Benchmark Video for Behavioral Science (Donut Four-Wheeler)
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Benchmark Video for Behavioral Science (Donut Four-Wheeler) - Video

William Turner- Dallas Personal Trainer
yourtrainer.com Wil is the brains, body and soul of Fusion 40 Fitness. The unique blend of WiL #39;s experience as a fitness education specialist and former Equinox trainer, experience in school curriculum development, fitness curriculum programing and behavioral science collectively combined embody the Fusion 40 Fitness 4-F Training Principles and the FPHIT Program. Fusion 40 Fitness designs and implements specialized fitness programs for individuals, couples, groups, community or corporate wellness programs.From:yourtrainercomViews:0 0ratingsTime:00:43More inSports

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Project for Behavioral Science, Yay?
I needed to post this so I could get a link to put in quiz star for my behavioral science class at full sail. yay homework!From:WilleatyourfleshViews:1 1ratingsTime:00:51More inEducation

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Project for Behavioral Science, Yay? - Video

Heavy Brain (Behavioral Science Project) Full Sail University
Film project for behavioral science at Full Sail University.From:Greg MarshallViews:0 0ratingsTime:04:51More inFilm Animation

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Heavy Brain (Behavioral Science Project) Full Sail University - Video

Public release date: 31-Oct-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Jason Boardman boardman@colorado.edu University of Colorado at Boulder

"Nature teaches beasts to know their friends," wrote Shakespeare. In humans, nature may be less than half of the story, a team led by University of Colorado Boulder researchers has found.

In the first study of its kind, the team found that genetic similarities may help to explain why human birds of a feather flock together, but the full story of why people become friends "is contingent upon the social environment in which individuals interact with one another," the researchers write.

People are more likely to befriend genetically similar people when their environment is stratified, when disparate groups are discouraged from interacting, the study found. When environments were more egalitarian, friends were less likely to share certain genes.

Scientists debate the extent to which genetics or environmental factors -- "nature" or "nurture" -- predict certain behaviors, said Jason Boardman, associate professor of sociology and faculty research associate with the Population Program in CU-Boulder's Institute of Behavioral Science. "For all the social demographic outcomes we care about, whether it's fertility, marriage, migration, health, it's never nature or nurture.

"It's always nature and nurture," he said. "And most of the time it has a lot more to do with nurture."

Boardman's team included Benjamin Domingue, research associate in the Population Program at IBS; and Jason Fletcher, associate professor of health policy at the Yale School of Public Health. Their research was recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Early last year, PNAS published a study reporting evidence that certain shared genes might determine peoples' choice of friends. Time magazine dubbed this "friends with (genetic) benefits."

Boardman is a sociologist who spent five years studying genetics at CU-Boulder's Institute for Behavioral Genetics to bring insights of the social sciences to the natural sciences. He observed: "You can't understand the spread of health behaviors -- why people smoke, why they drink, why they may or may not be obese -- unless you understand their genetic liability and also place them in the right social context."

Excerpt from:
Social factors trump genetic forces in forging friendships, CU-led study finds

Scientific American launched its e-Book program this summer, starting withThe Science of Sports: Winning in the Olympics. Each month, we add new titles selected from the most relevant issues facing science today.

For October, our newest e-Book reminds readers that politics makes strange bedfellows. This maxim becomes even more vivid when politics is put under the scrutiny of scientific analysis. Pulling from an array of disciplines including social science, behavioral science and mathematics, Scientific American does just that in this timely e-Book,Playing Politics: The Science of Elections. This anthology offers analyses of key factors in the process of electing a leader: from dissecting the personal and professional qualities considered to be ideal, to how potential leaders are portrayed, to voter behavior, to the voting processcasting, collecting and counting the votes. In recent years especially, science has increasingly been at the center of controversies over voting methods, voters motivations, the geography of presidential electionsincluding the introduction by the media of the terms red states and blue stateseven questions about the veracity and capabilities of candidates. Of particular importance is the analysis of how the electoral process actually works and whether it truly represents the majoritys intentions for how the country should run. In addition to providing the tools to analyze the process, this e-Book also addresses the top science issues of Election 2012. Scientific American partnered with ScienceDebate.org, an independent citizens initiative, to engage the current presidential candidatesPresident Barack Obama and Governor Mitt Romneyto answer where they stand on 14 key science and technology policy questions facing the U.S. today. This thoughtful debate, which includes questions on climate change, sustainable energy, the economy and education, caps off an essential read for concerned voters.

