Journey through the Cortex

Vertical heterophoria -,TMD,neck tension - the cause of my Depersonalization

2018-10-02T21:23:00.001-04:00

“I had suffered from constant DR and DP (derealization and depersonalization ) for almost 2 years. My mental state was so bad that I had lost all joy in life. I didn't have any feelings for my girlfriend anymore whom I loved so much that I would have

given my life for her, hobbies that usually made me happy suddenly became boring and I was generally feeling a terrible emptyness inside me. It felt like I was almost dead. Nothing seemed real anymore and waking up was the worst! Someone who has never experienced DR/DP can't believe how terrifying this mental state is. As I am writing this, I have goosebumps all over my body because I become so emotional about thinking back...

As many of you, I was afraid I would be trapped in this state forever. I was googling for remedies day after day and I tried everything possible when it comes to supplements, medications and cognitive strategies.

I have read very often that anxiety is the cause of DP. Anxiety definately makes the symptoms worse, but in my case I think that I became anxious after I felt detached from reality, not vice versa. That's what many people need to consider and that's why anti-anxiety medications often doesn't work to lower people's symptoms. My symptoms were so strong that I was constantly dizzy, had fainting spells due to panic attacks, shaky vision and facial pressure. I also felt sick , weak , depressed and had no motivation to do anything! Also, my tinnitus became louder and louder..”

http://www.dpselfhelp.com/forum/index.php?/topic/50533-vertical-heterophoria-tmd-neck-tension-the-cause-of-my-dp/

Now for Something Completely different, Sort of

2017-08-27T00:43:00.002-04:00

My life is just burned turned upside down over this past for a variety of reasons that I will explain later.

One is that my husband has just got T boned in an accident and may have suffered a concussion. I will keep my dear readers posted.

Copyright © 2010-2017 Traveller Journey Through The Cortex

I can drink milk!!!!

2016-08-27T21:06:00.000-04:00

Hallelujah!

After a long time of no milk, milk has come back into my life. I can't tell you how glad I am.

I have never been able to tolerate the lactose free milk commonly found in the supermarket, so I have been doing without. It is an incredible pain in the neck not to be able to cook with milk -- no cream sauces, no nothing.

So when A2 Milk came into my life, it was a blessing! Thank God!

There has been a devil in milk... truly! My tummy has been right to reject such an evil creature. In fact, Keith Woodford’s book Devil in the Milk, talks about what has happened. An evil mutant, the A1 genetic mutation, has crept into our milk supply and, as Keith Woodford claims, is linked to a range of serious health issues, including heart disease, type 1 diabetes, autism, and other aggravating neurological disorders.

The A1 milk protein is found in Holstein cows. Over time, as Holstein cows have been bred with other cows in order to increase production, the A1 gene is dominating many herds. Guernsey milk on the other hand, has the A2 milk protein.

A2 beta-casein is the beta-casein form cows have produced since before they were first domesticated, over 10,000 years ago. It is considered safe and nutritious and has no known negative effects on human health. Sometime in the past few thousand years, a natural mutation occurred in some European dairy herds that changed the beta-casein they produced. The gene encoding beta-casein was changed such that the 67th amino acid in the 209 amino acid chain that is the beta-casein protein was switched from proline to histidine. This new kind of beta-casein that was created is known as A1 beta-casein, and is generally more common in many of the big black-and-white cow breeds of European descent such as the Holstein and Friesian. Due to their size, milk production, and demeanor, these breeds of cow are used to produce the vast majority of Northern Europe and America’s milk.

Each cow carries two copies of the gene encoding beta-casein, with a genotype of A1/A1, A1/A2, or A2/A2. Neither the A1 nor A2 trait appears to be dominant, which means that the milk produced by an A1/A2 cow will likely contain equal proportions of A1 and A2 beta-casein. A1/A1 cows will obviously only produce A1 beta-casein, just as A2/A2 cows will only produce A2 beta-casein. While each dairy herd is capable of being quite different from average, a broad characterization of the A1 or A2 genetics of breeds can be made. Northern European black-and-white breeds such as Friesian Holstein usually carry A1 and A2 alleles in equal proportion. Jersey cows and other Southern European breeds probably have about 1/3 A1 and 2/3 A2 genetics. Guernsey cows generally have about 10% A1 and 90% A2 genetics.

