Posts Tagged ‘Brain’

San Diego, CA (PRWEB) June 16, 2008

Anyone with a physical ailment or who loves someone suffering from debilitating health conditions will benefit from reading “If I Only Had a Brain Injury: A TBI Survivor and Life Coach’s Guide to Chronic Fatigue, Concussion, Lyme Disease, Migraine, or Other ‘Medical Mystery’” (ISBN 9781436322461, Xlibris Corporation, 2008).

When a car crash resulted in a brain injury, Laura Bruno was forced to relearn everything she knew. For four years, Bruno was disabled and unable to work. She found difficulty performing such simple tasks as reading or driving from one location to another without getting lost. Now she tells her story to provide hope and healing to others.

Bruno compares herself to Dorothy in “The Wizard of Oz” and uses the Scarecrow’s song from the film to create the title for “If I Only Had a Brain Injury.” She reminds us that Dorothy’s experiences were the result of a concussion, but Dorothy returned from her dream with greater appreciation for home; similarly, Bruno’s brain injury gave her a new and more compassionate perspective.

Bruno explores numerous medical mysteries similar to brain injuries. She writes about her husband’s experiences with Lyme Disease, as well as people’s struggles with Multiple Sclerosis, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Fibromyalgia. Common shared tendencies include lost sense of “self,” debilitating fatigue, chronic pain, inability to access parts of your brain, and frequent sensory overload.

“If I Only Had a Brain Injury” contains a wealth of information in an interesting, easy-to-read manner. Bruno provides healing hints, appendices, interviews with various experts, networking and contact information. “If I Only Had a Brain Injury” is the ultimate starting place for anyone suffering a physical illness. The reader will learn how to heal on physical, mental, emotional and spiritual levels so life continues as a rich and gratifying experience.

About the Author

After completing a Master’s Degree in English at the University of Chicago, Laura Bruno spent two years in the corporate world. Just before her return to graduate school, she suffered a brain injury. Years of misdiagnoses forced her to find alternative means to getting well. Now a writer and Intuitive Life Coach, Laura enjoys a full practice. From a woman once considered “permanently disabled,” “If I Only Had a Brain Injury” is testament to the incredible resilience of the human brain and spirit.

“If I Only Had a Brain Injury: A TBI Survivor and Life Coach’s Guide to Chronic Fatigue, Concussion, Lyme Disease, Migraine, or Other ‘Medical Mystery’” (ISBN 9781436322461, Xlibris Corporation, 2008) can be purchased through local and online bookstores. For more information, visit www.ifionlyhadabraininjury.com. Publicity contact: www.ReaderViews.com. Review copies available upon request.

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Question by d_r_siva: Question on brain aimed at “no one cares’s Activity” – where is the seat of thinking?
Personality does not change with an icepick on brain.

It is now known that even when a considerable amount of brain is removed
through surgery, a person can still have reasonable mental abilities and
can lead a near normal life. Modern research found that one region in
brain can perform several tasks and so can compensate for the loss of
damage of another region.

“Following his surgery, Sperry’s patient seemed completely normal — almost.”

http://viewzone2.com/bicamx.html

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/world/1032397/us-girl-recovers-after-risky-brain-surgery

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-483067/Schoolboy-brain-removed-cure-epilepsy.html

Do People Only Use 10 Percent Of Their Brains?

“There are people who have injured their brains or had parts of it removed who still live fairly normal lives, but that is because the brain has a way of compensating and making sure that what’s left takes over the activity.”

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=people-only-use-10-percent-of-brain

http://www.search.com/search?q=Do+People+Only+Use+10+Percent+Of+Their+Brains%3F

“There will be an exception for every rule”.

http://www.answers.com/topic/there-is-an-exception-to-every-rule

So there can be a few exceptions. But the learned should not take exceptions to claim them as rules.

Best answer:

Answer by Shut up, no one cares
Ok, at least thank you for providing website links. It seems that while it is true that if the brain is damaged, the functions of the damaged area are not necessarily lost. However, it may mean that a person is able to function while it does not mean that his/her personality will stay the same.
I don’t know, maybe I’m wrong. It just seems that there’s evidence for both sides. Like this paper:

http://www.psywww.com/intropsych/ch02_human_nervous_system/lobotomy_effects.html

says that “Few of the lobotomy patients could plan effectively for the future or sustain goal-oriented activities. A goal requires that complicated plans be held in mind, and this was evidently beyond the capacity of lobotomy patients, who tended to be distracted by immediate stimuli.” Now that sounds like a personality change, doesn’t it? For some reason the function of “planning” was not taken up by other portions of the brain. And it’s clearly not an exception – at least it’s not presented as such.

