As the working hours get longer and as communication scientific knowledge improves, folks are socially communicating less. We are just awfully busy to make new friends let alone construct authentically meaningful bond. At the end of the day, who needs face to face communication when you could do it in Twitter, Facebook and the numerous online talking services?

This seclusion trend is unfortunate at best because your brain, in addition to brain food, craves social interaction to function at its top. So critical is that it is on our health that a few specialist in the field believe that the amount of social interaction an individual had is one of the golden guide of health and independence in an individual’s old age.

How come social interactions so essential to a healthy brain?

Because your brain is able of neurogenesis (the procedure of developing brand new brain cells). Nevertheless neurogenesis results only when you sufficiently challenge your brain.

Well, communicating with other individual is one of the ultimate challenging task that an individual can take on. As Lawrence Katz once said, “There is a lot of evidences that another person is the ultimate in uncertain things you can encounter. So activities that have you communicating with another human beings is an awesome way of brain exercise.”

As you turn into more isolated, you are thus using less of your brain. As reported by Hebbian Learning principles, you lost what you don’t use. Thus brain cells die off and synapses breaks down as you grow older.

Unfortunately, people who are older also tend to live a more lonely life – thus starting a vicious cycle of mental decline. Sure, making new friends can be challenging and as any worthwhile relationships, you require plentiful energy to make it extraordinary.

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LONDON – Scientists have discovered a new source for the generation of nerve cells in the brain.

Professor Magdalena Gotz of Helmholtz Zentrum Munchen and Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitat (LMU) Munich and colleagues have discovered progenitor cells, which can form new glutamatergic neurons following injury to the cerebral cortex.

Particularly in Alzheimer’s disease, nerve cell degeneration plays a crucial role. In the future, new therapeutic options may possibly be derived from steering the generation and/or migration mechanism, according to the researchers.

Until only a few years ago, neurogenesis – the process of nerve cell development – was considered to be impossible in the adult brain.

Then researchers discovered regions in the forebrain in humans in which new nerve cells can be generated throughout life. These so-called GABAergic cells use gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), a neurotransmitter of the central nervous system.

Now, the research team, led by Gotz, has taken a closer look at this brain region in the mouse model. They found that even in the forebrain, there are other nerve cells that are regularly generated – the so-called glutamatergic nerve cells, which use glutamate as neurotransmitter.

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Play brain games to generate neurons at Myfitbrain.

Australian scientists have confirmed what many chocoholics already know, that “comfort food” can reduce stress.

Eating foods rich in fat and sugar can alter the chemical composition of the brain and reduce anxiety, says Professor of Pharmacology Margaret Morris.

Prof Morris, from the University of NSW’s School of Medical Sciences, conducted a study of rats which showed the effects of past trauma could be erased through “unlimited access to yummy food”.

“Implementing that diet reversed their anxiety … it took an animal back to the non-stressed state,” Prof Morris told AAP.

“We really don’t know why that happens, but there seems to be a biochemical link.”

The research started with different groups of baby rats – one group grew up with normal contact with their mothers, while the other group had lengthy periods of separation.

Rats with a more traumatic early life were found to have higher levels of stress hormones and fewer steroid receptors in the part of the brain which controls behavior.

The signals for “anxiety and depression” eventually disappeared among those rats who were later switched to the all-you-can-eat junk food diet.

“The control group had no effect from the diet really, but the stressed animals had a deficit … which was restored by the diet.”

“(The) food seems to affect neurogenesis similar to the way anti-depressants promote nerve growth in the brain.”

Prof Morris cautioned while the results were not immediately transferable to people, it did show support “the therapeutic value of comfort food” and hint at explanations for other patterns of human behavior.

“If you ask people what they eat when they are stressed, they eat more chocolate, cakes and sweets, and less fish, vegetables and fruit,” she said.

And: “There is good evidence that if we look at people who have experienced trauma as a child tend to be heavier as adults”.

The study also should not be seen as an endorsement of eating junk food, Prof Morris said, noting this would set people on a path to other serious health problems.

