Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Attention Art Students!: "Beauty" found in the Brain

"Is The Beauty Of A Sculpture In The Brain Of The Beholder?'
Brain activations in the contrasts “judged-as-beautiful vs. judged-as-ugly” and “judged-as-ugly vs. judged-as-beautiful” stimuli. Statistical parametric maps rendered onto the MNI brain template showing activity within left somatomotor cortex in the contrast of ugly vs. beautiful stimuli averaged across the three conditions. (Credit: Di Dio C, Macaluso E, Rizzolatti G,Image courtesy of PLoS One)

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"ScienceDaily (Nov. 24, 2007) — Is there an objective biological basis for the experience of beauty in art? Or is aesthetic experience entirely subjective? This question has been addressed in a new article by Cinzia Di Dio, Emiliano Macaluso and Giacomo Rizzolatti. The researchers used fMRI scans to study the neural activity in subjects with no knowledge of art criticism, who were shown images of Classical and Renaissance sculptures.

The 'objective' perspective was examined by contrasting images of Classical and Renaissance sculptures of canonical proportions, with images of the same sculptures whose proportions were altered to create a comparable degraded aesthetic value. In terms of brain activations, this comparison showed that the presence of the "golden ratio" in the original material activated specific sets of cortical neurons as well as (crucially) the insula, a structure mediating emotions. This response was particularly apparent when participants were only required to observe the stimuli; that is, when the brain reacted most spontaneously to the images presented.

The 'subjective' perspective was evaluated by contrasting beautiful vs. ugly sculptures, this time as judged by each participant who decided whether or not the sculpture was aesthetic. The images judged to be beautiful selectively activated the right amygdala, a structure that responds to learned incoming information laden with emotional value.

These results indicate that, in observers naïve to art criticism, the sense of beauty is mediated by two non-mutually exclusive processes: one is based on a joint activation of sets of cortical neurons, triggered by parameters intrinsic to the stimuli, and the insula (objective beauty); the other is based on the activation of the amygdala, driven by one's own emotional experiences (subjective beauty). The researchers conclude that both objective and subjective factors intervene in determining our appreciation of an artwork."

for the full article, go HERE


Saturday, November 3, 2007

Stress on the Brain

Got a boss hounding you to get more done in less time? Running short of cash? Trying to do math with an academic psycho-nerd badgering you to work faster?

You may not know it, but your levels of stress hormones are probably rising. Ditto for your heart rate. In animals, stress can stunt growth, slow learning, or fluster the immune system. In people, chronic stress can cause high blood pressure, among other
problems. The extreme stress of war or personal assault can cause the life-changing condition called post-traumatic stress disorder.

The ventral part of the right prefrontal cortex (red), had extra blood flow during a moderately stressful lab test. This area is just behind the right eye.
Brain (plus all images below) courtesy Jiongjiong Wang, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine


The ventral part of the right prefrontal cortex (red), had extra blood flow during a moderately stressful lab test. This area is just behind the right eye. Brain (plus all images below) courtesy Jiongjiong Wang, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.

But how do the minor stresses of daily life affect your brain?

To find out, a team led by Jiongjiong Wang and John Detre of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine looked at blood flow in the brain -- an indicator of how hard any particular part of the brain is working. The study, they say, was the first actual picture of how the human brain responds to stress.

FOR ARTICLE WITH PICS + DIAGRAMS http://whyfiles.org/shorties/191stressbrain/

Double Jeopardy

PTSD, Brain Injury Put Veterans in 'Double Jeopardy'

Aaron Levin
More intensive clinical diagnoses and development of biological markers for PTSD could lead to better evaluation of veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Although one in four veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan who visit a Veterans Affairs (VA) medical center receives a diagnosis involving mental health, better diagnostic tools are still needed to evaluate these troops, a prominent researcher told the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense in Washington, D.C., in January.

"Thirteen percent of the 100,000 first visits were diagnosed with PTSD," said Charles Marmar, M.D., vice chair and professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco, and associate chief of staff for mental health at the San Francisco VA Medical Center. "Those diagnoses were made by clinicians in face-to-face diagnostic interviews, usually in primary care."

Marmar noted that on this occasion, he was not speaking on behalf of the Department of Veterans Affairs since his remarks had not been cleared by the department.

Marmar was the main psychiatric witness before the committee. He reported on a study (in press with Archives of Internal Medicine) of more than 100,000 veterans of warfare in Iraq and Afghanistan. The committee room was so crowded that Capitol police turned away latecomers.

Rates of PTSD in this group were roughly similar to those of veterans of the Vietnam War, but there was one "striking" difference, he said. The present wars have seen a marked rise in traumatic brain injuries, largely due to roadside bomb explosions and motor vehicle accidents, along with gunshot wounds.

"Unfortunately, these closed head injuries are the same kind of events in the same settings that are likely to lead to terror and horror, which trigger posttraumatic stress," he said. "So the two occur together, creating a kind of double jeopardy."

To read the whole article, go here

Breast Cancer Sells

Breast Cancer Sells

by Lucinda Marshall; Alternet; October 29, 2007

October means falling leaves, ghosts and goblins, and pink, lots of Pepto-Pink as we observe National Breast Cancer Awareness Month (NBCAM). From Campbell's Soup to Breast Cancer Barbie, it seems as if just about everyone has jumped on the pinkified bandwagon. And although October is also Domestic Violence Awareness Month (DVAM), we'd much rather be aware of breasts, even sick ones, than talk about black eyes and things that aren't supposed to go on behind closed doors. That point is reflected in women's magazines, which devote much more space in their October issues to breast cancer than they do to domestic violence.

Of nine publications that I recently found on a grocery store magazine rack, all of which advertised breast cancer articles on the covers of their October issues, only two also contained coverage of Domestic Violence Awareness Month (and mentioned that on their covers).* And, what's worse, of the coverage dedicated to breast cancer, much of it was offensive, superficial, misleading, or flat-out wrong.

This year there is even called Beyond Breast Cancer that cheerfully proclaims that there are "10 Good Things About Breast Cancer." Who knew? And just what are the pluses of getting this dreaded disease? According to the bubblegum-colored magazine, one perk is a pair of new boobs that "will face the horizon, not the South Pole.” Better yet, they will be paid for by insurance. Oh, and you get lots of cards and flowers.

Meanwhile, both Good Housekeeping and Woman's Day give incorrect information about mammograms. Good Housekeeping claims that "[N]o one disputes that all women 50 and over should be screened annually." Yet physicians in different countries disagree on how often women over 50 should be screened. While doctors in the United States recommend annual mammograms, those in Europe say every two to three years. In Australia, where a study out last year shed significant doubt on the extent to which mammograms save lives, the recommendation is every two years. Interestingly, in some of these countries, the incidence and death rates for breast cancer are actually lower or comparable to the United States.

When they're not spewing misinformation, the October issues of the traditional women's magazines are offering overly simplistic information about breast cancer risk factors and tips for preventing it. Woman's World (not to be confused with Good Housekeeping discuss factors you can change, such as smoking, and those you can't, like genetics. Missing is any mention about the purported connection between breast cancer and hormone replacement therapy. Also absent is information on parabens, phthalates and other carcinogenic chemicals, which are disturbingly common in consumer goods from lipstick to lotion.

The silence on these subjects mirrors the focus that both the American Cancer Society and Susan G. Komen for the Cure place on the profitable business of curing cancer rather than preventing it, which likely would hurt the bottom line of many of their biggest donors. Consumers are told that shopping will help find a cure -- a message that is not lost on advertisers......

To read the full story , go here