After our brain releases dopamine, we feel attracted to the object of our attention. We are compelled to draw closer to it, to experience it more fully. If we are stimulated enough to a point of high arousal, like right before or during orgasm, oxytocin is triggered. Oxytocin is a neurotransmitter that is associated with attachment. When we interface with a person or object, and our brain releases oxytocin, we naturally form an attachment to it. Oxytocin has been found to be a big player in mother-baby bonding, and there have even been very recent studies that show artificial administration of oxytocin makes males more sensitive and helps autistic children form social relationships.

The Dopamine Oxytocin (DO) combo can be a pretty strong weapon in the game of attraction- a pure biochemical love-potion, if you will. And the thing is, you don’t even have to engage in sexual activity in order to prime these neurotransmitter responses, which is why fantasies are so powerful. You create the sexual images in your mind, and your brain responds neurochemically, even in the absence of tactile stimuli.

So one can argue that fantasies can be just as arousing as a flesh and blood person, maybe even more so. It all boils down to Classical Conditioning. Research has already shown how paired association of a pleasurable stimulus with a neutral stimulus can cue the release of dopamine from the neutral stimulus following training. You can think of past sexual experiences as the “training condition”, and the DO combo as the cued response. After you’ve experienced the pleasure of sex, certain images and conditions that remind your brain of that experience can cue that DO combo response even in the absence of the the stimulus (sex).

If you are able to deftly prime those neurotransmitters to be released, you can effectively chemically coerce people into just about anything. The mere image of sexual activity or the strong suggestion of it can be enough to cue the response, get that dopamine flowing, and oxytocin comes running in right behind.

The point is, all things equal, if you are presented with two things, and one of them induces a sexual response, that is the item or person you will be drawn to. It doesn’t matter if it is real, virtual, 2D, 3D, 4D, or all in your mind. All it needs to do is trigger the DO combo, and it is a done deal. As the author puts it “nothing like being a slave to your neurotransmitters, eh?”

Source: Science 2.0; The Science Of Pleasure: Your Brain On Sexual Imagery; Andrea Kuszewski; August 14th 2010

Self-management tools can be categorized by patient roles and the complexity of the technologies:

Subordinate: tools such as video monitoring or home surveillance sensor systems provide limited patient discretion beyond agreement to use the tools.

Structured: these are tools that provide more active self-management, but in highly defined ways. Examples include sound and text reminders from a tabletop appliance or perhaps a personal digital assistant or telephone, or devices allowing a patient to transmit data such as blood pressure readings.

Collaborative: this category includes decision support aids, online interventions, chronic disease management aids, and patient education materials.

Autonomous:  tools for autonomous roles do not require regular participation or input from professionals. Internet sites such as eDiets and home heart defibrillators are examples of this category of tools. 

Tools that support subordinate roles offer added convenience, greater precision, fewer errors, and less stress;  tools for structured roles still require  adoption by clinicians; collaborative tools are preferred and mostly used by better educated patients and the aspiration of some doctors; and tools supporting autonomous roles don’t require doctor participation and their use depends on patient preferences and personal circumstances.

Source:  California Healthcare Foundation, June 2010

Certain individuals, often called savants display these cognitive feats while often suffering from a neural disorder like Autism. Snyder believes that these abilities arise as Autism (or other phenomenon) grants the individual ‘privileged access’ to data that would normally be overridden in the brain. With magnetic pulses, Snyder has even been able to temporarily ‘unlock’ savant-like abilities in average people!

Snyder has published numerous papers on cognitive processing and brain performance. His paper in The Philisophical Transactions of the Royal Society B (biological sciences) summarizes his work (and related work from others). To grossly paraphrase his findings: the right hemisphere of the brain seems to accumulate detailed quantified data from the sensory organs unconsciously. This data is effectively overwritten or forgotten as the left brain packages information and imposes labels and organization upon it. When the left-right communication is disturbed or somehow faulty, the detailed data can sometimes be accessed by the conscious mind.

