Executive Functions in Health and Disease: New book to help integrate Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuropsychology
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Neuroscience used to be the monopoly of a few elite universities located in a handful of countries. Neuropsychology used to be a quaint niche discipline relatively unconnected to the larger world of neuroscience and content in its methods with paper-and-pencil tests. Neuroscience itself was relatively unconcerned with higher-order cognition, and the very term “cognitive neuroscience” was often met with rolled eyes by scientists working in more established areas of brain research (a personal observation made in the 1980s and even 1990s on more than one occasion). And the interest...
Source: SharpBrains - August 8, 2017 Category: Neuroscience Authors: Dr. Elkhonon Goldberg Tags: Cognitive Neuroscience Health & Wellness Professional Development Alexander-Luria clinical psychologists cognition cognitive-psychologists disease Executive-Functions frontal-lobe medical neurologists neuropsychologists Neuropsyc Source Type: blogs
Does the public shaming of Carmen Puliafito go too far?
Recently, the Los Angeles Times broke a story that Dr. Puliafito, former Dean of the Keck School of Medicine of USC, had been abusing drugs and keeping company with a group of younger individuals who engaged in drug use and illicit activity. Much of this activity occurred while he was dean, and it is a shocking story: A 66 year-old titan of the field of ophthalmology, renowned for inventing a device that revolutionized the field and forging both the 1st and 2nd ranked programs in the country (University of Miami’s Bascom-Palmer and previously USC’s Doheny before its split) found partying with a prostitute...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - August 1, 2017 Category: General Medicine Authors: < a href="http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/post-author/vamsi-aribindi" rel="tag" > Vamsi Aribindi, MD < /a > Tags: Physician Surgery Source Type: blogs
Huge ST Elevation in V2 and V3. What is it?
A 30-something presented with methamphetamine use and agitation. He was sedated, then had an ECG as part of his workup:He was stabilized and observed.He was still confused 8 hours later when I was now on duty, and he was found to have a heart rate of 140, so another ECG was recorded:There is one lead (V2) with massive ST elevation.Since there is very little STE in V1 or V3, there must be lead misplacement.I suspected some lead misplacement and ordered another with the leads corrected:Now there is massive STE in BOTH leads V2 and V3What do you think?What do you want to do?What do you think? This is what I thought:...
Source: Dr. Smith's ECG Blog - June 4, 2017 Category: Cardiology Authors: Steve Smith Source Type: blogs
Fighting Depression: The Beast We Have in Common
Chapter OneLearned Optimism Thought #1:I am grateful for beautiful daughters who made my 50th birthday a memorable one.If you can’t take medication to combat depression or suicidal depression, how do you cope? Do you resign yourself to desolation, or do you fight back? Can you fight back? How ‽ This was the dilemma I faced years ago when anti-depressants had failed me and my life was worse off because of side-effects. What I learned in my battle against depression not only changed my life for the better, but helped me change other lives, too. Fighting off depression seems like hard wor k, but when you break down th...
Source: The Splintered Mind by Douglas Cootey - March 21, 2017 Category: Psychiatry Tags: ADHD Depression Goodreads Source Type: blogs
How to Sedate the Violent Patient
The emergency department can be an exciting yet sometimes violent place to work, often because of a patient presenting with excited delirium syndrome (ExDS), the most severe form of agitation. It is associated with the use of sympathomimetics such as methamphetamine, cocaine, and PCP.Patients with ExDS present with sudden onset of aggressive and bizarre behavior. These patients generally demonstrate unexpected physical strength and hyperthermia. This disease process is extremely important for prehospital responders and emergency physicians to recognize because almost two-thirds of the patients with ExDS die at the sc...
Source: The Tox Cave - March 1, 2017 Category: Emergency Medicine Tags: Blog Posts Source Type: blogs
Depression: The Beast We Have in Common
Learned Optimism Thought #1:I am grateful for beautiful daughters who made my 50th birthday a memorable one.If you can’t take medication to combat depression or suicidal depression, how do you cope? Do you resign yourself to desolation, or do you fight back? Can you fight back? How ‽ This was the dilemma I faced years ago when anti-depressants had failed me and my life was worse off because of side-effects. What I learned in my battle against depression not only changed my life for the better, but helped me change other lives, too. Fighting off depression seems like hard wor k, but when you break down the coping st...
Source: The Splintered Mind by Douglas Cootey - December 24, 2016 Category: Psychiatry Tags: ADHD Depression Goodreads Source Type: blogs
LITFL Review 250
Welcome to the 250th LITFL Review! Your regular and reliable source for the highest highlights, sneakiest sneak peeks and loudest shout-outs from the webbed world of emergency medicine and critical care. Each week the LITFL team casts the spotlight on the blogosphere’s best and brightest and deliver a bite-sized chuck of FOAM.
The Most Fair Dinkum Ripper Beauts of the Week
Prone ventilation has a myriad of potential beneficial effects in respiratory failure. So why not try it in patients who are not intubated but hypoxic? Great and thoughtful stuff from Josh Farkas. [SO]
The Best of #FOAMed Emergency Medicine
Core...
