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Psychopaths unmoved by words

K.S. Blair, R.A. Richell, D.G.V. Mitchell, A. Leonard, J. Morton, R.J.R. Blair
British Psychological Society
Wed, 27 Aug 2008 16:56 UTC
Imagine I show you the word "love" and I ask you to classify it as positive or negative. You'll classify it far quicker as positive, if just beforehand I had showed you another positive word such as "honesty" - a phenomenon that's known as affective priming. Now James Blair and colleagues at the National Institute for Mental Health in America have shown that affective priming is greatly reduced in callous people who score high on psychopathy.

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Cult

Beware the Corporate Psychopath

Paul Babiak, Ph.D.
mpiweb
Thu, 28 Aug 2008 16:33 UTC
Annoying co-workers, deceitful colleagues and egocentric clients can make the job of the meeting professional a challenge. But nothing could be worse than dealing with a psychopath.

The word "psychopath" scares people. Psychopaths are the subjects of newspaper headlines and television crime shows - cold-blooded killers, pedophiles and ruthless con artists - people we hope to never meet in our own lives. Yet, research shows that about 1 percent of the world's population has psychopathic tendencies. The fact is that not all psychopaths are violent and dangerous; rather, the headlines that raise our awareness have skewed our understanding of who they are and what they're like. If one in 100 individuals you meet in any given day could have psychopathic tendencies, how can you tell if your colleague is a psychopath or just someone with a disagreeable personality? An important first step in defending yourself is to learn about and understand just what makes someone a psychopath.
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Health

Army Personnel Show Increased Risk For Migraine; Condition Underdiagnosed, Mistreated


Science Daily
Thu, 28 Aug 2008 14:57 UTC
Two new studies show that migraine headaches are very common among U.S. military personnel, yet the condition is frequently underdiagnosed. The studies, appearing in Headache, the peer-reviewed journal of the American Headache Society, examine the incidence among soldiers within 10 days of returning from a 1-year combat tour in Iraq , as well as U.S. Army officer trainees.

The U.S. active-duty military population is composed chiefly of young adults, which is the age group at highest risk for migraine. However, the reported rates are higher than those of similar age and gender in the general U.S. population.

The findings show that 19 percent of soldiers returning from Iraq screened positive for migraine and an additional 17 percent screened positive for possible migraine. Soldiers with a positive migraine screen suffered a mean average of 3.1 headache days per month, headache durations of 5.2 hours and 2.4 impaired duty days per month due to headache. Soldiers with migraine contacted 3 months after returning from Iraq had a mean of 5.3 headache days per month.
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Health

Olive Leaf Extract Can Help Tackle High Blood Pressure And Cholesterol


Science Daily
Thu, 28 Aug 2008 14:52 UTC
Taking 1000mg of a specific olive leaf extract (EFLA®943) can lower cholesterol and lower blood pressure in patients with mild hypertension (high blood pressure). These findings came from a 'Twins' trial, in which different treatments were given to identical twins.

olive leaf extract
©iStockphoto
A specific olive leaf extract can lower cholesterol and lower blood pressure in patients with mild hypertension (high blood pressure), a new study has found.

By doing this, researchers could increase the power of their data by eliminating some of the uncertainties caused by genetic variations between individual people.

Hypertension is one of the most common and important disease risk factors imposed by the modern lifestyle. Many people would therefore benefit from finding ways of reducing blood pressure. Experiments in rats had previously indicated that olive leaf extract could be one way of achieving this goal.
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Heart

Flashback Your Brain In Love

Helen Fisher
Time Magazine
Thu, 28 Aug 2008 03:10 UTC
Have you just fallen madly in love? Thus began the announcement I posted on a bulletin board for psychology students on the Stony Brook campus of the State University of New York. I had come to believe that romantic love is a universal human feeling, produced by specific chemicals and networks in the brain. But exactly which ones? Determined to shed some light on this magic, I launched a multipart project in 1996 to collect scientific data on the chemistry and brain circuitry of romantic love.
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Info

Popcorn, nuts, and corn still culprits for diverticulosis?


ABC15
Wed, 27 Aug 2008 19:43 UTC
One third of the U.S. population will develop diverticulosis by age sixty. These are small pockets that can form in the colon and if infected, can lead to a more serious condition called diverticulitis.

Doctor Sapna Syngal, a gastroenterologist at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston says, "Diverticulitis is a real medical condition. It can be serious. It can lead to operations, surgery, colon perforations, even death in rare instances."

Doctor Syngal and her colleagues analyzed data from more than forty-seven thousand men. Data were compiled from questionnaires that monitored what the men ate and their medical condition every two years.

Researchers compared intake of popcorn, nuts and corn with the incidence of diverticulitis.

Doctor Syngal was surprised when the results showed, " there was no association with nut, popcorn or corn intake and the development of diverticulitis or diverticular bleeding."
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Info

How Diet, Antioxidants Prevent Blindness In Aging Population


Science Daily
Wed, 27 Aug 2008 17:06 UTC
A new study reveals part of the magic behind a diet rich in antioxidants, showing how artichokes, blueberries and pecans can hold at bay the leading cause of age-related blindness in developed countries.

Image
©Brigham Young University

Researchers at Brigham Young University and Weill Medical College of Cornell University discovered a link between two processes in the retina that, in combination, contribute to a disease called macular degeneration. They found antioxidants disrupt the link and extend the lifetime of irreplaceable photoreceptors and other retinal cells.

"The implication is that people at risk of macular degeneration could help prevent the disease by consuming antioxidants," said Heidi Vollmer-Snarr, a BYU chemist who earned a doctorate from Oxford and began work on this disease as a postdoctoral researcher at Columbia.
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Info

Trauma, PTSD Followed By Reduction In Region Of The Brain Involved With Memory


Science Daily
Wed, 27 Aug 2008 14:58 UTC
While debate continues over the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder, a new study indicates traumatic events and PTSD symptoms may be followed in some cases by a size reduction in a part of the brain called the hippocampus.

Though most attention surrounding PTSD focuses on war veterans, the advance by Brigham Young University researchers involved a larger population at risk: abused children.

"The size reduction in the hippocampus seems to occur sometime after the initial exposure to stress or trauma in childhood, strengthening the argument that it has something to do with PTSD itself or the stress exposure," said Dawson Hedges, a BYU neuroscientist and an author on the study.

The study appears in the August issue of the neuroscience journal Hippocampus, providing further evidence of a neurological component for this mental disorder.
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Health

Exploring The Function Of Sleep


Science Daily
Wed, 27 Aug 2008 14:53 UTC
Is sleep essential? Ask that question to a sleep-deprived new parent or a student who has just pulled an "all-nighter," and the answer will be a grouchy, "Of course!"

But to a sleep scientist, the question of what constitutes sleep is so complex that scientists are still trying to define the essential function of something we do every night. A study published this week in PLoS Biology by Chiara Cirelli and Giulio Tononi addresses this pressing question.

The search for the core function of sleep can seem as elusive as the search for the mythological phoenix, says Cirelli, an associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health in Madison.

Some scientists argue that sleep is merely a way to impose a quiet, immobile state (rest), and isn't important by itself in mammals and birds. This is the so-called "null hypothesis," and Cirelli and Tononi reject it.

"We don't understand the purpose of sleep, but it must be important because all animals do it," Cirelli says.
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Magic Hat

Rubber Hand Trick Reveals Brain-Body Link

Brandon Keim
Wired Science
Mon, 25 Aug 2008 10:08 UTC
The rubber hand illusion is more than a vaguely creepy parlor trick. It's a window into relationship between our mental and physical self-conception.

rubberhand
©Wired
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