Herbs for Traumatic Brain Damage

Disorders such as Depersonalization and Derealization occur because of damage done to the brain oftentimes by a traumatic event. While there are some prescription drugs out there that aid with these disorders, a lot of them can also make things worse. It truly depends on the individual and their brain chemistry.

Below is a link to a PDF file that contains a list of herbs that can be used to help treat damaged areas of the brain. While some may help, it could have negative effects for others. I in no way promote simply trying these herbs without heavy research firsthand.

Valerian is one specific plant that I use to help ease anxiety and reducing my HPPD and Visual Snow. It has also worked wonders for me to get a night of great sleep with no hangover feeling the morning after.

Link to Herb PDF Page

Disordered Hyperuniformity

Researchers have discovered the first known biological occurrence of a potentially new state of matter known as “disordered hyperuniformity” in the cells in a chicken’s eye.

Could this be simliar to how Visual Snow reacts in the eyes of a human?

Unlike chickens, visual cells are evenly distributed in an obvious pattern in many creatures’ eyes. The Washington University researchers thought the unusual arrangement in chickens (left) had to do with how the cones are packed into their small, thin retina. The Princeton researchers developed a computer-simulation model that mimicked the final arrangement of chicken cones (right). The colored dots represent the centers of the chicken’s eye cells. They are enlarged and colored for visualization purposes. (Courtesy of Salvatore Torquato, Princeton University)

It turned out that each type of cone has an area around it called an “exclusion region” that other cones cannot enter. Cones of the same type shut out each other more than they do unlike cones, and this variant exclusion causes distinctive cone patterns. Each type of cone’s pattern overlays the pattern of another cone so that the formations are intertwined in an organized but disordered way — a kind of uniform disarray. So, while it appeared that the cones were irregularly placed, their distribution was actually uniform over large distances. That’s disordered hyperuniformity, Torquato said.

Read More Here

More Media Acknowledgement of VS

A major news media website, www.dailymail.co.uk has released another article involving Visual Snow Syndrome.

This article goes into a lot about migraines. It is known that Visual Snow can be "unlocked", if you will, by heavy migraines, cluster headaches, and especially aura migraines. There are many ways Visual Snow can present itself to an individual, including having it from birth.

Read The Article Here

Do you Have HPPD?

To those of you reading this blog, and also suffer Hallucinogen Persisting Perception Disorder, you can participate in an online survey to helps aid the awareness of HPPD. The researcher of this project, Doreen Lewis, PhD, is currently working on a book titled, "When The Party Is Over", which is being backed b Dr. Henry David Abraham as well.

Click the link below to visit the webpage.

http://www.facesofhppd.com/

Manipulating Consciousness In Rats

Thalamus Linked To HPPD

Scientists showed that they could alter brain activity of rats and either wake them up or put them in an unconscious state by changing the firing rates of neurons in the central thalamus, a region known to regulate arousal. The studyis published in the journal eLIFE.

“Our results suggest the central thalamus works like a radio dial that tunes the brain to different states of activity and arousal,” said Jin Hyung Lee, PhD, assistant professor of neurology, neurosurgery and bioengineering at Stanford University, and a senior author of the study.

Located deep inside the brain the thalamus acts as a relay station sending neural signals from the body to the cortex. Damage to neurons in the central part of the thalamus may lead to problems with sleep, attention, and memory. Previous studies suggested that stimulation of thalamic neurons may awaken patients who have suffered a traumatic brain injury from minimally conscious states.

Lee’s team flashed laser pulses onto light sensitive central thalamic neurons of sleeping rats, which caused the cells to fire. High frequency stimulation of 40 or 100 pulses per second woke the rats. In contrast, low frequency stimulation of 10 pulses per second sent the rats into a state reminiscent of absence seizures that caused them to stiffen and stare before returning to sleep.

“This study takes a big step towards understanding the brain circuitry that controls sleep and arousal,” Yejun (Janet) He, PhD, program director at the U.S. National Institute of Health (NIH)’s National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS).

When the scientists used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to scan brain activity, they saw that high and low frequency stimulation put the rats in completely different states of activity. Cortical brain areas where activity was elevated during high frequency stimulation became inhibited with low frequency stimulation. Electrical recordings confirmed the results. Neurons in the somatosensory cortex fired more during high frequency stimulation of the central thalamus and less during low frequency stimulation.

“Dr. Lee’s innovative work demonstrates the power of using imaging technologies to study the brain at work,” said Guoying Liu, PhD, a program director at the NIH’s National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB).

How can changing the firing rate of the same neurons in one region lead to different effects on the rest of the brain?

Further experiments suggested the different effects may be due to a unique firing pattern by inhibitory neurons in a neighboring brain region, the zona incerta, during low frequency stimulation. Cells in this brain region have been shown to send inhibitory signals to cells in the sensory cortex.

Electrical recordings showed that during low frequency stimulation of the central thalamus, zona incerta neurons fired in a spindle pattern that often occurs during sleep. In contrast, sleep spindles did not occur during high frequency stimulation. Moreover, when the scientists blocked the firing of the zona incerta neurons during low frequency stimulation of the central thalamus, the average activity of sensory cortex cells increased.

Although deep brain stimulation of the thalamus has shown promise as a treatment for traumatic brain injury, patients who have decreased levels of consciousness show slow progress through these treatments.

“We showed how the circuits of the brain can regulate arousal states,” said Dr. Lee. “We hope to use this knowledge to develop better treatments for brain injuries and other neurological disorders.”

Article Link

Dr.Gerard Alderliefste

Recently I was emailed by Dr. Abraham about a researcher, Dr. Gerard Alderliefste in Amsterdam who has an HPPD Research Clinic currently established. My team and I will be working on a draft email to send to him about our approach into getting more awareness spread about these disorders and perhaps get him on board for a team research project.

Dr. Alderliefste's website has some intriguing information, including a list of other specialists and and he also has a "Visual Snow Simulation" page that correctly portrays what the symptoms of HPPD/VS look like to an individual that suffers from these disorders. 

Link To His Website

Visual Snow Simulation Programs

Plant Compounds Increase Brain Connections

Brazilian researchers have demonstrated in laboratory that apigenin, a substance found in parsley, thyme, chamomile and red pepper, improves neuron formation and strengthens the connections between brain cells.
Previous experiments with animals had already shown that substances from the same chemical group as the apigenin, known as flavonoids, positively affect memory and learning. Many studies highlight the potential of flavonoids to preserve and enhance brain function. While the effectiveness of flavonoids for brain health is not an entirely new concept, this research is the first to show the positive effects of apigegin directly on human cells and the first to unraveling its mechanism.

Read More Here