Anatomy

Grey’s Anatomy, Station 19 fall schedule debate: Why the hold… – CarterMatt

At the moment, were at a time of unprecedented flux when it comes to the entire television industry. Nothing is altogether certain when it comes to when shows are going to be filming, let alone premiering on the air.

Yet, when you look at what The CW, CBS, and Fox are doing, theyve at least set up approximate schedules. For example, we know that CBS is planning to launchNCIS, Survivor, FBI,and more shows this fall at least for the time being. Meanwhile, Fox and The CW are holding some of their big hits like9-1-1, The Flash,and more until early next year.

So whats going on when it comes toGreys AnatomyandStation 19? ABC is one of two networks (alongside NBC) who hasnt released their fall plans as of yet, and there is a pretty interesting debate as to what they are waiting for. We think theres one clear reason why time-frames for some of these shows arent being announced networks dont really know for sure.

For the latestGreys Anatomydiscussion,watch what we have at the bottom of this article! Meanwhile, be sure to subscribeto CarterMatt on YouTube for more and then view our full series playlist. Well have other updates soon

If we were ABC, obviously wed love to have bothGreys AnatomyandStation 19back on the air in late September/October. There are still a couple of months to figure things out. Scripts can be written and from there, you see where things go in the country. There may be a fear of announcing a fall schedule with both shows on it, only to then end up delaying them and disappointing fans. Meanwhile, you also dont want to say theyre premiering in early 2021 only to later change your mind and decide to bring the shows on in the fall. That creates a different sort of confusion.

In some cases patience is best, and that is clearly what ABC is looking to exercise right now with these shows. The same goes forA Million Little Things, Dancing with the Stars,and many other shows on schedule.

Related News Be sure to get some more news when it comes to Greys Anatomy, including our latest character spotlight

Be sure to share in the comments below! Also, remember here to stick around to get some more insight on these series. (Photo: ABC.)

Read the original post:
Grey's Anatomy, Station 19 fall schedule debate: Why the hold... - CarterMatt

Neuroscience

Understanding the neuroscience of compassion – Deccan Herald

It had hardly been a week since the beginning of the unfolding of the COVID-19 crisis in Seattle, Washington, the first US state to record an outbreak and where I currently live. I came across a newspaper article about a group of volunteers who were making grocery runs for the elderly in their area. I distinctly recall thinking, "What motivates these people to get out of their comfort zones and do something to help someone they dont even know? Would I do the same?"

I still don't have an answer to these questions, but neuroscience has been making forays into similar territory over the previous decade how is empathy different from compassion? Are different regions of the brain activated by the two? Is compassion as beneficial to the giver as to the receiver, and is it at all possible for this skill to be improved by training?

Compassion, Empathy and Altruism

Scientists define compassion as a sensitivity to the suffering of another, coupled with a desire to alleviate their suffering. This makes compassion a separate entity from its cousin, empathy, which is a general shared experience of another person's emotional state, be it anger, sadness, joy or suffering. Empathy usually does not involve a motivational or a prosocial component wanting to help another person is a purely compassionate response.

Compassion is also distinct from empathy in that the feelings generated by compassion could be totally different from those observed in the suffering person. I could feel anger at the injustice meted upon certain members of society, for instance. Empathy, on the other hand, is more of a mirror system. I see sadness, so I feel sad.

In addition to empathy, it is also important to distinguish compassion from another related construct altruism. While compassion may be associated with caregiving, altruistic behaviours in themselves are not necessarily evidence that the person has experienced compassion. A person may, for instance, indulge in helping behaviour as an attempt to reduce their own feeling of distress. Studies have shown that the perception of suffering causes empathetic distress in the person witnessing the suffering, and it is not hard to imagine that altruism driven by such distress can be detrimental to both the giver and the receiver of the response. Altruistic behaviours can also originate from a need to feel good about oneself, a desire for social recognition, or to satisfy a sense of duty or obligation.

The neuroscience and evolutionary aspects of compassion

From a neuroscience point of view, healthy compassion seems to involve two components in a complex interplay an arousal component, and a higher-order reappraisal or self-regulation component. Arousal on witnessing an event that elicits compassion involves increased heart rate and nausea, symptoms like those experienced during personal threat or pain. Left unchecked, this can soon turn into personal distress. The reappraisal component of compassion, however, which is mediated by higher-order brain areas in the prefrontal cortex, seems to protect from personal distress.

When I was wondering about how the Seattle volunteers were motivated enough to help someone they hardly knew, I might have, unbeknownst to myself, hit upon an important characteristic of compassion. Studies have found that, in general, similar and close others cause people to feel more compassion. This isnt surprising, however, given its evolutionary origins indulging in protective, self-sacrificial behaviour is a defining characteristic of maternal protection of vulnerable offspring.