The cause for concern with milk containing A1 beta-casein is that the 67th amino acid switch from proline to histidine readily allows a digestive enzyme to cut out a 7 amino acid segment of the protein immediately adjacent to that histidine. When proline is present in that location (as it is in A2 beta-casein), that same segment is either not separated at all or the separation occurs at a very low rate. The 7 amino acid segment that is separated from A1 beta casein is known as beta-casomorphin-7, often abbreviated as BCM-7.

BCM-7 is the real “devil” in A1 milk for a number of reasons. It is an exogenous (doesn’t naturally occur within the human body) opioid that interacts with the human digestive system, internal organs, and brainstem. While no direct causal relationships have been demonstrated between BCM-7 and these diseases due to a wide range of contributing factors for each illness, BCM-7 has been linked to type 1 diabetes, heart disease, autism, and other serious non-communicable diseases as well.
http://www.snowvillecreamery.com/a1-and-a2-beta-casein-in-cow-milk.html

Faith Schlabach, who raises and drinks A2 milk. talks about her experiences:

The A1 gene can be bred out of a herd in about 10-15 years simply by choosing what are called A2/A2 sires. This means that neither the dam or sire carry the A1 gene. Unfortunately, until the consumer is educated and begins to request A2 milk, the motive will not be there for the selective breeding in most dairies.
....

In our family’s case, we can drink any milk without the adverse severe allergy reactions as long as it is raw (as I explained in an earlier article). We feel amazingly better and have halted cavities. I used to think I digested A1 milk as well as the A2 milk, but I have been rethinking this recently. In just the past couple of weeks we switched from milking our A1/A2 Blossom (who is my favorite cow) to our A2/A2 Emma Lou. I have noticed two things:

My lower back has not been as stiff in the mornings.
I used to avoid drinking milk in the evenings because it would make my legs jerky. I have consumed A2/A2 milk in the evening several times and that has not happened. The other night I had symptoms again and thought that maybe it is not the A1 after all. Then I remembered that I had feta cheese on my salad that was made from A1 milk.

I find that very interesting. I’m going to keep taking notes and looking for changes, but I think I’m sold that there is some residual effect for me when I drink A1 milk. Certainly, any raw milk is MUCH better than processed milk, but I think not as good as it can get with A2 milk. My thought is since we don’t know the full scoop on the issue, let’s err on the side of safety. To my husband and me, it is clear that we need to be breeding this mutated gene out of our cows.
At this time, there are plenty of A2/A2 sires available especially in full-sized breeds; therefore, we see no reason not to breed only A2. If you breed an A1/A1 dam to an A2/A2 sire, you will throw an A1/A2 as they get one from each side. If you breed an A1/A2 dam to an A2/A2 sire, you have a 50% chance of throwing A2/A2.

http://handpickednation.com/what-is-a1-versus-a2-milk/

So, like my wheat allergy, what I first thought was wrong. I am not allergic to wheat or milk, per se. I don't have a fundamental problem with wheat or gluten. I don't have a basic problem with milk or lactose. I do have problems with the way industrial farming has changed our basic staples in order to make the production of bread and milk faster and cheaper. Corporate farming and food processing has fundamentally crapped out our basic staples.

Over time, I have stopped eating out so much and I do feel better. I can't say I am perfect and have done some back sliding recently... who could refuse French pastry made by a French woman, or the most delightful baked ziti and tiramisu ever. But, I find I do pay and feel icky for several days afterwards.

There are some things I can do to minimize the effect.

Drink lots of water and try to flush out my system as quickly as possible. Preferably that night or the next day.
Drink some herbal tea with ginger and 1 Tablespoon of apple cider vinegar (preferably Braggs)
Do some yoga. Forward folds, Downward facing dog, child's pose. Spinal twists. Although not immediately after eating or drinking lots of water
Take my probiotics
Take Align or Lavender to sooth the tummy
If tummy is really in an uproar and really hurts alot, Dicyclomine eases the gas pains.

As with all things in life, this, too, does pass.

