Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Biology, Cognition, Development, DSM, Emotion, fear, Genetics, Mental disorder, Mental health, panic disorder, parental loss, separation anxiety disorder, Stress, Twin on January 11, 2010 | 1 Comment »
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Coping with fear and anxiety is difficult. At times when one’s life, livelihood or loved one’s are threatened, we naturally hightenen our senses and allocate our emotional and physical resources for conflict. At times, when all is well, and resources, relationships and relaxation time are plentiful, we should unwind and and [...]
Posted in ASIC1a, Amygdala, tagged Acid, Blood, Carbon dioxide, drowning, Emotion, fear, Gene expression, Ion channel, Mental health, PH on November 27, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
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Here’s a gene whose relationship to mental function is very straightforward. If you hold your breath, your blood pH falls (more CO2 leads to more free H+ protons dissolved in your blood stream). You also may become anxious, or worse if you are forced to hold your breath. How does this [...]
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Addiction, Depression, Development, Emotion, evolution, Genetics, Mental health, National Institutes of Health, Stress on October 6, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
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Many thanks to Dr. Christina S. Barr from the National Institutes of Health/National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism-Laboratory of Clinical and Translational Studies, National Institutes of Health Animal Center for taking the time to comment on her team’s recent publication, “Functional CRH variation increases stress-induced alcohol consumption in primates” [doi:10.1073/pnas.0902863106] which was [...]
Posted in MAOA, Orbitofrontal cortex, tagged Emotion, Frontal lobe on June 8, 2009 | 2 Comments »
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Rare mutations that knock-out the function of monoamine oxidase a gene have long been known to give rise to developmental changes that increase the propensity of males to engage in aggressive behavior. The effects of so-called natural variants – that may slightly reduce or increase the amount of activity of the MAOA protein [...]
Posted in 5HTT, Amygdala, Cingulate cortex, White matter, tagged Emotion, Frontal lobe on June 3, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
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One of the most well-studied genetic polymorphisms in the behavioral- psychiatric- cognitive-genetics area is the 5HTT-LPR, a short repeating sequence that mediates the transcriptional efficiency of the serotonin transporter. Given the wide-ranging effects of 5HTT on the developing and mature nervous system, it is perhaps not surprising that variation in 5HTT levels [...]
Posted in 5HTT, tagged economics, Emotion, Neuroeconomics on May 31, 2009 | 1 Comment »
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Shopaholics and political activists might want to take a look at Jonathan Roiser et al.’s paper, “A Genetically Mediated Bias in Decision Making Driven by Failure of Amygdala Control” [doi:] as an early example of the nexus of “behavioral-neuro-economic-genetics” or “neuro-genetic-marketing” or “neuro-eco-geno” as it might (not) be called one day. In any [...]
Posted in Vagus, tagged Emotion, evolution on May 18, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
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Recently, I’ve been reading Brian Boyd’s new book, On the Origin of Stories, – a lengthy work that relates human evolution to our creative processes. This line of inquiry is closely related to an interest in genetics and brain function, since links between genetic variation and brain function can be used as [...]
Posted in Amygdala, DLPFC, Frontal cortex, tagged Emotion, Frontal lobe, Functional magnetic resonance imaging, Mental disorder, schizophrenia, Twin on March 13, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
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One of the difficulties in understanding mental illness is that so many aspects of mental life can go awry – and its a challenge to understand what abnormalities are directly linked to causes and what abnormalities might be consequences or later ripples in a chain reaction of neural breakdown. Ideally, one [...]
Posted in Cingulate cortex, GABA, Glutamate, acetylcholine, tagged acetylcholine, AMPA, Cingulate, Emotion, evolution, Gene expression, Major depressive disorder on January 8, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
OK, there’s not really a “coolest” part of the brain, but, some areas are pretty darn weird & wild. Consider the cingulate cortex (shown here). Electrical stimulation of the pACC region in humans can produce overwhelming fear – even a feeling that death is imminent – while stimulation of white matter tracts adjacent to area [...]
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Emotion, Functional magnetic resonance imaging, rehabilitation on September 13, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Image by -kÇ- via Flickr Session 4 of our discussion group, “When Basic Neuroscience Meets Psych Rehab” will meet on Sept 25. This session will cover the topic of ‘affect labeling’ which is one strategy for managing one’s emotions. Did you know there are 3,000+ words you can choose from to describe your [...]
Posted in AVPR1a, G-protein, OTR, tagged Emotion, Monogamy on May 26, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
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The small neuropeptides oxytocin (OT) and arginine-vasopressin (AVP) are well known for their influence on promoting warm-and-fuzzy social behaviors in mammals. The G-protein coupled OTR and AVPR1a receptors are also the subject of much research in this area – particularly AVPR1a – since it shows differences in brain expression in polygamous [...]
Posted in CREB, Insula, tagged 23andMe, Emotion, Insula, Memory on May 14, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
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Indeed, learning how to manage one’s response to the negative emotions of others and stay out of trouble is an important life skill. At some point, most of us learn to just avoid angry, mean or melodramatically negative people and save ourselves the strife. Roy Perlis and colleagues, in their recent paper, [...]
Posted in ASIC1a, Amygdala, Cingulate cortex, Glutamate, Stria terminalis, tagged Emotion, medication, Neuron on December 14, 2007 | Leave a Comment »
Image via Wikipedia Many of the unpleasant feelings and physiological changes associated with fear and anxiety can be traced back to a tiny brain region known as the amygdala. Neuroimaging studies often find this region abnormally active in people having difficulty down-regulating negative emotions. It is no surprise then, that when genes that [...]
Posted in BDNF, Nucleus accumbens, Striatum, Ventral tegmental area, tagged 23andMe, Emotion, Mental health on November 19, 2007 | Leave a Comment »
It’s generally not fun to be browbeaten, bullied, bulldozed or downright oppressed – by the schoolyard bully or perhaps the micromanaging boss – in any form. While we’ve all been there – sometimes with initial feelings of sorrow, mopiness, lethargy, etc. – all part of the normal adaptive response to just pack-it-in [...]