Playing Politics: The Science of Elections is available at most e-Book retailers, including:

Amazon:http://www.amazon.com/Playing-Politics-Science-Elections-ebook/dp/B009OZN5XQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1350308787&sr=8-1&keywords=9781466824157

Apple/Itunes:https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/playing-politics/id569886511?mt=11

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Playing Politics: The Science of Elections-SA`s Latest E-Book

Goodwill Industries International has announced a partnership with HelloWallet, an innovative web and mobile based software company leveraging the latest research in behavioral science to provide employees with personalized financial guidance and improve their financial wellness for long-term goals. Through a 30-month program, 17 Goodwill agencies across the country will provide the HelloWallet subscription to employees as well as community members with disabilities and disadvantages who are unemployed and underemployed. It will provide these individuals with budgeting tools and personalized financial guidance and will track all of their income and expenses in one place.

ROCKVILLE, MD (PRWEB) October 25, 2012

HelloWallet is committed to dramatically expanding access to financial guidance in America, where only 20 percent of people have access to this type of critical support. The software leverages behavioral science to help participants save money and improve their financial wellness for long-term goals. Its average members have increased their monthly savings creating about $300 in extra contributions every month. HelloWallets mission ties into Goodwills family strengthening initiatives, which are focused on economic self-sufficiency and helping people with family health, child care, housing and transportation so that they can overcome challenges and become successful in their careers and support their families.

At Goodwill, we know that problems at work often stem from problems at home as people struggle to balance their professional and family obligations, said Jim Gibbons, president and CEO of Goodwill Industries International. Our goal is to ensure that families have what they need so that our participants can be successful at work. HelloWallet provides users with alerts regarding financial health threats, reminders, savings opportunities, and other information and education about their personal finances so that they can take steps to improve their financial situation.

HelloWallet will enable Goodwill employees and the people it serves to empower themselves to manage money, create budgets, understand basic financial language and terms, and develop smart budgeting and savings skills to achieve their financial goals. For millions of families, this type of software provides the needed guidance for financial independence.

Recent research by the Brookings Institution, Harvard University and others has found that there are hundreds of billions of dollars unnecessarily lost by employees with middle and low incomes because of avoidable financial missteps, said Matt Fellowes, founder and chief executive officer of HelloWallet. Employees have significant difficulty connecting with the products that can help them convert earning into prosperity. Our goal in partnering with Goodwill is to teach their employee base how to develop money management skills so that they can spend less, save more and achieve financial stability.

To learn more about HelloWallet, please visit http://www.hellowallet.com

ABOUT GOODWILL INDUSTRIES INTERNATIONAL

Goodwill Industries International is a network of 165 community-based agencies in the United States and Canada with 14 affiliates in 13 other countries. Goodwill is one of Americas top 25 most inspiring companies (Forbes). Goodwill agencies are innovative and sustainable social enterprises that fund job training programs, employment placement services and other community-based programs by selling donated clothing and household items in more than 2,700 stores and online at shopgoodwill.com. Local Goodwill agencies also build revenue and create jobs by contracting with businesses and government to provide a wide range of commercial services, including packaging and assembly, food service preparation, and document imaging and shredding. In 2012, more than 4.2 million people in the United States and Canada benefited from Goodwill's career services. Goodwill channels 82 percent of its revenues directly into its programs and services. To find a Goodwill location near you, use the online locator at locator.goodwill.org, or call (800) GOODWILL. Follow us on Twitter: @GoodwillIntl or find us on Facebook: GoodwillIntl.

ABOUT HELLOWALLET

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Goodwill® and HelloWallet to Provide Financial Assistance to Enhance People's Lives

Behavioral and Brain Sciences once again tops the SSCI -- Impact Factor of 25.056 Makes it Top Journal in Biological Psychology.

New York, NY (PRWEB) October 18, 2012

BBS is also covered by the Science Citation Index, where it is also ranked #1 in Behavioral Sciences as well as #3 in Neurosciences. It sits in the 32nd spot among the 8,281 journals covered by the SCI.

An internationally renowned journal published by Cambridge University Press, with the innovative format known as Open Peer Commentary (OPC),BBS offers significant and controversial pieces of work from researchers in psychology, neuroscience, philosophy, behavioral biology, and other related disciplines.

Unlike standard research journals, BBS is distinct in the behavioral sciences field in that each article is published together with 15-30 commentaries from specialists from multiple disciplines, plus the authors response to them. These commentaries are considered by Thomson Reuters to be an integral part of the article, so they do not count towards article citations and do not affect the journals Impact Factor.

