Ilchi Lee

Recent study shows the brain can reroute itself around injuries
The only destination that cannot be reached with a detour is a dead end. For years, scientists considered many crippling injuries just that—hopeless causes held hostage by a pre-wired brain.

However, a recent study on mice conducted at the University of California in Los Angeles showed, for the first time, that the central nervous system can rewire itself in response to injury.

In an interview with AFP, a Paris-based media outlet, research director Michael Sofroniew compared the brain’s ability to reorganize around injury as a detour. Or, in his words, “when there is a traffic accident on the freeway, [drivers] take shorter surface streets.”

He credits the short nerves of the spinal cord, propriospinal connections, for setting up “the alternate routes.”

Like most detours, propriospinal connections are slower than those that run through the long nerves. But Sofroniew pointed out that detours still get you where you want to go and that the results of the study offer scientists new hopes for developing more advanced and effective treatments for spinal injuries.

For the hundreds of thousands of people with spinal injuries, the detour has already begun. The fact that there is evidence that it might just lead somewhere is added reason for hope.

5 steps to a healthier you

Getting healthy, physically and mentally, includes but is not limited to a healthy diet and exercise. Did you know that sleeping, challenging your brain and reducing stress are also necessary in building the healthiest you possible? <

Together, they make up the five building blocks of a healthy you.

1.Healthy diet – Antioxidants, choline, omega 3 fatty acids, whole grains and plenty of water are all essential components in your daily meals. For the best mental results, start your day off with a balanced breakfast. Studies have shown that skipping this meal has a negative effect on your performance at school or work.

2.Sleep ­­– Seven to eight hours of uninterrupted sleep each night is recommended. Less than this and your problem-solving, concentration, working memory and learning abilities are all diminshed

3.Exercise – Regular exercise for 30 minutes at least three times a week can increase your mental abilities as well as keep you physically fit. Studies show that when you exercise, new brain cells are created.

4.Challenge your brain – Give your brain a mental workout. Many studies have shown that reading, doing crossword puzzles, playing games and engaging in new activities develop neural pathways that make your brain more versatile, reducing your risk for dementia.

5.Reduce stress – Everyone experiences stress. When we are under stress, a hormone called cortisol is produced. Too much cortisol can wear down the hippocampus, which plays a role in our memory function. An easy way to reduce stress is exercise. Walking, meditation and yoga are low-impact, high results exercises you don’t need a gym membership to engage in.

Big changes are often the result of small actions. Do each of these things today. You’ll thank yourself tomorrow.

Brain boosting or hangover inducing

The verdict is in—red wine has many health benefits. In fact, one or two glasses of red wine a day may even improve your memory.

Red wine contains flavanols, which help sharpen the brain and increase short-term cognitive thinking by improving blood flow. In moderation, flavanols can lower a person’s risk of developing dementia.

A study led by Dr. Sylvain Dore of Johns Hopkins University showed that after having induced a stroke-like damage in mice, the mice treated with a red grape compound experienced 40 percent less brain damage than the untreated mice. Dore’s team concluded that the compound found in red grape skin and red wine, resveratrol, can increase brain levels of the enzyme responsible for protecting nerve cells from damage.

“Red wine has been suggested for the heart,” Dore said. “Here what we show is its special effect in stroke and pretreatment.”

In fact, men who drink two five-ounce glasses of red wine a day and women who consume one glass a day exhibit cardiovascular benefits that can lead to a decreased chance for stroke and increased longevity.

The key is moderation—a few glasses of red wine a week. Too much, and you might find yourself waking up with a headache and dry mouth. Too much, too often, and you could be on your way toward a serious health problem.

Finding the beauty in life’s challenges can move you closer to your goals

Stretching along the coast of southern Oregon to central California, the coastal redwoods are among the world’s largest living objects. They can grow to a height of more than 300 feet…in just a couple of hundred years. Chances are, you’re impressed by everything but their growth cycle.

Two hundred years is a long time. As humans, with technology at our fingertips, we’re able to accomplish what once seemed impossible in minutes. However, the determination of who we are—the goals we set for ourselves and the achievements that help define us—is often not so easy.

Ilchi Lee, originator of Brain Education System Training (BEST) and author of Principles of Brain Management and the forthcoming In Full Bloom: A Brain Education Guide for Successful Aging, writes: “No matter how enthusiastic and confident you are about the attainment of your dreams, difficulties will arise.” It is acknowledging and persevering through these difficulties, Lee suggests, that makes life beautiful. For those who dream big, Lee offers the following exercise for “Counting Your Other Blessings.”

From Ilchi Lee (Excerpted from Principles of Brain Management)

You have probably been told at some time in your life to count your blessings. But have you considered that everything in your life is a blessing? Think of a difficult period in your life that has passed or a giant obstacle you have overcome. Consider how that event was a blessing to you.

Music can help you pay attention

The cocktail party effect is not, as its name suggests, the term used to describe alcohol-induced lack of judgment. Rather, to the contrary, it is the term used to describe the auditory phenomenon by which we are able to focus on one conversation in a room full of conversations.

According to a research team from Stanford University’s School of Medicine, hints at the cause of the cocktail effect may lie in the music of eighteenth-century composer William Boyce. Brain images of people that listened to Boyce’s short symphonies showed that the music engaged two areas of the brain: the area that helps us pay attention and the area that allows us to make predictions and update events in our memory. However, when the music stopped, the brain did not.