Source: Life in the Fast Lane - September 25, 2016 Category: Emergency Medicine Authors: Marjorie Lazoff, MD Tags: Education LITFL review LITFL R/V Source Type: blogs
Drugs and Health Blog: Methamphetamine
Timely blog posts feature emerging trends and apply the science of drug abuse to real life. The teacher ’s guide features classroom activities and discussion questions for use with selected posts to encourage students to think critically about how drugs and drug abuse can affect them.Read More » (Source: NIDA Drugs and Health Blog)
Source: NIDA Drugs and Health Blog - August 18, 2016 Category: Addiction Source Type: blogs
On the Fast Track: Three Ways Stimulants Negatively Change Your Life
It’s easy to see the relationship between drug abuse and deteriorating physical health. It’s not a total surprise when an alcoholic experiences liver failure or a meth addict’s teeth fall out; these drugs are known to damage the body if routinely used to excess. But how do these physical effects translate into the overall quality of life for an addict? Here are three ways stimulants in particular, like methamphetamines and cocaine, change the lives of people who frequently use them.
Decisions get harder. Because addiction is a neurological disorder that puts the brain on a hamster wheel of drug seeking and using b...
Source: Cliffside Malibu - July 27, 2016 Category: Addiction Authors: sheilas Tags: Abuse Addiction Recovery Addiction to Pharmaceuticals Addiction Treatment and Program Resources Alcoholism Behavioral Addictions Current Events Drug Rehab Information Drug Treatment Mental Health drug treatment center prescription dr Source Type: blogs
Beta-Blockers for Cocaine and other Stimulant Toxicity
Dogma: “a belief or set of beliefs that is accepted by the members of a group without being questioned or doubted; a point of view or tenet put forth as authoritative without adequate grounds.”
Years ago I treated a university student who presented to the emergency department (ED) after drinking several cans of a popular caffeinated energy drink to “pull an all-nighter” during final exam week. He was tremulous, agitated, and pale, with sinus tachycardia ranging from 140 to 160 bpm and normal blood pressure (BP). The house officer (registrar) working with me that night proposed treating him with a benzodiazepine, bu...
Source: Life in the Fast Lane - July 4, 2016 Category: Emergency Medicine Authors: John Richards Tags: Toxicology and Toxinology alpha stimulation amphetamines Beta Blockers cocaine dogma John Richards Stimulant Toxicity Stimulants Source Type: blogs
The Opioid Crisis: Nociception, Pain and Suffering
By MARTIN SAMUELS, MD
In order to understand the concept of pain and its relationship to the current opioid crisis, it is prudent to review the neurology of pain an why it exists. Several concepts are important to integrate.
Nociception: Nociception is the capacity to sense a potentially tissue damaging (noxious) stimulus. To illustrate this one should place a forefinger in a glass of ice water and determine how long passes until an unpleasant sensation arises. If one performs this experiment in a large group, one can recognize that, although the stimulus is the same (a glass of ice water), the sensation arises at...
Source: The Health Care Blog - June 10, 2016 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: John Irvine Tags: THCB Source Type: blogs
Legalize Marijuana
There are as we know many unintended effects of prohibiting things that people want. Sure, it's often a balance. Whether we're talking about prostitution, methamphetamine, or 32 ounce sodas there are costs of both legalization and prohibition. It's more complicated than that because various prohibition and legalization regimes are possible. Evidence of the effects of one regime vs. another is generally largely lacking, so a lot of the debate consists of speculation and moral judgments disguised as factual claims.In the case of cannabis, however, I am fully convinced and I have been for a long time. What we know about alcoh...
Source: Stayin' Alive - June 10, 2016 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
Doped
I’ll bet you pride yourself on living a pretty clean life.
It’s doubtful that I’d stumble on you in some alley, track marks up your arms, lying in a puddle of your own urine, unconscious from a night of shooting up heroin, snorting coke, or smoking crack. And you probably have all or most of your teeth, unlike the toothless addicts on methamphetamine.
Perhaps you even avoid or minimize your use of the softer recreational drugs in cigarettes and alcoholic beverages. You likely adhere to healthy practices and keep such indulgences to a minimum.
The truth is that you’ve been doping it up for most of your life. You’v...
Source: Wheat Belly Blog - June 2, 2016 Category: Cardiology Authors: Dr. Davis Tags: Wheat Belly Lifestyle addiction addictive appetite Gliadin grains Inflammation opiates Source Type: blogs
2016 The Year of Pharmacy Enforcement
Conclusion
The unfortunate thing is that in all four cases this was preventable. In the Palisades, Nashville and CVI cases, the proper internal review and the establishment of SOPs, basic training, and monitoring were the need. In the case of MedIV, establishing a Quality Management System and following current Good Manufacturing Practices could have prevented needless tragedy.
Over the years, pharmacy compliance programs have been sorely neglected. Pharmacies and pharmacists need to take compliance seriously and take the necessary steps to establish or reinforce their programs -- before the Government com...
Source: Policy and Medicine - February 19, 2016 Category: American Health Authors: Thomas Sullivan - Policy & Medicine Writing Staff Source Type: blogs