Future research would aim to determine whether other rewarding activities – such as exercise – could have a similar stress-busting affect on rats’ brains.

The research was conducted jointly with PHD student Jayanthi Maniam, and it is published in the journal Psychoneuroendrocrinology.

Through the brain-imaging work at the Amen Clinics during the past 20 years with tens of thousands of people from 75 different countries, we have come to see that when your brain works right, you tend to be more thoughtful, playful, romantic, intimate, committed, and loving with your partner — all necessary things for great relationships.

When your brain has trouble, you are much more likely to be impulsive, distracted, addicted, unfaithful, angry, and even hateful — all things that undermine relationships.

Even though it feels genital, the vast majority of love and sex occurs in the brain. Your brain decides who is attractive to you, how to get a date, how well you do on a date, what to do with the feelings that develop, how long those feelings last, when to commit, and how well you do as a partner and parent. Your brain helps you be enthusiastic in the bedroom or drains you of desire and passion. Your brain helps you process and learn from a breakup or makes you vulnerable to depression or obsession.

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Mindless distractions might not reduce anxiety as effectively as a brain teaser.

A brain-imaging study published last year by Nature Neuroscience suggests such brain-sharpening activities as crossword puzzles reduce anxiety by activating a region of the brain devoted to logic and concentration — the prefrontal cortex.

“This is being supported by burgeoning neuropsychologic data,” said Dr. Carl Aagesen, a psychiatrist at Medical Associates Clinic. “The prefrontal cortex is used for planning, making judgments and delaying impulses. This part of our brain is how we do self-talk to turn down input from the amygdala.”

The amygdala is the source of the brain’s “fight-or-flight reflex,” which alerts the body to protect itself in times of danger and is thought to contribute to feelings of anxiety.

Surveys indicate one in five adults experience above-average levels of anxiety annually and research has shown anxious people struggle to concentrate.

Sonia Bishop, a UC Berkeley psychologist and lead author of the brain imaging study, used functioning Magnetic Resonance Imaging to study 17 men and women, ranging in age from 19 to 48, at Cambridge University. They scored in standardized tests as having varying levels of anxiety, but were not on medication.

Their brains were scanned as they performed letter-searching tasks. When the letter search was demanding, brain scans showed all the study participants’ dorsolateral prefrontal cortexes, which control planning, organization and memory, to be fully engaged.

But when the letter search was easy, the prefrontal brain activity in high-anxiety participants plummeted as their attention wandered.

In contrast, low-anxiety participants easily activated the prefrontal brain to focus on the task at hand when presented with distractions. Aagesen describes the brain as functioning like a computer. “It cannot do two things simultaneously, but it can shift back and forth almost instantaneously,” he said.

Crossword puzzles, math games, mazes and other brain-teasing activities actively engage the prefrontal cortex — which can calm anxiety.

“The more you engage the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex actively, the more you are able to shut down input from the fear centers, because you can’t do two things at once,” Aagesen said.

If you want to reduce your anxiety, try Myfitbrain brain games.

Our brains are continually in the process of growing, shrinking, and killing neurons. By the way, that three-pound mass of tissue and fluid in our skulls consists of some 100 billion of them. And they’re party to an estimated 40 quadrillion, that’s 15 zeros, potential synaptic connections. Wow!

The activity of the brain is a miraculous never-ending balancing act, and problems arise when the scale is tipped toward neural shrinkage or death. The result can be anxiety and mood issues, as well as other mind variances. For example, brain imaging has revealed key-area brain shrinkage of as much as 10%-15% in chronic depression sufferers.

The term used for neural shrinkage is atrophy, and the chemicals that cause atrophy are known as atrophics. So, for example, the chemicals generated and released as a result of stress, most notably cortisol, are atrophics. Chemicals that foster neural growth, such as the antidepressants so often used in the treatment of panic and depression, are known as trophics. In short, then, neural growth, shrinkage, and death are to a large degree caused by the action of atrophic and trophic agents.