Copyright © 2010-2016 Traveller Journey Through The Cortex

Distinguishing ADHD from the Signs of Aging

2016-08-26T20:22:00.000-04:00

I wonder what will happen to me as I grow older in life. There's very little written about all my different neurological problems as an older adult. There's lots that is for young adults and how to launch them. But, not so much on what happens later on down the pike.

I wonder if I will start slipping faster than my peers...or, whether my peers will finally catch up to me! You know, executive function, memory, processing speed are all parts of aging as well as ADHD.

I wonder if I will be come more addled and confused or whether I will be just in the mainstream of growing old.

Interesting slide show on ADHD later in life.

http://www.additudemag.com/slideshow/222/slide-1.html?utm_source=eletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=may

A Natural Fix for A.D.H.D.

2016-03-16T22:07:00.000-04:00

Environment vs. drugs. What to do with a restless mind?

I recently read an article from the New York Times that suggests that originally we were meant to be a bit distracted and that distractedness has helped us evolve by being better hunters and gatherers. Apparently there is a gene that is correlated with people with better nutrition that is also a marker for ADHD.

Maybe sometimes all that is needed is a change to a more stimulating environment.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/02/opinion/sunday/a-natural-fix-for-adhd.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&_r=0

Message from Google concerning everyone who is following my blog

2016-01-26T15:27:00.001-05:00

Google has announced the "retirement of Google Friend Connect for all non-Blogger sites. We made an exception for Blogger to give readers an easy way to follow blogs using a variety of accounts. Yet over time, we’ve seen that most people sign into Friend Connect with a Google Account. So, in an effort to streamline, in the next few weeks we’ll be making some changes that will eventually require readers to have a Google Account to sign into Friend Connect and follow blogs.

As part of this plan, starting the week of January 11, we’ll remove the ability for people with Twitter, Yahoo, Orkut or other OpenId providers to sign in to Google Friend Connect and follow blogs. At the same time, we’ll remove non-Google Account profiles so you may see a decrease in your blog follower count.

We encourage you to tell affected readers (perhaps via a blog post), that if they use a non-Google Account to follow your blog, they need to sign up for a Google Account, and re-follow your blog. With a Google Account, they’ll get blogs added to their Reading List, making it easier for them to see the latest posts and activity of the blogs they follow."

Back to blogging. -- Up the nose

2015-12-11T00:01:00.000-05:00

well, I did get my turbinates reduced. Nice quick outpatient procedure. For those of you not knowing the nose, the turbinates are two spongy bones that stick into the nasal passages. The turbinates, also known as nasal concha, help,warm and humidify air going up the nose. They can get enlarged due to allergies. When they are enlarged, you can't breathe and can't smell.

The doctor doesn't go and scrape the top layer of the turbinates. The top layer is very important to the sense of smell and the humidification of the nose. Rather, he scrapes underneath the surface.

Net, result of the turbinate reduction is that I can smell a lot better and I can breathe. Breathing is really important when you have sleep apnea and use a clap machine.

I waited several months to see where my sense of smell was going. It did get a bit better but it still isn't there yet. Went to another ENT and got a script for theophylline and beta carotene. I am supposed to start nose training with some scents. Will let you know how this turns out.

Copyright © 2010-2015 Traveller Journey Through The Cortex

quick update

2015-08-28T22:41:00.001-04:00

Gentle Readers,Will go back to blogging soon. Husband started dialysis, and had both renal cancer and thyroid cancer so I've been more than a little bit busy. Will go back to posting soon.
Copyright © 2010-2015 Traveller Journey Through The Cortex

Round 2 on the Nose

2015-02-24T11:15:00.001-05:00

I have been diagnosed with sleep apnea and have been noticing that I am sleeping with my mouth open. This had lead to problems adjusting to the cpap machine. I tried the full face mask to compensate for mouth breathing but it was way too onerous so I fell back on the nasal mask with pillows. Even with the nasal mask, it took some doing to adjust to it, but now I can tolerate it.

However, the nasal mask has not stopped the mouth breathing. So, I am not getting the full benefit of the cpap machine. I feel like I am breathing through a straw. Additionally, our home humidifier isn't working so my nose is very dry. Also, I am sensitive to dust in the house so I start getting a runny nose and sneezing.