The journals editors, Paul Bloom, professor of psychology at Yale University, and Barbara L. Finlay, professor of psychology at Cornell University, discuss why the journal has such high impact: We accept few articles. To appear on the pages of BBS, an article has to be broad in scope, innovative and important, and written with sufficient clarity to be accessible to a wide range of scholars. Given our Open Peer Commentary, once an article has appeared, its already been read by dozens of scholars, including leaders in the field, and their commentaries serve to spark further debate and discussion which means more citations.

BBS is one of over 300 journals published by Cambridge University Press. Many of these are also the leading academic publications in their fields and together they form one of the most valuable and comprehensive bodies of research available today.

For more information about Behavioral and Brain Sciences, please visit http://journals.cambridge.org/bbs

For more information on Cambridge Journals, please visit http://journals.cambridge.org

For further information about Impact Factors please visit http://www.scientific.thomson.com

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Behavioral and Brain Sciences Ranked #1 in Social Science Citation Index

NASHVILLE, Tenn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

HealthTeacher, Inc. announced today that Kevin Wildenhaus, Ph.D., Vice-President of Science and Innovation at SocialWellth, has been named as a senior advisor to HealthTeacher, Inc., the interactive leader in youth health.

I am really happy to be working with an innovative company like HealthTeacher, said Kevin Wildenhaus, One of the exciting challenges in health research is demonstrating the power of primary prevention as opposed to secondary intervention. We all know that health habits form early in life. HealthTeacher is committed to establishing good health habits early in our kids using an innovative four-step process: providing knowledge, developing skills, changing attitudes, and fostering habits that will benefit them for a lifetime.

Kevin will serve as an advisor in the areas of behavior change, healthy habit formation, and program outcome research. Previously, Kevin served as Senior Director of Science and Innovation at Wellness & Prevention, a Johnson & Johnson Company. In addition to his specialization in health psychology and behavioral science, Kevin has served as Team Psychologist for the Pittsburgh Steelers for more than a decade.

Kevin Wildenhaus is a leading authority on health innovations and programs that positively impact the health and well-being of consumers, said Scott McQuigg, CEO of HealthTeacher, Inc. He uniquely understands how to optimize health promotion and prevention efforts to drive successful outcomes. Kevin will add extraordinary value and insights as HealthTeacher continues creating the tools and resources kids and families need to live life well.

ABOUT KEVIN WILDENHAUS

As Vice-President of Science and Innovation at SocialWellth, Kevin Wildenhaus is responsible for directing all activities related to program design and compliance, reporting and analytics, solution optimization and measurement and client performance services. Before SocialWellth, Kevin worked at Wellness & Prevention Inc., a Johnson and Johnson Company, where he was the Senior Director of Science and Innovation and led a team of clinical, organizational and educational psychologists, physicians, health educators and biostatisticians. Prior to that, he was the Director of Behavioral Science and Data Analytics at HealthMedia, Incorporated. Kevin holds a Doctor of Philosophy in Clinical Psychology from Wayne State University, a Master of Arts in Psychology from the University of Dayton and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from Bowling Green State University.

ABOUT HEALTHTEACHER

HealthTeacher is the interactive leader in youth health, creating games, apps, and educational resources to make health awesome for kids. HealthTeachers research-based products are designed to get kids moving and to develop healthy behaviors that last a lifetime. Reaching over 6 million kids through its fast-growing network of 11,000+ schools, HealthTeachers interactive products are used by teachers, parents, and kids to address important youth health issues, including physical activity, nutrition, and social and emotional well-being. To learn more, visit healthteacher.com.

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Dr. Kevin Wildenhaus, Leader in Health Innovations and Behavioral Science Joins HealthTeacher, Inc. as Behavior Change ...

Professor Mnica Medina started out as the only marine biologist in a National Science Foundation workshop last year, but she ended up with a group of new partners and an opinion piece in the prestigious journal Science.

Through discussions with colleagues from many other disciplines, including behavioral biologists and ecologists, she and others realized they had found something new together.

"We had fun, and we realized there's an almost unexplored niche in science research -- the connection between microbes and behaviors," Medina said.

Along with the article's four other authors, she analyzed how much -- or little -- research has been done on the connection between the way animals behave and how the microbes that inhabit them affect such behaviors.

They were glad to find out that Science magazine was interested in the topic and agreed to publish it as a "Perspectives" piece.