But how does evolutionary theory attempt to explain compassion towards non-kin individuals? Why would someone feel moved by the experience of an individual they have no relation to and be motivated to want to alleviate their suffering? Evolutionary theory suggests that helping others has benefits to the individual themselves by directly or indirectly strengthening the group they belong to and opening the doors to reciprocal helping behaviour.

At some point in our evolutionary history, it seems, the narrow view of protecting ones own children from danger expanded to include compassion towards other individuals with whom people were likely to interact with repeatedly, and people considered to be in-group members. Like empathy, which has a distinct in-group preference, compassion too seems to be directed largely towards individuals we identify with, for whatever reason.

The broaden-and-build response

This has interesting, and often counterintuitive, implications. From a logical viewpoint, it may seem that someone with access to more resources would be more compassionate, given that they can help others at a lower cost to themselves, but the opposite has been found to be the case. Research has shown that people belonging to a lower social class rank tend to be more sensitive to others distress and need, and in turn more compassionate.

The team of scientists who performed the study on social rank and compassion relate their findings to a broaden and build response to stress, in which people seek to build cooperation and relationships in the face of stress, rather than fight or flee. This broaden-and-build theory suggests that acting on positive impulses has several benefits for individuals - including building psychological resilience and reducing negative emotions that ultimately help the individual survive better in the face of stress.

Can compassion be trained?

Educational institutions around the world are teaming up with experts on Buddhist compassion scriptures, to develop secular and contemporary compassion training programs. Eight-week compassion-based training programs from Emory and Stanford Universities use a combination of meditation practices and have shown some interesting findings. In addition to reduction in activation of brain regions responsible for the arousal component, compassion training also led to increased mindfulness and happiness, as well as decreased worry. Engagement of prefrontal cortex regions responsible for the self-regulation aspect of compassion also increases after compassion training. Interestingly, compassion training of parents found reductions in biomarkers of stress, such as cortisol, in their infants and young children.

Culture has been found to have an impact on compassion as well. Although research on this topic is in its infancy, cultures that emphasise collectivism and concern for the well-being of others are generally found to be associated with more instances of compassion and prosociality than other cultures.

This has implications for parents of young children as well. What is a family unit, after all, if not a mini culture in itself? Understanding our own motivations for wanting to help others, and weeding out the not-so-good reasons from the good ones has the potential to change the way we parent our children, and hopefully ensure that we bring up a new generation that is empathetic and compassionate, without being distressed by all the injustice that they see around them.

(Aditi Subramaniam is a neuroscientist turned writer who is fascinated by the workings of the brain and how we can rewire it to our advantage. She enjoys writing about the neuroscience of everyday life, and its practical implications for parenting)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.

Here is the original post:
Understanding the neuroscience of compassion - Deccan Herald

Neuroscience

Faces, Bodies, Spiders, and Radios: How the Brain Represents Visual Objects – ScienceBlog.com

When Plato set out to define what made a human a human, he settled on two primary characteristics: We do not have feathers, and we are bipedal (walking upright on two legs). Platos characterization may not encompass all of what identifies a human, but his reduction of an object to its fundamental characteristics provides an example of a technique known as principal component analysis.

Now, Caltech researchers have combined tools from machine learning and neuroscience to discover that the brain uses a mathematical system to organize visual objects according to their principal components. The work shows that the brain contains a two-dimensional map of cells representing different objects. The location of each cell in this map is determined by the principal components (or features) of its preferred objects; for example, cells that respond to round, curvy objects like faces and apples are grouped together, while cells that respond to spiky objects like helicopters or chairs form another group.

The research was conducted in the laboratory ofDoris Tsao(BS 96), professor of biology, director of theTianqiao and Chrissy Chen Center for Systems Neuroscienceand holder of its leadership chair, and Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator. A paper describing the study appears in the journalNatureon June 3.

For the past 15 years, our lab has been studying a peculiar network in the primate brains temporal lobe that is specialized for processing faces. We called this network the face patch network. From the very beginning, there was a question of whether understanding this face network would teach us anything about the general problem of how we recognize objects. I always dreamed it would, and now this has been vindicated in a startling way. It turns out that the face patch network has multiple siblings, which together form an orderly map of object space. So, face patches are one piece of a much bigger puzzle, and we can now begin to see how the entire puzzle is put together, says Tsao.

The brains inferotemporal (IT) cortex is a critical center for the recognition of objects. Different regions or patches within the IT cortex encode for the recognition of different things. In 2003, Tsao and her collaborators discovered that there are six face patches; there are also patches that encode for bodies, scenes, and colors. But these well-studied islands only make up some of IT cortex, and the functions of the brain cells located in between them have not been well understood.

