies, researchers have concluded that studies showing some MHC involvement suggests there is a real phenomenon that needs further work to fully elucidate.

So, does MHC-similarity influence partner choice?
Yes, in a very tricky, context-dependent, multi-interactional way. Choice of relationship partner is an immensely complex ballet of biology, culture and circumstance; genes are just one part of the story. Thankfully, our natural mate choice mechanisms, evolved over millennia, have already equipped us with sophisticated preference systems to get us the best we can – that's what "sexual chemistry" is.
Should you trust Singld Out to accurately match you based on the genetics of body odour alone?
Well, no. Not unless you happen to be a non-ovulating, non-contraceptive using woman who needs help avoiding accidental sex with close genetic relatives.


This story is published courtesy of The Conversation (under Creative Commons-Attribution/No derivatives).

"Does Singld Out, a gene-based dating service, pass the sniff test?." September 9th, 2014. http://phys.org/news/2014-09-singld-gen … ating.html