Theme: Agency

  • If This Holds Up, That’s the End of Long Term Use of The Pill – and It Explains … a Lot.

    Dec 5, 2019, 8:59 PM Key brain region smaller in birth control pill users Neuroscience News Summary: A new neuroimaging study reveals women who take oral contraception have reduced hypothalamic volume compared to women who do not take the pill. Smaller hypothalamic volume was associated with increased negative emotions and depression risk. Source: RSNA Researchers studying the brain found that women taking oral contraceptives, commonly known as birth control pills, had significantly smaller hypothalamus volume, compared to women not taking the pill, according to a new study presented today at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA). Located at the base of the brain above the pituitary gland, the hypothalamus produces hormones and helps regulate essential bodily functions including body temperature, mood, appetite, sex drive, sleep cycles and heart rate. Structural effects of sex hormones, including oral contraceptive pills, on the human hypothalamus have never been reported, according to the researchers. This may be in part because validated methods to quantitatively analyze MRI exams of the hypothalamus have not been available. “There is a lack of research on the effects of oral contraceptives on this small but essential part of the living human brain,” said Michael L. Lipton, M.D., Ph.D., FACR, professor of radiology at the Gruss Magnetic Resonance Research Center at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and medical director of MRI Services at Montefiore Medical Center in New York City. “We validated methods for assessing the volume of the hypothalamus and confirm, for the first time, that current oral contraceptive pill usage is associated with smaller hypothalamic volume.” Oral contraceptives are among the most popular forms of birth control and are also used to treat a host of conditions, including irregular menstruation, cramps, acne, endometriosis and polycystic ovary syndrome. According to a 2018 report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics, from 2015 to 2017 approximately 47 million women aged 15-49 in the U.S. reported current use of contraceptives. Of those, 12.6% used the pill. In his study, Dr. Lipton and colleagues recruited a group of 50 healthy women, including 21 women who were taking oral contraceptives. All 50 women underwent brain MRI, and a validated approach was used to measure hypothalamic volume. This shows the brain scans of the hypothalamus Brain MRI depicting hypothalamus in red. The image is credited to the study author and RSNA. “We found a dramatic difference in the size of the brain structures between women who were taking oral contraceptives and those who were not,” Dr. Lipton said. “This initial study shows a strong association and should motivate further investigation into the effects of oral contraceptives on brain structure and their potential impact on brain function.” Other findings from the study, which Dr. Lipton described as “preliminary,” were that smaller hypothalamic volume was also associated with greater anger and showed a strong correlation with depressive symptoms. However, the study found no significant correlation between hypothalamic volume and cognitive performance. Co-authors are Ke Xun Chen, M.D., Sandie Worley, B.S., Henry J. Foster, B.S., David Edasery, M.D., Shima Roknsharifi, M.D., and Chloe Ifrah, B.A. Funding: The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health/National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke and by The Dana Foundation.

  • If This Holds Up, That’s the End of Long Term Use of The Pill – and It Explains … a Lot.

    Dec 5, 2019, 8:59 PM Key brain region smaller in birth control pill users Neuroscience News Summary: A new neuroimaging study reveals women who take oral contraception have reduced hypothalamic volume compared to women who do not take the pill. Smaller hypothalamic volume was associated with increased negative emotions and depression risk. Source: RSNA Researchers studying the brain found that women taking oral contraceptives, commonly known as birth control pills, had significantly smaller hypothalamus volume, compared to women not taking the pill, according to a new study presented today at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA). Located at the base of the brain above the pituitary gland, the hypothalamus produces hormones and helps regulate essential bodily functions including body temperature, mood, appetite, sex drive, sleep cycles and heart rate. Structural effects of sex hormones, including oral contraceptive pills, on the human hypothalamus have never been reported, according to the researchers. This may be in part because validated methods to quantitatively analyze MRI exams of the hypothalamus have not been available. “There is a lack of research on the effects of oral contraceptives on this small but essential part of the living human brain,” said Michael L. Lipton, M.D., Ph.D., FACR, professor of radiology at the Gruss Magnetic Resonance Research Center at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and medical director of MRI Services at Montefiore Medical Center in New York City. “We validated methods for assessing the volume of the hypothalamus and confirm, for the first time, that current oral contraceptive pill usage is associated with smaller hypothalamic volume.” Oral contraceptives are among the most popular forms of birth control and are also used to treat a host of conditions, including irregular menstruation, cramps, acne, endometriosis and polycystic ovary syndrome. According to a 2018 report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics, from 2015 to 2017 approximately 47 million women aged 15-49 in the U.S. reported current use of contraceptives. Of those, 12.6% used the pill. In his study, Dr. Lipton and colleagues recruited a group of 50 healthy women, including 21 women who were taking oral contraceptives. All 50 women underwent brain MRI, and a validated approach was used to measure hypothalamic volume. This shows the brain scans of the hypothalamus Brain MRI depicting hypothalamus in red. The image is credited to the study author and RSNA. “We found a dramatic difference in the size of the brain structures between women who were taking oral contraceptives and those who were not,” Dr. Lipton said. “This initial study shows a strong association and should motivate further investigation into the effects of oral contraceptives on brain structure and their potential impact on brain function.” Other findings from the study, which Dr. Lipton described as “preliminary,” were that smaller hypothalamic volume was also associated with greater anger and showed a strong correlation with depressive symptoms. However, the study found no significant correlation between hypothalamic volume and cognitive performance. Co-authors are Ke Xun Chen, M.D., Sandie Worley, B.S., Henry J. Foster, B.S., David Edasery, M.D., Shima Roknsharifi, M.D., and Chloe Ifrah, B.A. Funding: The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health/National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke and by The Dana Foundation.