"There are too few studies in this area," said Medina, who's with the School of Natural Sciences. "Microbiology and animal behavior research are two disciplines that have evolved separately. However, host-microbe interactions provide a new unexplored angle to look for ways to explain those behaviors."

"Given that microorganisms represent one of the most prevalent forms of life on this planet, this creative kind of thinking can dramatically change our understanding of the biological world," said UC Merced Vice Chancellor for Research Sam Traina.

Until fairly recently, people thought of microbes associated with animals almost exclusively as harmful and pathogenic to their hosts.

But all animals house microbes that are beneficial, such as the ones that live in intestines and help digest food. Some even seek them out, as humans do when we add supplements such as probiotics to our diets.

UC Merced's Vital and Alice Pellissier Distinguished Speaker Series presents Colgate University Professor Anthony F. Aveni on "The End of Time: The Maya Mystery of 2012."

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UC Merced Connect: Work links microbes to behavior

(Crown Publishing Group) - The Victory Lab by Sasha Issenberg.

More from PostPolitics

Chris Cillizza

THE FIX | Its ridiculous that the two campaigns dont want Crowley to ask followup questions.

Felicia Sonmez

Campaign ramrodded their way into kitchen so Ryan could get picture taken washing dishes, charity chief says.

Chris Cillizza

How did the late-night comedy show see the vice presidential debate?

Turnout is where precision targeting really works, says Sasha Issenberg, author of The Victory Lab: The Secret Science of Winning Campaigns. Political scientists are using the tools of behavioral economics and behavioral psychology to understand why people vote and how to enforce that habit; campaigns are building voting scores for people in their databases like the financial industry builds credit scores.

Does it work? More than 1.1 million people already have voted, according to early voting statistics collated by George Mason University political scientist Michael McDonald, and plenty of them were prodded to do so without ever knowing it.

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Obama, Romney have ways to make you vote

By Kristen Ziman For the Beacon-News October 12, 2012 1:12PM

HEATHER EIDSON/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER New, improved mug of Aurora Police Lt. Kristen Ziman, columnist for The Beacon News.

storyidforme: 38341265 tmspicid: 13712563 fileheaderid: 6318206

Updated: October 12, 2012 1:12PM

As a police officer, my job description has changed over the years but the one thing that still fascinates me about policing is human behavior.

I was never a psychology major in college but I have come to believe that those entering law enforcement should, at the very least, minor in behavioral science.

When I worked the street, I was puzzled by the way different people reacted to similar situations. I found myself viewing the world as a laboratory and every human encounter was an experiment in social behavior.

I started to analyze the ways in which some people reacted to a traffic ticket. Some would be extremely argumentative and rude while others would receive it politely and respectfully. Of course, you might say that a police officers demeanor sets the tone for the interaction and I cant disagree, so perhaps that is not the best example.

I noted that when responding to traumatic incidents, some crime victims were emotionally strong while others seemed to break down when faced with a similar scenario. Although I noted that people handle death and trauma quite differently, Ill reserve my commentary because reactions to these situations are at the core of emotion and there are many variables involved.

Rather, Im referring to incidents where there is a notable hardship incurred other than loss of life. For example, in responding to burglary victims, it was fascinating to have a front row seat into the layers of emotion that surface when a person was faced with this type of an invasion. Some saw it as a devastating and debilitating blow to their security and peace of mind. Others put it in perspective and even found a way to be grateful that there was no human life harmed.

Excerpt from:
Grace under pressure: Resilience is a rare but valuable character trait

Latest Mental Health News

WEDNESDAY, Oct. 10 (HealthDay News) -- The brains of people who can't be hypnotized differ from those who are easily put into a trance, a new study finds.

Researchers used MRI scans to examine activity of three different brain networks in 12 adults who were easily hypnotized and 12 others who weren't.

The brain networks were: the default-mode network, used when the brain is idle; the executive-control network, used in making decisions; and the salience network, used when deciding if something is more important than something else.

The brain scans showed that both groups had an active default-mode network, but the highly hypnotizable people had greater co-activation between parts of the executive-control network and the salience network, the Stanford University School of Medicine researchers found.

The study was published in the October issue of the journal Archives of General Psychiatry.

Hypnosis, which has been shown to help with brain control over sensation and behavior, can be used to help treat pain, phobias, stress and anxiety, the study authors noted in a Stanford news release.

"There's never been a brain signature of being hypnotized, and we're on the verge of identifying one," study senior author Dr. David Spiegel, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, said in the news release.

