“How you react to stress influences how easily you resist or succumb to disease, including viruses like HIV, discovered UCLA AIDS Institute scientists. Reported in the Dec.15 edition of Biological Psychiatry, the new findings identify the immune mechanism that makes shy people more susceptible to infection than outgoing people.” —EurekAlert!

More than unpleasant, chronic pain shrinks the brain —Scientific American

“We perceive space and time to be continuous, but if the amazing theory of loop quantum gravity is correct, they actually come in discrete pieces.” —Lee Smolin, Scientific American

Whatever doesn’t kill you might make you stronger: “If dioxin and ionizing radiation cause cancer, then it stands to reason that less exposure to them should improve public health. If mercury, lead and PCBs impair intellectual development, then less should be more. But a growing body of data suggests that environmental contaminants may not always be poisonous–they may actually be good for you at low levels.

Called hormesis, this phenomenon appears to be primarily an adaptive response to stress, says toxicologist Edward J. Calabrese of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. The stress triggers cellular repair and maintenance systems. A modest amount of overcompensation then produces the low-dose effect, which is often beneficial.” —Scientific American

A fuller understanding of signaling in the brain of people with this disorder offers new hope for improved therapy: “An inadequate arsenal of medications is only one of the obstacles to treating this tragic disorder effectively. Another is the theories guiding drug therapy. Brain cells (neurons) communicate by releasing chemicals called neurotransmitters that either excite or inhibit other neurons. For decades, theories of schizophrenia have focused on a single neurotransmitter: dopamine. In the past few years, though, it has become clear that a disturbance in dopamine levels is just a part of the story and that, for many, the main abnormalities lie elsewhere. In particular, suspicion has fallen on deficiencies in the neurotransmitter glutamate. Scientists now realize that schizophrenia affects virtually all parts of the brain and that, unlike dopamine, which plays an important role only in isolated regions, glutamate is critical virtually everywhere. As a result, investigators are searching for treatments that can reverse the underlying glutamate deficit.” —Scientific American The treatment of schizophrenia, to put it another way, has been constrained by the serendipitous discovery of dopamine blockers that ameliorate its symptoms; that is why the disease has for so long been conceptualized as a disorder of dopamine. I have written about an analogous problem, most recently, in my critique of a misguided critique of the biogenic amine theory of depression. However, I wonder if glutamate is not just the next great thing in schizophrenia theory, much as, in that essay, I discussed the last decade’s focus on serotonin in depression. Glutamate-modulating drugs may not address the ‘underlying deficit’ any more than serotonin-modulating ones addressed an ‘underlying deficit’ in depression; in fact, they are, as I assert, less robust antidepressants than those that work by other mechanisms. Over and over again in psychiatry, when you have a new improved hammer, it pays to start seeing more and more nails everywhere [if you will forgive me for how often I overuse that metaphor…]

There is yet another problem, which this article touches upon only in its ultimate paragraph (“…because schizophrenia’s symptoms vary so greatly, many investigators believe that multiple factors probably cause the syndrome. What physicians diagnose as schizophrenia today may prove to be a cluster of different illnesses, with similar and overlapping symptoms.”), giving the briefest of nods to what I think of as a core issue in conceptualizing schizophrenia. It may not be only that other neurotransmitters beyond dopamine are affected, to varying extents, in different patients with the disease, provoking its varied presentations. I, and a number of those who treat schizophrenia, including a number of psychiatric luminaries, are convinced that our current diagnostic concept of schizophrenia lumps together patients with diverse and heterogeneous disease processes. While controversial, a strong case may be made that in some schizophrenics, it is not necessarily a disorder of intercellular signalling (neurotransmitters) at all, but more gross “organic” disruption in the architecture of the brain as a result of perinatal insult or developmental disturbance. Schizophrenics may sort roughly into two categories, those with (a) genetic history of the disease in relatives, fair to good medication response, more normal premorbid cognitive abilities (although sometimes having shown premorbid social-interactional abnormalities), less cognitive deficiency, absence of environmental insult history, and absence of findings on brain scans or autopsy; as opposed to those with (b) no family history; poorer medication response; evidence of poorer premorbid cognitive functioning; more deficits on neurocognitive testing; evidence of environmental insults such as season-of-birth effect, antibody levels indicative of exposure to infection, or other metabolic abnormalities; and abnormal brain scans and postmortem findings. The two types of schizophrenics also have contrasting symptom patterns; the former are more paranoid and delusional (the type Javitt and Coyle are writing about) and the latter more disorganized and confused.

Goodbye sunshine: “Each year less light reaches the surface of the Earth. No one is sure what’s causing ‘global dimming’ – or what it means for the future. In fact most scientists have never heard of it.” —Guardian.UK

Related? String Theory — A weak sun may have sweetened the Stradivarius:

“Myriad proposals have surfaced in the past several centuries to explain how Antonio Stradivari imbued his now priceless wares with transcendental sound. Some have suggested that Stradivari used beams from ancient cathedrals; others argued that he gave his wood a good urine soaking. The latest theory proposes that the craftsman should thank the sun’s rays–or lack thereof.

