"... A Mouthy, Honest, Lippy Broad ..." | R.I.P. Carrie Fisher

Via FB

Angry Woman Stabs Man With Ceramic Squirrrel

South Carolina authorities say a 44-year-old woman angry at a man for returning home without beer on Christmas beat and stabbed him with a ceramic squirrel. 

The Charleston County Sheriff's office says in a report that deputies found a man covered with blood when they arrived at Helen Williams' North Charleston home early Wednesday. She told investigators the man fell and cut himself, but couldn't explain why her hands and clothes were also bloody. Deputies say the man said Williams was so angry when he returned without beer because stores were closed on Christmas Eve that she grabbed a ceramic squirrel, beat him in the head, then stabbed him in the shoulder and chest. 

Williams was in jail Friday and charged with criminal domestic violence. It wasn't known if she had a lawyer.

HuffPo

Science Says | Oreos Are As Addictive As Cocaine

Researchers at Connecticut College have found evidence that proves that Oreo cookies—at least for lab rats—are as addictive as cocaine. Neuroscience senior Jamie Honohan devised the study in order to research the impact of high-fat and high-sugar foods in low-income neighborhoods ... 

To carry out the study, Honohan and two other students devised a maze. On one side of the maze, hungry rats would find an Oreo. On the other side, hungry rats would find (groan) rice cakes. 

Unsurprisingly, all the rats gravitated toward the Oreo, and like all cultured creatures, they would “
break it open and eat the middle first.” 

The researchers compared the results of their study to a similar study in which rats were either given a shot of cocaine or morphine on one side of the maze or a shot of saline on the other. It turns out that the rats conditioned with Oreos spent as much time on the “drug” side of the maze as those who were conditioned with actual drugs. Even more worrisome, the researchers found that the Oreos “activated significantly more neurons than cocaine or morphine.”

Link via Gawker

Curious Alice | Trippy 70s Warning About Drug Use

YouTube

In Curious Alice (1971), a film intended for eight to ten year olds, our young Alice falls asleep while reading a book. She encounters cigarettes, liquor, and medicines, and realizes that they are all types of drugs. When she sees the “Drink Me” bottle, she understands that it contains something like a drug, yet after a half-second’s consideration, she drinks the entire bottle and enters a fantasy world. In Drug Wonderland, Alice learns about the hard stuff from her new friends the Mad Hatter (LSD), the March Hare (amphetamines), the Dormouse (barbiturates), and the King of Hearts (heroin). The events of Curious Alice play out as an expression of Alice’s drug trip. Unfortunately, the trip is kind of fun and effectively cancels out the film’s anti-drug message.

Read more at Media Matters, U.S. National Archives

Via Dangerous Minds

New Rules Could Improve Mental Health Coverage

Source

On Wednesday, the Department of Health and Human Services issued its final rule defining what the government calls essential health benefits—the ten broad categories of health services that must be offered by most health insurance plans starting next year (states will decide what specific benefits will be covered within those categories). Under the new regulation, insurers will be required to cover the treatment of mental illnesses, behavioral disorders, drug addiction and alcohol abuse. The rule will allow 32 million people to gain access to mental health coverage, and will increase benefits for another 30 million. 

The New York Times reports:

White House officials described the rule as a major expansion of coverage. In the past, they said, nearly 20 percent of people buying insurance on their own did not have coverage for mental health services, and nearly one-third had no coverage for treatment of substance abuse. The rule requires insurers to cover benefits in 10 broad categories, including hospital services, prescription drugs and maternity and newborn care. [HHS secretary Kathleen] Sebelius said the partial standardization of benefits would make it easier for consumers to compare health plans.

The new regulations make mental health coverage cheaper for patients by limiting deductibles and out of pocket costs and requiring that new health insurance policies pay for between 60 and 90 percent of the cost of the services they cover.But since states decide which specific mental health benefits insurance companies will have to offer, access to different treatments will vary from state to state. This has left many mental health advocates disappointed. Newtown killer Adam Lanza reportedly suffered from Asperger's Syndrome, a type of autism. As the Times reports, only 32 states have laws requiring coverage of autism treatments.

Mother Jones

Time to start writing to state senators and representatives.

Parents | Are You A Monster When You're Drunk?