Such a finding would shed light on how hypnosis works, and how it can most effectively be used to treat patients, Spiegel explained.

He said about 25 percent of the patients he sees cannot be hypnotized. "There's got to be something going on in the brain," Spiegel concluded.

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Science Reveals Secrets of Hypnosis

DETROIT Three studies conducted as part of Wayne State Universitys Systems Biology of Epilepsy Project (SBEP) could result in new types of treatment for the disease and, perhaps, for behavioral disorders as well.

The SBEP started out with funds from the Presidents Research Enhancement Fund and spanned neurology, neuroscience, genetics and computational biology. It since has been supported by multiple National Institutes of Health-funded grants aimed at identifying the underlying causes of epilepsy, and it is uniquely integrated within the Comprehensive Epilepsy Program at the Wayne State School of Medicine and the Detroit Medical Center.

Under the guidance of Jeffrey Loeb, M.D., associate director of the Center for Molecular Medicine and Genetics and professor of neurology, the project brings together researchers from different fields to create an interdisciplinary research program that targets the complex disease. The multifaceted program at Wayne State is like no other in the world, officials say, with two primary goals: improving clinical care and creating novel strategies for diagnosis and treatment of patients with epilepsy.

The three studies were published in high-impact journals and use human brain tissue research to identify new targets for drug development, generate a new animal model and identify a new class of drugs to treat the disease. In the first study, Layer-Specific CREB Target Gene Induction in Human Neocortical Epilepsy, published recently in the Journal of Neuroscience, donated human brain samples were probed to identify 137 genes strongly associated with epileptic seizures.

Researchers then showed that the most common pathway is activated in very specific layers of the cortex, and that its associated with increased numbers of synapses in those areas. Because epilepsy is a disease of abnormal neuronal synchrony, the finding could explain why some brain regions produce clinical seizures.

Higher density of synapses may explain how abnormal epileptic discharges, or spikes, are formed, and in what layer, Loeb said, adding that localizing the exact layer of the brain in which that process occurs is useful both for understanding the mechanism and for developing therapeutics.

The first study, which identified a new drug target for epilepsy, precipitated a second study that has found such a drug.

In the second study, Electrical, Molecular and Behavioral Effects of InterictalSpiking in the Rat, published recently in Neurobiology of Disease, SBEPresearchers found that the same brain layers in the rat are activated as in the human tissues and searched for a drug to target those layers. In fact, the first drug they tried, a compound called SL327 that has been used in nonhuman subjects to understand how memory works, worked like a dream, Loeb said. SL327 prevented spiking in rat brains, he said, which not only prevented seizures, but led to more normal behaviors as well.

That finding led to collaborations between Loebs lab and Nash Boutros, M.D., professor of psychiatry and behavioral neurosciences, and the Belgian drug company UCB.

Whereas animals that developed epileptic spiking became hyperactive, those treated with the drug and had less spiking in their brains were more like normal animals, Loeb said. Now whenever we screen for drugs for epilepsy, we look at behavior as well as epileptic activity.

Read more from the original source:
Wayne State Studies Offer Hope For Epilepsy, Behavioral Disorders

ScienceDaily (Oct. 11, 2012) Three studies conducted as part of Wayne State University's Systems Biology of Epilepsy Project (SBEP) could result in new types of treatment for the disease and, as a bonus, for behavioral disorders as well.

The SBEP started out with funds from the President's Research Enhancement Fund and spanned neurology, neuroscience, genetics and computational biology. It since has been supported by multiple National Institutes of Health-funded grants aimed at identifying the underlying causes of epilepsy, and it is uniquely integrated within the Comprehensive Epilepsy Program at the Wayne State School of Medicine and the Detroit Medical Center.

Under the guidance of Jeffrey Loeb, M.D., Ph.D., associate director of the Center for Molecular Medicine and Genetics (CMMG) and professor of neurology, the project brings together researchers from different fields to create an interdisciplinary research program that targets the complex disease. The multifaceted program at Wayne State is like no other in the world, officials say, with two primary goals: improving clinical care and creating novel strategies for diagnosis and treatment of patients with epilepsy.

The three studies were published in high-impact journals and use human brain tissue research to identify new targets for drug development, generate a new animal model and identify a new class of drugs to treat the disease. In the first study, "Layer-Specific CREB Target Gene Induction in Human Neocortical Epilepsy," published recently in the Journal of Neuroscience, donated human brain samples were probed to identify 137 genes strongly associated with epileptic seizures.

