Saturday News

Contents of This Week: Saturday News ▶︎ March 26th / 2016

• Definition: Environmental Enrichment (Neural)

Environmental enrichment is the stimulation of the brain by its physical and social surroundings. Brains in richer, more stimulating environments have higher rates of synaptogenesis and more complex dendrite arbors, leading to increased brain activity. This effect takes place primarily during neurodevelopment, but also during adulthood to a lesser degree. With extra synapses there is also increased synapse activity, leading to an increased size and number of glial energy-support cells. Environmental enrichment also enhances capillary vasculation, providing the neurons and glial cells with extra energy. The neuropil (neurons, glial cells, capillaries, combined together) expands, thickening the cortex. Research on rodent brains suggests that environmental enrichment may also lead to an increased rate of neurogenesis. A longer definition comes from Wikipedia. 

• Video: Environmental Enrichment (Neural)
• How Does an Enriched Environment Affect the Brain?
• Melbourne Conversations: Your Brain - How it can Change, Develop and Improve
• Environmental Design at ArtCenter College of Design
• Environmental Enrichment Rescues Precocious Critical Period
• DIY: Easy Environmental Enrichment for Dogs
• Chimpanzees - Environmental Enrichment
• Environmental Enrichment

• Headline Blog: Environmental Enrichment (Neural)
• BDNF
• How to Change Your Own Mind, Literally
• Neurogenesis (#2)
• Brain Plasticity Will Blow Your Mind
• Enriched Environments Help Recovery After Stroke
• I Did WHAT?
• Mentors can be Friends to Man and his Best Friend
• [Guest Article] You are What you Choose to Be
• Resonance
• Could Your Brain Repair Itself? - Ralitsa Petrova

• Weekly Columnists
• Musing: Neurogenesis and Inflammation After Ischemic Stroke: What is Known and Where we go from Here
• Sunday Stroke Survival: What You See...
• Caregiver: Q & A
• Jester: The Old Rancher
• TED Talks - Meron Gribetz: A Glimpse of the Future Through an Augmented Reality Headset
• Laid-Back Admin: Stop SSTattler, Why?, and a Bit History

• Eclectic Stuff on Wednesday
• Strokversary Six
• 50 Shades of Possible Changes
• Swallowing, a Simple Thing You Take for Granted
• 9 Things I Must Do to Be Independent in Driving
• Managing Blood Pressure - Lowering Those Numbers
• Going Backwards
• Rick Mercer Report: Snow Plows & Daylight Saving Time
• XKCD: A Hypochondriac's Nightmare

• Future Topics in SSTattler

     Saturday News | Future Topic
     --------------+---------------------------------------------

     Apr/09/2016   | Weekly Index from Jan/01/2011 to Apr/2016/02
     Apr/02/2016   | Mixed Transcortical Aphasia

Definition: Environmental Enrichment (Neural)

Environmental Enrichment (Neural)
            From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

SSTattler: See as well Jan/30/2016 Neuroregeneration.

A rodent is not stimulated by the environment in a wire cage,
and this affects its brain negatively,
particularly the complexity of its synaptic connections.

Environmental enrichment is the stimulation of the brain by its physical and social surroundings. Brains in richer, more stimulating environments have higher rates of synaptogenesis and more complex dendrite arbors, leading to increased brain activity. This effect takes place primarily during neurodevelopment, but also during adulthood to a lesser degree. With extra synapses there is also increased synapse activity, leading to an increased size and number of glial energy-support cells. Environmental enrichment also enhances capillary vasculation, providing the neurons and glial cells with extra energy. The neuropil (neurons, glial cells, capillaries, combined together) expands, thickening the cortex. Research on rodent brains suggests that environmental enrichment may also lead to an increased rate of neurogenesis.

Research on animals finds that environmental enrichment could aid the treatment and recovery of numerous brain-related dysfunctions, including Alzheimer's disease and those connected to aging, whereas a lack of stimulation might impair cognitive development. Moreover, this research also suggests that environmental enrichment leads to a greater level of cognitive reserve, the brain's resilience to the effects of conditions such as aging and dementia.

Video: Environmental Enrichment (Neural)

SSTattler: Environmental Enrichment for people - I found a few (exactly 3 YouTube so far) but human are difficult test in the laboratory...!?! Lots of Environmental Enrichment for mice, rats, chimpanzee, dogs, cats,... on YouTube.

How Does an Enriched Environment Affect the Brain?

