Brain zaps let minimally conscious people communicate for a week

This is a step in making effective stimulation readily available to anyone who can benefit....

https://goo.gl/aZrQNt

People in a minimally conscious state have been “woken” for a whole week after a brief period of brain stimulation. The breakthrough suggests we may be on the verge of creating a device that can be used at home to help people with disorders of consciousness communicate with friends and family.

People with severe brain trauma can fall into a coma. If they begin to show signs of arousal but not awareness, they are said to be in a vegetative state. If they then show fluctuating signs of awareness but cannot communicate, they are described as being minimally consciousness.

In 2014, Steven Laureys at the University of Liège in Belgium and his colleagues discovered that 13 people with minimal consciousness and two people in a vegetative state could temporarily show new signs of awareness when given mild electrical stimulation.

The people in the trial received transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), which uses low-level electrical stimulation to make neurons more or less likely to fire. This was applied once over an area of the brain called the prefrontal cortex, which is involved in “higher” cognitive functions such as consciousness.

Soon after, they showed signs of consciousness, including moving their hands or following instructions using their eyes. Two people were even able to answer questions for 2 hours by moving their body, before drifting back into their previous state.

Because the improvements in awareness lasted for only a few hours, the team wondered if more stimulation would extend this. They began a new trial, in which 16 people with brain damage received a 20-minute session of tDCS daily for five consecutive days, or a sham session, in which they received a low level of stimulation that had no effect on the brain. Later, they received the opposite treatment.

Each participant had been in a minimally conscious state for at least three months before the start of the trial – meaning spontaneous recovery was unlikely.

After the fifth day of the real treatment, nine of the 16 participants showed significant improvements in conscious awareness. This included being able to respond to commands, recognise objects and perform voluntary motor movements. What’s more, these improvements lasted at least a week after the final day of stimulation.

Two of the participants even started to communicate. “They couldn’t speak but we could ask questions, such as “is your name David?” and they answered yes or no by moving a part of their body, like their tongue or their foot,” says Aurore Thibaut, also at the University of Liège, who led the study. “They correctly answered all of the questions we asked.”

None of the participants showed any signs of improvement after the sham treatment.

Boosting consciousness

The stimulation targeted the prefrontal cortex, which is involved in consciousness. It is also linked to other vital hubs, such as the thalamus, which helps propagate electrical signals to wider areas of the brain.

A Chance Discovery May Lead to a Vaccine for Depression and PTSD

I don't know if a vaccine is a correct description of the effect. It seems more likely it is epigenetic. Still interesting.......

https://goo.gl/6AxWty

In 2013, Brachman was working in the lab at Columbia University with her colleague Christine Ann Denny, and they were investigating the human anesthetic — and possible anti-depressant — Calypsol’s effect in mice. Part of their method was using mice who’d been stressed to make them exhibit depression-like behavior the Calypsol could mitigate. “So we would give an injection to mice, and then we'd wait a week, and then we'd run another experiment to save money,” Brachman says in her TED talk. They were re-stressing some mice to run another round of Calypsol tests, but it didn’t work: “They looked like they had never been stressed at all, which is impossible,” she recalls. It turns out the mice had been the ones who’d been administered Calypsol a week earlier — it seems it had somehow inoculated them against the effects of stress.

In her TED talks, Brachman notes that accidental discoveries like theirs are hardly unprecedented in science, nor does it diminish the discoverer’s achievement. She quotes Louis Pasteur: “Fortune favors the prepared mind.”

Brachman continues conducting research at Columbia, and she and Denny have founded biotic startup Paravax, a company developing what they’re calling “paravaccines,” vaccine-like prophylactic drugs. She’s also involved in a non-profit that’s investigating the repurposing of generic medications for the same purpose.