YouTube | Adweek

Folks fortunate enough to have had normal childhoods might find this PSA from Finnish agency Euro RSCG Helsinki for a charity called Fragile Childhood disturbing or unrealistic but I find it totally relatable. It's doubtful that alcoholic parents will recognize themselves or be shocked into changing their behavior, but it may open the eyes of someone else in the life of such a child and inspire them to intervene.

The Medical Benefits Of Drinking Coffee

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Happy to Serve You

Harvard Magazine | Women And Alcohol

When Shelly F. Greenfield joined the Harvard Medical School faculty in 1992, scientists were just beginning to document the fact that men and women become addicted to alcohol, and recover from that illness, differently—to recognize that “there may be gender-specific variables that affect health,” says the professor of psychiatry at McLean Hospital.

During the last 15 years, scientists have documented notable gender differences in the physiological effects of alcohol—differences summed up in Women & Addiction, a 2009 volume co-edited by Greenfield, who has pioneered more effective treatment programs for women struggling with addiction to alcohol and other substances. Women initially metabolize only about a quarter as much alcohol in the stomach and intestines as men do (a fact not documented until 1990); consequently, more alcohol enters the bloodstream as ethanol. Women’s generally lower body mass, and lower body water content, also act to intensify alcohol’s effects.

Due at least partly to these physiological differences, the disease of alcohol dependence proceeds on a faster course in women, requiring medical treatment four years sooner, on average, than for male problem drinkers. Alcohol-addicted women are also quicker to develop cirrhosis, fatty liver, and cognitive impairment, and have a greater risk of dying in alcohol-related accidents than men do.

Read more at Harvard Magazine

Via 3 Quarks Daily

Recovering From A Romantic Breakup Is Like Recovering From Cocaine Addiction

Ari | Absurdist Nonfiction

Abstract:

Romantic rejection causes a profound sense of loss and negative affect. It can induce clinical depression and in extreme cases lead to suicide and/or homicide. To begin to identify the neural systems associated with this natural loss state, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to study 10 women and 5 men who had recently been rejected by a partner but reported they were still intensely "in love." Participants alternately viewed a photograph of their rejecting beloved and a photograph of a familiar, individual, interspersed with a distraction-attention task. Their responses while looking at their rejecter included love, despair, good, and bad memories, and wondering why this happened. Activation specific to the image of the beloved occurred in areas associated with gains and losses, craving and emotion regulation and included the ventral tegmental area (VTA) bilaterally, ventral striatum, medial and lateral orbitofrontal/prefrontal cortex, and cingulate gyrus. Compared with data from happily-in-love individuals, the regional VTA activation suggests that mesolimbic reward/survival systems are involved in romantic passion regardless of whether one is happily or unhappily in love. Forebrain activations associated with motivational relevance, gain/loss, cocaine craving, addiction, and emotion regulation suggest that higher-order systems subject to experience and learning also may mediate the rejection reaction. The results show activation of reward systems, previously identified by monetary stimuli, in a natural, endogenous, negative emotion state. Activation of areas involved in cocaine addiction may help explain the obsessive behaviors associated with rejection in love.

More at the Journal of Neurophysiology

Via Gawker

Craving Romantic Rejection

Researchers have linked rejection by a romantic partner to brain activity associated with motivation, reward and addiction cravings, according to a study published in the July issue of the Journal of Neurophysiology. Lucy Brown, Ph.D., clinical professor in the Saul R. Korey Department of Neurology and of neuroscience at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University, is the corresponding author of the study. This is the third publication in which Dr. Brown and her research group demonstrated that primitive reward and survival systems are activated in people who look at their beloved.

Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), researchers recorded the brain activity of 15 college-age adults who had recently been rejected by their partners but reported that they were still intensely “in love.” Upon viewing photographs of their former partners, several key areas of participants’ brains were activated, including the ventral tegmental area, 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.

By tying these specific areas of the brain to romantic rejection, the research provides insight into the anguished feelings that can accompany a break-up, as well as the extreme behaviors that can occur as a result, such as stalking, homicide and suicide.

“Romantic love, under both happy and unhappy circumstances, may be a ‘natural’ addiction,” said Dr. Brown. “Our findings suggest that the pain of romantic rejection may be a necessary part of life that nature built into our anatomy and physiology. A natural recovery, to pair up with someone else, is in our physiology, too.”

Albert Einstein College of Medicine