The study examined the process of event segmentation, using eight symphonies with well-defined transitions between short movements—transitions spanning only a few seconds. According to the researchers, the brain used the short breaks to update working memories.

“Music engages the brain over a period of time, and the process of listening to music could be a way that the brain sharpens its ability to anticipate events and sustain attention,” stated Jonathan Berger, PhD, associate professor of music and co-author of the study.

Just don’t listen to the music too loud. The next time you’re in a crowded room you want to make sure you can actually hear what your brain is allowing you to pay attention to.

Why it makes your head spin

The optical illusion here is from coolopticalillusions.com. When you look at it, what do you see? Rotating spirals?

This is called an illusory movement or a peripheral drift illusion. It occurs by creating a repeating pattern, called sawtooth luminance gradients, which are used to create a movement sensation as your eyes move around the periphery of the image. If you were to keep your eyes focused at the center point of one of the spirals, it will remain fixed in its position.

The effect was first written about by Jocelyn Faubert and Andrew M. Herbert in their 1998 paper, “The peripheral drift illusion: A motion illusion in the visual periphery.” They assert that the primary cause of the effect is luminance, or the amount of light that can be seen by the eye based upon the angle of view. In this case, movement of the eyes shifts the brightness of the colors, which then results in the perception of a moving image. This effect is enhanced by the strong contrast between the black, yellow and blue rectangles.

These two elements, luminance and contrast, cause temporal differences that trick the brain’s motion system. So it’s really not your head that’s spinning; it’s your brain.

Exercise can treat depression

“Exercise is the easiest and least expensive cure for depression,” offers noted psychotherapist and media personality Barton Goldsmith. “Just walking 30 minutes a day will help you.”

Some experts suggest exercise may improve mental health by helping the brain cope with stress, while others believe that it is the release of chemicals linked to the brain’s mood control center during exercise. Whichever way you look at it, the outcome is the same—improved mental health.

Jim Blumenthal of Duke University conducted a study on patients with major depressive disorder by placing them in one of three groups: medication, exercise or a combination of medication and exercise. After four months, patients in each of the three groups showed improvement.

Another study from the University of Texas Southwest Medical Center at Dallas showed that 30 minutes of exercise three to five days a week cut down the incidence of depressive symptoms by nearly 50 percent. “The effect you find using aerobic exercise alone in treating clinical depression is similar to what you find with antidepressant medications,” said Dr. Madhukar Trivedi, professor of psychiatry and director of the school’s Mood Disorders Research Program.

So the next time you’re feeling blue, try taking a walk. It’s a quick-acting, side-effect-free prescription for feeling better.

Catching enough zzz’s is an exercise in cognitive restoration

You’ve heard the expression: “why don’t you sleep on it.” According to Michael Strykers, a research professor at the University of California-San Francisco, there’s some merit to this figure of speech that suggests that while we rest, our minds work.

“If you reviewed your notes and then slept,” Strykers said, “you’d achieve as much plasticity, or ‘learning,’ in the brain as if you’d pulled an all-nighter.”

Many studies, like Strykers’ study of cats, suggest that getting a good night’s sleep, at least seven to eight hours, can do wonders for our brains. While scientists struggle to pinpoint the exact reason why, they generally agree that when we sleep our brain engages in two activities:

1)Repairing neurons.
2)Processing and reorganizing information and memories.

We can even find answers to problems in our sleep, which explains why we sometimes wake up with a solution to a problem that wrenched our mind the previous day.

If we don’t get enough sleep, the neurons in the brain begin to break down and our cognitive abilities are lowered. This leads to impaired memory, increased mood swings, lowered performance and a general lack of concentration.

The average person spends up to one-third of her or his life sleeping. Without sleep, we would die. Yet no one really knows why. Apparently it’s something we need to “sleep on” a little more.

Can brain scans predict voting behavior?

In the days leading up to last month’s New Hampshire Democratic Primary, scores of political analyst and media pundits forecasted a resounding victory for presidential candidate Barack Obama. He was fresh off his win in Iowa, his speeches were stirring and opinion polls clearly tilted in his favor.

Even his rival, Hillary Clinton, conceded, stating that a close second would still be a victory.

Then the votes were counted. To everybody’s surprise, Clinton came out on top. The reason, analysts agreed, was that Clinton’s supporters remained unswayed as they cast their ballots on primary day. Big change, as Obama promises, just didn’t appeal to them.

According to researchers, the result might have been more predictable than forecasted. In a study conducted by David Amodio of New York University, the brain scans of liberal and conservative voters were conducted while they performed a simple push-button test. Results showed that there is a marked difference in the brain activity between conservatives and liberals.

In general, the greatest difference was between extreme conservatives and extreme liberals. Based on the scans, liberals exhibited twice as much activity in the anterior cingular cortex, the portion of the brain that refrains people from following habitual actions when presented with conflicting stimuli.

Does this mean that Republicans are stubborn and Democrats adjust better to change? Not really. The benefits of either way of thinking are situational. It just means that our political beliefs may be more hard-wired than we realize and that perhaps the outcomes of elections might be about pushing buttons after all—just not the figurative buttons of opposing candidates.