Pinglei Bao, a postdoctoral scholar in the Tsao laboratory, wanted to understand these unknown regions of the IT cortex. Working with nonhuman primates, Bao first stimulated a region of IT cortex that did not belong to any of the previously defined patches and measured how other parts of IT responded to stimulation using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). In doing so, he discovered a new network: three regions of the IT cortex that were driven by the stimulation. He called this network the no mans land network, since it belonged to an uncharted region of IT cortex.

To determine what kind of objects the new network responded to, Bao showed the primates images of thousands of different objects while he measured neurons activity in the new network. He found that the neurons responded strongly to a group of objects that seemingly had nothing in common, except for one curious feature: they all contained thin protrusions. That is, spiky objects such as spiders, helicopters, and chairs triggered the activity of the cells of the new network. Round, smooth objects like faces triggered almost no activity in this network.

Bao set out to mathematically describe what these objects all had in common. While a person can qualitatively describe the fundamental visible characteristics that make the shape of a chair distinct from a face, they cannot break those characteristics down to their mathematical parameters. To do that, Bao used a type of machine learning program called a deep network, which is trained to classify images of objects.

Bao took the set of thousands of images he had shown the primates and passed them through a deep network. He then examined the activations of units found in the eight different layers of the deep network. Because there are thousands of units in each layer, it was difficult to discern any patterns to their firing. Bao decided to use principal component analysis to determine the fundamental parameters driving activity changes in each layer of the network. In one of the layers, Bao noticed something oddly familiar: one of the principal components was strongly activated by spiky objects, such as spiders and helicopters, and was suppressed by faces. This precisely matched the object preferences of the cells Bao had recorded from earlier in the no mans land network.

What could account for this coincidence? One idea was that IT cortex might actually be organized as a map of object space, with x- and y-dimensions determined by the top two principal components computed from the deep network. This idea would predict the existence of face, body, and no mans land regions, since their preferred objects each fall neatly into different quadrants of the object space computed from the deep network. But one quadrant had no known counterpart in the brain: stubby objects, like radios or cups.

Bao decided to show primates images of objects belonging to this missing quadrant as he monitored the activity of their IT cortexes. Astonishingly, he found a network of cortical regions that did respond only to stubby objects, as predicted by the model. This means the deep network had successfully predicted the existence of a previously unknown set of brain regions.

Why was each quadrant represented by a network of multiple regions? Earlier, Tsaos lab had found that different face patches throughout IT cortex encode an increasingly abstract representation of faces. Bao found that the two networks he had discovered showed this same property: cells in more anterior regions of the brain responded to objects across different angles, while cells in more posterior regions responded to objects only at specific angles. This shows that the temporal lobe contains multiple copies of the map of object space, each more abstract than the preceding.

Finally, the team was curious how complete the map was. They measured the brain activity from each of the four networks comprising the map as the primates viewed images of objects and then decoded the brain signals to determine what the primates had been looking at. The model was able to accurately reconstruct the images viewed by the primates.

We now know which features are important for object recognition, says Bao. The similarity between the important features observed in both biological visual systems and deep networks suggests the two systems might share a similar computational mechanism for object recognition. Indeed, this is the first time, to my knowledge, that a deep network has made a prediction about a feature of the brain that was not known before and turned out to be true. I think we are very close to figuring out the how the primate brain solves the object recognition problem.

The paper is titledA map of object space in primate inferotemporal cortex.In addition to Bao and Tsao, co-authors are postdoctoral scholar Liang She and graduate student Mason McGill. The work was funded by the National Institutes of Health, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and the Tianqiao and Chrissy Chen Institute for Neuroscience at Caltech.

Go here to read the rest:
Faces, Bodies, Spiders, and Radios: How the Brain Represents Visual Objects - ScienceBlog.com

Neuroscience

Exploring the Evolution of the Human Brain at the Single-cell Level – Technology Networks

Twenty-first century neuroscience is an enticing field of research that offers the potential to deliver novel insights into the cognition of the human brain and the molecular mechanisms behind brain diseases. However, it needs a little help.

The brain is immensely complex, comprised of functionally diverse anatomical regions which contain a multitude of different cell types. We know that, in order for these varying cell types to serve their function, an array of genes must be differentially expressed throughout the brain; specific genes are switched off in certain areas and certain genes are turned on in others.

We need to be able to look at the brain through a genomic lens to assess how genes are regulated or dysregulated in the case of some pathologies to gain a holistic view of its function.

The marriage of neuroscience and genomics has birthed a growing research area known as neurogenomics, which aims to understand how the genome contributes to the evolution, structure, development and function of the nervous system through the analysis of regulatory and transcriptional processes.