Every U.S. County Has an Affordable Housing Crisis

https://goo.gl/vLXOeO

The affordable housing crisis has spared no county—rural or urban. From small towns like Traverse City, Michigan, to big expensive cities like San Francisco, a cheap and decent place to live is hard to come by. And it would be even harder without government support, according to a new report by the Urban Institute.

Nationwide, only 21 units are available per 100 extremely low-income renter households (those earning below 30 percent of the area median income) without government assistance. With assistance, it’s 46.

UI has also created a neat interactive map, which is an update from a previous version. It lets users explore the gap between the demand and supply of affordable units in every single U.S. county. (The National Low Income Housing Coalition released a similar report for states and metros this year, based 2015 one-year American Community Survey data. The UI report is based on 2010-2014 five-year estimates, which is better for a county-level analysis.) The UI map also lets users toggle the impact of assistance from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the Department of Agriculture (USDA).


The County Mental Health Administrators’ Toolkit for Promoting Community Inclusion

https://goo.gl/Tzh0hZ

The 27-page document addresses the roles that mental health administrators at the county level can play in promoting community inclusion, with an emphasis on policy development, establishing funding priorities, encouraging system-wide and staff training, and evaluating outcomes.  

The document briefly reviews each of the key functions of county mental health executives and discusses the ways in which each of these can be used to broaden the understanding, implementation, evaluation, and funding of community inclusion initiatives.  

Authored by two leading county mental health executives from Pennsylvania’s Montgomery County, the document draws on the experiences of county mental health decision makers from across the country.  A useful Appendix to the toolkit provides additional resources, checklists, and references.


Free Willie!!! And While You're at It, Let Carmela Go Too.

by Carmela Kudyba. Carmela offers some ways you can support her near the end of her post.....

Does she have a constitutional right to exist peacefully while non-violently resisting medical treatment in her own reality?

On April 2, 2017, I came to the ER on my own, scared of what I call being "upset."  My "upsets" have also been called nonepileptic seizures by my sister who is a neurologist. They have been diagnosed fugue states by the psychiatric medical director of Michigan Medical at the University of Michigan and also referred to as dissociation by an advocate as well as a nurse who looked into coping mechanisms for me.

I have been a patient over a month at a hospital where they have insisted on treating my natural state of being which has been diagnosed as psychotic.  They have almost solely addressed my psychosis while they have hardly acknowledged my "upsets".  My psychosis is subsiding without any scheduled antipsychotic or any other psychiatric medication with the help of a stable environment and kind hearted patients and support staff including nurses, activity therapists, and doctors.

In the meantime, I am awaiting a trial by jury so that the medical professionals have the legal ability to inject me with antipsychotics.  I have repeatedly told my doctors that these injections make me physically sick and even worse they often induce "upsets."  They are expecting and hoping that my psychosis will then subside.  I explained to my team of medical professionals, that the psychosis does not subside, but instead becomes more private. Because I am too tranquilized to physically acknowledge my inner beliefs, voices, and persecution, medical professionals subjectively observe me to be more "normal," and less "disturbed" to witness.

I am fighting the medical orders by going to trial by jury under the direction of the Honorable Judge Owdziej who also dishonorably refused to schedule the trial for almost a month after she refused to acknowledge the abandonment of two statutes that mandate I must be presented with my petition and two physician certs within 48 hours and that I must appear before a judge for a hearing within one week of involuntary inpatient admission.

I have been repeatedly told I am "safe" and that I have "rights."  Meanwhile, I have over 20 bruises that have been documented as brought on by petty fights with nurses and security guards employed by the hospital who tell me to be quiet as I practice my public speaking skills in transformation and human rights discourse.   I am also told discourse and debate does not exist at this hospital sponsored by the University of Michigan.  I may be psychotic and I may have upsets but I realize that I am anything but safe.

