Parenting the Adolescent Brain, 5

There is a myth that adolescents need less sleep than they did during their younger years. False. Teenagers need nine or ten hours of sleep every night. Most are sleep deprived. They can become increasingly cognitively impaired across the week, even though sleep is thought to be critical for the reorganization of the teen brain. Sleep deprivation tends to exacerbate moodiness and cloudy or erratic decision-making. Part of the problem can be laid at the feet of early bussing and class schedules. Part of the problem involves a shift in circadian rhythms during adolescence. Teenagers do better when they stay up later and get up later. They often stay up later but still have to get up earlier, which contributes to sleep deprivation—and the results of sleep deprivation can be ugly. Sara Johnson, an assistant professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health who reviewed the neuroscience in The Teen Years Explained: A Guide to Healthy Adolescent Development by Clea McNeely and Jayne Blanchard, encourages parents to continue to parent their adolescents. Like all children, "teens have specific developmental vulnerabilities and they need parents to limit their behavior," she said. The good news is as the brain develops, the opportunity for parents and children to become good friends, also can emerge.

Parenting the Adolescent Brain, 4

What can parents do to not only survive themselves but to help the adolescents under their care survive and thrive? Avoid taking their somewhat erratic behaviors personally. Over the course of adolescence, the limbic system comes under greater control of the prefrontal cortex, the area just behind the forehead, which is associated with planning, impulse control and higher order thought. As additional areas of the brain begin to help process emotion, older teens gain some equilibrium and have an easier time interpreting others. But until then, they often misread teachers and parents. According to the author of Inside the Teenage Brain: Parenting a Work in Progress, Sheyl Feinstin, "You can be as careful as possible and you still will have tears or anger at times because they will have misunderstood what you have said.” One of the most influential ways to parent your teen, in addition to being a good listener, is to be a good role model, especially when dealing with stress and other life difficulties, as teens are actively trying to figure out their own coping strategies. Your adolescent is watching YOU. And what about sleep? Part 5 tomorrow.

Parenting the Adolescent Brain, 3

In her book Inside the Teenage Brain: Parenting a Work in Progress, Sheyl Feinstin explains that adolescents are beginning to develop the computational and decision-making skills that will characterize adulthood, if they are given time and access to information. Unfortunately (often for parents and teachers if not the adolescents themselves) in the heat of the moment, the decision-making of the teenagers can be overly influenced by emotions, because their brains rely more on the limbic system (the emotional seat of the brain) than the more rational prefrontal cortex. They are often dramatic and irrational. They yell or cry for seemingly no reason. They have often conflicting needs for tender loving care and for greater independence, which can make parenting a challenge. The adolescents need individuals with the more stable adult brain (parents, teachers, mentors, and older family members) to help them by staying calm, listening and being good role models. It is not about the adult (assuming they are being rational and functional); it is about the erratic development of the teen-age brain. Teens still need parents and effective parenting. a teen no longer needs parents (even if they protest otherwise). They still need structure and guidance and look to these adults for that (even if it appears they are not observing them). Feinstin says that the parent who “decides to treat a 16 or 17 year old as an adult is behaving unfairly and setting them up for failure." Part 4 tomorrow.

Parenting the Adolescent Brain, 2

According to Sheryl Feinstein, author of Inside the Teenage Brain: Parenting a Work in Progress,  just as adolescents may go through an awkward growth spurt, new cognitive skills and competencies may come in leaps and stutters. No matter how tall they have grown or how grown-up they try to dress, the teenage brain is still in a developmental period that will affect the rest of their life. It is possible to survive this; most parents have. Scientists used to think that it was only babies who had an overabundance of neuronal connections, which are pruned into a more efficient arrangement over the first three years of life. Not so. Brain imaging studies, such as one published in 1999 in Nature Neuroscience, have shown that a second burst of neuronal sprouting happens right before puberty, peaking at about age eleven for girls and twelve for boys. Again there will be a pruning and shaping of this new gray matter, shaped by the adolescent's experiences. Loosely following a ‘use it or lose it’ strategy, the structural reorganization is thought to continue until age twenty-five, with smaller changes continue throughout life. Part 3 tomorrow.