Mouth breathing also impacts dental issues. The tongue may not support the upper arch of the mouth. Also, mouth breathing can eventually lead to getting your teeth out of line. Poorly aligned teeth can lead to all kinds of jaw problems. Finally, mouth breathing changes the PH in your mouth and saliva leading to gingivitis and tooth decay. I have had a problem continually with periodontal issues all my life and end up going to dentist four times a year for teeth cleaning. The pockets between my teeth and the gum can be so large that I risk losing a tooth if I don't keep up with cleaning.

Additionally, my gentle reader will remember that I don't have much of a sense of smell. Opening up my nasal passages has helped somewhat. Taking a lidocaine mixture as a presurgical prep really did help my sense of smell a lot as it opened up the nasal passages. However, it was only a temporary effect.

Given all these issues relating to the nose, I went to see an ENT doctor who put me back on a 6 pack of prednisone, nasal washes and Budesonide. Same routine as my pre surgery routine with Dr P. did with my previous nasal surgery with the same marginal results. So we have decided to do some turbinate surgery as I have enlarged turbinates. The turbinates are the long curved bone shelf that produces into the nasal passage. When the turbinates get too large especially from sinusitis or allergies, it is necessary to shrink them. Thus, the prednisone and nasal washes. When these treatments don't work, it is necessary to have turbinate reduction surgery. I have that scheduled for Friday.

So, at the end of the day, I am hoping to get my nose passages opened up so I can breathe better, sleep better, stop mouth, improve my dental hygiene, and hopefully get my sense of smell back.

Copyright © 2010-2015 Traveller Journey Through The Cortex

PRESUMED SINUS-RELATED STRABISMUS

2015-02-24T04:32:00.001-05:00

Interesting hypothesis about sinusitis related strabismus. Even though these are just case studies and not a double blind test, Dr. Ludwig is pointing out some interesting observations linking sinusitis and strabismus. The concept is in its infancy but is intriguing.

I have wondered myself about sinusitis and strabismus. I had sinus surgery previously (complete ethmoidectomy and deviated septum, basically cleared out all my sinuses ) and had my sense of smell tested ( congenital anosmia, born with decreased sense of smell). I have always thought that not getting much oxygen in the body would affect a lot of my physical problems, especially my neurological problems including the eyes. And I have seen a small improvement in vision with depth depth perception as my sinus problems have gotten better.

Think about it. Oxygen is key to many metabolic processes.

I have also wondered about having any problems with my facial structure. I have a long face and I wonder if my orbital bones are out of whack.

dr. Ludwig is hypothesizing that there is a link between strabismus and sinusitis. Treating sinusitis can avoid eye surgery in some cases. Sinusitis creates infections that weaken eye nerves and muscles. Opthamological complications of sinusitis are well known in the literature: cellulitis, orbital abscesses, etc. Many strabismuses due to sinusitis have been attributed to cranial nerve involvement, ie palsy. Vertical diplopia linked with chronic sinusitis has been due to orbital floor collapse.

All this is just a hypothesis but still intriguing.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1280096/

US researchers identify gene network linked to autism

2015-01-03T05:00:00.000-05:00

U.S. scientists have identified a molecular network of genes known to contribute to autism spectrum disorders, and they say their finding may help uncover new genes linked to these conditions.

According to the news release, researchers used gene expression data and genome sequencing to study the whole set of interactions within a cell, and they identified a module comprised of 119 proteins linked to autism genes.

Researchers also found that the corpus callosum and oligodendrocyte cells in the brain can contribute to autism. Oligodendrocytes are myelin-forming cells of the central nervous system, and the corpus callosum is a huge band of myelinated fibers. Myelin, which is comprised of proteins and phospholipids, forms a sheath around nerve fibers and increases the speed at which impulses are conducted.

"In the future, we need to study how the interplay between different types of brain cells or different regions of the brain contribute to this disease,” study author Jingjing Li, postdoctoral fellow at the Stanford Center for Genomics and Personalized Medicine, said in the news release.

http://www.foxnews.com/health/2014/12/30/us-researchers-identify-gene-network-linked-to-autism/

Journey Down The Stomach

2015-01-02T21:13:00.000-05:00

and down through the Intestines.

