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Pastimes : The New Qualcomm - write what you like thread. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (3126)	7/15/2001 1:47:14 AM
From: S100	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 12232

And then after you have done something good for your computer, do something good for your brain. ( I have been running for decades, BTW) ---- BODY AND MIND: Keep on running to boost your brain cells: THE NATURE OF THINGS: Why are some people better at growing fresh neurones than others? Exercise and stress levels could be clues, writes Clive Cookson Financial Times; Jul 14, 2001 By CLIVE COOKSON The most encouraging finding in neuroscience over the past five years is that we continue to produce brain cells throughout life. The depressing dogma of 20th century neurobiology, that the adult brain did not make new neurones, is dead. The discovery of adult neurogenesis - the continuous creation of nerve cells or neurones - opens many doors to repairing damaged brains by stimulating cell growth. Press coverage of the field so far has focused on possibilities for curing diseases, such as stroke or Parkinson's, in which part or all of the brain is clearly defective, but new research is suggesting that neurogenesis may also play a role in more subtle psychiatric illness, particularly depression. As any sufferer will testify, clinical depression is an utterly debilitating disease. At its worst, your mind will be a black hole of despair without enough mental energy even to contemplate suicide. Such feelings are impossible to convey to non-depressives, though several recent books have tried hard. Yet neuroscientists have so far been unable to pin down a fundamental cause for depression, or even to find any clear changes in the depressed brain. Nothing obvious has shown up in brain scans or postmortem examinations. At the molecular level, there seems to be a biochemical imbalance in the neurotransmitters that carry messages between neurones but even this is hard to interpret. Two leading US neuroscientists, Fred Gage of the Salk Institute in California and Barry Jacobs of Princeton University in New Jersey, are promoting the new idea that clinical depression may arise from the brain's failure to grow enough fresh neurones. Experiments with laboratory animals first showed how primitive progenitor cells (stem cells) divide and mature to provide the brain with new neurones. Gage and colleagues recently confirmed that the same process occurs in people, by culturing similar progenitor cells from postmortem brain tissues. The experiments show neurogenesis taking place mainly in part of the brain called the hippocampus, which is believed to play a role in emotion, learning and memory. For unknown reasons, the process seems to be suppressed elsewhere in the brain. It may be that the hippocampus needs new cells for efficient processing of incoming information, Gage speculates. In contrast, parts of the brain where long-term memories are stored require a stable cell structure without neurogenesis. Several recent studies have shown that patients with long-term depression have a consistently smaller hippocampus than non-depressives who are matched for sex, age and educational attainment. According to the new hypothesis, this could be because new neurones are not being generated fast enough to replace ones that are dying off. Stress, combined with genetic factors, is probably responsible for suppressing neurogenesis in the hippocampus. Experiments with laboratory animals by Elizabeth Gould and colleagues at Princeton University show that the rate at which neurones are produced is related closely to the level of stress hormones in the blood. On the other hand, antidepressant drugs such as Prozac significantly stimulate the growth of neurones. The pharmacological explanation for their action is that they increase the amount of a key neurotransmitter, serotonin, at the junction between neurones. But Gage and Jacobs believe the effect of antidepressants on neurogenesis may be just as important for explaining how they work. In particular, the theory provides an explanation for the mysterious delay of three weeks or longer that most patients experience between treatment starting and their depression lifting. This "therapeutic lag", which is hard to understand in terms of conventional pharmacology, could be due to the time needed for newly born neurones to mature and integrate themselves with the circuitry of the hippocampus. Gage's laboratory has found that drugs are not the only way to stimulate neurogenesis. As might be expected, the rate is higher in mice that live in "enriched" environments with more activities than a standard cage. More surprisingly, however, neurogenesis doubles when a mouse has a simple running wheel in its cage. "We were quite shocked to find that running alone had more effect than enrichment," Gage says. His researchers are now trying to find out why. One possibility is that increased heart rate and blood flow carry more growth factors into the brain, stimulating neurogenesis. Another is that running triggers a brain rhythm called theta, which, in turn, increases serotonin production and neuronal growth. Whatever the explanation, Gage and his colleagues have no doubt that exercise is good for the human brain, too. Indeed some of them started running regularly when they saw the results of the mouse study. The prescription for a long, healthy mental life is to keep mind and body as active as possible. Keep those neurones growing. globalarchive.ft.com

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (3126)	7/15/2001 1:58:38 AM
From: S100	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 12232

Somewhat OT but can I say, based on the 3G license fees that a person in Germany and the UK is worth much more (hundreds of dollars each ) than a person in Finland ( zero dollars) or Sweden( 6 tenths of a cent)? -- 3G wireless in Germany Cost per head of adult population US$657 3G wireless in UK Cost per head of adult population US$576 3G wireless in Finland Cost per head of adult population US$0 3G wireless in Sweden Cost per head of adult population US$0.006 Adult pop defined as over 15 years according the CIA World Handbook 2000. cellular-news.com