Parenting the Adolescent Brain, 1

Do you live with a teenager? It can be a roller coaster ride. Fun, exciting, and a bit stressful—even for those who love roller coasters. Take heart, there is a reason and it has to do with the brain. After the first few years of life, the brain’s most dramatic growth spurt occurs during the teen-age years—often loosely defined as age eleven to nineteen (although I have met some brains who were much older than nineteen that seemed still to be exhibiting some adolescent irascibility, defined as a tendency to irritability, persisting bad moods, and sudden fits of anger). Yes, the brain “continues to change throughout life, but there are huge leaps in development during adolescence,’ according to Sara Johnson, an assistant professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health who reviewed the neuroscience in The Teen Years Explained: A Guide to Healthy Adolescent Development by Clea McNeely and Jayne Blanchard.
Part 2 tomorrow.

Ebolavirus, 5

What can you do to protect yourself? Avoid the blood or body fluids of another individual, especially those with symptoms that might indicate infection with Ebolavirus. This is tricky, however, because symptoms often resemble those of other illnesses, at least initially. Exposure to ebolaviruses can occur in health care settings where personnel are not wearing appropriate protective equipment, such as masks, gowns, gloves, and goggles. Proper cleaning and disposal of instruments, such as needles and syringes, is also important. If instruments are not disposable, they must be sterilized before being used again. Without adequate sterilization of the instruments, virus transmission can continue and amplify an outbreak. Shaking hands may not be the best policy, either. More on that next week.

Medical professionals in the United States are advised to consult the Interim Guidance for Managing Patients with Suspected Viral Hemorrhagic Fever in U.S. Hospitals  [PDF - 60KB].

Ebolavirus, 4

The original text message I received went on to ask if ebolaviruses attack the brain or the immune system. The short answer is: the viruses seemsable to attack everything. The symptoms of Ebola HF typically include: fever, headache, weakness, joint and muscle aches, stomach pain, lack of appetite, vomiting, and diarrhea. Some patients may have a rash, sore throat, cough and/or hiccups, red eyes, difficulty swallowing and/or breathing, chest pain, and bleeding (hemorrhages) inside and outside of the body. The symptoms may appear anywhere from 2 to 21 days after exposure to the ebolavirus , although 8-10 days is most common. Some who become sick with Ebola HF are able to recover, while others do not. The reasons behind this are not yet fully understood. Patients who die usually have not developed a significant immune response to the virus at the time of death. Because early symptoms are nonspecific to ebolaviruses, cases of Ebola HF may be initially misdiagnosed. If you have any reason to believe there may have been an exposure to an ebolavirus and you develop any of the symptoms, contact your doctor AND the County Health Department immediately.

Ebolavirus, 3

How are Ebolaviruses transmitted? As mentioned earlier, the natural reservoir of ebolaviruses has not yet been proven. This means that the manner in which the ebolavirus first appears in a human being at the start of an outbreak is unknown. However, researchers have hypothesized that the first patient becomes infected through contact with the blood or body secretions of an infected animal. When an infection does occur in humans, there are several ways in which the virus can be transmitted to others. These include:

·         Direct contact with the blood or body secretions of an infected person

·         Exposure to objects that have been contaminated with infected blood or body secretions, as in a needle-stick

The viruses that cause Ebola HF are often spread through family members and friends because they come in close contact with infectious blood or body secretions when caring for ill persons and may not have known to take careful precautions.

Ebolavirus, 2

What is the reservoir for the ebolavirus? According to the CDC, the natural reservoir host of ebolaviruses remains unknown. However, on the basis of available evidence and the nature of similar viruses, researchers believe that the virus is zoonotic (animal-borne), with bats being the most likely reservoir. Four of the five subtypes occur in an animal host native to Africa. A great many similar species are probably associated with the Reston virus, the virus that so far seems to attack nonhuman primates rather than human beings. The Reston virus was isolated from infected cynomolgous mokeys that were imported to Italy and the United States from the Philippines. Several workers in both the Philippines and in United States holding facility became infected with the Reston virus. They did not, however, become ill with Ebola. This is being cited as substantiation that the Reston virus appears to cause disease only in nonhuman primates. With the exception of several laboratory contamination cases (one in England and two in Russia), all reported cases of human illness or death appear to have occurred in Africa. 

