Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Category: neuroscience

Cognitive biases have been studied for decades by academics in the fields of cognitive science, social psychology, and behavioural economics.

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The human brain is capable of incredible things, but it’s also extremely flawed at times.

Science has shown that we tend to make all sorts of mental mistakes, called “cognitive biases”, that can affect both our thinking and actions. These biases can lead to us extrapolating information from the wrong sources, seeking to confirm existing beliefs, or failing to remember events the way they actually happened!

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Citicoline, a drug that is naturally found in the body, is commonly used to treat a number of brain injuries and illnesses. For quite some time, doctors have prescribed it for strokes, vascular dementia, Parkinson’s disease, and general aging of the brain. Patients usually see improvement when taking the drug because the body uses it to create and repair cell membranes and lower the presence of free radicals, as noted in the Clinical Interventions in Aging Journal. (Free radicals, which are unstable molecules, can damage cells in the body and are associated with aging and illness.)

Now, researchers from the NYU Grossman School of Medicine have found evidence that citicoline can also be used to treat glaucoma. Normally, glaucoma is treated by removing fluid buildup in the eye, which creates pressure and wears down the cells in the eye and the nerves connecting to the brain. Though monitoring fluid buildup is important, glaucoma can still worsen after the pressure on the eye has been relieved.

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Because the herpesvirus sits in neurons forever, there is speculation it is connected to neurodegenerative diseases. The immune system requires inflammation to constantly fight off the virus, and neurons have some degree of damage because of this continuous immune response, according to Dr. Tibor Valyi-Nagy, professor of pathology, director of neuropathology at UIC and research collaborator on the study.

Summary: Researchers discovered mutations of the OPTN gene resulted in increased herpesvirus 1 growth in the brains of mice, leading to the death of local neurons. This resulted in accelerated neurodegeneration. OPTN deficiency was also associated with impairments in immune response. While these findings are specific to the HSV-1 virus, researchers believe the findings may apply to up to eight herpesvirus infections.

Source: University of Illinois at Chicago

A new study by researchers at University of Illinois Chicago suggests that when the protein optineurin, or OPTN, is present in cells it restricts the spread of HSV-1, the herpes simplex virus type 1.

In a “first of its kind” study, researchers also found a potential direct connection between neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), glaucoma, and the herpesvirus, said Dr. Deepak Shukla, the Marion H. Schenk Esq. Professor in Ophthalmology for Research of the Aging Eye, and vice chair for research at UIC.

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Britain’s young teens will be vaccinated — but with a single dose.

London: Britain’s chief medical officers have said that vaccinating young teenagers against COVID-19 is justified when their mental health and education are taken into account.

Minors aged between 12 and 15 in England will be offered just a single dose of Pfizer or Moderna beginning next week, with more research ordered into whether a second dose should be given, as is currently administered to those aged 16 and above.

The decision by the CMOs brings the UK partly into line with countries like Australia, the United States, Israel and many European nations including France, which are already offering the jab to minors.

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Anna’s guest at Women’s Radio was Dr Ian C E Hale I’m an Autistic person. It’s an indivisible part of who I am as an individual.

Annas guest at Women’s Radio was Dr Ian C E Hale ‘All things Autism will be aired at 1pm and 1am every day this week. Please see www.womensradiostation.com

Dr Ian C E Hale shared:

To be clear … it’s important to put my book and other work into context by knowing a little of their origins. I’m an Autistic person. It’s an indivisible part of who I am as an individual; it informs, goads and limits every thought and act of my life-but I refuse to let it define me. I’m a sportsman, poet, photographer, medical scientist and more-but first and foremost, a human being, with the same fears, hopes, weaknesses and feelings as everyone else.

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How does consciousness arise? What might its relationship to matter be? And why are some things conscious while others apparently aren’t? These sorts of questions, taken together, make up what’s called the “hard problem” of consciousness, coined some years ago by the philosopher David Chalmers. There is no widely accepted solution to this. But, fortunately, we can break the problem down: If we can tackle what you might call the easy part of the hard problem, then we might make some progress in solving the remaining hard part.

This is what I’ve been up to in recent years with my partner in crime, Jonathan Schooler, a psychologist at U.C. Santa Barbara. Since I came up in philosophy, rather than neuroscience or psychology, for me the easy part was deciding the philosophical orientation. Schooler and I duked it out over whether we should adopt a materialist, idealist, panpsychist, or some other position on our way to a complete answer. I am, as I’ve written in Nautilus before, a card-carrying panpsychist, inspired by Alfred North Whitehead, David Ray Griffin, David Skrbina, William Seager, and Chalmers. Panpsychism suggests that all matter has some associated mind/consciousness and vice versa. Where there is mind there is matter, where there is matter there is mind. They go together like inside and outside. But for Jonathan, this was far too glib. He felt strongly that this was actually the hard part of the problem. Since he’s the Distinguished Professor and I’m not, we decided to call this philosophical positioning the hard part of the hard problem.

Consciousness is a snapshot of time.

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Also, consider that some people with medical conditions may not be comfortable making eye contact.

“In the past, it has been assumed that eye contact creates synchrony, but our findings suggest that it’s not that simple,” says senior author Thalia Wheatley, a professor of psychological and brain sciences at Dartmouth, and principal investigator of the Dartmouth Social Systems Laboratory.

Summary: Study reveals a correlation between instances of eye contact and higher levels of engagement during conversations.

Source: Dartmouth College

Making eye contact repeatedly when you’re talking to someone is common, but why do we do it? When two people are having a conversation, eye contact occurs during moments of “shared attention” when both people are engaged, with their pupils dilating in synchrony as a result, according to a Dartmouth study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“Eye contact is really immersive and powerful,” says lead author Sophie Wohltjen, a graduate student in psychological and brain sciences at Dartmouth.

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A bitter divorce battle in Russia has led to cryogenically frozen bodies being seized in an extraordinary day-time raid.

Staff of a company set up by Valeria Udalova, 59 grabbed the remains of people — including from Britain and the US — who paid thousands of pounds hoping to be brought back to life when science advances to allow this.

She and her team raided the company run by her ex-husband Danila Medvedev, 41 near Moscow, which is home to Russia’s leading cryo-storage facility, say reports.

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Hyperbaric oxygen therapy improved cerebral blood flow by up to 23%, alleviating vascular dysfunction and amyloid burden in elderly patients. The treatment also improved memory by 16.5%.

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