A recent study suggests that cannabis use causes lower IQ in under 18s. It also lowers acknowledgement of alternative explanations

Cannabis reduces IQ (and appreciation of context)

Man smoking cannabis

Just because those who smoked cannabis as teenagers had lower IQs as adults doesn't mean cannabis causes lower IQs. Photograph: Rex

I tried cannabis once. I've never been keen on smoking or illicit drug use, but I was at a party and a bit drunk at the time, my inhibitions were lowered. Someone offered me a drag/toke/puff (delete as appropriate) on a joint/spliff/reefer (again, delete as appropriate), so I thought, why not?

Why is 'why not?' always assumed to be a rhetorical question? I remember being unnerved by the feeling that I was slowly sinking into a chair, then laughed myself hoarse because I saw another friend walk through a door (said friend was gay, and he 'came out' of the other room... it seemed hilarious at the time). I ended the evening face down on the bathroom floor. I wasn't sick or anything, I just found the cool tiles immensely soothing, so stayed there for about 90 minutes.

The above experience(s), coupled with the fact that I don't like feeling as if I've been breathing through a Volvo's exhaust pipe all night, meant that cannabis wasn't really for me. But that's not to say that I condemn others who indulge in it. Some of the smartest and most talented people I know are regular cannabis users, and have been for years.

But this personal observation seemingly runs contrary to a new study recently published that suggests that young cannabis users run the risk of a lower IQ. In what is an impressively long-term cohort study, it was found that "those who started using cannabis below the age of 18 - while their brains were still developing - suffered a drop in IQ".

It does sound like an impressive study, and any study maintained over 2 decades deserves kudos for that alone. But as always, a news story written for the general public is going to leave out some important scientific points, as well as potentially raising some issues.

Firstly, as is often said, correlation does not imply causation. Just because those who smoked cannabis as teenagers were recorded as having lower IQs, doesn't automatically mean that cannabis intakecauses lower IQ. Measuring IQ is often a slippery subject, let alone working out what sort of things affect it. For example, as bizarre as it may seem, height is apparently positively correlated with IQ. That is, taller people seem to be more intelligent, according to IQ tests. Why is this? It's uncertain. You may think it's a bit contrived to use height as an example in a discussion about cannabis. But then, cannabis is typically smoked. And what stunts your growth…?

Studies of large populations are tricky, it's practically impossible to rule out ALL variables that affect a typical human. Some large studies have revealed a link between cannabis use and psychiatric disorders likepsychosis and schizophrenia. It's still uncertain as to how this might occur. It's logical to assume that regular intake of mind-altering chemicals will alter your mind for the worse, eventually. But it may be possible that people prone to or suffering from these psychiatric disorders are self-medicating, using the effects of the drugs to alleviate the symptoms of the psychiatric illness. It becomes a question of what came first; the schizophrenic chicken or the constantly-stoned egg?

The study is undoubtedly a good one and will produce a lot of interesting analysis and discussion for years to come. On the down side, it's likely that this finding has already been stripped of any meaningful scientific context by anti-drug campaigners and politicians looking to score easy points.

Defending drugs is rarely a good move politically, and anti-drug legislation often occurs without the support of scientific evidence. Contrastingly, any scientific finding that suggests drug use may have detrimental effects is seized upon and often exaggerated, sometimes toludicrous extents. And you know there'll soon be leaflets going around schools that explicitly state that cannabis makes you stupid.

Warning those at a vulnerable age about the potential dangers of drugs is, undoubtedly, a wise thing to do. But the way drugs are oftenportrayed as nothing but harmful and damaging is quite disconcerting; it suggests that taking drugs is akin to trying to increase the speed of your computer by pouring coffee over the motherboard; you're going to experience a lot of new sights, sounds and smells, but cause irreversible damage in the process.

That's not how it works. Many drugs are effective because they work on systems in the brain that are already there. Opiates like heroin work onopiate receptors, cocaine affects the dopamine system (amongst others). The brain and body have evolved over millions of years to recognise and utilise these chemicals, and drugs typically work because they are analogous to the substances that occur naturally in our bodies. E.g. cannabis works because the brain has endogenous cannabinoids.

