Lifeboat Foundation

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

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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.

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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

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My guest tomorrow on Womens Radio Station at 1pm is Dr Ian Hale. Author of ‘Asperger’s Autism & You’

www.womensradiostation.com

Hale, Ian] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Asperger’s, Autism & You.

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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.

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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%.

“Identification of these compounds means that we are one step closer to being able to molecularly diagnose dementia,” said senior author of the study, Professor Mitsuhiro Yanagida, who leads the G0 Cell Unit at OIST.

Summary: Researchers identified 33 metabolic compounds in blood samples that differed between those with dementia and cognitively healthy older adults. 7 of the metabolites were elevated in dementia patients, while 26 were at lower levels compared to samples of those without dementia. Elevating levels of those metabolites could have a neuroprotective effect against dementia.

Source: OIST

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