TBI Holiday Meeting

Scattered among our group are nine star celebrities. Can you find them?

Jennifer Aniston, Sean Connery, Judy Garland, Marilyn Monroe, Brad Pitt, Ronald Reagan, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Elizabeth Taylor, John Wayne.

Happy Holidays!

John

New N.F.L. Guidelines on Concussions

From The New York Times, December 3, 2009

Ben Roethlisberger (7) led the Steelers to last year’s Super Bowl title,
 but missed last week’s game with a concussion.

N.F.L. Issues New Guidelines on Concussions

By Alan Schwarz

Options:

1.) Read the full essay by clicking here.

2.) Read the following selected summative passages. —J.H.

▶The The National Football League on Wednesday announced that it would impose its most stringent rules to date on managing concussions, requiring players who exhibit any significant sign of concussion to be removed from a game or practice and be barred from returning the same day.

▶The league has maintained, despite widespread criticism, that it was safe to allow players to return to the field as soon as their symptoms were gone — even in the same game in which the injury occurred. It has not been uncommon for players to return, either after passing a sideline test or by not revealing their symptoms.

▶The new rule was made in the wake of heightened scrutiny of the league’s approach to head injuries, outlined in a series of articles in The New York Times. At a Congressional hearing in October, the N.F.L. was criticized for its practices and research methods. Last week, the co-chairmen of the league’s committee on concussions resigned under fire, on the same day the league announced that players who sustain concussions could be cleared to return only by independent experts.

▶The culture of playing through brain injuries in the N.F.L. has also influenced younger players, for whom repeat concussions can be serious. Because the governing bodies at the college and high school levels do not have rules regarding concussion management, amateur players routinely return after concussions, even if they are evaluated by a doctor or athletic trainer.

▶Symptoms that require immediate removal include amnesia, poor balance and an abnormal neurological examination, whether or not those symptoms quickly subside. For symptoms like dizziness and headache, however, a player can return to the field unless they are “persistent,” the statement said.

▶Dr. Elliot Pellman, a member of the league’s committee on concussions and the primary author of several published studies that defended the league’s more liberal return-to-play protocol, declined to comment on Wednesday’s rule change.

▶ In September, The New York Times obtained the results of a league-sponsored telephone survey that indicated that N.F.L. retirees were reporting diagnoses of dementia and other memory-related diseases at several times the rate in the national population. The finding corroborated several other studies that the league had disparaged, prompting the House Judiciary Committee to hold a hearing on football brain injuries on Oct. 28 in which [N.F.L. Commissioner Roger] Goodell and the players union were criticized on the issue.

▶Dr. [Joseph] Maroon [the team neurosurgeon for the Steelers and a member of the N.F.L.’s committee on concussions] called the rule,“another progressive step for the league in terms of player safety.” Asked why the league did not adopt the rule three years ago, when outside experts were calling for it, he said: “You can ask a lot of good questions. The important thing is it’s being done now.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/03/sports/football/03concussion.html

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The world looks different if you're depressed

Source: 30 November 2009

Not so easy to spot the finer details.

(Image: Jason Todd/Getty)

The world looks different if you're depressed

by Jessica Hamzelou

"Depression is not just a mood disorder: now we know it can affect the way a person sees the world."

DEPRESSION really does change the way you see the world. People with the condition find it easy to interpret large images or scenes, but struggle to "spot the difference" in fine detail. The finding hints at visual training as a possible treatment.

Depressed people have a shortage of a neurotransmitter called GABA; this has also been linked to a visual skill called spatial suppression, which helps us suppress details surrounding the object our eyes are focused on - enabling us to pick out a snake in fallen leaves, for instance.

Now Julie Golomb and colleagues at Yale University are trying to link this ability with major depressive disorder (MDD).

Article continues.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427365.000-the-world-looks-different-if-youre-depressed.html

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George Visger, Former SF 49er / "Head Knocker"

FROM

Head knocker

The road to the NFL is paved

with countless concussions.

Just ask former San Francisco

49er George Visger.

By R.V. Scheide

George Visger is losing his mind. He has no short-term memory. Say something to the former San Francisco 49er defensive lineman and immediately ask him what was just said, and he’ll repeat it back verbatim. Ask him five minutes later, and chances are he won’t have the foggiest notion, as if the words were a dimly struck bell that failed to register before its tone faded.

To cope, Visger jots down anything of importance with a pen he keeps behind his ear and the notebook he always has at hand. The notebook is his memory, and after dealing with his condition for the past 20 years, he has boxes and boxes filled with them.

He remembers the past well, at least the part before the nine brain surgeries. He first had his “bell rung” in the ninth grade, playing football for the West Stockton Bears in 1972. The practice drill was called Bull in the Ring; the players formed a circle 30 yards in diameter, with a football placed at the center. The coach then called out two numbers, and the two players rushed to see who could get to the ball first.

Visger faced off against the junior high school team’s fullback; they collided helmet to helmet at full speed. Visger came to and found himself staring facedown at the turf. He struggled to his feet, took one step and fell on his face again. At the hospital, he was diagnosed with his first concussion. There would be countless others during a playing career that spanned championship-winning teams at the high school, college and professional levels. The repeated blows to the head took their toll, and now Visger is paying dearly.