I have gotten a huge amount of gas lately…It's really bad when you fart so loud you wake up your husband. Hubby's eyes popped open. He jerked his head up and then promptly went back to sleep. He didn't remember a thing.

So, I decided to go to the doctor. Went to see Dr. L. who specializes in hard to treat Irritable Bowel Syndrome, IBS. She looked at my gums and my tongue. Poked around at my stomach. Decided she didn't need to do another round of endoscopies but that she would do the colonoscopy since it's been 5 years since my last one.

She gave me a script for xifaxen, an antibiotic. And boy, howdy, does that help. After day 3, I felt a lot better with less tummy ache, farts. I had a lot more energy. Some of the white coating on my tongue went away as well.

My vision improved as well especially in terms of depth perception.

Dr. L is also recommending that I do FODMAPS diet. This diet eliminates certain carbohydrates, ie. FODMAPS -- Fermentable, Oligo-saccharides, Di-saccharides, Mono-saccharides and Polyols. So basically eliminating Dairy, Gluten, certain vegetables and fruits, processed foods. Apparently, everyone is a little different and will need to tailor this diet to themselves. So, there is some possibility that I could go back to eating a little bread and maybe having a little dairy later on.

But for now, I have to try to be good.

We need to get back to baking our own bread

2014-11-14T16:55:00.000-05:00

Sourdough loaves (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Why our tummies are revolting! We can't eat factory made bread because of what food chemistry has done to it to make it rise faster and cheaper.

Bread has changed. One disturbing possibility is that modern farming and industrial baking produce bread that more and more people cannot and should not eat. The "green revolution" spawned new high-yielding varieties of wheat designed to work with the artificial fertilisers and pesticides used in intensive farming. But recent research suggests that these new wheats have fewer minerals and vitamins than traditional varieties and more of the proteins that cause "leaky gut" type conditions.

The so-called Chorleywood Bread Process (CBP), invented in 1961 and now used to make most industrial bread, has turned out to be a culinary and digestive disaster. Traditionally, most bread was fermented (allowed to rise) for many hours, often overnight. The CBP used high-energy mixers and a slew of chemicals to make a very white loaf in double-quick time.

Only if you let dough ferment for long enough can naturally occurring beneficial bacteria work to make the bread more digestible, nutritious and tasty. Most British bread is made too quickly for these bacteria to have a chance. Fermenting dough for six hours as opposed to 30 minutes removes around 80% of a potentially carcinogenic substance called acrylamide found in bread crusts, and long yeast fermentations conserve the highest levels of B vitamins in dough.

In the 1990s a new breed of enzyme-based "improvers" displaced the suspect chemical additives. You won't know they are there because the law says that as "processing aids" they don't need to be declared on the label. But we would do well to ponder what bread engineered to stay soft for weeks may be doing to our insides.

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2008/apr/16/recipes.foodanddrink

Amblyopia In Early Childhood May Alter Speech Perception

2014-09-18T14:54:00.000-04:00

The presence of amblyopia during early childhood may lead to impaired visual-auditory speech integration and alterations in speech perception, according to a study published online September 11 in JAMA Ophthalmology.

"Among human children, in the past, we only knew that amblyopia affected visual acuity and stereopsis (ability to see in [3 dimensions]). Now, our research shows that amblyopia affects an entirely different sensory system: our perception of sound," lead author Rajen U. Desai, MD, from the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University, Chicago, Illinois, told Medscape Medical News.

Speech recognition includes not only auditory processing but also processing of visual cues from the speaker's mouth and face. The authors test this concept using the McGurk effect. "[W]hen presented with an audio track playing /pa/ and a separate video track of a person silently articulating /ka/, participants will most often claim to hear a unique fusion sound /ta/." Approximately 85 to 90% of individuals with normal auditory and visual processing will report hearing the fusion sound, they note.

….

When asked how this information may be applied clinically by pediatricians to improve integration among patients who have delayed resolution of their amblyopia, Dr. Desai responded: "For amblyopia that was corrected too late, pediatricians and parents can consider asking the children to listen to them only using their 'good' eye (and to close their amblyopic eye). A few of our study patients heard completely different sounds depending on which eye they were using to look at someone talking to them. They heard the correct sound when they closed their amblyopic eye."