Occasionally though, people’s brains function differently. Snyder thinks they are granted ‘privileged access’ to the unpackaged data and gain “Rain Man” type talents. This can cause problems, such as all the negative symptoms associated with Autism, but it opens the possibility that this data is potentially available to everyone. Our conscious mind seems to work in a very top-down sort of way, with hierarchical thinking giving rise to the problem solving skills that make our species a success. But what if we could temporarily disturb that arrangement by shutting down one part of the brain to regain what that structure has cost us: exact recall of detailed data and calculations.

What other conditions (positive or negative) might we induce simply by temporarily shutting down different centers of the brain? We might learn languages faster, or have insights into our most difficult problems, or even just think of jokes more easily. There’s so much to explore here. One day we may have electromagnetic implants that restrict different parts of our brain to grant us conscious control over the rest. It’s all very theoretical at this point. Yet we may find that the core of the advanced computer of the future has already been built and has been resting in our skulls all this time.

Source: Singularity Hub, Aaron Saenz, August 4th, 2010; Smarter.org, Center for the Mind, Snyder et al Royal Society 2009 ;

A lizard brain is about survival — it controls heart rate and breathing, and processes information from the eyes and ears and mouth.

When mammals like mice came along, the lizard brain didn’t go away. The evolution slapped more brain on top of the lizard brain which then became the brain stem. These new parts gave mammals more memory and a wider range of emotions. It also allows them to do things a lizard can’t, like using experiences to anticipate danger instead of just responding to it.

And then the evolution added another layer to the brain that allows for example apes to reason and live much more complicated lives than mice.

In these brains you can find all of the very same parts that you would see in a human brain; except that the brain of an adult human is about three times the size of a gorilla brain. Much of the size difference appears after birth. The human brain continues to grow rapidly for the first five years after birth. It takes 20 years before all the circuits are laid out and connected up, Linden says.

As a result of having a bif size brain, there are enough neurons in our cortical circuit, massively interconnected, that the amazing human traits emerges from, such as: the ability to know what others are thinking based on social cues that people give them, other forms of observational learning and high-level cognition.

…and the highest payoff of our massive brain is the feeling of love and compassion.

Source: N.P.R; Jon Hamilton, August 9, 2010

1. The Fecanator! Synthetic bacteria designed to help humans life on less food and produce less waste.

2. Thermo/visual gamma wave feedback monitor to help deepen meditation practices.

3. An easier-to-use operating system to help fight senior loneliness.

4. Heart Helper glove that squeezes hands to assist the heart in moving blood around.

5. A network of local fitness specialists that compete for your needs.

6. Condoms for Africa that incorporate features of traditional amulets.

7. A plan for expanding the practice of daily hugs to improve well-being.

8. Safer hospitals infected with good bacteria to out-compete the bad ones that often breed in hospitals.

9. A social, smart phone application to collect data and analyze personal health trends.

10. A videogame-style display to help people manage stress and maintain a healthy life.

11. Reversible Fertility Vaccine based on synthetic bacteria living in the reproductive system.

12. Paleo Approved Label to facilitate the practice of ancestral eating.

13. Simple adoption of bowing instead of shaking hands to reduce flu spread.

14. Software that can create 3-D cell-organ models from MRI data.

15. Healthy homes that include smart refrigerators, toilet analysis, and glucose meters.

Source: IFTF

However, the direct-to-consumer genetic testing are more difficult and time consuming to explain, since with only a handful of exceptions, genes don’t predict disease, but instead offer probabilities that certain diseases are more or less likely. As a result some think that the test results are misleading and of little use to consumers.

The FDA has also started notifying genetic testing companies that direct-to-consumer genetic testing qualifies as a “medical device” which could potentially subject genetic testing to federal regulation. Whether or not these tests get regulated–and what those regulations could look like–are obviously open questions.

At the same time, it’s unlikely that even the strictest regulations would spell the end of direct-to-consumer genetic testing. In other words, the future of regulating genetics is up in the air, but demand for testing in the United States–regardless of what regulatory decisions get made–is likely to continue to grow.

Daniel MacArthur, who just launched Genomes Unzipped with Vorhaus, has a very insightful take about where we might see this demand finding its supply: Singapore and China!