Researchers then showed that the most common pathway is activated in very specific layers of the cortex, and that it's associated with increased numbers of synapses in those areas. Because epilepsy is a disease of abnormal neuronal synchrony, the finding could explain why some brain regions produce clinical seizures.

"Higher density of synapses may explain how abnormal epileptic discharges, or spikes, are formed, and in what layer," Loeb said, adding that localizing the exact layer of the brain in which that process occurs is useful both for understanding the mechanism and for developing therapeutics.

The first study, which identified a new drug target for epilepsy, precipitated a second study that has found such a drug.

In the second study, "Electrical, Molecular and Behavioral Effects of Interictal Spiking in the Rat," published recently in Neurobiology of Disease, SBEP researchers found that the same brain layers in the rat are activated as in the human tissues and searched for a drug to target those layers. In fact, the first drug they tried, a compound called SL327 that has been used in nonhuman subjects to understand how memory works, "worked like a dream," Loeb said. "SL327 prevented spiking in rat brains," he said, "which not only prevented seizures, but led to more normal behaviors as well."

That finding led to collaborations between Loeb's lab and Nash Boutros, M.D., professor of psychiatry and behavioral neurosciences, and the Belgian drug company UCB.

"Whereas animals that developed epileptic spiking became hyperactive, those treated with the drug and had less spiking in their brains were more like normal animals," Loeb said. "Now whenever we screen for drugs for epilepsy, we look at behavior as well as epileptic activity."

Read more:
New studies could result in better treatments for epilepsy, behavioral disorders

Public release date: 11-Oct-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Julie O'Connor julie.oconnor@wayne.edu 313-577-8845 Wayne State University - Office of the Vice President for Research

Three studies conducted as part of Wayne State University's Systems Biology of Epilepsy Project (SBEP) could result in new types of treatment for the disease and, as a bonus, for behavioral disorders as well.

The SBEP started out with funds from the President's Research Enhancement Fund and spanned neurology, neuroscience, genetics and computational biology. It since has been supported by multiple National Institutes of Health-funded grants aimed at identifying the underlying causes of epilepsy, and it is uniquely integrated within the Comprehensive Epilepsy Program at the Wayne State School of Medicine and the Detroit Medical Center.

Under the guidance of Jeffrey Loeb, M.D., Ph.D., associate director of the Center for Molecular Medicine and Genetics (CMMG) and professor of neurology, the project brings together researchers from different fields to create an interdisciplinary research program that targets the complex disease. The multifaceted program at Wayne State is like no other in the world, officials say, with two primary goals: improving clinical care and creating novel strategies for diagnosis and treatment of patients with epilepsy.

The three studies were published in high-impact journals and use human brain tissue research to identify new targets for drug development, generate a new animal model and identify a new class of drugs to treat the disease. In the first study, "Layer-Specific CREB Target Gene Induction in Human Neocortical Epilepsy," published recently in the Journal of Neuroscience, donated human brain samples were probed to identify 137 genes strongly associated with epileptic seizures.

Researchers then showed that the most common pathway is activated in very specific layers of the cortex, and that it's associated with increased numbers of synapses in those areas. Because epilepsy is a disease of abnormal neuronal synchrony, the finding could explain why some brain regions produce clinical seizures.

"Higher density of synapses may explain how abnormal epileptic discharges, or spikes, are formed, and in what layer," Loeb said, adding that localizing the exact layer of the brain in which that process occurs is useful both for understanding the mechanism and for developing therapeutics.

The first study, which identified a new drug target for epilepsy, precipitated a second study that has found such a drug.

In the second study, "Electrical, Molecular and Behavioral Effects of Interictal Spiking in the Rat," published recently in Neurobiology of Disease, SBEP researchers found that the same brain layers in the rat are activated as in the human tissues and searched for a drug to target those layers. In fact, the first drug they tried, a compound called SL327 that has been used in nonhuman subjects to understand how memory works, "worked like a dream," Loeb said. "SL327 prevented spiking in rat brains," he said, "which not only prevented seizures, but led to more normal behaviors as well."

Original post:
New treatments for epilepsy, behavioral disorders could result from Wayne State studies

A new home for life sciences at Penn is on track to open by 2016.

The School of Arts and Sciences is moving forward with its plan to construct a new Neural-Behavioral Sciences building, a 76,500-square-foot facility near 38th Street and University Avenue.