Published on Jul 24, 2015

By Wendy Suzuki - Wendy received her undergraduate degree from U.C. Berkeley in the Department of Physiology/Anatomy and her Ph.D. in Neuroscience from U.C. San Diego. She completed a post-doctoral fellowship at the National Institutes of Health before starting her faculty position in the Center for Neural Science at New York University in 1998.

Her research focuses on two main questions. First, she is interested in understanding how our brains allow us to learn and retain new long-term memories for facts and events, called “declarative” memory. Second, she is interested in understanding whether exercise can actually make you smarter. To address this latter question she examines how increased aerobic activity modulates the brain basis of learning memory and cognition.

Wendy is a recipient of numerous grants and awards for her research including the Lindsley Prize from the Society for Neuroscience, the prestigious Troland Research award from the National Academy of Sciences and NYU’s Golden Dozen Teaching award. She is also a popular lecturer at both the graduate and undergraduate levels. In addition to research and teaching she is also passionate about supporting women in science.She has teamed with Gaby Jordan, President of the Education Division of the Handel Group to found an organization called “Empowering Women in Science” that is currently running leadership training seminars for students and faculty at universities around the country. Wendy has also been featured in Anne Leibovitz’s photographic essay book entitled “Women”

DESCRIPTION

Wendy Suzuki provides examples of how new brain cells form as the result of an enriched environment. She tells the story of her student year abroad in France and talks about how immersion in a different culture, or even new cuisine can affect the brain in a positive way.

Subscribe for more SarderTV: http://bit.ly/1osk5yg
Follow our Official Twitter: http://bit.ly/1tIwTzK


Standard YouTube License @ Russell Sarder

Headline Blog: Environmental Enrichment (Neural)

Definition: Blog (noun). Add new material to or regularly update to a blog. (≃1990s: blog shortening of weblog)

BDNF

Amy Shissler
My Cerebellar Stroke Recovery

May 15, 2013

I had never heard of this and didn’t know what the hell it was until I took a course taught by Peter G. Levine. BDNF stands for brain-derived neurotrophic factor. That’s a really long name for a protein. BDNF is a protein that is produced by the brain. It helps neurogenesis – it makes new brain cells. New brain cells = neuroplasticity. Neuroplasticity is the rewiring of the brain. BDNF has been referred to as Miracle-Gro for the brain. So we want it. Stroke survivors want a lot of it. Exercise stimulates its secretion. So the moral of the story is…..workout……a lot. Here, read this.

See the original article:

BDNF

in

My Cerebellar Stroke Recovery

How to Change Your Own Mind, Literally

Sep 15, 2013

SSTattler: Re-published February 13, 2016 How to Change Your Own Mind, Literally.

"You can't be too skinny or too rich," said my old college buddy back in the 60s. But now you know the truth. Skinniness sometimes is related to anorexia or bulimia. And you've heard stories about the deaths of lottery winners who blew their money on drugs or died from being poisoned. My friend got it wrong. She should have said, "You can't be too brainy."

The brain controls everything, like our emotional outbursts to pain, our nervous eating, our ability to pee regularly, our resistance to confront people, our neurotic tastes. But what was thought prior to the 1970s--that the brain was fixed and couldn't be changed after early childhood--was wrong. The brain can process new experiences, like having a stroke, by creating neural pathways to accommodate them. Welcome to neuroplasticity, the game changer.




There are four key truths about neuroplasticity:

1. Neuroplasticity is ongoing throughout life and involves brain cells and neurons.
2. Neuroplasticity can happen for two distinct reasons--as a result of learning, experience, and memory or as a result of brain damage.
3. Neuroplasticity can vary by age, and while plasticity occurs throughout life, certain types of changes are more predominant.
4. Neuroplasticity and environment, both together, play an essential role in the process.

Neurogenesis (#2)

Richard (Dick) L. Burns
Live or Die: A Stroke of Good Luck

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

It was long thought that we were born with as many brain cells as we'll ever have.  The brain never regenerates itself, regrows and replaces dead ones after injury or stroke.

My book, "Live or Die - A Stroke of Good Luck" tells why this is not true, that brain cells regenerate, new cells actually grow and replace dead ones.  And, if this were not true, I wouldn't be alive, functioning, learning  to play a new sport, writng a book.

Read all about this in the new Winter Edition of "StrokeSmart," Magazine published andf distributed nationally by the National Stroke Association.

More on the medical studies, doctors, scientists, countries to come.

