Well, it is a New Year. I debated about the many different topics of interest and after a lot of going back and forth – between such topics as the brain effects of optimism, physical exercise, yoga, meditation or just contemplative techniques in the broadest sense, I decided I will focus on love and wisdom. Love is commonly seen as both a process and an outcome. Wisdom is mostly seen as an outcome. They are both good states of mind and, I would further argue, good states for the brain. The question is: are there proven techniques to cultivate – teach one how to love and become wiser? If so, how do they work? What are their effects? And specifically, are there psychological versus physiological benefits? Are there any counter-indications? We will try to answer as many of these questions as possible in the posts to come.
Friday, January 2, 2009
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Positive Psychology
As an eternally optimistic medical student one of the reasons for which I was interested in psychiatry was that I wanted to figure out what are the mechanisms underlying happiness and personal growth. But that is not the traditional focus for either psychiatry or western psychology. When it comes to the mind or the brain our scientific interest has been in studying the abnormal and pathological with the idea that is the way to learn and understand what normal is. This is a logically valid approach if normal and abnormal would be parts of the same continuum - in other words, qualitatively equivalent states that are mainly differentiated through quantitative differences. But is this the case? What if we are in fact looking at discrete, qualitatively different states? Or, to put it differently: how much can we learn about happiness by looking at unhappiness and misery? Can we understand serenity by studying anxiety or creativity by dissecting psychosis?
All these are questions that are still unanswered.
The reality is that we are just coming our of a century dominated by the Freudian (mis)conception that the goal of our interventions should be to help patients transform their “misery into common unhappiness” and, at the best, provide them “with a mental life that has been restored to health [so they] will be better armed against that unhappiness” (Breuer & Freud, 1895/1955, p. 305). So, it's so much more refreshing to see that there is a new school of thinking proposing that happiness is common and achievable, while unhappiness is neither common nor normal.
This might seem like a purely academical point but is it really? Consider this question: while agreeing that depression equals unhappiness what is the best intervention?
A. An intervention that would "fix" unhappiness?
B. An intervention that would promote happiness?
My answer would actually be C. Both.
We now know that the brain circuits responsible for feeling unhappy are not the same with the brain circuits responsible for feeling happy. If that is the case then A and B interventions actually engage different brain circuits and by using both we are pulling in more resources that the brain can use.
While this is true most of our present day interventions, including both psychotherapy and medications, fall under the A category.
Here is where I see that value of positive psychology. Building on the shoulders of Maslow's self actualization theory, positive psychology finally got it right: when it comes to happiness learning how to be happy might just be a better strategy than learning how not to be unhappy.
All these are questions that are still unanswered.
The reality is that we are just coming our of a century dominated by the Freudian (mis)conception that the goal of our interventions should be to help patients transform their “misery into common unhappiness” and, at the best, provide them “with a mental life that has been restored to health [so they] will be better armed against that unhappiness” (Breuer & Freud, 1895/1955, p. 305). So, it's so much more refreshing to see that there is a new school of thinking proposing that happiness is common and achievable, while unhappiness is neither common nor normal.
This might seem like a purely academical point but is it really? Consider this question: while agreeing that depression equals unhappiness what is the best intervention?
A. An intervention that would "fix" unhappiness?
B. An intervention that would promote happiness?
My answer would actually be C. Both.
We now know that the brain circuits responsible for feeling unhappy are not the same with the brain circuits responsible for feeling happy. If that is the case then A and B interventions actually engage different brain circuits and by using both we are pulling in more resources that the brain can use.
While this is true most of our present day interventions, including both psychotherapy and medications, fall under the A category.
Here is where I see that value of positive psychology. Building on the shoulders of Maslow's self actualization theory, positive psychology finally got it right: when it comes to happiness learning how to be happy might just be a better strategy than learning how not to be unhappy.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Introducing Snap Shots from Snap.com
I just installed a nice little tool on this site called Snap Shots that enhances links with visual previews of the destination site, interactive excerpts of Wikipedia articles, MySpace profiles, IMDb profiles and Amazon products, display inline videos, RSS, MP3s, photos, stock charts and more.
Sometimes Snap Shots bring you the information you need, without your having to leave the site, while other times it lets you "look ahead," before deciding if you want to follow a link or not.
Should you decide this is not for you, just click the Options icon in the upper right corner of the Snap Shot and opt-out.
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Exercise Those Brain Genes
So, how does exercise work in changing the brain? Is it only an indirect effect of a better brain "environment"? Of course, the brain loves to be in a "healthy" environment. In fact, the healthier the better - and physical exercise (PE) and its effects on controlling the fats and the sugars and optimizing brain oxygenation through good blood flow and pressure - would clearly have a major role in "optimizing" the environment.