Neurogenesis is the process by which neurons are created. And though it makes perfect sense that it’s most active during prenatal development, the process continues on a much smaller scale into adulthood, even our senior years.

It’s so important to understand the dynamics of neurogenesis actually have the ability to reverse, if you will, all sorts of mental and emotional distress. That’s correct, in the face of targeted and appropriate intervention our brains can grow fresh neurons that serve to facilitate, enhance, and support newly learned coping skills, allowing us to feel one heck of a lot better. But, think about it, if one’s mental or emotional state improves, didn’t something brain-biological have to have happened?

For instance, the dentate gyrus of the hippocampus is an area of the brain in which neurogenesis is particularly active. See, the hippocampus, a component of the limbic system, is all about memory, learning, and emotion; all of which play major roles in anxiety and mood. Indeed, it’s been suggested that decreased hippocampal neurogenesis may be linked to increases in depression, which can be reversed by, say, the use of antidepressants – trophics.

So how ‘bout a short list of neurogenesis friendly factors. First of all, we have to include any medication with anti-panic, antidepressant, mood-stabilizing, and atypical antipsychotic characteristics. Incidentally, I’m not recommending these meds, just stating biochemical fact. And neurogenesis is also encouraged by mentally, emotionally, and physically healthy environments and lifestyle habits. Included are exercise, learning and memory work, spirituality, and psychotherapy. By the way, research has shown that one of the reasons all of these factors support neural growth and survival is because they increase levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF). Note the word, “neuroTROPHIC.”

On the other side of the fence, neurogenesis has its enemies. First in line is any sort of over-the-top or chronic stress. And that’s because it results in the secretion of the glucocorticoids, a family of steroids produced in the adrenal glands necessary for the regulation of energy metabolism and immune and inflammatory responses. The “stress hormone,” cortisol, is responsible for the vast majority of glucocorticoid activity. And though we need cortisol to increase our blood sugar and blood pressure levels in response to stress, too much of it for a long period of time can be a major problem.

One other neurogenesis adversary worth mentioning is excesses of glutamate, the brain’s most abundant excitatory, action-generating, neurotransmitter. It’s especially a factor during trauma and hypoglycemic events.

Absolutely, neurogenesis is a marvelous biochemical phenomenon that can really work to our advantage. And choice directs the outcome.

Original article here

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Professor Elizabeth Gould has a picture of a marmoset on her computer screen. Marmosets are a new world monkey, and Gould has a large colony living just down the hall. Although her primate population is barely three years old, Gould is clearly smitten, showing off these photographs like a proud parent. Marmosets are the ideal experimental animal: a primate brain trapped inside the body of a rat. They recognize themselves in the mirror, form elaborate dominance hierarchies and raise their young cooperatively. If you can look past their rodent-like stature and punkish pompadour, marmosets can seem disconcertingly human.

In her laboratory at Princeton University’s Department of Psychology, Gould is determined to create a marmoset environment that takes full advantage of their innate intelligence. She doesn’t believe in metal cages. “We are housing our marmosets in large, enriched enclosures,” she says, “and with a variety of objects to support foraging. These are social animals, and it’s important to let them be social. Basically, we want to bring our experimental conditions closer to the wild.”

The naturalistic habitat that Gould has created for these marmosets is essential to her studies, which involve understanding how the environment affects the brain. Eight years after Gould defied the entrenched dogma of her science and proved that the primate brain is always creating new neurons, she has gone on to demonstrate an even more startling fact: The structure of our brain, from the details of our dendrites to the density of our hippocampus, is incredibly influenced by our surroundings. Put a primate under stressful conditions, and its brain begins to starve. It stops creating new cells. The cells it already has retreat inwards. The mind is disfigured.

The social implications of this research are staggering. If boring environments, stressful noises, and the primate’s particular slot in the dominance hierarchy all shape the architecture of the brain—and Gould’s team has shown that they do—then the playing field isn’t level. Poverty and stress aren’t just an idea: they are an anatomy. Some brains never even have a chance.

Finish this article by clicking on the link: Poverty, Stress, and the Brain