Recent Entries Garion born; thinking of doing video logs - 2012-09-01 I'm married, I'm a prospective father, wow I never update - 2012-05-22 Got the job at the NIA; mother complicates wedding plans - 2011-10-13 Scrawl - 2011-08-05 It's never been better - 2011-06-02
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Depression paper and a bitchy tooth 2003-06-12 - 8:28 p.m. 
The last three days--and really the last week--has been spent in the noctum embrace of selectively padded enclosures, holding hands with infants of thought that cancerously swelled to oversized blobs of muscle with staying power...then rapidly deflated.It's been a bipolar blow-up doll of a paper that way, which is ironically fitting. The bipolar part. Basically, I wrote about the front-most section of our brain--the prefrontal cortex--and how it becomes dysregulated (read: fucked) in major depression. There are trippy and interesting things to be found in dusty science journals that soar in the heavens (5th-7th floor) or dwell with the mole people (3rd basement). Library roving is always calming to me that way. Since I don't want to bore you with technical details, here are some of the more interesting finds you can throw around at clubs or enema parties. I do have to bore you, though, with a paragraph of brain stuff for background... That out of the way, the cool shit: *For major depressives, the second layer of the prefrontal cortex shows major atrophy. Whereas non-depressed people have a bunch of just large brain cells ('neurons') there, depressed people show a major drop in large neurons and a comparable increase in small neurons. As an extension of that, imaging studies show a 50% reduction of cell volume in certain prefrontal cortex sub-areas. Now you're probably wondering (if you're giving a damn at the same time) if that's permenant or temporary. It hasn't been studied yet in people or monkies who have gone into full remission. If I had the money... *Major depressives typically show a "catastrophic response" whenever they are trying to accomplish something and receive negative feedback of some kind. Non-depressed people show a drop, but not as significantly. The major difference between the two, though, lies in when you don't get any feedback about the job/task you're doing. When a non-depressed person receives no feedback while they're doing something, they perform about as well as when they receive positive feedback. In contrast--again, when not getting any feedback--depressed people perform as well as when they receive negative feedback. Quite revealing about how some people just seem to shut down when they start getting bitched out, neh? ---- Besides that paper, though, I haven't had a chance to edit/take any more photographs or write more. Since I basically have all of next week off, though, I could get started again tonight. Not sure where to go to shoot, though. I'm on the fence right now about whether or not to go out to the beach and do my thing. The left molar I had surgery on six months ago has been inflammed now and again lately. Right now I can barely eat grapes on the good side of my mouth. Mom is also planning on making tacos for the usual incredibly late dinner. I figure I can talk with some people online that I haven't seen recently, eat (as best as I can) then go out at some obscene hour and meet more cops. I'm up to a dozen and a half in the last year. I hope the left molar doesn't stay like this. I can't afford a 2,500 dollar tooth replacement/crowning. We'll see by tomorrow, since it just started up again today. |