Our own internal, natural cannabinoids seem to have a variety of functions, from memory processing, pain relief to reproduction. The full extent and role of our cannabinoid system is still being researched, but one interesting theory I heard as a student is that cannabinoids are crucial for babies to survive the birthing process. Think about it. Cannabis relaxes you, relieves pain and gives you 'The Munchies' (an often amusing phenomenon, I once saw 5 stoned guys get through a crate of 20 year old army surplus tinned steak, which looked and smelled just like dog food, only somehow worse). When you're born, your universe has suddenly gone from a warm, dark sac to this bright airy void with these strange giant creatures fondling you. And you've just been bodily squeezed through a very narrow space. Also, you have to start eating on your own now, but you've never done that and haven't the cognitive or physical capacity to be instructed. This should be too traumatic an experience for a fragile human to endure, unless they were flooded with a chemical which makes you chilled out, limits pain and makes you want to eat copiously without knowing why.

An interesting theory, and one that produces an amusing contradiction in that cannabis is supposedly dangerous for under-18s but crucial for new-borns. But although there is some data to suggest that cannabinoids are important for babies and development, I can't find any mention of the 'crucial for the birth process' theory anywhere.

Maybe I should keep looking, but thinking back, it does have the weird-but-logical quality of the sort of idea someone with neurological knowledge would come up with while, ironically, severely stoned. Maybe I came up with it myself at that party?

It's important to keep in mind the scientific context of drug use. Many drugs can be damaging, but then, the majority of recreational drugs were introduced for their medical applications. It's not always a clearcut case of "drugs = bad thing", there are numerous other variables to consider. And taking drugs isn't like throwing a wrench into the workings of the brain, but more like adjusting the settings of it. This can be just as damaging in many cases, but it's not a simple black-and-white matter as is often implied. Telling teenagers that drugs will definitely damage could backfire if they take them anyway and find out that this isn't the case. As I mentioned previously, it's unwise to patronise teenagers in this way, they recognise when they're being screwed over. They're not stupid.

That is, apparently, unless they regularly smoke cannabis. But in that case, your anti-drug message has clearly already failed, so you might as well move on.

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US court blocks graphic cigarette warnings

The US government cannot force tobacco firms to put large graphic health warnings on cigarette packages, an appeals court in Washington has ruled.

It said the government's plan undermined free speech in America.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had wanted to put nine pictures of dead and diseased smokers to convey the dangers of cigarettes.

But tobacco firms had argued that the images went beyond factual information and into anti-smoking advocacy.

The ruling comes as a number of other countries have ordered similar pictures to be placed on all cigarette packets.

Australia has gone a step further, banning even tobacco company logos from the cartons.

'Significant vindication'

The US Court of Appeals affirmed an earlier lower court ruling in a 2-1 decision.

It said the case raised "novel questions about the scope of the government's authority to force the manufacturer of a product to go beyond making purely factual and accurate commercial disclosures and undermine its own economic interest".

The court said that in this case it was "by making every single pack of cigarettes in the country a mini billboard for the government's anti-smoking message".

It added that the FDA "has not provided a shred of evidence" that the images would directly advance its policy aimed at reducing the number of smokers in America.

The verdict was welcomed by tobacco companies, with Lorrilard Tobacco's describing it as "a significant vindication of First Amendment principles".

The FDA has so far made no public comment on whether it intends to appeal against the ruling in the US Supreme Court.

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Researchers completing a new study on alcohol consumption have discovered that college-age students who binge drink are happier than those who don't.

 

Those who engaged in binge drinking tend to belong to so-called high-status groups: wealthy, white, male and active in fraternity life. And those who did not belong to the high-status groups could achieve similar levels of social acceptance through the act of binge drinking. In fact, the study results suggest that students engaged in the heavy drinking practice to elevate their social status amongst peers rather than to alleviate depression or anxiety.

"The present study offers another insight into the nature of a seemingly intractable social problem," the study released on Monday reads. "It is our hope that by drawing attention to the important social motivations underlying binge drinking, institutional administrators and public health professionals will be able to design and implement programs for students that take into account the full range of reasons that students binge drink."

The Washington Post reports that the study's co-author and Colgate University associate professor Carolyn Hsu presented some of the findings during the American Sociological Association gathering in Denver last week.