See the original article:

Neurogenesis (#2)

in

Live or Die: A Stroke of Good Luck

Brain Plasticity Will Blow Your Mind

Rebecca Dutton
Home After a Stroke

February 6, 2013

SSTattler: Re-published January 30, 2016 Brain Plasticity Will Blow Your Mind.

New research on brain plasticity will blow your mind.  One amazing finding is that new stem cells are produced in the lateral ventricles of the adult brain (1).  What is even more amazing is how these stem cells migrate from the back of the brain to the olfactory bulb in the front of the brain (2).  Using time lapse imaging scientists have been able to watch stem cells latch onto a blood vessel highway and drag themselves to their destination.  First, brain chemicals push stem cells away from their birth place.  Additional chemicals stop the stem cells from getting off track along the way.  As the cells approach their destination more chemicals pull them in the right direction.

Equally amazing is the fact that new stem cells are produced in the hippocampus that controls memory (2).  Since learning is life-long, it is hard to believe that neuroscientists used to believe that remembering everything we learn can be crammed into the memory cells we were born with.  The adult brain grows thousands of new stem cells in the hippocampus every day (3).  Diffusion tensor imaging allowed scientists to see significant microstructure changes in the hippocampus after two hours of training (4).

Enriched Environments Help Recovery After Stroke

Peter G. Levine
Stronger After Stroke

Friday, February 12, 2016

SSTattler: Re-published February 24, 2016 Enriched Environments Help Recovery After Stroke.

Remember: SHE
Social interaction
Hands
Exercise

What is an enriched environment (EE)?

An EE is something that forces you to learn. Forced to learn. You have to be forced to learn. Learning can be forced by everything from curiosity to circumstance.

In fact, the brain will not learn (change) unless its forced. Why would your brain change if it is comfortable? What if the brain changes while you're comfortable? It may change to the point where you are no longer comfortable.

And a lack of comfort is icky.

I Did WHAT?

Barb Polan
Barb's Recovery

Posted 11th March 2013

Let’s do the math: In the stroke community, one topic is about how many repetitions are required to result in rewiring our brain to communicate with a distant muscle no longer connected to its original boss in our brain. We exercise aerobically to optimize neurogenesis, and we try repeatedly to perform the feat we want to accomplish. How many times do we have to repeat it? Two weeks ago, I had the thrilling success of using my left biceps femoris, semitendinosus, and semimembranosus muscles (a.k.a. hamstring) for the first time post-stroke. Out of curiosity, I decided to answer the “how many repetitions does it take?” question: In addition to all the muscle-specific exercises demanded of me by my therapists over the years and many uses of the hamstring Nautilus equipment at the Y, along with attempting to raise my knee (and use my hamstring) every step up on stairs, plus electrical stimulation, and taking nearly-daily walks – all performed over a span of the 3.5 years since having a stroke – I have also WALKED. By that I mean daily incidental walking (incidental to life, with at least a short walk). When I got my new Bioness, I turned in my “trial” unit and it turned out to have saved all my daily walking data, which ranged from a low of 2,500 to a high of 5,000 or 6,000; that’s at the very least an average of 2,000. Although a person with a proper gait is advised to walk at least 10,000 steps/day, I don’t think 2,000 for me is shoddy. I have done that every day for 3.5 years. 365 x 3.5 x 2,000 = 2,555,000. That is two-and-a-half MILLION attempts to use my hamstring. A daunting number, but it works out to about 170 attempts per hour for a 12-hour day ( 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.) or 3 times/minute during everyday life, which doesn’t seem too hard to do. Got to focus on these fingers.

See the original article:

I Did WHAT?

in

Barb's Recovery

Mentors can be Friends to Man and his Best Friend

Mark A. Ittleman
The Teaching of Talking

March 4, 2015

My Friend and Mentor
Armando Cruz
(My dog Jackie’s friend also!)

A few months ago I wrote an article about clients and patients of speech language pathologists, and how I considered most of those I work with as “friends.” There was some flack from other speech language pathologists in the field, but it was soon quelled as I defined what a friend to me, was. As stated then, Webster defines a friend as a person whom you like and enjoy being with; a person who helps or supports someone or something; one attached to another by affection or esteem.

This article is different. Mentors are those who communicate with you. They share information, they teach, advise, and express events of their lives that may help those with whom they speak. The Mentor I wish to write about today is a man of varied talents, and one who manages people. He is a physicist, salesman, corporate sales manager, husband, father, RVer, patron of the cinema, and just a friendly guy! He is very likable; even canines like him. He always has a pocket full of dog treats, even when he is wearing formal work attire!