Stradivari could not have known that his lifetime coincided almost exactly with the Maunder Minimum–the 70-year period (from 1645 to 1715) of reduced solar activity that contributed to colder temperatures throughout western Europe during what is called the Little Ice Age.” —Scientific American

This is a reprise and an amplification of a New Year’s Day post from FmH in years past:

Years ago, the Boston Globe ran a January 1st article compiling folkloric beliefs about what to do, what to eat, etc. on New Year’s Day to bring good fortune for the year to come. I’ve regretted since — I usually think of it around once a year (grin) — not clipping out and saving the article; especially since we’ve had children, I’m interested in enduring traditions that go beyond getting drunk [although some comment that this is a profound enactment of the interdigitation of chaos and order appropriate to the New Year’s celebration — FmH], watching the bowl games and making resolutions. A web search brought me this, less elaborate than what I recall from the Globe but to the same point:

“Traditionally, it was thought that one could affect the luck they would have throughout the coming year by what they did or ate on the first day of the year. For that reason, it has become common for folks to celebrate the first few minutes of a brand new year in the company of family and friends. Parties often last into the middle of the night after the ringing in of a new year. It was once believed that the first visitor on New Year’s Day would bring either good luck or bad luck the rest of the year. It was particularly lucky if that visitor happened to be a tall dark-haired man.

“Traditional New Year foods are also thought to bring luck. Many cultures believe that anything in the shape of a ring is good luck, because it symbolizes “coming full circle,” completing a year’s cycle. For that reason, the Dutch believe that eating donuts on New Year’s Day will bring good fortune.

“Many parts of the U.S. celebrate the new year by consuming black-eyed peas. These legumes are typically accompanied by either hog jowls or ham. Black-eyed peas and other legumes have been considered good luck in many cultures. The hog, and thus its meat, is considered lucky because it symbolizes prosperity. Cabbage is another ‘good luck’ vegetable that is consumed on New Year’s Day by many. Cabbage leaves are also considered a sign of prosperity, being representative of paper currency. In some regions, rice is a lucky food that is eaten on New Year’s Day.”

The further north one travels in the British Isles, the more the year-end festivities focus on New Year’s. The Scottish observance of Hogmanay has many elements of warming heart and hearth, welcoming strangers and making a good beginning:

“Three cornered biscuits called hogmanays are eaten. Other special foods are: wine, ginger cordial, cheese, bread, shortbread, oatcake, carol or carl cake, currant loaf, and a pastry called scones. After sunset people collect juniper and water to purify the home. Divining rituals are done according to the directions of the winds, which are assigned their own colors. First Footing:The first person who comes to the door on midnight New Year’s Eve should be a dark-haired or dark-complected man with gifts for luck. Seeing a cat, dog, woman, red-head or beggar is unlucky. The person brings a gift (handsel) of coal or whiskey to ensure prosperity in the New Year. Mummer’s Plays are also performed. The actors called the White Boys of Yule are all dressed in white, except for one dressed as the devil in black. It is bad luck to engage in marriage proposals, break glass, spin flax, sweep or carry out rubbish on New Year’s Eve.”

Here’s why we clink our glasses when we drink our New Year’s toasts, no matter where we are. Of course, sometimes the midnight cacophony is louder than just clinking glassware, to create a ‘devil-chasing din’.

In Georgia, eat black eyed peas and turnip greens on New Year’s Day for luck and prosperity in the year to come, supposedly because they symbolize coppers and currency. Hoppin’ John, a concoction of peas, onion, bacon and rice, is also a southern New Year’s tradition, as is wearing yellow to find true love (in Peru, yellow underwear, apparently!) or carrying silver for prosperity. In some instances, a dollar bill is thrown in with the other ingredients of the New Year’s meal to bring prosperity. A similar New Year’s meal in Norway also includes dried cod, “lutefisk.” The Pennsylvania Dutch make sure to include sauerkraut in their holiday meal, also for prosperity.

In Spain, you would cram twelve grapes in your mouth at midnight, one each time the clock chimed, for good luck for the twelve months to come. The U. S. version of this custom, for some reason, involves standing on a chair as you pop the grapes. In Denmark, jumping off a chair at the stroke of midnight signifies leaping into the New Year. In Rio, you would be plunging into the sea en masse at midnight, wearing white and bearing offerings.

In China, papercuttings of red paper are hung in the windows to scare away evil spirits who might enter the house and bring misfortune.

Elsewhere: pancakes for the New Year’s breakfast in France; banging on friends’ doors in Denmark to “smash in” the New Year; going in the front door and out the back door at midnight in Ireland; making sure the first person through your door in the New Year in Scotland is a tall dark haired visitor. Water out the window at midnight in Puerto Rico rids the home of evil spirits. Cleanse your soul in Japan at the New Year by listening to a gong tolling 108 times, one for every sin. It is Swiss good luck to let a drop of cream fall on the floor on New Year’s Day.

However you’re going to celebrate, my warmest wishes for the year to come!