Interestingly, the study results compiled from surveying 1,600 college students also continues to support past evidence suggesting that binge drinking leads to a number of problems affecting the mind and body, including alcoholism, violence, poor grades and risky sexual behavior.

"I would guess it has to do with feeling like you belong and whether or not you're doing what a 'real' college student does," Hsu told LiveScience. "It seems to be more about certain groups getting to define what that looks like."

Binge drinking was defined as consuming more than four drinks in one occasion for women and more than five drinks for men. Sixty-four percent of respondents said they had engaged in the practice, compared with 36 percent who said they had not.

Those statistics differ from similar evidence gathered by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The CDC's statistics measure binge drinking in the same quantity but limit the consumption period to two hours or fewer. Its results also found that the majority of binge drinkers (70 percent) were over the age of 26. The CDC has also found that 90 percent of alcohol consumed by people under the age of 21 is done in the form of binge drinking, compared with 75 percent among all U.S. adults.

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The Five Keys to Mindful Communication

The first key of mindful communication, according to Chapman (2012), is having amindful presence. This means having an open mind, awake body and a tender heart. When you have a mindful presence, you give up expectations, stories about yourself and others, and acting on emotions.

You are fully in the present moment; your communication isn’t focused on the “me” and what the “me” needs, but the we.

Mindful listening is the second key to mindful communication. Mindful listening is about encouraging the other person. This means looking through the masks and pretense and seeing the value in the person and the strengths he or she possesses. It’s looking past the human frailties and flaws that we all have to see the authentic person and the truth in what that person is attempting to say.

Mindful speech, the third key, is about gentleness. Speaking gently means being effective in what you say. It’s about speaking in a way that you can be hard. To be gentle with our speech means being aware of when our own insecurities and fears are aroused to the point we are acting out of fear rather than acceptance.

Practicing self-compassion for our fear, envy, jealousy and self-doubts is more effective than focusing on others as being a threat or attempting to change them. When you use gentle speech, you are communicating acceptance to the other person and saying what is true, not an interpretation or an exaggeration or a minimization.

The key to mindful relationships is unconditional friendliness. Unconditional friendliness means accepting the ebb and flow of relationships. Sometimes you meet new friends, sometimes friends move on, sometimes there is joy and sometimes there is pain. Sometimes you’ll feel lonely, sometimes you’ll feel cherished and connected, and then you’ll feel lonely again.

Unconditional friendliness means that your acceptance of others is not dependent on them staying with you or agreeing with you. You don’t cling to relationships to avoid loss.

Mindful responsiveness is like playfulness.  Playfulness is the openness that you can have when you let go of preconceived ideas and strategies. It’s like creating something new. Imagine two skilled dancers who alternatively lead each other in creating a new dance in every interaction, never doing the same complete dance over and over. They respond in the moment to the message sent by the other. There are no rules or expectations and yet they both bring skillful behavior.

Mindful communication requires practice. If you choose to practice the keys, you might choose to focus on one at a time. Being willing to regulate your emotions is a prerequisite to mindful communication and mindfulness of your emotions is necessary for emotion regulation.

Mindfulness is a core skill for the emotionally sensitive.

 

References

Chapman, Susan Gillis. The Five Keys to Mindful Communication:  Using Deep Listening and Mindful Speech to Strengthen Relationships, Heal Conflicts and Acceomplish Your Goals. Boston: Shambhala, 2012.

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A drug user has died in a Lancashire hospital after being infected with anthrax