It’s no more difficult to send a vial of saliva from Texas to California than it is to send one from Texas to China. Which is another way of saying that the genetic testing will be around, regardless of what happens in the regulatory sphere in the United States. You won’t take your kid to a community center or school to find out those genetic risk probabilities; you’ll walk over to the computer and Skype over to India or China for a counseling session….

Source: Bradley Kreit, IFTF July 26, 2010

The participants said they spent more than 85% of their waking hours thinking of the person who rejected them, they yearned for the person to return and they wanted to get back together. The researchers found that looking at photographs of the participants’ former partners stimulated several key areas of the participants’ brains more than looking at photos of neutral persons did. Theses areas are:

• the ventral tegmental area in the mid-brain, which controls motivation and reward and is known to be involved in feelings of romantic love
• the nucleus accumbens and orbitofrontal/prefrontal cortex, which are associated with craving and addiction, specifically the dopaminergic reward system evident in cocaine addiction, and
• the insular cortex and the anterior cingulate, which are associated with physical pain and distress.

The researchers note that their findings supply evidence that “the passion of ‘romantic love’ is a goal-oriented motivation state rather than a specific emotion” and that their results are “consistent with the hypothesis that romantic rejection is a specific form of addiction.” Those who are coping with a romantic rejection may be fighting against a strong survival system that appears to be the basis of many addictions. The data help to explain why the beloved is so difficult to give up.

The researchers also found that the greater the number of days since the rejection, the less activity there was in the area of the brain associated with attachment. Also, areas associated with reappraising difficult emotional situations and assessing one’s gains and losses were activated, suggesting that rejected individuals are trying to understand and learn from their difficult situation–what could be an adaptive response to rejection. If attachment responses decrease as the days go by and falling out of love is a learning process, there could very well be physiological evidence that time heals all wounds.

Source: Brain Mysteries July, 10 2010

Achieving Well Workplace status requires making the switch from activity-centered to results-oriented programming which takes hard work and extreme attention to detail. Results-oriented programs are those programs which are carefully researched, thoughtfully designed, and diligently executed. These programs are focused on impacting the organization’s bottom line through improved employee health.

According to recent benchmarking studies, there are a number of common elements inherent in successful health promotion initiatives that can attain measurable results. Companies with successful wellness programs have:

• the strong support of the senior level leadership that can be measured
• an integrated diverse and well-functioning Wellness team
• a process for collecting data to drive the Wellness initiative
• an annual operating plan that serves as the communication vehicle as to what the program will accomplish
• appropriate health promotion interventions for their employees
• supportive health-promoting environment and policies to support participation
• a carefully planned evaluation strategy that would evaluate the outcome of the above benchmarks and holds them accountable

Source: Absolute Advantage

The new rules also ensure that if you like your current health care plan, you can keep it; youth up to the age of 26 can stay on their parents health care plan; tax credits for small businesses that have been struggling to provide care to their employees; and $250 checks to tens of thousands of seniors who have reached the ‘donut hole’ — a term used to describe the gap in Medicare Part D prescription coverage.

Source: HHS and HealthReform.Gov; June, 22nd 2010

Launched in 2010, Healthrageous, Inc. designs and delivers highly effective, personalized, interactive, motivational self-management solutions that help individuals shed unhealthy habits, improve their adherence to medical advice, and embrace healthy lifestyles.

Healthrageous’ solutions can be packaged as workplace benefit for large employers, health plans and insurers, specialty care and disease management companies, provider health systems, pharmaceutical makers and clinical trial sponsors, pharmacy benefit managers, device makers, and consumer wellness retail and fitness brands.

Healthrageous’ technology platform is designed to interface with most major manufacturers of biometric sensors and telemedicine devices, smart phone operating systems, popular social network media, leading direct-to-consumer outbound telephonic call systems, and emerging Web-based personal health record (PHR) systems.

The company’s solutions are based on technologies developed at the Center for Connected Health, a division of Partners HealthCare, founded by Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital, teaching affiliates of Harvard Medical School. Healthrageous, Inc. is headquartered in Massachusetts.

Source: PR NewsWire, June 2010