  • Hypothalamus

    Hypothalamus https://propertarianism.com/2020/05/30/hypothalamus/


    Source date (UTC): 2020-05-30 21:36:44 UTC

    Original post: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1266846026150948865

  • Hypothalamus

    Dec 5, 2019, 9:23 PM HYPOTHALAMUS (Regarding drastic difference in women taking ‘the pill’.) (Hypothesis: the female brain evolved to sustain moods in the care of children, and absent children the female brain does not mature, and in the absence of the reproductive cycle declines. Which is what we see in the data. So without competition boys infantilize and without children girls infantilize – and infantilizing causes behavior in humans similar to caged animals in zoos.) WHAT DOES THE HYPOTHALAMUS DO? The hypothalamus is a portion of the brain that contains a number of small nuclei (groups of neurons that work to calculate specialized functions). All vertebrate brains contain a hypothalamus. In humans, it is the size of an almond. The hypothalamus links the nervous system to the endocrine system via the pituitary gland and is responsible for the regulation of multiple metabolic processes and other functions of the autonomic nervous system (what you can’t control. By synthesizing and secreting certain neurohormones, called Releasing Hormones or Hypothalamic Hormones (messengers), that stimulate or inhibit the secretion of hormones from the pituitary gland, causing your body to react to real or imagined information by translating information for the pituitary gland. Using these messages, the hypothalamus controls body temperature, hunger, important aspects of parenting and attachment behaviors, thirst, fatigue, sleep, and circadian rhythms. The human male and female reproductive cycles are controlled by the interaction of hormones from the hypothalamus and anterior(front of the) pituitary with hormones from reproductive tissues and organs. When the reproductive hormone is required, the hypothalamus sends a hormone to the pituitary. This causes the release into the blood of a hormone (‘follicle-stimulating’) that promotes the formation of ova or sperm, and another hormone (‘luteinizing”) that stimulates ovulation in females and the synthesis of androgen in males.

  • Hypothalamus

    Dec 5, 2019, 9:23 PM HYPOTHALAMUS (Regarding drastic difference in women taking ‘the pill’.) (Hypothesis: the female brain evolved to sustain moods in the care of children, and absent children the female brain does not mature, and in the absence of the reproductive cycle declines. Which is what we see in the data. So without competition boys infantilize and without children girls infantilize – and infantilizing causes behavior in humans similar to caged animals in zoos.) WHAT DOES THE HYPOTHALAMUS DO? The hypothalamus is a portion of the brain that contains a number of small nuclei (groups of neurons that work to calculate specialized functions). All vertebrate brains contain a hypothalamus. In humans, it is the size of an almond. The hypothalamus links the nervous system to the endocrine system via the pituitary gland and is responsible for the regulation of multiple metabolic processes and other functions of the autonomic nervous system (what you can’t control. By synthesizing and secreting certain neurohormones, called Releasing Hormones or Hypothalamic Hormones (messengers), that stimulate or inhibit the secretion of hormones from the pituitary gland, causing your body to react to real or imagined information by translating information for the pituitary gland. Using these messages, the hypothalamus controls body temperature, hunger, important aspects of parenting and attachment behaviors, thirst, fatigue, sleep, and circadian rhythms. The human male and female reproductive cycles are controlled by the interaction of hormones from the hypothalamus and anterior(front of the) pituitary with hormones from reproductive tissues and organs. When the reproductive hormone is required, the hypothalamus sends a hormone to the pituitary. This causes the release into the blood of a hormone (‘follicle-stimulating’) that promotes the formation of ova or sperm, and another hormone (‘luteinizing”) that stimulates ovulation in females and the synthesis of androgen in males.