[Guest Article] You are What you Choose to Be

Pamela Hsieh
StrokedUP

24 May, 2012

Debbie is Pamela’s personal trainer.

Ever since I was a young girl I always did my absolute best at everything I did.  Some may say I was a “perfectionist,” but I simply call it “driven.”  Whenever I committed to doing anything, whether it was winning the social studies fair, getting the solo in the high school dance show, graduating college with honors, or getting promoted to a management position, I never let any environmental or life circumstance hinder my ability to succeed.  Don’t get me wrong, I certainly had obstacles and worked hard to achieve all of these things, but I never made an excuse as to why I couldn’t do any of these things.  I chose who I wanted to be and continue to make these choices every day. Some of you may think this is not that easy and we all don’t have control over life but the bottom line is — we do.

As a certified personal trainer, one of my favorite things I tell all my clients is, “It’s not easy, but it is simple.” This could not be truer. So many times I hear clients say they “can’t work out” or “can’t find time” to work out or make healthy food choices and all I hear in my head is “I choose not to work out or eat healthy.” This is the truth.  Time is not found, it is made.  I mentioned before that I had obstacles that attempted to get in my way when working towards certain goals in life.  For example, I was diagnosed with type I diabetes when I was six years old.  I could have easily used this as an excuse as to why I couldn’t handle a four-hour dance rehearsal or ever have a profession as a personal trainer.  I figured a personal trainer had to be in “perfect health,” rather than plagued by a chronic disease usually characterized by obesity and poor health habits.  Instead, I chose to use this as a tool for my success.  What better way to help prevent others from becoming diabetic due to obesity than to help change others’ lives for the better with a detailed understanding of eating healthy and exercising to manage their health?  As a result, I chose to make personal training my career.  This was one of the best decisions I ever made.

Resonance

Steven H. Cornelius
Music and Stroke

Posted on March 19, 2012

Music psychologist Eric Clarke takes an “ecological approach to perception.” He writes that, “Perception is a self-tuning process” in search of resonance, and that resonance is a “perceiving organism’s active, exploratory engagement with its environment” (Ways of Listening: An Ecological Approach to the Perception of Musical Meaning 2005:17-19). For him, strategies for achieving resonance are necessarily adaptive, influenced by both our physical and cultural environments.

I am sympathetic with Clarke’s ecological framework and the idea of achieving emotional/social resonance (or proper “fit”) through environmental engagement. But I would have been much more comfortable with his ideas had he put thinking at the front of his argument, although he perhaps includes thinking as a part of perception. (We do perceive our thinking, after all.)

Clarke writes, “We detect a sound and turn to it.”

Could Your Brain Repair Itself? - Ralitsa Petrova

TEDEducation

Published on Apr 27, 2015

Imagine the brain could reboot, updating its damaged cells with new, improved units. That may sound like science fiction — but it’s a potential reality scientists are investigating right now. Ralitsa Petrova details the science behind neurogenesis and explains how we might harness it to reverse diseases like Stroke, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.

Lesson by Ralitsa Petrova, animation by Artrake Studio.


Standard YouTube License @ TED-Ed

Weekly Columnists

Definition: Columnist |ˈkäləmnist| (noun). A blogger or a journalist contributing regularly to a blog or newspaper

Musing: Neurogenesis and Inflammation After Ischemic Stroke: What is Known and Where we go from Here

Dean Reinke
Dean's Stroke Musing

Tuesday, August 5, 2014

What the hell is your doctor doing for their future stroke patients based upon this article?

Neurogenesis and Inflammation After Ischemic Stroke: What is Known and Where we go from Here

Matthew K Tobin, Jacqueline A Bonds, Richard D Minshall, Dale A Pelligrino, Fernando D Testai and Orly Lazarov

Abstract

This review covers the pathogenesis of ischemic stroke and future directions regarding therapeutic options after injury. Ischemic stroke is a devastating disease process affecting millions of people worldwide every year. The mechanisms underlying the pathophysiology of stroke are not fully understood but there is increasing evidence demonstrating the contribution of inflammation to the drastic changes after cerebral ischemia. This inflammation not only immediately affects the infarcted tissue but also causes long-term damage in the ischemic penumbra. Furthermore, the interaction between inflammation and subsequent neurogenesis is not well understood but the close relationship between these two processes has garnered significant interest in the last decade or so. Current approved therapy for stroke involving pharmacological thrombolysis is limited in its efficacy and new treatment strategies need to be investigated. Research aimed at new therapies is largely about transplantation of neural stem cells and using endogenous progenitor cells to promote brain repair. By understanding the interaction between inflammation and neurogenesis, new potential therapies could be developed to further establish brain repair mechanisms.