The advent of single cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) has made this feat possible. This technique, which continues to be optimized, provides RNA expression profiles of individual cells. Conventionally, bulk RNA sequencing was the "gold standard" technology for the job; however, in mixed cell populations the measurements obtained from bulk RNA sequencing can miss significant differences between individual cells.More recently, developments in single nuclei RNA sequencing (sNuc-Seq) have propelled the field of neurogenomics even further. Now, researchers can isolate nuclei from particular cells to profile gene expression within that cell an elegant alternative to scRNA-seq for cells that are difficult to isolate.A team of scientists led by Philip Khaitovich, a professor at the Skoltech Center for Life Sciences, has conducted a large-scale analysis of gene expression in 33 different regions of human, chimpanzee, macaque and bonobo brains, adopting a mixture of bulk RNA seq and sNuc-Seq. From the data, they have created transcriptome maps of these brain regions, which they hope will be useful in human evolution research. The study is published in the journal Genome Research.

When looking at the cellular level, the scientists detected multiple expression differences between species with each of the cell types. This extended to non-neuronal cell types, where there was a substantially greater excess of human-specific expression differences in examined brain regions when compared to neurons, including astrocytes and oligodendrocyte progenitors.

The researchers were also able to decipher information on the sensitivity of the techniques adopted in the study.

Whilst multiple expression differences were detected between species within each cell type, approximately one third of these differences could be detected using bulk RNA-seq method; the remaining differences were only detectable using sNuc-Seq.

Whilst the cell-type-specific evolution differences observed in the study are indeed novel, the authors note that their findings do concur with the literature. They also identify an important component that they brand as "missing" from their study, which is an analysis of temporal patterns of expression evolution in the developing brain. They suggest this to be the appropriate next step in this research space.

Reference:

Khrameeva et al. (2020). Single-cell-resolution transcriptome map of human, chimpanzee, bonobo, and 3 macaque brains. Genomics Research. Doi: 10.1101/gr.256958.119

Read more:
Exploring the Evolution of the Human Brain at the Single-cell Level - Technology Networks

Neuroscience

Global Neuroscience Antibodies and Assays Market 2020 with COVID-19 After Effects Analysis by Emerging Trends, Industry Demand, Growth, Key Players -…

The latest launched research document titled Global Neuroscience Antibodies and Assays Market 2020 by Company, Regions, Type and Application, Forecast to 2025 elaborates primary analysis on the market which highlights numerous facts such as development factors, statistical growth, business enhancement strategies, financial status to help readers and clients to understand growth and development factors. The report analyzes the market status in the current and past years and offers predictions on how the market is going to progress with a continuing development in the upcoming years from 2020 to 2025. The report presents a detailed analysis of presentable graphs, charts, and tables. It delivers consequential insights to help company officials, industry investors, and industry members to make reliable essential decisions regarding the opportunities for the market.

Competitive Insights:

The research report has listed the leading players of the global Neuroscience Antibodies and Assays market along with market share, product portfolio, and company profiles. Their production volume, gross margin, market value, and price structure are also assessed. The competitive market scenario will help the industry candidates in planning their strategies. This report also presents product specification, manufacturing process, and product cost structure, etc. Production is separated by regions, technology, and applications.

NOTE: This report takes into account the current and future impacts of COVID-19 on this industry and offers you an in-dept analysis of Neuroscience Antibodies and Assays market.

DOWNLOAD FREE SAMPLE REPORT: https://www.researchstore.biz/sample-request/15046

The well-established players in the market are: Thermo Fisher, BioLegend, Merck, Abcam, Rockland Immunochemicals, Bio-Rad, Roche, Genscript, Cell Signaling Technology, Santa Cruz Biotechnology, Siemens

For a comprehensive understanding of market dynamics, the global Neuroscience Antibodies and Assays market is analyzed across key geographies namely North America (United States, Canada and Mexico), Europe (Germany, France, UK, Russia and Italy), Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Korea, India and Southeast Asia), South America (Brazil, Argentina, etc.), Middle East& Africa (Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa). Each of these regions is analyzed on the basis of market findings across major countries in these regions for a macro-level understanding of the market.

Further, the report focuses on growth opportunities, market segmentation, landscape analysis, product types, and applications. This report has demonstrated all the vital market growth factors and mentioned economic fluctuations owing to the immense attention gained in recent years. While preparing this Global Neuroscience Antibodies and Assays market analysis report, a few of the attributes that have been considered include practical solutions, committed research and analysis, innovation, integrated approaches, and most up-to-date technology.

On the basis on the end users/applications, this report focuses on the status and outlook for major applications/end users, sales volume, market share and growth rate for each application, including: Pharmaceutical& Biotechnology Companies, Academic& Research Institutes, Hospitals& Diagnostic Centers,

On the basis of product, this report displays the sales volume, revenue (Million USD), product price, market share, and growth rate of each type, primarily split into: Consumables, Instruments,

ACCESS FULL REPORT: https://www.researchstore.biz/report/global-neuroscience-antibodies-and-assays-market-15046

Major Highlights of The Market report:

Customization of the Report:This report can be customized to meet the clients requirements. Please connect with our sales team (sales@researchstore.biz), who will ensure that you get a report that suits your needs. You can also get in touch with our executives on +1-201-465-4211 to share your research requirements.