Anthrax Русский: Сибирская язваAnthrax Русский: Сибирская язва (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
NHS Blackpool said heroin, or a contaminated cutting agent mixed with it, was the likely source of infection.
 drug user has died in a Lancashire hospital after being infected with anthrax, the Health Protection Agency (HPA) has said.
It is understood the victim is a man from north-west England. The HPA said the death happened in Blackpool and the person had injected drugs.
It is the eighth case recently reported in several European countries.
But the HPA said it was "unclear" whether the case in Blackpool and another case in Lanarkshire in Scotland - which was confirmed at the end of July - were linked to the European outbreak.
HPA staff are visiting drug treatment centres to make people aware of the risks.
Further cases 'likely'Dr Dilys Morgan, an expert at the HPA, said: "It's likely that further cases among PWID (people who inject drugs) will be identified as part of the ongoing outbreak in EU countries."
Anthrax is an acute bacterial infection most commonly found in hoofed animals such as cattle, sheep and goats.
Anthrax is a very rare and very deadly bacterial infection caused by Bacillus anthracis. It can exist as spores, meaning it can hide for long periods of time in the environment before infecting somebody.
There has been an outbreak in heroin users across northern Europe with cases in Germany, Denmark, France and the UK.
The theory is that a batch of heroin has been contaminated with anthrax spores. This would cause infection when the drug was injected, smoked, or snorted.
Anthrax can be treated with antibiotics, however, treatment needs to start early.
Many people will be familiar with anthrax for its potential as a biological weapon, however, it is extremely rare for anthrax to spread from person to person.
It normally infects humans when they inhale or ingest anthrax spores.
There have been seven confirmed cases of the infection since June - one in Scotland, three in Germany, two in Denmark, and one in France.
These are the first cases of anthrax among drug users in Europe since an outbreak in 2009-10 which saw 119 cases in Scotland, five in England and two in Germany.
Fourteen people died in that outbreak.
A report into the outbreak, published last December, concluded the method of anthrax contamination was unknown but it could have come from contact via a single infected animal or contaminated hide, somewhere in transit between Afghanistan or Pakistan and Scotland, probably in Turkey.
It said: "There remains a risk that at any time, pathogen contaminated heroin could be imported to the UK again, causing another outbreak of anthrax or similar infection."
Although the two outbreaks have not officially been linked, European health experts said the recent cases could have come from the same batch of contaminated heroin in the 2009-2010 outbreak.
An alert about an ongoing outbreak of anthrax among drug users was circulated to NHS hospitals at the end of June.

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ADDICTION charity Focus12 has received a huge financial boost after a codumentary about Russell Brand was shown last night.

The documentary Russell Brand: Addiction to Recovery resulted in an immediate boost in donations and inspired the managing director of Bury St Edmunds based Chevington Finance and Leasing to offer the charity £106,000 over three years.

Russell Brand attended Focus12, the Bury St Edmunds abstinence-based alcohol and drug rehabilitation centre, in 2003 and is now a patron of the charity, describing it as ‘a really excellent example of a small cost effective rehab that can help people change in dramatic ways’.

Chip Somers, Focus12’s chief executive, said: “Russell’s documentary and his work this year to raise the profile of abstinence based recovery has got people talking about addiction in a different way, and made them realise that there is a viable alternative to simply giving up on addicts, or parking them on methadone.

“We are blown away by the generosity of Chevington — this financial support will make a huge difference to us as a charity and will certainly mean we can continue to stay open and help those who need us for longer. Raising funds for a recovery charity has never been harder than it is at present, every day is literally a struggle to keep afloat and we are very grateful.”

Clive Morris, Managing Director of Chevington Finance and Leasing said: “My wife and I were incredibly touched by last night’s documentary, which inspired us to endorse the local treatment centre Focus12, and we have today agreed funding assistance for the charity of £106,000 over the next 4 years.

“We believe that as a successful, responsible and reliable company we have a duty to help local charities survive this recession and the work that Chip Somers and his team do is fantastic and we fully endorse their abstinence based programme and have seen what a difference it makes to people’s lives.”

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Why do most spouses and partners react to the discovery of sexual addiction with such a sense of total devastation

Why do most spouses and partners react to the discovery of sexual addiction with such a sense of total devastation?  Sexual betrayal is an emotional blow that can be harder to deal with than anything, even death.  Most therapists who deal with partners of sex addicts now see the partner as experiencing severe trauma and PTSD symptoms, at least in the initial period post-discovery.  This suggests a theoretical framework that can help us understand the partner’s recovery  process as it proceeds.

The usual tools for dealing with hardship seem to fail us

Our usual arsenal of tools for transcending heartbreak and loss seems to break down in the face of the discovery of sexually addictive behavior in a loved one.  For example:

 

We try:

Practicing detachment by reminding ourselves that the betrayal is not about us, and going to support groups and 12-step meetings, letting go of comparing ourselves to the addict’s other sexual interest.  But detachment seems to keep slipping through our fingers and we feel a mix of strong emotions.