But is this the whole story? Here is the great news: maybe not. One of the most exciting hypotheses is that PE might have a direct effect on the brain. My colleagues at Yale University (1) have shown that mice spending their time running on training wheels turn on brain genes that are responsible for the production of a number of neurotrophic and growth factors, including VGF, a neuropeptide precursor involved in energy balance, and neuritin, an immediate early gene involved in neuroplasticity. These are all proteins that keep the brain going and possibly also growing. Same genes were simply silent in the comparator group of sedentary mice. Moreover, the action of one gene in particular - VGF - while greatly enhanced by exercise, has also been shown to have a powerful anti-depressant effect, while blocking VGF inhibited the effects of exercise and induced depressive-like behavior in the mice.
A few important take home points: the mice joggers were not joking around - they were really running, covering an average of 4-6 miles (10 km) a day. The genetic effects were reported after about 4 weeks of such - rather intense (at least by human standards) - exercise, which is consistent with other studies. We know that mice, given on opportunity, love to run, and these mice were indeed given the opportunity (i.e. unrestricted access to a running wheel that they can us as much or as little as they wanted). Also, they were doing it because they wanted to (i.e. they were not forced to exercise)!
Now, any such study raises a number of "human comparisons" questions. For us humans 6 miles a day might be a lot, but is that true when it comes to mice? In a cat running after a mouse world is 6 miles a day a lot or just what's expected? Also, is that what a mouse would do anyway, even in their wild, natural environment or running all day long only happens when they live in a cage, bored to death, with nothing else to do? And, more importantly, how does 6 mice miles compare with human miles? Finally, is it really that PE is the proximal cause or is PE just one event from a cascade (e.g. an "intellectual gratification" activity) of events that eventually results in the reported effects?
My two cents: while these are important questions this landmark study suggests that when it comes to PE and the brain, while the old claim that "what's good for the body is also good for the mind" is true, there is so much more to the story. Now, when someone says "exercise that brain" you actually have a reason to exercise it as hard as you can as in "Aaah, what do you mean, really?"
(1) http://www.nature.com/nm/journal/v13/n12/pdf/nm1669.pdf
But is this the whole story? Here is the great news: maybe not. One of the most exciting hypotheses is that PE might have a direct effect on the brain. My colleagues at Yale University (1) have shown that mice spending their time running on training wheels turn on brain genes that are responsible for the production of a number of neurotrophic and growth factors, including VGF, a neuropeptide precursor involved in energy balance, and neuritin, an immediate early gene involved in neuroplasticity. These are all proteins that keep the brain going and possibly also growing. Same genes were simply silent in the comparator group of sedentary mice. Moreover, the action of one gene in particular - VGF - while greatly enhanced by exercise, has also been shown to have a powerful anti-depressant effect, while blocking VGF inhibited the effects of exercise and induced depressive-like behavior in the mice.
A few important take home points: the mice joggers were not joking around - they were really running, covering an average of 4-6 miles (10 km) a day. The genetic effects were reported after about 4 weeks of such - rather intense (at least by human standards) - exercise, which is consistent with other studies. We know that mice, given on opportunity, love to run, and these mice were indeed given the opportunity (i.e. unrestricted access to a running wheel that they can us as much or as little as they wanted). Also, they were doing it because they wanted to (i.e. they were not forced to exercise)!
Now, any such study raises a number of "human comparisons" questions. For us humans 6 miles a day might be a lot, but is that true when it comes to mice? In a cat running after a mouse world is 6 miles a day a lot or just what's expected? Also, is that what a mouse would do anyway, even in their wild, natural environment or running all day long only happens when they live in a cage, bored to death, with nothing else to do? And, more importantly, how does 6 mice miles compare with human miles? Finally, is it really that PE is the proximal cause or is PE just one event from a cascade (e.g. an "intellectual gratification" activity) of events that eventually results in the reported effects?
My two cents: while these are important questions this landmark study suggests that when it comes to PE and the brain, while the old claim that "what's good for the body is also good for the mind" is true, there is so much more to the story. Now, when someone says "exercise that brain" you actually have a reason to exercise it as hard as you can as in "Aaah, what do you mean, really?"
(1) http://www.nature.com/nm/journal/v13/n12/pdf/nm1669.pdf
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Exercising Your Brain
Latest news: I am going to start posting on brain - related subjects on SharpBrains - you can now see my first post, on physical exercise and the brain @... well, just click on the title of this entry...
Physical exercise effects on the brain is an interesting subject in general but even more so when it comes to the American culture. A culture that seems to be caught in a perpetual ambivalence between two extremes: the fitness obsession on one hand and "the forget how to walk as you can always drive instead" culture. In other cultures a daily dose of physical exercise in embedded in the daily routine of walking places (work, grocery stores, etc.), talking the stairs up and down, going up and down steep streets, running after the bus or metro etc. In the US that is rarely the case. And then is it really a surprise when we find out the obesity and metabolic problems are endemic? These, as we are now learning, are not stand alone problems, but come with a plethora of other issues: last but not least a not so great prognosis for a brain that is drowning in fats and sugars.