About Us

Researchstore.biz is a fully dedicated global market research agency providing thorough quantitative and qualitative analysis of extensive market research.Our corporate is identified by recognition and enthusiasm for what it offers, which unites its staff across the world.We are desired market researchers proving a reliable source of extensive market analysis on which readers can rely on. Our research team consist of some of the best market researchers, sector and analysis executives in the nation, because of which Researchstore.biz is considered as one of the most vigorous market research enterprises. Researchstore.biz finds perfect solutions according to the requirements of research with considerations of content and methods. Unique and out of the box technologies, techniques and solutions are implemented all through the research reports.

Contact UsMark StoneHead of Business DevelopmentPhone: +1-201-465-4211Email: sales@researchstore.bizWeb: http://www.researchstore.biz

Here is the original post:
Global Neuroscience Antibodies and Assays Market 2020 with COVID-19 After Effects Analysis by Emerging Trends, Industry Demand, Growth, Key Players -...

Neuroscience

How to make good decisions when you’re paralyzed by the stress of protests and the pandemic – KTVZ

Do you find it tough to make decisions these days? What used to be no-brainers, stopping at the grocery for bread and milk, making a pit stop at the gas station or meeting friends for dinner and drinks are now fraught with dangers.

Are people wearing masks at the grocery and keeping their carts at a proper distance of 6 feet? Did you bring gloves or hand sanitizer for the gas pump? Will the restaurant have outdoor socially distant seating and just how does one eat with a mask?

And now were fighting back tears and struggling with rage over the killing of George Floyd, the unarmed and handcuffed black man in Minneapolis who died after gasping I cant breathe as a white police officer pressed a knee into his neck.

Its crazy times, with protests and a pandemic and things at every level appearing untrustworthy, said biochemist Bita Moghaddam, who chairs the behavioral neuroscience department in the school of medicine at Oregon Health and Science University.

Moghaddam, who studies how anxiety affects the brain, said its no wonder our stressed, overworked brains cant spit out a decision. We have become victims of analysis paralysis.

We dont know exactly whats going to happen tomorrow, next week, next month, Daphna Shohamy, who is a professor of psychology at Columbia University, told CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta in a recent podcast.

And were all forced to make decisions in that state of uncertainty and to just rely on what we do know, which is not good enough, said Shohamy, who studies the cognitive neuroscience of learning, memory and decision-making.

I notice it myself all the time, Gupta said in the podcast. As simple as choosing a tie in the morning, what Im going to have for lunch, whether Im going to go for a run or a bike ride.

Those were decisions that usually took me just a few seconds, and now sometimes I just find myself struggling, he said.

The headquarters for our decision-making capabilities is the prefrontal cortex, which controls our higher-level executive functions. Those include focusing our attention, creating and organizing thoughts, setting goals, planning actions and putting a stop to impulsive thoughts and behaviors.

Under normal or mild stress conditions, the brain uses working memory to regulate our mood and actions from the top down. Working memory marries recent events with memories from long-term storage about what we learned from any experience, and it uses this to make decisions about how we should act, think and feel based on our experiences. And, of course, it helps us anticipate and predict possible consequences from our actions.

The brain is constantly estimating risk, Moghaddam said.

Im hungry. Im going to get up and drive to a pizzeria to grab some pizza. But driving involves risk because you could get into an accident, she said. If youre suffering from anxiety disorders, you may say, No, Im not going to even risk getting in the car because I couldnt relax. If youre drunk, then the risk is even higher. And it becomes a computation game.

It takes the first quarter of life for the decision-making area of the brain to fully mature in humans. Car rental companies recognize that fact and wont rent to anyone under 25.

Other key milestones, such as a drivers license at age 16, voting at 18 and drinking at 21 occur when the brains ability to make good decisions isnt fully baked.

The prefrontal cortex is also the area of the brain that is most sensitive to stress. Even mild stress can cause rapid and dramatic loss of prefrontal cognitive abilities, while prolonged stress can actually change the brain, according to Amy Arnsten, a professor of neuroscience and psychology at Yale School of Medicine.

When we are stressed all the time, certain neurotransmitters go awry, flooding the brain with chemicals that change the structure and functioning of the prefrontal cortex and the fight-or-flight emotion and memory centers of the brain. Working memory suffers, and our ability to make quick or well-thought-out decisions declines.

in general, decision-making slows down, Moghaddam said. You could argue its better for our survival. You learned driving when its icy is dangerous, you shouldnt be drinking and driving, and youve learned that this virus could kill you.

The combo of stress with increased risk is making it much harder to make decisions during the pandemic.