We try:

Educating ourselves about the disease by reading and learning about the roots of sex addiction in the early childhood attachment issues, by learning that sexual addiction is not a deliberate attempt to hurt us.  But still feelings of anger and blame seem to hang around forever.

We try:

Meditation, prayer or other spiritual practice to help us realize that we did not cause the problem and we cannot cure it, and to let go of outcomes.  This will work perfectly for some things; the job we didn’t get, the flooding in the basement, but in sex addiction disclosure there is something so totally unacceptable that we want to tighten our grip.

All of the above tools are very important in a partner’s recovery  and should be practiced even when their efficacy seems limited. But why is sexual addiction so much harder to deal with?

Some reasons why sexual betrayal is different

Here are some factors that “up the ante” in sexual betrayal.

  • The personal closeness you have to the person who has been deceiving you, the person you saw as your support system
  • The abandonment  by the most important person in your life (death is easier to accept because it is something that can’t be helped)
  • The blow to your sense of reality

The last of these, the way sexual betrayal messes with your reality is one of the most powerful factors.  Sexual addiction is often so extreme and so out of character that it calls into question all your assumptions about “normal” life.

Surviving sexual betrayal as a grief process

I tend to think of surviving sexual betrayal as a grief process because I think it is the most useful way to look at it.  I believe that seeing it this way will give you permission to take better care of yourself and to make allowances for your own healing.

  • Grief is a process that follows its own course.  It is also a process that is very different for different people depending on your own personal make up.
  • Sexual betrayal is a loss and therefore must be grieved.  It is a loss of the relationship that you thought you had and produces the same pain and abandonment as other losses.
  • Recovery from sexual betrayal seems to follow the familiarstages of grief.

The initial stage of denial often takes the form of believing the addict’s false promises or trying to set up a quick cure.  In other words the belief that things could be patched up and go back to “normal” is a form of denial.

The bargaining, anger and depression stages of grief are also clearly identifiable.  For example, self blame, feeling that you somehow failed, is a form of bargaining.  It allows you to hold onto a feeling that you can control the situation.

The grief process is one that must be allowed to occur.  Feelings must be experienced and emotions expelled in order to move through the process.  There is no way to make it pleasant, but it will eventually lead to acceptance and a new and better relationship life.

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London's secret music venue and their livestream act

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With an invite-only door policy and super secret location, Boiler Room is London's most exclusive music venue. But elitism isn't the premise for its clandestine nature—in fact, anyone with an Internet connection can easily join in the fun. Using a simple webcam, the crew behind Boiler Room livestreams each set for the world to see free of charge, and each month more than a million viewers tune in to see performances by artists like James Blake, The xx, Roots Manuva, Neon Indian, Juan Maclean and more.

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We recently chilled out to the smooth sounds of Brooklyn's How To Dress Well before rocking out to revered musician Matthew Dear, who brought down the house with an intense 40-minute DJ set. Keep an eye out for our interview with Dear, but for now you can get a little more insight into the underground music scene's most talked about livestream show by checking out our interview with assistant musical programmer and Boiler Room host Nic Tasker.

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How important is it for Boiler Room to remain secret, at least in its location?

That is quite an important aspect of it, purely because it means when you do shows you don't get a lot of groupies, pretty much everyone in the room is either a friend of ours or one of the artist's. It helps to create a more relaxed atmosphere for the artist and I think they feel less pressure. They're also just able to chill out and be themselves more rather than having people being like, "Hi can I get your autograph?" If the artists are relaxed usually you get the best music.

It seems like there is more interaction among the crowd than at a typical venue, is that intentional?

It's definitely a social place. All the people that come down, most of them we know and they're all our friends. So they come down, hang, have a drink and just chill out, basically. From our very set-up, we do it with a webcam, we're not a highly professional organization but I think that's kind of the charm of it. The main thing is people come down with the right attitude.

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How much of the show is prescribed?

I guess that depends on the artist. We never say anything. Literally, whatever they want to do—we're kind of the platform for them to do whatever they want, so if Matthew Dear wants to come and play an hour of noise with no beats, he can do that. That's fine with us, and I think that's why artists like coming to play for us. We're not like a club where you have to make people dance, we don't give a shit if people dance. It's nice if they do and it makes it more fun, but some nights you just get people appreciating the music, which is equally fun.

