Science class taught us that once the brain fully develops during our adolescent years, we’re left with all the neurons we’re ever going to need in our lives and can only lose them as we grow older. However, new research shows that neurons can grow back through neurogenesis, a process where they divide and multiply like other cells in the body. Thousands of neurons can get born at once, but most of them die out because they fail to find a network to get plugged in. Exercise can trigger the creation if these new neurons, and provide the stimulation they need for them to survive.

So what are the best forms of exercise you can do to help your child’s ADHD brain? Here are some suggestions.

Aerobic activities

Set aside thirty minutes each day to jog, ride a bike, or play a sport that involves running or sprinting.  These aerobic exercises boost neurotransmitter production, new cell growth in the brain, and blood vessel development.  A small study done in Japan discovered that half an hour of jogging just twice a week for three months can improve the brain’s executive function. If your child doesn’t have time to exercise daily, make time for a good workout at least two times a week.

Skilled physical activities

Get your family together to do a skilled physical activity like martial arts or rock climbing.  Complex activities like this one improves the formation of synaptic networks in the brain – the more intricate the movements, the better. The new synaptic networks formed will help you learn and think more effectively.

Do both activities

Hit two birds with one stone and do a physical activity that combines both types. Good examples of this are tennis and skateboarding.

Play with a partner

Motivate your child to get regular exercise by doing a skilled activity that requires a partner to play, such as fencing.  This enables your child to learn complex new moves while adjusting to another person’s movements, demanding the brain to stay attentive and focused.

By Dr. Yannick Pauli

www.theunritalinsolution.com

Dr. Shannon Patterson is excited to be currently studying with Dr. Yannick Pauli, a Swiss based Chiropractor.  Dr. Pauli has developed “Brain Potential”, holistic brain stimulation program thatintegrates various therapies to help childrem with neurodevelopmental disorders.  Dr Shannon Patterson will soon be offering a wellness based, brain wellness program for children and adults with ADHD, dyslexia, autism and other neurodevelopmental disorders.  Stay tuned!

Dr. Yannick Pauli                       

 

Have you ever tried touching a baby’s hand?  Try doing so the next time you encounter a baby, and you’ll notice that he or she will automatically grip your finger in response.  This endearing behavior is actually one of the baby’s many neonatal or reflexes – a primitive set of automatic reactions to specific stimuli.  Babies’ neonatal reflexes are located in the most primitive part of the brain, the brainstem, and have evolved to protect them from harm and to aid in their neurological development.  As the baby grows up, the reflexes in the brain stem comes under the control of regions like the cerebral cortex, which are responsible for more evolved thinking.

Sometimes, the integration between primitive reflexes and higher thinking does not happen correctly, meaning the baby carries the primitive reflexes onto childhood.  This occurrence is referred to as retained primitive reflexes.  Its causes are unknown, but experts in this field suggest that it might be due to physical, hormonal, or chemical trauma in the womb.  Caesarean birth or a traumatic birth (i.e. the use of foreceps) can also contribute to a retrained primitive reflex.

What happens to a child who kept his or her primitive reflexes?  The symptoms depend on which specific primitive reflex failed to integrate with the rest of the central nervous system.  You’ll notice that many of these problems are among the diagnostic symptoms of ADHD.

• A retained Moro reflex results in the inability to control emotions. The child might be aggressive, insensitive, but also loving and compassionate. This may also cause a hypersensitivity to touch, light, and textures. • A retained Asymmetrical Tonic Neck Reflex can lead to inattention, the inability to complete writing tasks, and difficulty walking. • A retained Fear Paralysis Reflex causes fear and anxiety about new environments and situations, making the child withdraw from other children and strangers. • A retained Spinal Galant Reflex causes hyperactivity, difficulty staying in one place, inattention, and bedwetting. • A retained Tonic Labyrinthe Reflex leads to a child who has disturbed balance, problems with hearing, difficulties learning to walk and judge distances • A retained Infant Planter Reflex causes curled toes, which results in issues with balance and walking. Common symptoms are ingrown toenails, shin soreness, and twisted angles. • Retained Sucking and Rooting Reflexes result in problems with speech, eating, and chewing.

The relationship between retained primitive reflexes and ADHD has not been fully examined until an Australian study recruited 109 boys, 54 of which were diagnosed with ADHD.  The boys’ parents were asked to fill the Conners’ Parent Rating Scale to confirm the ADHD symptoms, whereas the boys were asked to do certain reflex tests to check for any retained reflexes.  Those without ADHD were found to have fewer symptoms of retained reflexes than the ADHD group, who had higher levels of Moro Reflexes, Asymmetrical Tonic Neck Reflexes, and Tonic Labyrinthe Reflexes.  Although these findings are only preliminary, it shows some support to the relationship between retained primitive reflexes and ADHD symptoms.  Retained primitive reflexes can be treated and reintegrated through chiropractic adjustments.

Reviewed by John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on January 25, 2012

Why do some human groups appear to hate each other? New research by a group of neuroscientists attempts to use brain imaging to determine how the brain responds to empathy and conflict-resolution.