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/831686

Journeys Through Yoga Nidra

2014-09-18T14:46:00.000-04:00

Regions of the brain affected by PTSD and stress. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I have just put aside neurofeedback for a little while as it has led me to looking more at my psyche rather than strictly neurological problems such as attention. In the process of trying to use open focus, I started to notice that I had been carrying around a lot of stress and anxiety… that a lot of my problems in trying to focus were because I was ruminating about a number of upsetting events. Also, I noticed that I was carrying around a lot of pain in my body that I couldn't link back to any specific event. It was just there.

Richard Miller (psychologist) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

So, I started to look around at trauma and other events surrounding trauma and I stumbled upon yoga nidra, a yoga based therapy that is being used to treat veterans with PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress D
isorder). Dr. Richard Miller had modified yoga scriptures to make them more accessible to military personnel, called iRest. Now, this is not the type of yoga you usually think about with all sorts of odd ball positions (although I have done that, too). No, it is not part of the current yoga craze of wearing Lulumon $100 yoga pants.

It is done lying down and focuses on relaxing, ascertaining your heart's purpose or your life intention and then following a circle of awareness around the body, reiterating the heart's purpose, pairing opposing states such as lightness and heaviness, feeling broad and narrow, or anxious and calm and coming back to awareness.

I have been doing it daily and sometimes a couple of times a day and it has really put me in a new space. The funny thing is that I notice periodic, fleeting, improvements in my vision as I do this.

Copyright © 2010-2014 Traveller Journey Through The Cortex

How Clutter Affects Your Brain (and What You Can Do About It)

2014-09-05T11:42:00.001-04:00

Anterior cingulate cortex. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Stuff and More Stuff!!!! And Ever More Stuff!!!!!!!

Oh God, We just moved and are dealing with stuff.

Knowing how everything is neurologically related somehow, of course, I found an article dealing with stuff and the brain.

Researchers have found two areas in your brain associated with pain, the anterior cingulate cortex and insula, light up in response to letting go of items you own and feel a connection towards.

Excess things in your surroundings can have a negative impact on your ability to focus and process information. That’s exactly what neuroscientists at Princeton University found when they looked at people’s task performance in an organized versus disorganized environment. The results of the study showed that physical clutter in your surroundings competes for your attention, resulting in decreased performance and increased stress.

A team of UCLA researchers recently observed 32 Los Angeles families and found that all of the mothers’ stress hormones spiked during the time they spent dealing with their belongings. Similar to what multitasking does to your brain, physical clutter overloads your senses, making you feel stressed, and impairs your ability to think creatively.

Obvious solution, be organized. However, that is not so simple for all of us. Some of us find putting our things away to be very difficult even when we have a good system in place.

Never mind thinking about how to slot and chunk new items into a cohesive system.

http://lifehacker.com/how-clutter-affects-your-brain-and-what-you-can-do-abo-662647035

Common Medication and Vision Side Effects

2014-08-12T05:00:00.000-04:00

Apparently, there are a bunch of medicines that don't play well with vision problems.

Some of the anti-psychotic medicines affect accommodation, produce blurred or double vision or impact the visual field include: Zoloft, Risperidal, Wellbutrin, Paxil, Citalopram. Even though this article doesn't point out Xanax or other benzodiazepans as being problematic, they have come up on other lists. Since a lot of folks with strabismus often suffer from anxiety, depression, or social anxiety and are prescribed these medications, they may be worsening some of the problems they are working so hard in vision therapy to correct.

Other medications impacting vision include antihistamines including Zyrtec, and a number of hypertensives.
http://www.oepf.org/sites/default/files/journals/jbo-volume-18-issue-4/18-4%20Bodack.pdf

Growling tummy: Sulphite preservatives

2014-08-11T17:30:00.001-04:00

I think I am also sensitive to sulphites.... While I have always known that I am allergic to sulfa drugs, I never connected the fact that I don't tolerate wine very well to sulfites.... who'd a thunk that the two were connected.