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Is there a particular kind of artist you guys look for and ask to come perform?

No, not particularly, it's just whatever we're feeling. Thristian [Boiler Room's co-founder] has the main say on musical direction, but it's a massive team effort. In London there's five of us, New York there's two, LA there's one and Berlin there's two.

Tonight you had different set-ups for each artist, do you tailor their positioning in the room to their style?

It definitely depends on the act and what kind of music they do. With live bands we found what works nicely is having them opposite each other because it's like they're in rehearsal, like they're just jamming. Which is again trying to give them that chilled out feel that they're just at home jamming and there happens to be a camera there. For some of our shows we've had over 100,000 viewers. When you think of those numbers it's quite scary, but when you're in the room and it's all friends it creates that vibe that people don't mind. You can imagine if you had all those people in front of you it would be a very different situation.

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Have you ever thought of Boiler Room as an East London version of Soul Train?

It's never crossed my mind like that, but I can see why you think that. I like to think of us as the new music broadcaster, kind of the new MTV, but obviously we operate in the underground scene mainly. But I like to think that what we do is as revolutionary as what they were doing. We're always growing into something new.

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What's up next for Boiler Room?

We have had visual people in doing 3D mapping, and that's something we're looking forward to progressing—doing more with the visuals. We've got the upstairs as well, we're starting to do breakfast shows with some high profile DJs, we're going to be doing that regularly. Each will have an individual format. The next step is progressing the US shows, we're alternating weekly between New York and LA, so the next step is to take Boiler Room to America

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Breaking Free of the Co-dependency Trap presents a groundbreaking developmental road map to guide readers away from their co-dependent behaviors and toward a life of wholeness and fulfillment.

Breaking Free of the Co-dependency Trap presents a groundbreaking developmental road map to guide readers away from their co-dependent behaviors and toward a life of wholeness and fulfillment.UK Citizens

This is the book that offers a different perspective on codependency and is strongly recommended by Dream Warrior Recovery as part of a solution based recovery. This bestselling book, now in a revised edition, radically challenges the prevailing medical definition of co-dependency as a permanent, progressive, and incurable addiction. Rather, the authors identify it as the result of developmental traumas that interfered with the infant-parent bonding relationship during the first year of life.US Citizens

Drawing on decades of clinical experience, Barry and Janae Weinhold correlate the developmental causes of co-dependency with relationship problems later in life, such as establishing and maintaining boundaries, clinging and dependent behaviors, people pleasing, and difficulty achieving success in the world. Then they focus on healing co-dependency, providing compelling case histories and practical activities to help readers heal early trauma and transform themselves and their primary relationships.

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An Internet porn obsession drives a common family man into divorce


An Internet porn obsession drives a common family man into divorce, the horrors of incest, and a life he had not planned for. Exiled from his former world he escapes into oblivion until years later the daughter he had abused tracks him down. The young woman has her own addictions and troubles. Father, daughter and a revolver meet and destinies change.
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Mind Hacks is a collection of probes into the moment-by-moment works of the brain.

The brain is a fearsomely complex information-processing environment--one that often eludes our ability to understand it. At any given time, the brain is collecting, filtering, and analyzing information and, in response, performing countless intricate processes, some of which are automatic, some voluntary, some conscious, and some unconscious.

Cognitive neuroscience is one of the ways we have to understand the workings of our minds. It's the study of the brain biology behind our mental functions: a collection of methods--like brain scanning and computational modeling--combined with a way of looking at psychological phenomena and discovering where, why, and how the brain makes them happen.

Want to know more? Mind Hacks is a collection of probes into the moment-by-moment works of the brain. Using cognitive neuroscience, these experiments, tricks, and tips related to vision, motor skills, attention, cognition, subliminal perception, and more throw light on how the human brain works. Each hack examines specific operations of the brain. By seeing how the brain responds, we pick up clues about the architecture and design of the brain, learning a little bit more about how the brain is put together.