If you think about going to the grocery store right now, theres a fair amount of planning consciously or subconsciously what times will be less crowded, do I really need to go, and should I go, Moghaddam said. Most of us didnt think of going to a grocery store as a dangerous thing before, yet now it has become an anxiety-provoking process.

Give your brain a break from its constant risk calculations.

Try to take 10 to 15 minutes to close your eyes and meditate, pushing all of your worries and decisions to the side during that time.

You can see physical changes in the brain in a short time, said psychology and psychiatry professor Richard Davidson, founder and director of the Center for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin Madison.

Davidson did a randomized controlled trial of people whove never meditated before. Using direct measures of brain function and structure, he found it only took 30 minutes a day of meditation practice over the course of two weeks to produce a measurable change in the brain.

There are other anxiety-busting activities that can help. Practice good sleep hygiene to improve your sleep quality, one of the best things you can do to ease stress and boost your mood.

Studies show exercising at a moderate but not high intensity for 15 to 30 minutes at least three times a week does wonders for stress. Try rhythmic exercises, such as running, swimming, cycling and walking, to get your blood pumping in major muscle groups.

Something as simple as taking deep, slow breaths can do amazing things to our brain and therefore our stress and anxiety, said Dr. Cynthia Ackrill, an editor for Contentment magazine, produced by the American Institute of Stress.

When you physiologically calm yourself, you actually change your brainwaves, Ackrill said.

Yoga, tai chi and qi gong are spiritual disciplines, designed to meld body and mind. A yoga lifestyle incorporates physical postures, breath regulation and mindfulness through the practice of meditation. Brain scans of people using tai chi and qi gong find increased alpha, beta and theta brain wave activity, suggesting increased relaxation and attentiveness.

And finally, stop criticizing your brain for its indecisiveness.

Why are we so worried about being paralyzed? Moghaddam asked. Its normal for a brain to take its time to make a decision. The brain is actually doing its job.

View original post here:
How to make good decisions when you're paralyzed by the stress of protests and the pandemic - KTVZ

Neuroscience

ASSU Executives’ End of Term Report highlights affordability, equity initiatives – The Stanford Daily

Former Associated Students of Stanford University (ASSU) President Erica Scott 20 and Vice President Isaiah Drummond 20 highlighted contributions from various bodies of the ASSU in improving campus affordability and equity in their End of Term Report, which was released on Wednesday.

While this is not the end to our term that we had imagined, we have seen firsthand how resilient, empathetic and supportive the Stanford community can be, Scott and Drummond wrote. With the COVID-19 and racial injustice crises causing uncertainty and hurt for many, we implore you to continue showing up for one another and finding ways to take care of yourselves along the way.

Scott and Drummond identified ethical investment, support for Channel Millers plaque, public interest work and ASSU rebranding as priorities of the Executive Branch, citing figures like the $150,000 the ASSU distributed in response to COVID-19 and an increase in campus voter registration as successes of the administration.

Scott and Drummond also recognized the work of their cabinet directors, who specialized in issues ranging from sexual violence prevention to political engagement. Cabinet directors tackled projects corresponding to their area of focus, such as Affordability Directors Grace Achepohl 20 and sixth-year music and neuroscience Ph.D. student Irn Romn assisting Residential & Dining Enterprises (R&DE) on creating pop-up food pantry events.

Recently elected ASSU Vice President Vianna Vo 21 served as ASSU mental health and wellness director under Scott and Drummond, advocating for increased mental health funding, resources and awareness.

Last year was the first time that CAPS [Counseling and Psychological Services] received a funding boost in 10 years, Vo wrote. It is my hope that it will not take another 10 years for us to make progress.

Stanford Student Enterprises (SSE), responsible for ensuring the long-term financial viability and independence of the ASSU along with coordinating various business enterprises, identified the work of SSE divisions like Stanford Consulting, the Student Store, Cardinal Ventures and Cardinal Labs as areas where the SSE had seen improvement and growth. For instance, the Student Store, under Design and Marketing Manager Mei-Lan Steimle 21, launched the Bears Arent Real line of apparel before the Big Game.

The Undergraduate Senate recognized achievements of various senators, including returning Senator Mi Bahr 22s widely co-sponsored resolution on sexual violence and Senators Martin Altenburg 21 and Mustafa Khans 22 advocacy for the removal of course fees in an affordability working group convened by former Vice Provost for Education Harry Elam.

In contrast, the Graduate Student Council (GSC) spoke more to broader goals of the GSC throughout the year, such as improved affordability and support for graduate students.

We are actively pushing administrators to continue their support for graduate students during this unprecedented and challenging time, the report reads.

Contact Kate Selig at kselig at stanford.edu.