Here's a nice fact sheet on sulfites.
http://fedup.com.au/factsheets/additive-and-natural-chemical-factsheets/220-228-sulphite-preservatives

Mean response times, variability, and sk... [Acta Psychol (Amst). 2000] - PubMed - NCBI

2014-06-19T22:51:00.000-04:00

Response time (RT) distributions from three fixed foreperiod conditions (2, 4, and 8 s) in a warned four-choice RT task were obtained for a group of boys with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, combined type (ADHD; n = 17) and for two groups of normal control boys (age-matched, n = 18, and younger-aged, n = 10). Quantitative measures of distributional shape were derived by fitting the ex-Gaussian distributional model to the individual RT data. Statistical results indicate that the ADHD distributions differ from the age-matched control distributions with respect to the size of the tail (larger for the ADHD boys), but differ from the younger control distributions with respect to the location of the leading edge (slower for the younger control boys). Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) results reveal that the ex-Gaussian exponential component is highly diagnostic of the ADHD boys.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10900704

Adhd and alcohol

2014-06-18T21:27:00.002-04:00

Frequent heavy drinking in early adulthood, particularly prior to age 21, is associated with multiple health and legal consequences including continued problems with drinking later into adulthood. Children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are at risk of alcohol use disorder in adulthood, but little is known about their frequency of underage drinking as young adults or about mediational pathways that might contribute to this risky outcome. The current study used data from the Pittsburgh ADHD Longitudinal Study to test social impairment and delinquency pathways from childhood ADHD to heavy drinking in early adulthood for individuals with (n = 148) and without (n = 117) childhood ADHD. Although ADHD did not predict heavy drinking, indirect mediating effects in opposing directions were found. A delinquency pathway from childhood ADHD to increased heavy drinking included adolescent and subsequently adult delinquent behavior. A social impairment pathway from childhood ADHD todecreased heavy drinking included adolescent, but not adult, social impairment. These findings help explain the heterogeneity of results for alcohol use among individuals with ADHD and suggest that common ADHD-related impairments may operate differently from each other and distinctly across developmental periods. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved)

http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/pha/22/2/110/adhd

Getting my eyes lined up with my new glasses

2014-06-12T21:04:00.000-04:00

Got my new glasses. I get a lot more peripheral vision and a bit more of a sense of space but my eyes are hurting. So I had the optician double check the lenses. In fact had two opticians double check the lenses and they are OK. So went and had another visit to the optometrist.

He thinks we have a bit of a dilemma. We can decrease the amount of prism and my eyes won't be aligned as much but I will be more comfortable. Or we can leave them as is. He is trying to pinpoint the exact nature of the problem...whether it has something to do with binocularity or something else. I looks at a test for far fixation with a red and green cross. I could make the cross but it was jiggling.
So he patched me for twenty minutes with each eye. Each eye was relieved a bit and the pain diminished but not completely. We thought it might be better to do a day test patching an eye starting in the morning as my eyes get quite tired with these new glasses and see what happens.

We might cut the prism and start with a lower power prism and I might go back to home exercises and work on aligning a bar on my TV set.

Copyright © 2010-2014 Traveller Journey Through The Cortex

Profiles of the gifted and talented

2014-06-03T20:57:00.004-04:00

Profiles of the Gifted and Talented
The following presentation of six different profiles of gifted and talented students can provide information for educators and parents about the behavior, feelings, and needs of gifted and talented children and youth. It is important to remember that this is a theoretical concept that can provide insights for facilitating the growth of the gifted and talented, not a diagnostic classification model.

The six different types are: successful, challenging, underground, dropout, double labeled, autonomous learner....

http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/Articles_id_10114.aspx

Circling back

2014-05-29T21:00:00.001-04:00

Have had two interesting observations.

Went to an optometrist who specializes in strabismus. Unlike everyone else, he didn't do fifty million tests. Did the visagraph and also checked my binocular vision. I have 30 degrees of stereopsis...fantastic binocular vision... But still not much depth perception, so he did two more tests: test of near point fixation and far point fixation which found that my the lines are shifted to the left; they are aligned horizontally, no problem.He wrote a new prescription that added a basein prism to the left eye and had an interesting comment that my problems may be processing information.

Went to neurofeedback. We have been doing alpha synchrony training with OpenFocus. My alpha/theta ratio is 1.5 at the beginning of the session, towards the middle, it moves towards 1. 0, and occasionally alpha dips below 1. So I have good concentration. These waves are not characteristic of someone who has Adhd.... So my therapist feeling is that maybe I have a processing problem not a concentration or attention problem.

