stress Archives

The success of simple metaphors in communicating brain science

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The Alberta Family Wellness Initiative (AFWI) researches science of brain development to support positive lifelong health outcomes for all.

The Alberta Family Wellness Initiative, supported by the Calgary-based Palix Foundation, has succeeded in achieving individual, organisational, and systems level change regarding brain development, epigenetics, mental health, and addiction. The Brain Story, which uses simple metaphors to communicate complex brain science, has proven an effective tool to achieve this change and move towards building more resilient individuals and communities. Until […]

Ketamine: An old medication with newly discovered actions in pain and breathing regulation

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Professor Dahan studies the benefits of the drug ketamine.

Pain that lasts longer than the expected period of healing is tormenting a significant percentage of the population and is the leading cause of disability worldwide. Although medications are available to control it, its management often involves trial and error, especially in cases where specific nerve damage cannot be found. Professor Albert Dahan at the Leiden University Medical Center in […]

How Spiritual Fitness prevents Alzheimer’s disease

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Spiritual Fitness (SF) is a new concept in medicine that combines multiple aspects of religious involvement, psychological wellbeing, and spiritual evolution. Research now reveals that development of SF helps prevent Alzheimer’s disease (AD). As shown by Dharma Singh Khalsa, MD, President and Medical Director of the Alzheimer’s Research and Prevention Foundation, Kirtan Kriya, a safe, 12-minute-a-day meditation practice, facilitates that […]

Stress vulnerability and resilience: Insights from a novel mouse model

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A novel mouse model for early life adversity and stress, and the impact this can have in later life stress response and possible psychiatric disorders, has been developed.

Stress and early life adversity alter the body’s stress response and are predisposing individuals to psychiatric disorders. Additionally, stress vulnerability and resilience have a genetic predisposition in humans due to variants of the FKBP5 gene. For in depth understanding of underlying mechanisms altering the stress-response network, valid animal models are needed. A novel mouse line developed at Taconic Biosciences and […]

Cyclic self-reproducing systems: The key to health and happiness

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Professors Leonid E Popov and Valentin L Popov explore the cyclic nature of self-reproducing systems, leading to an understanding of how these processes contribute to happy lives

Professor Leonid E Popov from the Tomsk State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering, together with his collaborator and editor Professor Valentin L Popov from the Technische Universität Berlin, explores the cyclic nature of self-reproducing systems. Summarising the main physiological findings on adaptation reactions, Professor Leonid Popov describes how actions that are effective in the sense of people’s productive activity […]

Lifestyle medicine and adverse childhood experiences

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a silhouette celebrates by a mountain peak

Adverse childhood experiences, which can be identified in up to 20% of the population, can underpin a wide range of diseases in later life. Professor Garry Egger, from Southern Cross University, Australia, suggests that this may occur via underlying systemic inflammatory processes. Understanding more about this association, and the role that lifestyle medicine may play in preventing and managing chronic […]

The adaptive cancer cell: How metastases evolve to resist treatment

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PACCs make up a rare but stable population in standard cell culture.

Species adapt to survive in a changing environment through the process of evolution. Evolutionary processes can also take place at the cellular level. Dr Sarah Amend of Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, USA, is investigating poly-aneuploid cancer cells (PACCs). These large, DNA-laden cells, which are more common in metastatic cancer, develop evolvability: the capacity to evolve. Dr Amend believes that targeting […]

Stress, our hated guard: Or how theoretical physics could explain the phenomenon of life

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In his new book – Generalized Lagrangian Approach and Behavior of Living Systems – Professor Uziel Sandler, from the Lev Academic Centre (JCT), explains how a specific generalisation of a Lagrangian function can help theoretical physics to describe the phenomenon of life. He demonstrates how the generalised Lagrangians allow Lagrangian dynamics to be used to describe the behaviour of living […]