  • Via Negativa in Intelligence: Genetic Load Causes Stupidity

    Via Negativa in Intelligence: Genetic Load Causes Stupidity https://propertarianism.com/2020/05/30/via-negativa-in-intelligence-genetic-load-causes-stupidity/


    Source date (UTC): 2020-05-30 21:26:50 UTC

    Original post: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1266843536005177346

  • Via Negativa in Intelligence: Genetic Load Causes Stupidity

    VIA NEGATIVA IN INTELLIGENCE: GENETIC LOAD CAUSES STUPIDITY A somewhat popular post from ’12 that made the rounds. It follows my understanding that the size of the brain largely determines its capacity for intelligence and that the accumulation of defects causes stupidity, rather than, intelligence being a specific modification. This would mirror the data in that intelligence seems to be produced by many sequences. Or conversely, that many sequences can inhibit intelligence. http://www.wiringthebrain.com/2012/07/genetics-of-stupidity.html?

  • Via Negativa in Intelligence: Genetic Load Causes Stupidity

    VIA NEGATIVA IN INTELLIGENCE: GENETIC LOAD CAUSES STUPIDITY A somewhat popular post from ’12 that made the rounds. It follows my understanding that the size of the brain largely determines its capacity for intelligence and that the accumulation of defects causes stupidity, rather than, intelligence being a specific modification. This would mirror the data in that intelligence seems to be produced by many sequences. Or conversely, that many sequences can inhibit intelligence. http://www.wiringthebrain.com/2012/07/genetics-of-stupidity.html?

  • Q: Why Do Our Brains Construct Two Opposing Explanations?

    Dec 8, 2019, 2:34 PM

    —”Q: WHY DO OUR BRAINS CONSTRUCT TWO OPPOSING EXPLANATIONS?”—

    (repost from fall 2018) Question: “Why have our marvelous brains formulated two diametrically opposite explanations?” Answer: Cognitive Division of Labor: Predator (action, dominance, science) — vs.– Prey (mindfulness, submission, religion). Problem: Demand for mindfulness increases with uncertainty. Post tribal life removes resource uncertainty at the cost of social uncertainty (female herd equality, male pack hierarchy). Scale increases uncertainty. Production cycles decrease availability of positive reinforcement (status signals, fitness signals). Consumerism buys signals, at cost of increase in isolation. Diversity (market polity) increases isolation. Choices: (a) Personal Rituals: Stoicism (Self Authoring) > Sophism (Philosophy) > Pseudoscience (“Church of TED, Marxist Economics”) > Religion (Old Age) > Magic (New Age) > Occult (literature – post-reason). (b) Social Rituals: Hunting > Sport > Commerce > Civic Groups and Clubs > Politics > Religion (academy, media, cult) > Fringe Movements (outcasts) > Occult (‘escapists’). What’s the Underlying Problem? Neural Economy. (Physical Economy(Stress), Emotional Economy (Stress), Neural Economy(stress)). Regularity provides certainty and decreased neural cost. Plenty provides personal decrease in neural cost but increase in cost of collective coherence, consistency, correspondence, and (frame) decidability. In other words, manageable neural cost provides anti-fragility (mindfulness) and suppressed neural cost (infantilization) increases fragility. The problem we face satisfaction of demand for predatory ( consumption, acquisition, opportunity, signals/status) vs prey ( consumption, insurance, certainty, not-sticking-out/equality). Markets (Economy) in everything: Unfortunately we have constructed a cognitive model of monopoly under both universalist abrahamic religion, justificationary philosophy, universal democracy, legislation (rather than tort law), and constructivist mathematics (and positivist logic). Despite the fact that the uniqueness of western civilization’s ‘salvation’ of mankind from superstition, ignorance, hard labor, poverty, starvation, disease, endemic violence, child mortality, early death, tyranny, and the vicissitudes of nature – was the product of anti-monopoly “Markets in All Walks of Life” under individual sovereignty, tort law of reciprocity, evidentiary (testifiable) truth regardless of cost to face, status, dominance, or competence hierarchy, duty of the commons regardless of station, decision jury, judge and rule of law, leaving the only remaining method of cooperation “as markets in all aspects of life” that resulted in our innovations of reason, empiricism, and science. Ergo, between religion, philosophy, (and that counter-empiricism we call the ‘enlightenment’ and it’s capture of power) democracy, followed by the revision of monopoly Abrahamic Monotheism( judaism, christianity, and islamism), that we call Marxism(Pseudoscience), Socialism(Monopoly Property), Postmodernism (monopoly sophism), and Feminism (monopoly female control vs compromise familial control) – we repeated the same process as the ancient era (resulting in the destruction of every civlization of the ancient world) and attempted in the current era to undermine (destroy) that social order that made our salvation from natural condition possible: non-monopoly markets of competition (calculation) using discovery by trial and error at the cost of soft eugenics (suppression of the reproduction of those who force burden by moral hazard onto others). The questions are one of knowledge and one of choice. Lacking knowledge one cannot make a choice. Possessing knowledge what choice does one (or all) make? The answer is divided between the predator and pack’s preservation, or the prey and herd’s submission. 😉 Maybe that will add to the discourse. 😉 -Cheers