So where does this lead me? Back to the learning disability world? Hmmm.

Copyright © 2010-2014 Traveller Journey Through The Cortex

Plodding through Brain HQ

2014-05-21T23:31:00.001-04:00

Nederlands: Twee visuele banen in de area extrastriata: de 'waar' route en de 'wat' route. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The dorsal stream (green) and ventral stream (purple) are shown. They originate from primary visual cortex. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Plodding along Brain HQ. Been doing the exercises every day. I am doing well with Perceptual Exercises like Visual and Auditory Sweeps but not so good with Peripheral Vision exercises. Struggling with Navigation and People Skills. However, I do notice that I don't confuse left and right any more and don't get as lost as I used to. Also, it is much easier for me to rotate objects in my brain.

Attention exercises are ones I do well after a bit of practice. I do find that they help with focus.
Card Shark is a bit of a challenge. I am working on this daily. Right now, I am trying to chunk the information in chunks of 3 and saying them out loud. Once you lose your place in this test, you are pretty much hosed.

Visual memory is really hard. Scene Crasher is going to be a tough exercise but one that I will do later on.

That's why I haven't been posting much … just plodding away through my exercises.
Copyright © 2010-2014 Traveller Journey Through The Cortex

Central auditory disorders: toward a neuropsychology of auditory objects

2014-05-12T23:39:00.000-04:00

Hrvatski: Primarna slušna moždana kora. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

en: Acoustic radiation(red arrow). from Medial geniculate nucleus to Primary auditory cortex ja:聴放線（赤色の矢印）。内側膝状体から一次聴覚皮質へ。 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Deficits of auditory cognition are less familiar and less well understood than their visual equivalents. The objects of auditory cognition are natural sounds, but ‘auditory object’ is a problematic concept[1]. An auditory object might be defined neuropsychologically as a collection of acoustic data bound in a common perceptual representation and disambiguated from the auditory scene. This definition suggests the importance of perceptual regularities whilst allowing that ‘top-down’ processes may forge associations between acoustic properties and current behavioural goals may give prominence to particular objects within the same acoustic data (e.g., in the spoken word “dog”, relevant sound objects could include the speech token ‘dog’, the speaker’s voice, emotional state, accent, etc). Even this general definition raises certain difficulties. Most everyday sounds have a complex, time-varying frequency structure (see ‘A brief acoustic primer’, Supplementary Material; available using websitehttp://journals.lww.com/co-neurology/pages/default.aspx ), and temporal object boundaries are often difficult to determine. Furthermore, sounds, unlike visual objects, are ‘transparent’ when superimposed; and auditory objects are associated with diverse physical entities, including both discrete sources (e.g., a barking dog) and acoustic events (e.g., a gust of wind, a spoken phoneme). These various auditory object properties and categories have potentially separable neural representations and associated clinical deficits.

The literature on central auditory disorders illustrates these difficulties. Terms such as ‘cortical (or ‘cerebral’) deafness’ and ‘auditory agnosia’ (see Table 1) are widely used, but remain rather loosely defined and demarcated from one another, and progress in defining a useful taxonomy has so far been limited. This is partly attributable to difficulties extrapolating between symptom-led single-case studies and lesion-led group studies in patient populations that may or may not be representative (such as temporal lobectomy series), lack of uniformity of test materials across studies, and the rarity of strategically located brain lesions.

Table 1

Terminology of central auditory disorders

Here we review recent progress in characterising central auditory disorders, focusing on disorders of auditory object processing: the auditory agnosias. From an auditory neuroscience perspective, we are here concerned chiefly with the effects of damage affecting object processing in the putative auditory ventral (‘what’) pathway[2]; however, auditory object processing entails important interactions with dorsal ‘where’ and ‘how’ pathways, particularly in the parsing of natural auditory scenes. Our approach is based on a simple operational classification of four fundamental stages likely to be involved in processing auditory objects: parsing of objects in the auditory scene; encoding of auditory properties (at the sub-object level); representation of the perceptual structures of whole objects; and recognition of objects. Key terms are summarised in Table 1. Recent studies of central auditory disorders are summarised in Table 2.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3374998/#!po=38.8889

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