  While I am aware, I will most likely lose this trial by jury, I intend to take a stand for mental diversity and my right to coexist with others in mainstream reality without being medicated.  I am most fearful of the weight gain I will experience as a side effect.  Without medication, I am less overweight, and I still experience severe feet pain.  While antipsychotics may make my thinking more linear in nature; while I may be less grandiose in social situations; and while I may seem to experience fewer auditory hallucinations; I would be more able to walk, to dance (very important coming from a family of dancers) and most importantly I will be in a better position to ride horses which has been a lifetime of passion for me.

Would you like to stand with me?  

Is my reality is a just reality?

Do I have the human right to dwell in my own reality?

You can join my fight by any of the following:

1.  Call Ann Arbor City Hall at 1-734-994-2700.  Tell them Judge Owdziej Bar #P42715 (pronounced Judge Outside) refused to acknowledge the denial of two statues for Carmela Kudyba who is currently being illegally held as an involuntary psychiatric patient at University of Michigan Medical Hospital.

2.  Send cards of support to the following address: (It is good for me to know that I am not alone.)

Carmela Kudyba
University of Michigan Hospital - 9C
1500 E Medical Center Drive, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109
Or email me at k.carmela@gmail.com

3. Come to my trial by jury at 9:00 am on May 22, 2017 at 15th District Courthouse of Ann Arbor at 301 E Huron St, Ann Arbor, MI, 48107.  Feel free to hold a sign saying Free Willie and Carmela too!

4. Donate to the screening of Healing Voices Tennessee premiere by sending a donation to the following link:  (This is one initiative I am looking forward to working on when I am discharged)

http://www.mentalhealthexcellence.org/projects/healing-voices-film-project/.

5. Say a prayer in my honor for justice to be rendered to all who refuse to live in the status quo of what society and the medical model dictate as truth.


Link Between Gut Microbes and Brain Structure in IBS Discovered

https://goo.gl/SP1yeg 

A new study by researchers at UCLA has revealed two key findings for people with irritable bowel syndrome about the relationship between the microorganisms that live in the gut and the brain.

For people with IBS research shows for the first time that there is an association between the gut microbiota and the brain regions involved in the processing of sensory information from their bodies. The results suggest that signals generated by the brain can influence the composition of microbes residing in the intestine and that the chemicals in the gut can shape the human brain’s structure.

Additionally, the researchers gained insight into the connections among childhood trauma, brain development and the composition of the gut microbiome.

Based on the composition of the microbes in the gut, the samples from those diagnosed with IBS clustered into two subgroups. One group was indistinguishable from the healthy control subjects, while the other differed. Those in the group with an altered gut microbiota had more history of early life trauma and longer duration of IBS symptoms.

The two groups also displayed differences in brain structure.






Can essential oils help treat fibromyalgia?

https://goo.gl/qNHYt7

People with fibromyalgia may experience relief from both physical and mental symptoms through the use of essential oils.

In general, research suggests that essential oils offer therapeutic potential in pain relief.


Basil

In one study, basil oil was found to produce painkilling effects on mice with chronic muscle pain. This finding led the researchers to suggest basil oil as a potential method of pain relief for those with fibromyalgia.

Capsicum

This essential oil is extracted from red chilies. It contains capsaicin, the active ingredient in chili peppers, which is well-documented as a pain reliever.

In one study, people with severe fibromyalgia applied topical capsaicin three times per day for 6 weeks. The treatment led to significant improvements in terms of pain relief and overall well-being.

It has also been suggested that concentrated capsaicin patches can reduce neuropathic pain for up to 12 weeks.

Cedarwood

Research from 2015 suggests that inhaling cedarwood essential oil alleviates post-surgery pain in mice by influencing the way the body experiences pain.

Clove

A review of research on clove essential oil suggests that it may be a possible method to relieve pain.

The researchers suggest that clove oil may be so effective because it contains eugenol in high concentrations (88.58 percent). Eugenol is commonly used as a local antiseptic and anesthetic.

Ginger and orange

A blend of both ginger and orange oil was tested on older adults with moderate-to-severe knee pain.