Ebolavirus

Okay, time to get back to Ebola. If you read my earlier block, you may recall that I received a text message that  read: “You’ve worked as an epidemiologist, right? I need the scoop on this Ebola stuff because it terrifies me!” Fortunately, I’ve never actually seen a case of Ebola—and will be very happy never to do so—although I have spent the majority of my healthcare career in some branch of epidemiology. Because my texter (is that a word?) isn’t the only person wondering about ebolavirus, which is front and center in the news, I’ll devote this week’s blogs to Ebola HF, just one of many viral hemorrhagic fevers. Reportedly first discovered in 1976 near the Ebola River (hence its name) in what is now known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo, it is a severe—often fatal—disease that attacks humans and nonhuman primates. The disease is believed caused by infection with a virus of the family Filoviridae, genus Ebolavirus. There are five identified subspecies, four of which have caused disease in humans and a fifth that so far has caused disease only in nonhuman primates (e.g., monkeys, chimpanzees, and gorillas). 

The five subspecies are:

• Ebola virus (Zaire ebolavirus)
• Sudan virus (Sudan ebolavirus)
• Tai Forest virus (Tai Forest ebolavirus)
• Bundibugyo virus (Bundibugyo ebolavirus), formerly Côte d’Ivoire ebolavirus
• Reston virus (Reston ebolavirus)

More tomorrow.

http://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/

Depression, #4

Depression is one of the mental illnesses most commonly associated with suicide and it affects families around the world. A news special reported that someone in the United States dies by suicide every 13 minutes. When the internal brain pain becomes too much to bear, stopping the pain through suicide may seem like the only option.
You also may enjoy reading an article about the "pain" very bright individuals experience in a culture that doesn't seem to understand them--aside from depression (which can result from not fitting in).

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/acitizenofearth/2014/08/the-other-side-of-poor-robin-williams/?utm_source=SilverpopMailing&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Atheist%2008.14.14%20(1)&utm_content=&spMailingID=46729089&spUserID=ODIwNzY4MTMxNDgS1&spJobID=501757203&spReportId=NTAxNzU3MjAzS0

In this era of the Internet, several websites offer a wealth of information about depression. Just google that word and multiple URLs pop up. Following are three:

http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/depression/index.shtml

http://www.cdc.gov/mentalhealth/basics/mental-illness/depression.htm

http://www.theindychannel.com/news/local-news/recognizing-warning-signs-of-depression

Depression, #3

Historically, depression has been diagnosed more commonly in women than in men. This does not mean necessarily that males actually experience less depression—but they often experience depression differently than women. Since their symptoms and behaviors differ, males may not always recognize themselves (or be recognized by others) as being depressed. People with depressive illnesses do not all experience the same symptoms and the severity, frequency, and duration of symptoms vary depending on the individual and his or her particular illness. While women with depression are more likely to have feelings of sadness, worthlessness, and excessive guilt, men are more likely to be very tired, irritable, lose interest in once-pleasurable activities, and have difficulty sleeping. Substance abuse or dependence may co-exist with depression. Indeed, research shows that mood disorders and substance abuse commonly occur together. More tomorrow.

Depression, #2

Depression is a relatively common and serious condition. It runs through the maternal side of my family and I have watched family members struggle with it for decades. I think of depressive illnesses as disorders of the brain. There is some sense that brain chemicals (neurotransmitters such as serotonin, norepinephrine, and dopamine, for example) are out of balance, but it has been difficult to prove this specifically—no surprise since every brain is different. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has shown that the brains of people with depression look different than those of people without depression; brain areas involved in mood, thinking, sleep, appetite, and behavior appear different, but the brain images cannot reveal the reason depression has occurred. In working with people who were depressed, depression was a risk factor for smoking. Other behaviors such as problems with early onset of drinking or lapses in sobriety, physical inactivity, obesity, and sleep disturbances (to name just a few) were associated with depression, as well. More tomorrow.