Mind Hacks begins your exploration of the mind with a look inside the brain itself, using hacks such as "Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation: Turn On and Off Bits of the Brain" and "Tour the Cortex and the Four Lobes." Also among the 100 hacks in this book, you'll find:

  • Release Eye Fixations for Faster Reactions
  • See Movement When All is Still
  • Feel the Presence and Loss of Attention
  • Detect Sounds on the Margins of Certainty
  • Mold Your Body Schema
  • Test Your Handedness
  • See a Person in Moving Lights
  • Make Events Understandable as Cause-and-Effect
  • Boost Memory by Using Context
  • Understand Detail and the Limits of Attention

Steven Johnson, author of "Mind Wide Open" writes in his foreword to the book, "These hacks amaze because they reveal the brain's hidden logic; they shed light on the cheats and shortcuts and latent assumptions our brains make about the world." If you want to know more about what's going on in your head, then Mind Hacks is the key--let yourself play with the interface between you and the world.

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How stress and depression can shrink the brain

Major depression or chronic stress can cause the loss of brain volume, a condition that contributes to both emotional and cognitive impairment. Now a team of researchers led by Yale scientists has discovered one reason why this occurs -- a single genetic switch that triggers loss of brain connections in humans and depression in animal models. The findings, reported in the Aug. 12 issue of the journal Nature Medicine, show that the genetic switch known as a transcription factor represses the expression of several genes that are necessary for the formation of synaptic connections between brain cells, which in turn could contribute to loss of brain mass in the prefrontal cortex. "We wanted to test the idea that stress causes a loss of brain synapses in humans," said senior author Ronald Duman, the Elizabeth Mears and House Jameson Professor of Psychiatry and professor of neurobiology and of pharmacology. "We show that circuits normally involved in emotion, as well as cognition, are disrupted when this single transcription factor is activated." The research team analyzed tissue of depressed and non-depressed patients donated from a brain bank and looked for different patterns of gene activation. The brains of patients who had been depressed exhibited lower levels of expression in genes that are required for the function and structure of brain synapses. Lead author and postdoctoral researcher H.J. Kang discovered that at least five of these genes could be regulated by a single transcription factor called GATA1. When the transcription factor was activated, rodents exhibited depressive-like symptoms, suggesting GATA1 plays a role not only in the loss of connections between neurons but also in symptoms of depression. Duman theorizes that genetic variations in GATA1 may one day help identify people at high risk for major depression or sensitivity to stress. "We hope that by enhancing synaptic connections, either with novel medications or behavioral therapy, we can develop more effective antidepressant therapies," Duman said. The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health and the Connecticut Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services.

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Russell Brand has become an enthusiastic advocate for the need to treat addicts through rehabilitation programmes.

Russell Brand
Russell Brand has become an enthusiastic advocate for the need to treat addicts through rehabilitation programmes. Photograph: Karen Robinson For The Observer/Karen Robinson

Russell Brand has no compunction about calling himself a junkie. "When it comes to the disease of addiction I'm no different from any other addict," he says.

The 37-year-old comedian was hooked on heroin during his 20s, eventually becoming clean through an abstinence-based recovery programme in 2002. But, in a BBC3 documentary to be aired on Saturday, he admits that he still struggles with his drugs cravings every day. In Russell Brand: From Addiction to Recovery, he is shown watching old footage of himself smoking heroin and admitting: "I'm jealous of me then."

Brand told the Observer: "Without abstinence-based recovery, I'm a highly defective individual, prone to self-centredness, self-pity and self-destructive, grandiose behaviour. But if I seek the company and fellowship of other addicts and alcoholics – and, for me, alcoholism is no different from other facets of addiction – then, one day at a time, I have a chance of living free from this disease. I wouldn't be able to do it without that."

Brand has become a high-profile advocate for the need to treat addicts through rehabilitation programmes, with the ultimate aim of making them drug-free. Current government policy is to prescribe users methadone, a synthetic opioid, in the hope that they will gradually be able to reduce their intake of illegal drugs without experiencing traumatic withdrawal symptoms.

"We might as well let people carry on taking drugs if they're going to be on methadone," Brand says. "Obviously it's painful to abstain, but at least it's hope-based."