Looking forward to comments on the post.
Physical exercise effects on the brain is an interesting subject in general but even more so when it comes to the American culture. A culture that seems to be caught in a perpetual ambivalence between two extremes: the fitness obsession on one hand and "the forget how to walk as you can always drive instead" culture. In other cultures a daily dose of physical exercise in embedded in the daily routine of walking places (work, grocery stores, etc.), talking the stairs up and down, going up and down steep streets, running after the bus or metro etc. In the US that is rarely the case. And then is it really a surprise when we find out the obesity and metabolic problems are endemic? These, as we are now learning, are not stand alone problems, but come with a plethora of other issues: last but not least a not so great prognosis for a brain that is drowning in fats and sugars.
Looking forward to comments on the post.
Thursday, April 19, 2007
From Columbine to Virginia Tech
Here is a disturbing time line of school killings in America put together by Times On Line(1):April 2007: A student goes on the rampage at the campus of Virginia Tech killing 32 people before killing himself.October 2006: A 32-year-old gunman goes on the rampage at an Amish school in Pennsylvania, shooting dead at least three girls before killing himself. September 2006: A gunman in Colorado shoots and fatally wounds a teenage schoolgirl, and then kills himself. September 2006: A teenager kills the head-teacher of a school in Cazenovia, Wisconsin. November 2005: A student in Tennessee shoots dead an assistant principal and wounds two other administrators. March 2005: A schoolboy in Minnesota kills nine, and then shoots himself. May 2004: Four people are injured in a shooting at a school in Maryland.April 2003: A teenager shoots dead a head-teacher at a Pennsylvania school, and then kills himself. January 2002: A student who had been dismissed from the Appalachian School of Law in Grundy, Virginia, kills the dean, a professor and a student, and wounds three others. March 2001: A pupil kills two students after opening fire at a school in California February 2000: A classmate shoots dead a six-year-old girl in Michigan. November 1999: A 13-year-old girl is shot dead by a classmate in New Mexico. May 1999: Six are injured by a student in a shoot-out in Georgia. April 1999: Two teenagers shoot dead 12 students and a teacher before killing themselves at Columbine School in Colorado.
What are we to make out of this? Clearly, we are no longer looking at isolated events, the sort of things that, as disturbing as they might be, we can easily file away as “accidents”, before turning on the other side and falling asleep. We know now that we are looking at a pattern. A horrific pattern of children killing children in schools. Children, a symbol of live before anything else, killing? And where? At school. I am not sure what frightens me more. Is it that children kill children? Or is it that schools are now places where one can kill and be killed? The school, a place that is supposed to evoke feelings of safety and joy and respect is redefining itself as the new human jungle, a place that starts to feel as unsafe as a run down, drug and crime infested neighborhood. When above all, a school is supposed to be both a sacred and safe place for our children. How can one teach and how can one learn when one worries about one’s safety?
My fear is that schools’ violence will effectively condemn our children to perpetual inadequacy and fear. My fear is that our scared and scarred children will grow up into fearful adults who will become used to think that violence is normal and to kill and be killed is a fact of life. This is one frightening prospect.
What are we to do? The easy answer is to do whatever it takes to establish safety. Easy, as it does define what safety is. And where the problem is coming from? Does establishing safety mean beefed up barbwire fences, and metal detectors, and paratroopers-like, around the clock, security guards carrying assault weapons and bullet proof jackets marching down the schools hallways? Or does rather mean an open school, without isolating fences, where students are connected to each other, respectful of their teachers and excited to learn?
As a psychiatrist, I know that fear begets fear and violence begets violence. More of the same begets sameness. When I see violence I first look for the violence that preceded it. As in my book understanding is at the root of healing. As more of the same begets sameness, I also know that violently curbing violence, as appealing as that might be on the short run, will certainly bring not less, but more violence in the future. I believe that the way to peace is through peace, and only understanding can mend misunderstanding.
What is preceding our school violence? Can it have anything to do with the fact that violence is prevalent in America, starting with the often decried media fatal attraction to juicy, violent subjects, and ending with the much less publicized fact that the US is possibly the only country that has been almost continuously at war for more than a century(2)?
Can it be related to the fact that our society values individualism above all? Our heroes are outcasts and pioneers settling on the FAR border, creating places for themselves in the mists of nowhere as FAR as possible from any other humans.