  • Q: Why Do Our Brains Construct Two Opposing Explanations?

    Dec 8, 2019, 2:34 PM

    —”Q: WHY DO OUR BRAINS CONSTRUCT TWO OPPOSING EXPLANATIONS?”—

    (repost from fall 2018) Question: “Why have our marvelous brains formulated two diametrically opposite explanations?” Answer: Cognitive Division of Labor: Predator (action, dominance, science) — vs.– Prey (mindfulness, submission, religion). Problem: Demand for mindfulness increases with uncertainty. Post tribal life removes resource uncertainty at the cost of social uncertainty (female herd equality, male pack hierarchy). Scale increases uncertainty. Production cycles decrease availability of positive reinforcement (status signals, fitness signals). Consumerism buys signals, at cost of increase in isolation. Diversity (market polity) increases isolation. Choices: (a) Personal Rituals: Stoicism (Self Authoring) > Sophism (Philosophy) > Pseudoscience (“Church of TED, Marxist Economics”) > Religion (Old Age) > Magic (New Age) > Occult (literature – post-reason). (b) Social Rituals: Hunting > Sport > Commerce > Civic Groups and Clubs > Politics > Religion (academy, media, cult) > Fringe Movements (outcasts) > Occult (‘escapists’). What’s the Underlying Problem? Neural Economy. (Physical Economy(Stress), Emotional Economy (Stress), Neural Economy(stress)). Regularity provides certainty and decreased neural cost. Plenty provides personal decrease in neural cost but increase in cost of collective coherence, consistency, correspondence, and (frame) decidability. In other words, manageable neural cost provides anti-fragility (mindfulness) and suppressed neural cost (infantilization) increases fragility. The problem we face satisfaction of demand for predatory ( consumption, acquisition, opportunity, signals/status) vs prey ( consumption, insurance, certainty, not-sticking-out/equality). Markets (Economy) in everything: Unfortunately we have constructed a cognitive model of monopoly under both universalist abrahamic religion, justificationary philosophy, universal democracy, legislation (rather than tort law), and constructivist mathematics (and positivist logic). Despite the fact that the uniqueness of western civilization’s ‘salvation’ of mankind from superstition, ignorance, hard labor, poverty, starvation, disease, endemic violence, child mortality, early death, tyranny, and the vicissitudes of nature – was the product of anti-monopoly “Markets in All Walks of Life” under individual sovereignty, tort law of reciprocity, evidentiary (testifiable) truth regardless of cost to face, status, dominance, or competence hierarchy, duty of the commons regardless of station, decision jury, judge and rule of law, leaving the only remaining method of cooperation “as markets in all aspects of life” that resulted in our innovations of reason, empiricism, and science. Ergo, between religion, philosophy, (and that counter-empiricism we call the ‘enlightenment’ and it’s capture of power) democracy, followed by the revision of monopoly Abrahamic Monotheism( judaism, christianity, and islamism), that we call Marxism(Pseudoscience), Socialism(Monopoly Property), Postmodernism (monopoly sophism), and Feminism (monopoly female control vs compromise familial control) – we repeated the same process as the ancient era (resulting in the destruction of every civlization of the ancient world) and attempted in the current era to undermine (destroy) that social order that made our salvation from natural condition possible: non-monopoly markets of competition (calculation) using discovery by trial and error at the cost of soft eugenics (suppression of the reproduction of those who force burden by moral hazard onto others). The questions are one of knowledge and one of choice. Lacking knowledge one cannot make a choice. Possessing knowledge what choice does one (or all) make? The answer is divided between the predator and pack’s preservation, or the prey and herd’s submission. 😉 Maybe that will add to the discourse. 😉 -Cheers