When the brain's primary "learning center" is damaged, complex new neural circuits arise to compensate for the lost function, say life scientists from UCLA and Australia who have pinpointed the regions of the brain involved in creating those alternate pathways -- often far from the damaged site.

The research, conducted by UCLA's Michael Fanselow and Moriel Zelikowsky in collaboration with Bryce Vissel, a group leader of the neuroscience research program at Sydney's Garvan Institute of Medical Research, appears this week in the early online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The researchers found that parts of the prefrontal cortex take over when the hippocampus, the brain's key center of learning and memory formation, is disabled. Their breakthrough discovery, the first demonstration of such neural-circuit plasticity, could potentially help scientists develop new treatments for Alzheimer's disease, stroke and other conditions involving damage to the brain.

For the study, Fanselow and Zelikowsky conducted laboratory experiments with rats showing that the rodents were able to learn new tasks even after damage to the hippocampus. While the rats needed more training than they would have normally, they nonetheless learned from their experiences -- a surprising finding.

Most doctors and laboratories don't even include magnesium status in routine blood tests. Thus, most doctors don't know when their patients are deficient in magnesium, even though studies show that the majority of Americans are deficient in magnesium. Consider Dr. Norman Shealy's statements, "Every known illness is associated with a magnesium deficiency" and that, "magnesium is the most critical mineral required for electrical stability of every cell in the body. A magnesium deficiency may be responsible for more diseases than any other nutrient." The truth he states exposes a gapping hole in modern medicine that explains a good deal about iatrogenic death and disease. Because magnesium deficiency is largely overlooked, millions of Americans suffer needlessly or are having their symptoms treated with expensive drugs when they could be cured with magnesium supplementation.

One has to recognize the signs of magnesium thirst or hunger on their own since allopathic medicine is lost in this regard. It is really something much more subtle then hunger or thirst but it is comparable. In a world though where doctors and patients alike do not even pay attention to thirst and important issues of hydration it is not hopeful that we will find many recognizing and paying attention to magnesium thirst and hunger which is a dramatic way of expressing the concept of magnesium deficiency.

Few people are aware of the enormous role magnesium plays in our bodies. Magnesium is by far the most important mineral in the body, After oxygen, water, and basic food, magnesium may be the most important element needed by our bodies, vitally important yet hardly known. It is more important than calcium, potassium or sodium and regulates all three of them. Millions suffer daily from magnesium deficiency without even knowing it

Ron Rosedale, M.D. presenting at the 2nd Annual Ancestral Health Symposium (AHS12) on Saturday, 11 August, 2012.

Abstract:
Ancestral science includes paleoanthropology and precedes it by billions of years, and we must not be blind to this. Thus, we need to include science as it pertains to our ancestor's ancestors such as the biology of aging, for paleolithic nutrition to be viewed in the proper context.
For instance, evolution does not select for a long post-reproductive life but rather for reproductive success, and modern people may be the only species ever to seek a long post-reproductive lifespan. Furthermore, we have all been raised and live in a modern society that can lead to the accumulation of damage and disease since even before birth. Therefore, in order to find answers about what best to eat now, we may need to modify a paleo diet to include what the modern science of the ancient biology of aging tells us about what to eat today, for a healthier and longer life tomorrow.
I will talk about some of the key points of this science that are common to all animal life, and that lay the foundation for optimal dietary intake as it pertains to nutrition, disease, and extending the current boundaries of youthful longevity.

Bio:
Ron Rosedale M.D. is an internationally known expert in nutrition, aging, and metabolic medicine. His now famous lectures on insulin nearly 20 years ago foretold of its importance to the chronic diseases and aging. He has done the same for the hormone leptin with his book "The Rosedale Diet".

In this 2001 Moyers Moment from Bill's documentary Trade Secrets, Bill examines the many chemicals that have been introduced into our environment over the last few decades. To find out just how pervasive these chemicals were, Bill volunteered to get his blood tested.

New imaging study of combat veterans shows that brain regions linked to PTSD function abnormally even in the absence of external stress

Chronic trauma can inflict lasting damage to brain regions associated with fear and anxiety. Previous imaging studies of people with post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, have shown that these brain regions can over-or under-react in response to stressful tasks, such as recalling a traumatic event or reacting to a photo of a threatening face. Now, researchers at NYU School of Medicine have explored for the first time what happens in the brains of combat veterans with PTSD in the absence of external triggers.

Their results, published in Neuroscience Letters, and presented today at the annual meeting of the American Psychiatry Association in San Francisco, show that the effects of trauma persist in certain brain regions even when combat veterans are not engaged in cognitive or emotional tasks, and face no immediate external threats. The findings shed light on which areas of the brain provoke traumatic symptoms and represent a critical step toward better diagnostics and treatments for PTSD.

A chronic condition that develops after trauma, PTSD can plague victims with disturbing memories, flashbacks, nightmares and emotional instability. Among the 1.7 million men and women who have served in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, an estimated 20% have PTSD. Research shows that suicide risk is higher in veterans with PTSD. Tragically, more soldiers committed suicide in 2012 than the number of soldiers who were killed in combat in Afghanistan that year.

"It is critical to have an objective test to confirm PTSD diagnosis as self reports can be unreliable," says co-author Charles Marmar, MD, the Lucius N. Littauer Professor of Psychiatry and chair of NYU Langone's Department of Psychiatry. Dr. Marmar, a nationally recognized expert on trauma and stress among veterans, heads The Steven and Alexandra Cohen Veterans Center for the Study of Post-Traumatic Stress and Traumatic Brain Injury at NYU Langone Medical Center.