Those treated experienced an improvement in physical function and a reduction in pain, when compared with those that received a placebo, or no treatment at all. These benefits were still observable at the 1 week follow-up, but not at the 4 week review.

This study indicates an aromatherapy massage using these essential oils can effectively reduce pain in the short term. Be careful when using citrus oils if going out in the sun, as some research has suggested that they may cause sunburn.


Two simple questions that have changed the way people hear inner voices

https://goo.gl/NHoCfZ

Once the province of prophets, “hearing voices” is still shorthand for madness. And yet in the past 30 years, a new understanding has been created by voice-hearers themselves, as part of the Hearing Voices Movement. This suggests that uncovering the roots of the voice can potentially help the hearer.

Voice-hearing has traditionally been understood as a symptom of psychiatric illness, being most closely associated with schizophrenia. It has been referred to as a “symptom of brain disease just like blindness” and is typically treated with medication, which can indeed help.

So what has led to a different approach to hearing voices? First, there has been the rediscovery that many people hear voices without distress or impairment, and we are now able to pinpoint what can make voice-hearing problematic. There is an 88% probability of correctly guessing whether a voice-hearer is a patient or not from simply knowing one thing: whether the voices are nasty. Studies, including some with “psychics”, have also found that hearing voices frequently, and lacking control over them, is associated with it being a problem.

In addition, trauma has been found to be associated with hearing voices. In fact, suffering multiple childhood traumas is associated with later voice-hearing to approximately the same extent that smoking is with lung cancer. Not only does trauma increase the probability of voice-hearing, but the characteristics of the voices are often related to such events. However, the role of trauma in voice-hearing has historically been minimised, with hearers advised to chemically eliminate their voices, not to carefully explore them.

Understanding voices

But working closely with his partner, Dr Sandra Escher, and many other voice-hearers, Romme co-developed the interview. Speaking of it today, Romme said:

We had never interviewed a voice hearer about their experience as that was forbidden in the profession. Still most psychiatrists don’t know what to ask.

The purpose of the interview is to find the answers to two key questions: “Who do the voices represent?” and “What problems do the voices represent?” The voice-hearer and the interviewer then work together to “break the code” of the voices, uncovering the meaning of the voice in relation to the person’s life history, which may not be readily apparent.


What Role Should Art Play In Presenting Mental Illness To The World?

https://goo.gl/H6PGNP

Art and mental health have a long history of association. Often, the two are even seen as dependent on one another — without misery, the ideas go, one cannot create.

This perception, which is rooted in a dangerous romanticism, may have some basis in reality — people with bipolar disorder, for instance, have reported high levels of creativity during manic episodes. But scientists have also criticized research suggesting a direct link between mental illness and creativity, and warn against such broad-stroke conclusions.

Whatever the link, what is evident is that art is an effective outlet for individuals with mental illnesses. An extensive literature review in 2010 noted that:

“There is evidence that engagement with artistic activities, either as an observer of the creative efforts of others or as an initiator of one’s own creative efforts, can enhance one’s moods, emotions, and other psychological states as well as have a salient impact on important physiological parameters.”

While I get highly irritated by the suggestion that a few minutes of mindful coloring can cure debilitating illnesses, it’s clear that creativity can indeed provide a useful channel for exploring one’s self, which can help with the management of difficult mental health.

But what about sharing this creativity?

Increasingly in recent years, there have been high-profile art exhibitions, theater productions, books, photography displays, television shows, and movies exploring mental health, often written, produced, and performed by the individual at the center of the story. Losing It, a two-woman show about mental health written and performed by comic actor Ruby Wax and musician Judith Owen, has received rave reviews in London. Stephen Fryuses poetry to help deal with his bipolar and depression. And Lena Dunhamhas been pretty vocal about her mental illnesses, which she’s explored on Girls and in her writing. Finding art a valuable tool for themselves, these creators have decided to share their experiences with others.