The University has already completed the schematic design the initial phase that identifies the size, overall program and cost estimate of the construction process, according to Principal Planner in the Office of the University Architect Mark Kocent. The $68.6 million project is currently near the end of the design development phase, which will likely be finalized within the next year, he added.

The Wistar Laboratories currently reside in one of the buildings that the NBS building will eventually displace. Due to Wistars temporary lease, the earliest that Facilities and Real Estate Services could demolish the site and begin building would be in 2014, according to FRES Executive Director of Design and Construction Mike Dausch.

Once it begins, however, construction will last about two years, giving the NBS building an initial expected occupancy date of spring 2016.

The new building will house the Psychology and Biology departments, as well as the Biological Basis of Behavior program and the Roy and Diana Vagelos Life Sciences and Management program, said Associate Dean for the Natural Sciences Richard Schultz.

We are thrilled to be moving forward with the construction of this building, which will be so important to the future of education and research in the life sciences, SAS Dean Rebecca Bushnell added in an email. It promises to be a vital hub for students and faculty who are committed to exploring new areas in the life sciences and neuroscience.

Though the Universitys design plans are not yet finalized, the NBS building is slated to feature offices, classrooms and small rooms for research labs and clinical testing, among other things. Additionally, the basement level of the site will include a 182-seat auditorium, which other departments within the University will be able to use for large lectures, Dausch said.

The academic departments within the NBS building will generally be split by floor to remain close to their respective labs, but according to Schultz the building will fulfill a dual purpose of consolidating the undergraduate experience and the faculty in the life sciences.

[Today], biology majors have no home where they can hang out, he said. Psychology is scattered all over the place, and BBB also really has no place The main objective is to have a place where Penn undergraduates who are life science majors have a place where they can relate to.

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Neural-Behavioral Sciences building set to open in 2016

Public release date: 9-Oct-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Kevin Taaffe taaffe@clemson.edu 864-656-0291 Clemson University

CLEMSON, S.C. Three Clemson University professors have received $797,066 from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to investigate how the use of mobile technology can improve coordination in perioperative services.

The care provided by perioperative services is given before, during and after surgery, and takes place in three main areas pre-op, the operating room and post-anesthesia care.

The Clemson faculty are principal investigator Kevin Taaffe and co-investigators Joel Greenstein, both professors in the industrial engineering department, and Larry Fredendall, a professor of management in the College of Business and Behavioral Science.

The team will share research findings with Health Sciences South Carolina and the S.C. Hospital Association. Their work also will be used in health care-training simulations to improve coordination among staff.

The Clemson researchers are part of a statewide team that includes two faculty at the University of South Carolina. The total NSF award for the two universities is $1.4 million.

The researchers will use artificial intelligence and data analytics to improve coordination in perioperative services at three hospitals: Greenville Memorial Hospital, Palmetto Health Richland in the Columbia area and the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston.

Taaffe will coordinate research across the two universities, the three hospital systems and other state-level institutions.

The collaboration will provide expertise in operations research, data mining, computer science, simulation, human-computer interaction and quality and process management.

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NSF funds Clemson research of mobile technology for perioperative services

Eric Michael Johnson has a masters degree in evolutionary anthropology focusing on great ape behavioral ecology. He is currently a doctoral student in the history of science at University of British Columbia looking at the interplay between evolutionary biology and politics.He blogs atThe Primate Diariesat Scientific American, where this postoriginally appeared.

Rand by Nathaniel Gold

Every political philosophy has to begin with a theory of human nature, wrote Harvard evolutionary biologist Richard Lewontin in his bookBiology as Ideology. Thomas Hobbes, for example, believed that humans in a state of nature, or what today we would call hunter-gatherer societies, lived a life that was solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short in which there existed a warre of all against all. This led him to conclude, as many apologists for dictatorship have since, that a stable society required a single leader in order to control the rapacious violence that was inherent to human nature. Building off of this, advocates of state communism, such as Vladimir Lenin or Josef Stalin, believed that each of us was borntabula rasa, with a blank slate, and that human nature could be molded in the interests of those in power.

Ever sinceAtlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand has been gaining prominence among American conservatives as the leading voice for the political philosophy of laissez-faire capitalism, or the idea that private business should be unconstrained and that governments only concern should be protecting individual property rights. AsI wrote this week inSlatewith my piece Ayn Rand vs. the Pygmies,the Russian-born author believed that rational selfishness was the ultimate expression of human nature.