The study, led by Xiaodan Yan, a research fellow at NYU School of Medicine, examined "spontaneous" or "resting" brain activity in 104 veterans of combat from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars using functional MRI, which measures blood-oxygen levels in the brain. The researchers found that spontaneous brain activity in the amygdala, a key structure in the brain's "fear circuitry" that processes fearful and anxious emotions, was significantly higher in the 52 combat veterans with PTSD than in the 52 combat veterans without PTSD. The PTSD group also showed elevated brain activity in the anterior insula, a brain region that regulates sensitivity to pain and negative emotions.

Moreover, the PTSD group had lower activity in the precuneus, a structure tucked between the brain's two hemispheres that helps integrate information from the past and future, especially when the mind is wandering or disengaged from active thought. Decreased activity in the precuneus correlates with more severe "re-experiencing" symptoms - that is, when victims re-experience trauma over and over again through flashbacks, nightmares and frightening thoughts.

Key scientific contributors include researchers at NYU School of Medicine, the University of California at San Francisco, Mt. Sinai School of Medicine, and the Center for Imaging of Neurodegenerative Diseases at the VA Medical Center in San Francisco.

The relationship between the heritable risk for schizophrenia and low intelligence (IQ) has not been clear. Schizophrenia is commonly associated with cognitive impairments that may cause functional disability. There are clues that reduced IQ may be linked to the risk for developing schizophrenia. For example, reduced cognitive ability may precede the onset of schizophrenia symptoms. Also, these deficits may be present in healthy relatives of people diagnosed with schizophrenia.

In a remarkable new study published in Biological Psychiatry, Dr. Andrew McIntosh and his colleagues at the University of Edinburgh provide new evidence that the genetic risk for schizophrenia is associated with lower IQ among people who do not develop this disorder.

The authors analyzed data from 937 individuals in Scotland who first completed IQ testing in 1947, at age 11. Around age 70, they were retested and their DNA was analyzed to estimate their genetic risk for schizophrenia.

The researchers found that individuals with a higher genetic risk for schizophrenia had a lower IQ at age 70 but not at age 11. Having more schizophrenia risk-related gene variants was also associated with a greater decline in lifelong cognitive ability.

Poverty is an exam room familiar. From Bellevue Hospital in New York to the neighborhood health center in Boston where I used to work, poverty has filtered through many of my interactions with parents and their children.

I ask about sleeping arrangements. Mother, father, older child and new baby live in one bedroom that they're renting in an apartment, worrying that if the baby cries too much, they'll be asked to leave.

I encourage an overweight 9-year-old who loves karate, and his mother says, "We had to stop; too expensive." I talk to a new mother who is going back to work too soon, leaving her baby with the cheapest sitter she can find.

Actress Angelina Jolie is the latest to surgically remove her breasts and partake in a concerning new trend that encourages healthy women to remove their body parts in order to 'prevent cancer'.

I've talked about this trend in the past, with cancer-free Sharon Osbourne and even a Miss America contender deciding to remove their breasts because they carry a mutation of the BRCA1 gene.

In fact, some doctors have gone much farther than just encouraging breast removal for those with 'at risk' genes. As I discussed back in 2012, some doctors are now making blanket recommendations to remove your limbs in order to 'prevent' cancer.

Paying no mind to nutrition or lifestyle, these doctors (who medical professionals I speak to all believe are truly off their rocker) are advocating self-mutilation in the highest degree and advocating it as something courageous. The simple reality is that we know we can alter our health through nutritional and lifestyle changes that directly impact the development of cancer and our overall immunity.

The 'prophylactic' removal of women's breasts due to BRCA1/BRCA2 status has become a disturbingly popular trend, and increasingly it is being celebrated in the mainstream media and medical establishments as a reasonable choice. But does the scientific evidence itself refute this approach?

Angelina Jolie's recent announcement in a New York Times op-ed that she had a 'prophylactic' double mastectomy due to her BRCA1/BRCA2 status has disturbing implications, some of which we covered late last year in connection with Allyn Rose, the 24-year old Miss America contestant who announced she would be undergoing a double mastectomy to "prevent" breast cancer.

Beyond the fact that as high-profile celebrities their decisions will affect millions of women's perception of the procedure, likely making them more accepting of the concept, their decisions also reflect profound misconceptions about gene-mediated disease risk embedded deeply within popular consciousness, from which prevailing medical opinion is hardly immune.

First, there is a common misconception about the role that the so-called breast cancer susceptibility genes, BRCA1 and BRCA2, play in breast cancer disease risk and prognosis. BRCA mutations vary widely by ethnicity and are exceedingly rare in the general population, which is why, as NBCNews.com recently reported, "The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommends that only women with a strong family history even think about getting a BRCA genetic test - which is only 2 percent of U.S. women." But even in those in which a BRCA mutation is identified, the genes, in and of themselves, do not alone make the disease.

In a report that undercuts years of public health warnings, a prestigious group convened by the government says there is no good reason based on health outcomes for many Americans to drive their sodium consumption down to the very low levels recommended in national dietary guidelines.

Those levels, 1,500 milligrams of sodium a day, or a little more than half a teaspoon of salt, were supposed to prevent heart attacks and strokes in people at risk, including anyone older than 50, blacks and people with high blood pressure, diabetes or chronic kidney disease - groups that make up more than half of the American population.

Some influential organizations, including the American Heart Association, have said that everyone, not just those at risk, should aim for that very low sodium level. The heart association reaffirmed that position in an interview with its spokesman on Monday, even in light of the new report.

But the new expert committee, commissioned by the Institute of Medicine at the behest of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said there was no rationale for anyone to aim for sodium levels below 2,300 milligrams a day. The group examined new evidence that had emerged since the last such report was issued, in 2005.