Drs. Emile Bruneau and Rebecca Saxe of Massachusetts Institute of Technology are studying why empathy — the ability to feel compassion for another person’s suffering — often fails between members of opposing groups. “What are the psychological barriers that are put up between us in these contexts of intergroup conflict, and then, critically, what can we do to get past them?” Bruneau said.

Bruneau and Saxe are also trying to locate patterns of brain activity that correlate with empathy, in hopes of eventually using such measures to determine how well people respond to reconciliation programs aimed at boosting empathy between groups in conflict.

“We’re interested in how people think about their enemies, and whether there are brain measures that aremreliable readouts of that,” said Saxe. “This is a huge vision, of which we are at the very beginning.”

Before researchers can use tools such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to evaluate whether conflict-resolution programs are having any effect, they need to identify brain regions that respond to other people’s emotional suffering.

In an earlier study, Saxe and Bruneau scanned people’s brains as they read stories in which the protagonist experienced either physical or emotional pain. The brain regions that responded uniquely to emotional suffering overlapped with areas known to be involved in the ability to perceive what another person is thinking or feeling.

From this knowledge, the researchers designed an experiment that they hoped would show a correlation between empathy levels and amount of activity in those brain regions.

They recruited Israelis and Arabs for a study in which subjects read stories about the suffering of members of their own groups or that of conflict-group members. The study participants also read stories about a distant, neutral group — South Americans.

As expected, Israelis and Arabs reported feeling much more compassion in response to the suffering of their own group members than that of members of the conflict group.

However, the brain scans revealed something surprising: Brain activity in the areas that respond to emotional pain was identical when reading about suffering by one’s own group or the conflict group.

Also, those activity levels were lower when Arabs or Israelis read about the suffering of South Americans, even though Arabs and Israelis expressed more compassion for South Americans’ suffering than for that of the conflict group.

This suggests particular brain regions are sensitive to the importance of the opposing group, not whether or not you like them.

These findings are published in the journal

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society: Biological Sciences.

A short video interview with Bruneau and Saxe about their groundbreaking work can be found on the MIT website. 

Joan Chiao, an assistant professor of psychology at Northwestern University, said those brain regions may be acting as a “thermometer” for conflict.

“It’s a really fascinating study because it’s the first to examine the neural basis of people’s behavior in longstanding conflicts, as opposed to groups that are distant and don’t have a long history of intergroup strife,” said Chiao, who was not involved in the research.

However, because the study did not reveal any correlation between the expression of empathy and the amount of brain activity, more study is needed before MRI can be used as a reliable measure of empathy levels, Saxe says.

“We thought there might be brain regions where the amount of activity was just a simple function of the amount of empathy that you experience,” Saxe said.

“Since that’s not what we found, we don’t know what the amount of activity in these brain regions really means yet. This is basically a first baby step, and one of the things it tells us is that we don’t know enough about these brain regions to use them in the ways that we want to.”

Bruneau is now testing whether these brain regions send messages to different parts of the brain depending on whether the person is feeling empathy or not.

It could be that when someone reads about the suffering of an in-group member, the brain regions identified in this study send information to areas that process unpleasant emotions, while stories about suffering of a conflict-group member activate an area called the ventral striatum, which has been implicated in schadenfreude — taking pleasure in the suffering of others.

Nauert PhD, R. (2012). Probing the Neural Networks of Human Conflict.

Psych Central

Amazing research being done in Japan called “Forest Therapy” is looking at how a walk in the forest amongst the trees can be beneficial to your health. This research has been done on cancer patients in particular and has found that Natural Killer Cells, part of our immune system that keeps cancerous growth in check, increase when time is spent amongst the trees.

The wonders of nature.

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20080502f1.html

Tony Robbins on Network Spinal Analysis

Posing in high-power (vs. low-power) nonverbal displays caused neuroendocrine and behavioral changes for both male and female participants. High-power posers experienced elevations in testosterone, decreases in cortisol, and increased feelings of power and tolerance for risk; low-power posers exhibited the opposite pattern. In short, adopting powerful postures allowed subjects to prepare for stressful situations and confidently take risks due to psychological, physiological, and behavioral changes — and not due to a placebo effect or a self-fulfilling prophesy.

The proof that a person can, via a simple two-minute pose, embody power and instantly become more powerful has real-world implications in a variety of fields and situations — such as athletic performance, courtroom arguments, networking and job interviews, efforts to instill more women executives in Fortune 500 corporations, and the universal challenge of public speaking. Now there is evidence that power positioning is not effective because it heightens others’ awareness of an individual. Instead, power positioning allows an individual to prepare for a challenge on a neuroendocrine level, and gives him or her the ability to excel in decision-making and naturally gain power.

Carney, D.R., Cuddy, A.J., & Yap, A.J. (2010). Power Posing: Brief Nonverbal Displays Affect Neuroendocrine Levels and Risk Tolerance. Psychological Science, 21. doi: 10.1177/0956797610383437.

http://www.liebertonline.com/doi/pdfplus/10.1089/acm.2009.0043