View post:
ASSU Executives' End of Term Report highlights affordability, equity initiatives - The Stanford Daily

Physiology

CCAC prepared to move into green phase of reopening – WTAE Pittsburgh

With Allegheny County moving into the green phase of reopening, the Community College of Allegheny County is getting ready for face-to-face classes again."We are very excited for the opportunity to launch our green phase this summer, which we plan to have our first face-to-face classes starting on June 29 and then continuing on in the fall," CCAC President Quintin Bullock said Friday.Students have been taking online classes. But when it comes to in-person learning, Bullock said the campus will look different, including students and staff wearing masks. The college will also have smaller class sizes."Classes that would traditionally be classes of 24 will probably be now a class of eight, to be able to maintain that social distancing," said Bullock.In some cases, instead of having the traditional 15-week course, students will have one week of face-to-face classes followed by online instruction."Programs that require hands-on work, such as many of the science labs and physiology, welding, construction, megatronics, because they have to learn those hands-on skills sets," Bullock said.The Pennsylvania Department of Education has released guidance for schools reopening.CCAC will follow guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Bullock is depending on students to follow the rules too."We're hoping that they come back with learned skills already specific to what the Centers for Disease Control, Department of Health, as well as PDE, has been speaking about over the last several weeks, which are face coverings, social distancing and maintaining very good hygiene," he said.The college won't be able to hold non-educational events with more than 250 people.

With Allegheny County moving into the green phase of reopening, the Community College of Allegheny County is getting ready for face-to-face classes again.

"We are very excited for the opportunity to launch our green phase this summer, which we plan to have our first face-to-face classes starting on June 29 and then continuing on in the fall," CCAC President Quintin Bullock said Friday.

Students have been taking online classes. But when it comes to in-person learning, Bullock said the campus will look different, including students and staff wearing masks. The college will also have smaller class sizes.

"Classes that would traditionally be classes of 24 will probably be now a class of eight, to be able to maintain that social distancing," said Bullock.

In some cases, instead of having the traditional 15-week course, students will have one week of face-to-face classes followed by online instruction.

"Programs that require hands-on work, such as many of the science labs and physiology, welding, construction, megatronics, because they have to learn those hands-on skills sets," Bullock said.

The Pennsylvania Department of Education has released guidance for schools reopening.

CCAC will follow guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Bullock is depending on students to follow the rules too.

"We're hoping that they come back with learned skills already specific to what the Centers for Disease Control, Department of Health, as well as PDE, has been speaking about over the last several weeks, which are face coverings, social distancing and maintaining very good hygiene," he said.

The college won't be able to hold non-educational events with more than 250 people.

Link:
CCAC prepared to move into green phase of reopening - WTAE Pittsburgh

Physiology

2020 CRC scholarship recipients announced – Austin Daily Herald – Austin Herald

Cooperative Response Center, Inc. (CRC) has announce the eight recipients of its 2020 scholarship program, each awarded $1,000 for their post-secondary education costs.

This years scholarship recipients are as follows:

Malina Luke, sister of CRC employee Rena Cooley and a 2020 graduate of Southland Senior High in Adams, plans to attend Riverland Community College to pursue a degree in nursing.

Katherine Schramek, daughter of CRC employee Julie Schramek, is a 2020 graduate of Austin High School. Katherine will attend Riverland Community College in the fall and plans to pursue a degree in environmental education.

Avery Thompson, daughter of CRC employee Paul Thompson, is a 2020 graduate of Austin High School as well. Avery plans to attend the College of St. Scholastica in Duluth, Minn., to study exercise physiology and kinesiology.

Mia Fjelsta, the daughter of CRC employee Brad Fjelsta, is a 2020 graduate of Albert Lea Senior High School in Albert Lea, Minn. Mia plans to attend Wayne State College in Wayne, Neb., to double major in accounting and forensic science.

Winners from outside the state included Hudson Hawkins (Cooper High School, Abilene, Texas), Paige Narrramore (Sequatchie County High School, Dunlap, Tennessee), Amber Palmer (Cooper High School, Abilene, Texas), Emily Beavers (Sequatchie County High School, Dunlap, Tennessee).

This is the 12th year CRC has offered a scholarship program to local graduates. In October 2019, students in the communities in which CRC has offices Austin, Dunlap, and Abilene were invited to apply for a 2020 CRC scholarship. The scholarship recipients were selected in May.

As these students wrap up an unexpectedly difficult final high school year due to stay-at-home orders, we hope receiving one of CRCs $1,000 scholarships offers them comfort and support as they continue their educational journeys, said Chris Holt, CRCs president and CEO. Congratulations to the students on their high school achievements. Their hard work, dedication, and commitment to community are to be commended.

Excerpt from:
2020 CRC scholarship recipients announced - Austin Daily Herald - Austin Herald

Physiology

Lost On The Frontline: Nearly 600 And Counting U.S. Health Workers Have Died Of COVID-19 – WMFE

Kaiser Health News and The Guardian have launched Lost on the Frontline, a project to document and verify health care workers who have died from COVID-19.