Should we then be surprised when centuries later, which is now, feeling isolated and disconnected is commonplace for our suburbia generations? When our cities are spreading out instead of coming together and distance rather than closeness is a common trait of the American urban landscape, should we really be surprised if people feel lonely even when they are in a middle of a crowd,and constantly alienated from not only the others but themselves as well? And if that is so, what is it left? The way of a Reservoir Dog, of a natural born killer, always ready to kill the common bill, in an impeccably told pulp fiction: and that is, sadly enough, our daily bread!
(1) www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article1662373.ece
(2) http://academic.evergreen.edu/g/grossmaz/interventions.html
What are we to make out of this? Clearly, we are no longer looking at isolated events, the sort of things that, as disturbing as they might be, we can easily file away as “accidents”, before turning on the other side and falling asleep. We know now that we are looking at a pattern. A horrific pattern of children killing children in schools. Children, a symbol of live before anything else, killing? And where? At school. I am not sure what frightens me more. Is it that children kill children? Or is it that schools are now places where one can kill and be killed? The school, a place that is supposed to evoke feelings of safety and joy and respect is redefining itself as the new human jungle, a place that starts to feel as unsafe as a run down, drug and crime infested neighborhood. When above all, a school is supposed to be both a sacred and safe place for our children. How can one teach and how can one learn when one worries about one’s safety?
My fear is that schools’ violence will effectively condemn our children to perpetual inadequacy and fear. My fear is that our scared and scarred children will grow up into fearful adults who will become used to think that violence is normal and to kill and be killed is a fact of life. This is one frightening prospect.
What are we to do? The easy answer is to do whatever it takes to establish safety. Easy, as it does define what safety is. And where the problem is coming from? Does establishing safety mean beefed up barbwire fences, and metal detectors, and paratroopers-like, around the clock, security guards carrying assault weapons and bullet proof jackets marching down the schools hallways? Or does rather mean an open school, without isolating fences, where students are connected to each other, respectful of their teachers and excited to learn?
As a psychiatrist, I know that fear begets fear and violence begets violence. More of the same begets sameness. When I see violence I first look for the violence that preceded it. As in my book understanding is at the root of healing. As more of the same begets sameness, I also know that violently curbing violence, as appealing as that might be on the short run, will certainly bring not less, but more violence in the future. I believe that the way to peace is through peace, and only understanding can mend misunderstanding.
What is preceding our school violence? Can it have anything to do with the fact that violence is prevalent in America, starting with the often decried media fatal attraction to juicy, violent subjects, and ending with the much less publicized fact that the US is possibly the only country that has been almost continuously at war for more than a century(2)?
Can it be related to the fact that our society values individualism above all? Our heroes are outcasts and pioneers settling on the FAR border, creating places for themselves in the mists of nowhere as FAR as possible from any other humans.
Should we then be surprised when centuries later, which is now, feeling isolated and disconnected is commonplace for our suburbia generations? When our cities are spreading out instead of coming together and distance rather than closeness is a common trait of the American urban landscape, should we really be surprised if people feel lonely even when they are in a middle of a crowd,and constantly alienated from not only the others but themselves as well? And if that is so, what is it left? The way of a Reservoir Dog, of a natural born killer, always ready to kill the common bill, in an impeccably told pulp fiction: and that is, sadly enough, our daily bread!
(1) www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article1662373.ece
(2) http://academic.evergreen.edu/g/grossmaz/interventions.html
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Ticut Follies (documentary)
A 1966 film about the realities of a Massachusetts state institution for criminally insane.
Haunting cinematography in black and white, without any commentary, as the images are powerful enough in themselves. It is deeply unsettling to see the ov
erlapping delusional universes - the patients' and the staff's views of the world, each one right in their own eyes, and at the same time utterly unable to see the reality through the eyes of the other. It is also unnerving to see how the professionals end up harming those they genuinely want to help. Schizophrenia is projected into the very system that is supposed to break it. The movie clearly demonstrates the system's fundamental flaw, which is its attempt to cure splitting by further splitting it (away from the world). Which may be why instead of mending those who suffer "the system" not only perpetuates sufferance but ends up breaking itself.
Available for download at http://www.libertv.com/.
Haunting cinematography in black and white, without any commentary, as the images are powerful enough in themselves. It is deeply unsettling to see the ov
erlapping delusional universes - the patients' and the staff's views of the world, each one right in their own eyes, and at the same time utterly unable to see the reality through the eyes of the other. It is also unnerving to see how the professionals end up harming those they genuinely want to help. Schizophrenia is projected into the very system that is supposed to break it. The movie clearly demonstrates the system's fundamental flaw, which is its attempt to cure splitting by further splitting it (away from the world). Which may be why instead of mending those who suffer "the system" not only perpetuates sufferance but ends up breaking itself.Available for download at http://www.libertv.com/.
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