To read this article in full you may need to log in, make a payment or gain access through a site license.

See the original article:

Neurogenesis and Inflammation After Ischemic Stroke: What is Known and Where we go from Here

in

Dean's Stroke Musing

Sunday Stroke Survival: What You See...

Jo Murphey
The Murphey Saga

Sunday, March 20, 2016

Credit

Ever hear, you are a product of your environment? When learning how to write, you are told show don't tell. It's basically the same thing. When you involve the senses everything in a person is touched along the neural network to the brain.

The setting of the surroundings have a positive or negative impact on the results you want to achieve. The same is true for stroke or brain injury survivors. Are you surprised?

With my youngest daughter, TBI survivor, too much stimulus would cause her to have a multifocal seizure, but if she could get to her "quiet room," a sensory deprivation closet, she could definitely reduce the effects of the seizure activity into a less violent one. We built one in our home in a walk in closet. It was padded with a sound barrier foam on the walls and ceiling, and painted black. Yes, it sounds extreme, but if you ever witnessed how bad her seizures were on her and those around her, you'd understand. She once threw off three grown men during one such attack who were trying to restrain her. She's awoken in the morning black and blue from seizures in her sleep. She actually fractured her wrist one night.

I'd read where this could happen, so we were prepared. I didn't fully understand it until I had my stroke. I would go into sensory overload if more than two people were talking to me or around me at once. My brain just couldn't hack it. I would close my eyes and fend sleep just so they would all go away. Thankfully, these effects have diminished now that the initial damage to my brain has been reached.

Caregiver: Q & A

Diane
The Pink House On The Corner

Sunday, March 20, 2016

I recently received an e-mail from a family friend & blog reader asking me some questions that were on his mind and I thought, instead of a personal reply, I would answer them here...

Q: How do you think you're doing with grief, loss and loneliness?

A: I really don't know -- I mean some days I think I do fine, others: not so good. Mostly, I miss Bob so much that it is hard to even get up in the morning. But I do. I drag myself up. The dog is a good motivator with this.

I often feel lost. I mostly feel lonely. It seems the world has become an alien place where I no longer fit in. I often ask myself, who am I? why am I still here? and what on earth do I do without Bob? I feel as if a whole half of me is missing. My identity is shattered. And I have lost my purpose in life.

This is the hardest thing I've ever been through: harder than the stroke, the lawsuit, the daily grind of caregiving. Harder I think because I no longer have hope, and before there was always hope, and something to look forward to and work toward. Now, the only thing I look forward to is the day that I may leave this earth and be with Bob again. I no longer fear death, but will welcome it with open arms when my time comes.

Jester: The Old Rancher

Jackie Poff
Stroke Survivors Tattler

Mr. Peabody, the local banker, saw his old friend Tom, an 80-year-old rancher, in town.

Tom had lost his wife the year before. Rumour had it he was marrying a 'mail order' bride.

Mr. Peabody asked Tom if the rumour was true.

Tom replied, "Yes, it is true."

Mr. Peabody asked, "May I ask the age of your new bride to be?"

Tom replied, "She'll be 21 in November."

Mr. Peabody, being a wise man, knew the sexual appetite of a young woman could not be satisfied by an 80-year-old man.

Mr. Peabody wanted Tom's remaining years to be happy. So he tactfully suggested that Tom should consider getting a hired hand to help him out on the ranch, knowing nature would take its own course.

Tom thought this was a good idea and said he would look for a hired hand that very afternoon.

Four months later, Mr. Peabody saw Tom in town again.

Mr. Peabody asked, "How is your new wife?"

Tom replied, "Good. She's pregnant."

Mr. Peabody was pleased his sage advice had worked out so well. He asked, "And how's the hired hand?"

Without hesitating, Tom said, "She's pregnant too!"

Never underestimate old men.

TED Talks - Meron Gribetz: A Glimpse of the Future Through an Augmented Reality Headset

TED.com

Filmed February 2016

What if technology could connect us more deeply with our surroundings instead of distracting us from the real world? With the Meta 2, an augmented reality headset that makes it possible for users to see, grab and move holograms just like physical objects, Meron Gribetz hopes to extend our senses through a more natural machine. Join Gribetz as he takes the TED stage to demonstrate the reality-shifting Meta 2 for the first time. (Featuring Q&A with TED Curator Chris Anderson).


Filmed February 2016 at TED2016