Nearly 600 front-line health care workers appear to have died of COVID-19, according to Lost on the Frontline, a project launched by The Guardian and KHN that aims to count, verify and memorialize every health care worker who dies during the pandemic.

The tally includes doctors, nurses and paramedics, as well as crucial health care support staff such as hospital janitors, administrators and nursing home workers, who have put their own lives at risk during the pandemic to help care for others. Lost on the Frontline has now published the names and obituaries for more than 100 workers.

A majority of those documented were identified as people of color, mostly African American and Asian/Pacific Islander. Profiles of more victims, and an updated count, will be added to the news sites twice weekly going forward.

There is no other comprehensive accounting of U.S. health care workers deaths. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has counted 368 COVID deaths among health care workers, but acknowledges its tally is an undercount. The CDC does not identify individuals.

The Guardian and KHN are building an interactive, public-facing database that will also track factors such as race and ethnicity, age, profession, location and whether the workers had adequate access to protective gear. The database to be released this summer will offer insight into the workings and failings of the U.S. health care system during the pandemic.

In addition to tracking deaths, Lost on the Frontline reports on the challenges health care workers are facing during the pandemic. Many were forced to reuse masks countless times amid widespread equipment shortages. Others had only trash bags for protection. Some deaths have been met with employers silence or denials that they were infected at work.

The number released today reflects the 586 names currently in the Lost on the Frontline internal database, which have been collected from family members, friends and colleagues of the deceased, health workers unions, media reports, unions, among other sources. Reporters at KHN and The Guardian are independently confirming each death by contacting family members, employers, medical examiners and others before publishing names and obituaries on our sites. More than a dozen journalists across two newsrooms as well as student journalists are involved in the project.

Many of the health care workers included here studied physiology and anatomy for years. They steeled themselves against the long hours theyd endure. Emergency medical technicians raced by ambulance to help. Others did the cleanup, maintenance, security or transportation jobs needed to keep operations running smoothly.

They undertook their work with passion and dedication. They were also beloved spouses, parents, friends, military veterans and community activists.

None started 2020 knowing that simply showing up to work would expose them to a virus that would kill them.

This project aims to capture the human stories, compassion and heroism behind the statistics. Among those lost were Dr. Priya Khanna, a nephrologist, who continued to review her patients charts until she was put on a ventilator. Her father, a retired surgeon, succumbed to the disease just days after his daughter.

Susana Pabatao, one of thousands of Philippine health providers in the United States, became a nurse in her late 40s. Susana died just days after her husband, Alfredo, who was also infected with COVID-19.

Dr. James Goodrich, a renowned pediatric neurosurgeon, acclaimed for separating conjoined twins, was also remembered as a renaissance man who collected antique medical books, loved fine wines and played the didgeridoo.

Some of the first to die faced troubling conditions at work. Rose Harrison, 60, a registered nurse, wore no mask while taking care of a COVID-19 patient at an Alabama nursing home, according to her daughter. She felt pressured to work until the day she was hospitalized. The nursing home did not respond to requests for comment.

Thomas Soto, 59, a Brooklyn radiology clerk faced delays in accessing protective gear, including a mask, even as the hospital where he worked was overwhelmed with COVID-19 patients, his son said. The hospital did not respond to requests for comment.

The Lost on the Frontline team is documenting other worrying trends. Health care workers across the U.S. said failures in communication left them unaware they were working alongside people infected with the virus. And occupational safety experts raised alarms about CDC guidance permitting workers treating COVID patients to wear surgical masks which are far less protective than N95 masks.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the federal agency responsible for protecting workers, has launched dozens of fatality investigations into health workers deaths. But recent agency memos raise doubts that many employers will be held responsible for negligence.

As public health guidelines have largely prevented traditional gatherings of mourners, survivors have found new ways to honor the dead: In Manhattan, a medical resident played a violin tribute for a fallen co-worker; a nurses union placed 88 pairs of shoes outside the White House commemorating those who had died among their ranks; fire departments have lined up trucks for funeral processions and held last call ceremonies for EMTs.

The Lost on the Frontline death toll includes only health care workers who were potentially exposed while caring for or supporting COVID-19 patients. It does not, for example, include retired doctors who died from the virus but were not working during the pandemic.

The number of reported deaths is expected to grow. But as reporters work to confirm each case, individual deaths may not meet our criteria for inclusion and, therefore, may be removed from our count.

You can read our first 100 profiles here. And if you know of a health care worker who died of COVID-19, please share their story with us.

Continued here:
Lost On The Frontline: Nearly 600 And Counting U.S. Health Workers Have Died Of COVID-19 - WMFE