Robin Williams and Depression

It seems appropriate to digress from commenting on the Ebolavirus to pause and remember the talent of Robin Williams. Every human brain is different. Once in a while, however, a brain comes along that seems gifted in an amazingly unique way. Robin Williams was one of those brains. Shocked and saddened by his death, more than one person has been quoted in the news as saying: “There will never be another just like him.” No, there won’t. I did not know Robin Williams personally so cannot comment about his specific struggles. I can hope that his untimely death will shine a spotlight on depression and motivate people to discuss it openly and get help personally, as needed. You may recall hearing Robin Williams’ comment from the movie Dead Poets Society: “Seize the day . . .” How poignant that seems now.  How wonderful if we could lighten the sadness of his family. Perhaps just recalling how Robin Williams contributed to laughter around the world is one way. More tomorrow.

Ebola

I received a text message that  read: “You’ve worked as an epidemiologist, right? I need the scoop on this Ebola stuff because it terrifies me!” Fortunately, I’ve never actually seen a case of Ebola—and will be very happy never to do so—although I have spent the majority of my healthcare career in some branch of epidemiology. Because my texter (is that a word?) isn’t the only person wondering about Ebolavirus, which is front and center in the news, I’ll devote this week’s blogs to Ebola HF, just one of many viral hemorrhagic fevers. Reportedly first discovered in 1976 near the Ebola River (hence its name) in what is now known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo, it is a severe—often fatal—disease that attacks humans and nonhuman primates. The disease is believed caused by infection with a virus of the family Filoviridae, genus Ebolavirus. There are five identified subspecies, four of which have caused disease in humans and a fifth that so far has caused disease only in nonhuman primates (e.g., monkeys, chimpanzees, and gorillas). The five subspecies are:

• Ebola virus (Zaire ebolavirus)
• Sudan virus (Sudan ebolavirus)
• Tai Forest virus (Tai Forest ebolavirus)
• Bundibugyo virus (Bundibugyo ebolavirus), formerly Côte d’Ivoire ebolavirus
• Reston virus (Reston ebolavirus)

http://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/

Dieting Danger

Neal Barnard, MD, author of Breaking the Food Seduction points out that the human body naturally gets its energy from carbohydrates (preferably complex carbs). During digestion, the carbs break up into sugar molecules that power the brain and other body organs. High-protein, low-carb diets (including Atkins Diet) operate on the belief that most people eat 50-60 percent of their daily intake as carbs. So if you cut out carbs, your body has no choice but to burn fat. That's true as long as cutting out the carbs results in a decrease in the number of calories ingested per day. On average, the weight-loss results with these diets are about the same as with any other weight-reduction diet (including low-fat, low-calorie, and vegetarian)—about 1 pound per week. For most people, however, the “diet” is tolerable only for so long. Sooner or later most return to their previous eating style and daily caloric intake. And what happens? The lost weight returns and they’re back where they started. The only plan that seems to work long term is to develop healthier eating patterns that lower daily caloric intake by 100-400 calories plus an increase in physical movement—along with a commitment to continue those patterns for the rest of your life.

Creativity Brain Boosts

Would you like to boost your creativity? Jonah Lehrer, who wrote Imagine How Creativity Works, has suggested several ways to increase one's creativity.

1. The color blue, which normally leads to more relaxed moods, increases problem solving of "insight puzzles"

2. People who are groggy perform better at certain types of creative problem solving.

3. Daydreaming is a sign of a creative mind.

4. Laughter, induced by comedy, can raise creativity, which was shown in people trying to solve insight puzzles.

5. When tested for creativity, people who worked directly outside of a cubicle performed better than those who worked inside of it.