While head trauma has always been a concern in contact sports, during the past decade, researchers have discovered that repeated blows to the head while playing football can cause depression, loss of memory and, in extreme cases, dementia that mimics Alzheimer’s disease. The condition now has a name—chronic traumatic encephalopathy—and Visger, along with scores of other players, has many of its symptoms.

For its part, the NFL has yet to acknowledge CTE as legitimate syndrome, and many players have not been compensated fully for its debilitating effects.

Article continues.

Sacramento News & Review

Nov. 12, 2009

http://www.newsreview.com/sacramento/content?oid=1317643

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Meditation on Demand

From Scientific American Mind

November/December 2009

(ScientificAmerican.com/Mind)

Meditation on Demand

New research reveals the cell mechanisms underlying a meditative state.

By Peter B. Reiner

∂∂∂∂∂

FAST FACTS

Rhythm of Serenity

1» Regular deep meditation changes the brain in positive ways. this type of meditation seems to be associated with gamma waves, electromagnetic rhythm of neurons firing very rapidly in harmony.

2» Neuroscientists have pinpointed the cells responsible for producing these gamma rhythms and demonstrated a technology that can induce the brain-wave pattern in mice.

3» In the future it might be possible to use this technology to reproduce some of the beneficial effects of meditation.

∂∂∂∂∂

In the fall of 2005, the Dalai Lama gave the inaugural Dialogues between Neuroscience and Society lecture at the Annual Meeting of the Society for Neuroscience in Washington, DC. There were over 30,000 neuroscientists registered for the meeting, and it seemed as if most of them attended the talk. The Dalai Lama’s address was designed to highlight the areas of convergence between neuroscience and Buddhist thought about the mind, and to many in the audience he clearly achieved his objective. There was some controversy over his being invited to deliver this lecture insofar as he is both a head of state and a religious leader, and for that reason he largely stuck to his prepared text. But he strayed from the text at least once, reminding the audience that not only was he a Buddhist monk but also an enthusiastic proponent of modern technology.

Continued...

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=meditation-on-demand

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Brain Trauma in the N.F.L.

________________________

Thank you, Cindy Shaw,

for sharing this article with us.

_________________________

From the New York Times

SPORTS / PRO FOOTBALL | October 28, 2009

Gay Culverhouse, former president of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers who is battling terminal illness, wants to speak out on brain trauma in the N.F.L.

Ex-N.F.L. Executive Sounds Alarm on Head Injuries

By Alan Schwarz

TAMPA, Fla. — As the president of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the daughter of their owner, Gay Culverhouse was the woman in the men’s locker room. Twenty years later, she is trying to keep her former players out of the emergency room.

Sitting at a restaurant here Friday, she reconnected with a few Buccaneers retirees. There was Richard Wood, the fearsome linebacker known as Batman whose searing migraines and tendency to get lost while driving near his home leave him scared for his future. Across the table was Scot Brantley, an even harder hitter through the 1980s whose short-term memory is gone. Then there was Brandi Winans, former wife of Buccaneers lineman Jeff Winans, who slipped into such inexplicable depression, fogginess and fury several years ago that their marriage splintered.

Culverhouse looked at disability forms, listened to stories, offered counsel and expressed regret. She has done the same via telephone for another half-dozen former Buccaneers in their 40s or 50s who have increasing cognitive problems. Having followed story after story detailing how National Football League retirees are experiencing various forms of dementia at several times the national rate, and listening to the league and its doctors cast doubt that football played any role in their problems, she has emerged after 15 years to reconnect with players and sound an alarm.

She will testify before the House Judiciary Committee at its hearing on football brain injuries on Wednesday to, as she put it, “tell the truth about what’s going on while I still have the chance.”

Culverhouse has blood cancer and renal failure and has been told she has six months to live.

“I’ve got to see that someone stops this debacle before it gets any worse,” said Culverhouse, 62, the daughter of the former owner Hugh Culverhouse who held various executive positions from 1985 to 1994. “I watched our team do anything it could to get players back on the field. We have to make that right.”

Article continues.

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Cell phone risks

____________________________

Thank you, Diane Whitney,

for sharing this article with us.

____________________________

From UPI.com

Health News

Study: Long-time cell phone users at risk

Published: Oct. 24, 2009 at 10:45 AM

LONDON, Oct. 24 (UPI)

Long-term cell phone users face a higher risk of developing brain tumors later in life, researchers in Britain warn.

The risks were identified in a landmark decade-long study by the World Health Organization, The Daily Telegraph reported Saturday.

The study, which surveyed the cell phone habits of 12,8000 people in 13 countries, found a "significantly increased risk" of brain tumors among people who had used cell phones for 10 years or longer, Elisabeth Cardis, the head of the study told the Telegraph.

Cell phone use by children should be restricted, Cardis said, adding she does not advocate banning cell phones for children because of their importance in emergencies and in maintaining contact with parents.

Adults should moderate their use and reduce direct contact with the phone via wireless ear devices, headsets and other hands-free kits, authorities said.

A representative of the Mobile Operators Association said more than 30 other scientific surveys found no adverse health effects from cell phone use.

© 2009 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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