Day: December 1, 2008

Pain in the eye of the beholder

~ FmH

How do you quantify pain?How do you quantify pain?

“It goes without saying that we are capable of noticing changes to our bodies, but it’s perhaps less obvious that the way we perceive our bodies can affect them physically. The two-way nature of this link, between physicality and perception, has been dramatically demonstrated by a new study of people with chronic hand pain. Lorimer Moseley at the University of Oxford found that he could control the severity of pain and swelling in an aching hand by making it seem larger or smaller.”

via Not Exactly Rocket Science

Anatomic Basis for Being Change-Friendly

~ FmH

‘…[P]eople who actively seek lifestyle changes may have a more developed connection between two specific brain areas: the hippocampus, a site for storing and retrieving new and old memories, and the ventral striatum, a reward system which is responsible for those carpe diem moments, said researcher Dr. Bernd Weber of the Life & Brain Center at the University of Bonn in Germany. Turns out, if the hippocampus identifies an experience as new, it then relays signals to the striatum to release neurotransmitters which lead to positive feelings.

"The strength of the connection is positively correlated to novelty seek[ers] …’

via Yahoo! News