6. People who have lived in multiple countries were more likely to perform better on insight puzzles.

If you’d like to practice solving some insight puzzles, check out the following URL. That'll give your brain some fun challenges over the next few days.

http://www.indiana.edu/~bobweb/Handout/d4.ips.htm

Sturm and Drang, 3

The Classical period of music (1750–1800) has been associated with Sturm und Drang. Literature or music was aimed at shocking the audience or imbuing them with extremes of emotion. Sturm and Drang musical compositions, for example, were often predominantly written in a minor key in an attempt to convey difficult or depressing sentiments. Haydn's "Farewell" Symphony, Mozart's Symphony No. 25 (the 'Little' G-minor symphony, 1773), and Johann Christian Bach’s Symphony in G minor op.6 No.6, are often touted as examples. The Sturm und Drang movement reportedly rebelled against all the rules of neoclassicism and the enlightenment and first recognized Shakespeare as a “genius” of dramaturgy. Several playwrights are credited with popularizing the Sturm und Drang movement including, Goethe, Klinger, Lenz, Wagner, and Schiller. It’s a handy phrase to have in one’s literary pocket. When someone is going off through the use of vitriolic language, you might say calmly: “There’s quite a bit of Sturm and Drang in what you say.”

Sturm and Drang, 2

The phrase Sturm and Drang is often translated in English as Storm and Stress. What it is trying to convey? One individual explained it this way: The protagonist (a leading or principal figure or the main character in a drama or other literary work) in a typical Sturm und Drang stage work, poem, or novel is driven to action—often violent action—not by pursuit of noble means nor by true motives, but by revenge and greed. It reminds me of key characteristics of people who have low levels of emotional intelligence and exhibit that in behaviors such as: taking things personally, jumping to conclusions, overreacting, or getting very upset over a relatively small incident, using it as a vehicle to release their often vitriolic emotions about a different incident altogether, one they choose not to address openly. Often the reason is never the reason in these types of emotional conflagrations. So what types of “art” might be categorized as Sturm and Drang? Part 3 tomorrow.

Sturm and Drang, 1

Recently a friend of mine used the term Sturm and Drang. Because I enjoy parts of etymology (the study of where words came from and their earliest known use) I spent some time on the Internet. The term comes from a German movement  from the late 1760s to the early 1780s involving literature and music. It emphasized the volatile emotional life of an individual and although the moement didn’t last very long, it nevertheless made its mark. Friedrich Maximilian Klinger wrote a five-act play (1776) that apparently first used the term in its title. The theme of the play, first performed by Abel Seyler's famed theatrical company in 1777, involves the unfolding of the American Revolution, the author giving violent expression to difficult emotions and extolling individuality and subjectivity over the prevailing order of rationalism. While it can be argued that literature and music associated with Sturm und Drang predate Klinger’s play, it was from this point that German artists reportedly became distinctly self-conscious of a new aesthetic. What does the term Sturm and Drang mean? Part 2 tomorrow.

Brains and Pedophilic Behaviors, 3

Studies into the cognitive wiring of sex offenders have long been a source of debate. Recent research led by Jorge Ponseti at the University of Kiel in Germany, however, offers some fairly conclusive proof that there is a neural pattern behind pedophilic behaviors. According to the paper, published in ‘Biology Letters,’ the human brain contains networks that are tuned to face processing, and these networks appear to activate different processing streams of the reproductive domain selectively: nurturing processing in the case of child faces and sexual processing in the case of sexually preferred adult faces. This implies that the brain extracts age-related face cues of the preferred sex that inform appropriate response selection in the reproductive domains: nurturing in the case of child faces and mating in the case of adult faces. Ponseti said that he hoped to investigate this area further by examining whether findings could be emulated when images of children’s faces are the only ones used. This could lead to gauging a person’s predisposition to pedophilia far more simply than any means currently in place. “We could start to look at the onset of pedophilia, which is probably in puberty at about 12 or 14 years [old],” he said. Following the horrors of the Sandusky scandal and the endless conveyor belt of children kidnapped as sex slaves, finding the root of the problem and stopping it in any way possible has never been more important.

Human face processing is tuned to sexual age preferences Biol. Lett. May, 2014 10 5 20140200; doi:10.1098/rsbl.2014.0200 1744-957X    Access requires subscription to Biology Letters.