Here’s a doctor claiming that brain tumors that involve frontal lobes often affect personality:

http://www.medhelp.org/posts/Brain-Tumors/Personality-change-due-to-brain-tumors/show/547281

If a tumor can do it, it’s conceivable that an ice pick could do it, too.
Anyway, I’m not entirely convinced by either side. I always thought that damage to prefrontal cortex would lead to a personality change, but maybe I’m mistaken. Thanks for your time, though.

Know better? Leave your own answer in the comments!

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Question by Jacolynslovesyou: My anxiety, my anger, my depression… Its not me, right? Its just my brain, right? Oh please help :(?
I have anger management, and SEVERE anxiety/depression.
I was even hospitalized for it.

I am on meds, but they aren’t working anymore.

Please tell me that I’m like this because of the chemicals in my brain, not because I’m a freak
When I’m not on pills I try to kill myself,
so I think I’ll stick to the pills lol.
I’ve never had side affects, they just kind of stopped working recently…

Best answer:

Answer by boxmaker40
Your not a freak. Depression can do so many things to a person, and not every one with depression with have the same symptoms.
I’m seeing my doc for depression now, and I find the meds to be terrible. There are to many side effects and in the long run they don’t really work. Finding something that makes you happy is better than taking pills. To many people these days are more into pills to feel better and after you realize they don’t help long term.

Know better? Leave your own answer in the comments!

Question by msexprss: How is the brain involved with bipolar disease?
What parts of the brain are defected in a person whom suffers from bipolar? I need to know how bipolar effects the brain.

Best answer:

Answer by snurpgurgler
Bipolar disease is caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain, seratonin is the culprit. There is a lack of seratonin in the brain and it makes you depressed most of the time and when you have a surge of seratonin it makes you act “manic” .

Give your answer to this question below!

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Brain Injury and Schizophrenia: How to Deal

For victims of a traumatic brain injury (TBI) and their families, side effects such as bipolar disorder and memory loss are tragic, but well known and well understood. But in the last decades, scientists have begun to study another serious side effect of brain damage that may go undetected: schizophrenia.

What is Schizophrenia?

Schizophrenia (Greek for “shattered mind”) is a psychotic disorder that affects behavior, mood and thinking. The term was originally coined as “the schizophrenias” because of the wide variety of symptoms characterizing the condition. A misperception that all schizophrenics hear voices is actually untrue. It is a symptom in some suffering from schizophrenia but not all. Psychologists break symptoms of schizophrenia into three categories:

. Positive symptoms are behaviors that are not present in normal individuals. Other symptoms include hearing things, delusional though as well as sporadic thought.

. Negative symptoms are symptoms showing loss of normal abilities. They include loss of ability to show or feel emotion, lack of motivation and trouble with speaking.

. Neurocognitive defects are problems with brain function in areas such as memory, problem-solving, attention and social functioning.

Schizophrenia Related to Brain Injury in Patients

Scientists have established that psychiatric conditions such as bipolar and anxiety disorders are more common in patients who have suffered from traumatic brain injuries. Schizophrenia itself has been associated with individuals who have previously suffered brain damage regardless of family history. But it is only since the early 1990s that researchers have begun to explore in depth that connection between brain damage caused by traumatic brain injury and schizophrenia.

Schizophrenia and Brain Injury: Recent Studies

. Among the findings of those studies:

. TBI-associated schizophrenia is true schizophrenia, not another disorder with similar symptoms, according to a 2001 study by Columbia University. Schizophrenia and TBI are now being associated as hand-in-hand illnesses, one usually occurs in the victim of the other.

. Another study in the same year at the University of New South Wales in Australia discovered that TBI patients with schizophrenia-like psychosis had more widespread brain damage and cognitive impairment than TBI patients without psychosis. It also suggested that a family history of schizophrenia and the severity of the brain damage sustained during TBI increased the risk of schizophrenia.

. Scientists at the Hawaii State Hospital found in 2002 that it took an average of four to five years after a traumatic brain injury for psychosis to manifest, with most cases arriving within two years. Psychosis may be the result of trauma and blunt force to temporal and frontal lobes, for which researchers are attempting to determine.

While the complex nature of schizophrenia makes its cause unclear, as the last study suggests, there is evidence to believe that brain injury directly causes schizophrenia, by damaging the areas of the brain that control higher functions. There is also evidence that a traumatic brain injury may cause psychosis indirectly. Scientists believe that schizophrenia is caused by a combination of genetic susceptibility to the disease and an emotionally or physically traumatic experience that triggers this susceptibility. Researchers are finding that TBI and the trauma that can occur can actually trigger schizophrenia.

Many physicians know a traumatic brain injur may cause neurocognitive disorders such as trouble with speech, and psychiatric problems like bipolar disorder, but not all are aware of the growing evidence linking schizophrenia with brain damage. It is imperative that after a TBI accident, that a victim consult a psychiatrist to ensure that they return to normal behavior. In addition, brain injury patients and their families should consult an experienced brain injury attorney as they seek to recover costs for expenses such as lost wages, current medical costs and future medical care.