Collectivism, Rand wrote inCapitalism: The Unknown Idealis the tribal premise of primordial savages who, unable to conceive of individual rights, believed that the tribe is a supreme, omnipotent ruler, that it owns the lives of its members and may sacrifice them whenever it pleases. An objective understanding of mans nature and mans relationship to existence should inoculate society from the disease of altruistic morality and economic redistribution. Therefore, one must begin by identifying mans nature, i.e., those essential characteristics which distinguish him from all other living species.

As Rand further detailed in her bookThe Virtue of Selfishness, moral values are genetically dependent on the way living entities exist and function. Because each individual organism is primarily concerned with its own life, she therefore concludes that selfishness is the correct moral value of life. Its life is the standard of value directing its actions, Rand wrote, it acts automatically to further its life and cannot act for its own destruction. Because of this Rand insists altruism is a pernicious lie that is directly contrary to biological reality. Therefore, the only way to build a good society was to allow human nature, like capitalism, to remain unfettered by the meddling of a false ideology.

Altruism is incompatible with freedom, with capitalism and with individual rights, she continued. One cannot combine the pursuit of happiness with the moral status of a sacrificial animal. She concludes that this conflict between human nature and the irrational morality of altruism is a lethal tension that tears society apart. Her mission was to free humanity from this conflict. Like Marx, she believed that her correct interpretation of how society should be organized would be the ultimate expression of human freedom.

As I demonstrated in mySlatepiece,Ayn Rand was wrong about altruism. But how she arrived at this conclusion is revealing both because it shows her thought process and offers a warning to those who would construct their own political philosophy on the back of an assumed human nature. Ironically, given her strong opposition to monarchy and state communism, Rand based her interpretation of human nature on the same premises as these previous systems while adding a crude evolutionary argument in order to connect them.

Rand assumed, as Hobbes did, that without a centralized authority human life would erupt into a chaos of violence. Warfarepermanent warfareis the hallmark of tribal existence, she wrote inThe Return of the Primitive. Tribes subsist on the edge of starvation, at the mercy of natural disasters, less successfully than herds of animals. This, she reasoned, is why altruism is so pervasive among indigenous societies; prehistoric groups needed the tribe for protection. She argued that altruism is perpetuated as an ideal among the poor in modern societies for the same reason.

It is only the inferior men that have collective instinctsbecause they need them, Rand wrote in ajournal entrydated February 22, 1937. This kind of primitive altruism doesnt exist in superior men, Rand continued, because social instincts serve merely as the weapon and protection of the inferior. She later expands on this idea by stating, We may still be in evolution, as a species, and living side by side with some missing links.

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Yes, Ayn, There Is a Social Instinct | The Crux

Public release date: 4-Oct-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Brad Cardinal brad.cardinal@oregonstate.edu 541-737-2506 Oregon State University

CORVALLIS, Ore. More than 40 percent of older breast cancer survivors are insufficiently active after leaving a supervised program. But new research shows that those women who developed behavioral skills such as self-confidence and motivation during their program were far more likely to continue exercising on their own.

Regular exercise may reduce the risk of breast cancer recurrence and breast cancer-related mortality, experts say, making it crucial to effectively target breast cancer survivors who do not engage in regular physical activity for interventions.

Researchers at Oregon State University partnered with researchers at Oregon Health and Science University who had conducted a clinical trial to understand the benefits of a 12-month supervised exercise program in 69 older breast cancer survivors. The goal was to discover what factors influenced participants' ability to follow-through and continue exercising after the supervised program ended.

They found that breast cancer survivors with higher self-efficacy, or confidence to overcome exercise-related barriers (such as being too tired), were far more likely to continue exercising on their own. Those with higher self-efficacy scores were 10 percent more likely to be physically active six months after the intervention than those with lower scores.

The results of the study are published in the October issue of the journal Supportive Care in Cancer. It is the first study to assess predictors of behavior after a supervised exercise program in older breast cancer survivors.

Paul Loprinzi, lead author of the study, was a doctoral student at OSU when he did the research. Loprinzi, who is now a faculty member at Bellarmine University, said the good news is that behavioral skills to increase self-efficacy can be taught.

"We can teach breast cancer survivors how to enlist the support of others and how to identify exercise-related barriers, as well as provide proven strategies for them to overcome those barriers," Loprinzi said.

The researchers said everyone should meet physical activity guidelines and it can be even more crucial for breast cancer survivors. Loprinzi said exercise helps reduce common side effects of cancer treatment, such as fatigue, depression, decreased muscular strength and weight gain.

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Improving confidence keeps breast cancer survivors exercising