Handing Down Depression

Stanford University School of Medicine has dedicated its entire new spring issue of their magazine Stanford Medicine to Children's Health. There is a beautiful and hopeful article about the research currently being done into why teens become depressed, and how to prevent it before it can begin. I also love the illustration of the woman, with black clouds under her hat.

New News Today

From Stanford: People with anxiety disorder less able to regulate response to negative emotions, study shows. People with generalized anxiety disorder, or GAD, have abnormalities in the way their brain unconsciously controls emotions, a new study shows.

(I'm not thrilled with the image, especially if this is really what my brain looks like, I think I'd prefer green and yellow. Or at least orange.)

From the New York Times: The American Psychiatric Association is proposing major changes today to its diagnostic bible, the manual that doctors, insurers and scientists use in deciding what's officially a mental disorder and what symptoms to treat. Alan Schatzberg, the Kenneth T. Norris, Jr. Professor and chair of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, provides comment in this Associated Press piece.

What to think about all this? I think gazing at a photo like the one below (Fremont Older Open Space) is a much better way to approach the problem of anxiety. Better yet, let's go for a walk.

Music and the Brain

There is so much amazing work in the world. At the Institute for Music and Brain Science a wide variety of people study music and the brain from different perspectives. Hearing Healing & Helping Through Music is their motto. What could be better! I love their logo, too. So 'brainy'. Even their url: brainmusic. I always knew my brain had its own songs to sing, if I could only figure out how to hear them. (And, no, this is not the same as the ringing in my ears.)

The Center for Arts, Science and Technology at Stanford is hosting a talk this month with a speaker from the brainmusic people. Of course their url is brainwaves! I hope they don't mind my reposting their information here. Nobody knows about my blog anyway, so nobody will even see it! But, hey, nobody, try and go. I'll see you there.

February 8, 2010 - 5:30 PM

"Neurobiological Foundations for the Theory of Harmony in Western Tonal Music"

Mark Tramo MD, Ph.D.
Director, The Institute for Music & Brain Science
Associate Professor of Neurology, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA
Adjunct Professor of Music, Herb Alpert School of Music at UCLA
Faculty Fellow, Harvard University Mind Brain & Behavior Interfaculty Initiative
Research Affiliate, M.I.T. Research Laboratory of Electronics
ASCAP/NARAS
www.BrainMusic.org

March 1, 2010 - 5:30 PM

"Music, Memories, and the Brain"

A talk exploring music-evoked autobiographical memories and associated emotions

Petr Janata, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, UC Davis Psychology Department Center for Mind and Brain

Music-evoked autobiographical memories and associated emotions are poignant examples of how music engages the brain. Janata binds music theory, cognitive psychology, and computational modeling to generate intuitive animations of music moving about in tonal space (the system of major and minor keys). He then shows how the unique tonal movements of individual excerpts of popular music can be used in conjunction with neuroimaging experiments to identify brain networks that support the experiencing of memories and emotions evoked by the music.