According to a report published last year by the Centre for Policy Studies, a rightwing thinktank, the annual cost of maintaining methadone treatment and paying benefits to Britain's 320,000 problem drug users is estimated at £3.6bn.

Abstinence-based recovery programmes are more expensive upfront, but Brand argues the cost would be recouped by the subsequent fall in crime levels and prison populations once addicts are free of their habit. Results are patchy, however. The national average for post-rehab recovery is under 30% six years after treatment.

"It's not enough to legislate against taking drugs," Brand explains. "We should aim to regard this as a health issue rather than a criminal issue … That's why I suppose decriminalisation is important – I don't see it as a central tenet of what we're trying to do, but I suppose attitudinally it's significant."

What about those critics who claim that by labelling drug addiction as an illness, users are shirking individual responsibility? "If you say people that have polio are weak and shouldn't be given crutches or medicine, it's not a very kind way to regard a problem," Brand replies.

He insists that addiction can be tackled only by addressing the root causes. For Brand, drugs were an escape from a troubled upbringing: the child of divorced parents, he was sexually abused by a neighbour at the age of seven and suffered from bulimia in his teens. There was, Brand says, "an emptiness inside, a sadness, a loneliness, an unaddressed pain at the core of alienation. Unless you have some mechanism to deal with that, I think you'll deal with it with various forms of anaesthetic, starting with drugs and perhaps ending with shopping.

"I know it must sound absurd to people who aren't drug addicts, but it just seemed preposterous the idea of not taking drugs. I couldn't imagine a coping strategy outside of it and that's why there does need to be programmes … The recovery is contingent upon unity [with other addicts]. I think that's a key component. I don't think it's something we can do on our own."

Brand was put on a recovery programme after his agent, John Noel, found him taking heroin in the toilet at an office Christmas party 10 years ago. Brand checked into Focus 12, an independent charity that runs a 12-week rehabilitation programme in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, overseen by chief executive Chip Somers, who is himself a former heroin addict.

Somers says: "The beauty of the methadone programme is that it's really easy. You just dish it out. End of story … It's a way of shutting up a large population of drug addicts and keeping them out of the way instead of having to engage with people and do things differently."

Brand believes that politicians struggle to understand the true nature of addiction: "I think this issue, perhaps like no other, represents a disjunct between the government and the people they govern."

In April, Brand appeared in front of a home affairs committee examining government drugs policy and called for "more compassion" in the way we treat addicts. He is on record as never having voted – does he believe his intervention made a difference?

"I think it was probably part of the spectacle of pretending to do something about it.

"But we'll see, won't we? Because perhaps legislation will change."

Did any of the MPs ask for his autograph?

"Keith Vaz did," says Somers. "He said: 'My daughters will never forgive me if I don't get your autograph.'"

Brand snorts. "Your daughters won't forgive you anyway, Keith," he riffs. "The chance of forgiveness from your daughters has long passed. The only chance of that ever happening was contraception. … They [politicians] don't know what they're doing. They don't understand the reality of the way people use drugs. They don't understand how to treat drugs. They don't understand how to legislate around drugs. It's just ignorance."

There is a pause, then a grin: "I don't blame them because when you're dealing with addicts, they are total arseholes. But they're here to stay, so we've got to find a system of dealing with them."

At the nadir of his own addiction, Brand admits he was "a nightmare" to be around. He lost friends, money and jobs (he was sacked from his first presenting role for MTV when he came to the studio the day after 9/11 dressed as Osama bin Laden). What was the worst thing he did to feed his addiction?

"Took me Nan's pension," he says. "That's quite bad, isn't it?"

Yet heroin held – and continues to hold – an allure. When asked to describe the drug to someone who has never experienced it, he recounts an occasion when he accidentally heated the swimming pool at his home in Los Angeles.

"I'd been working out and expected to jump into a cold swimming pool," he says. "I jumped in and it was hot. And when I was going into it, it was like this sort of involuntary, contorting, releasing spasm. I just drifted around, floating listlessly and lifelessly underwater in uteral bliss: pre-birth, pre-every single problem you ever had; before the negative coding and the nonsense lands in your mind, there is perfect, snug, brown bliss."

There is a brief moment of silence.

"A heated swimming pool," he says, with a derisive shake of the head. "I'm so out of touch."

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