Points of interest 4/5

I just wanted to announce that the twice monthly Brainblogging carnival is out and excellent as always, moving beyond the neuroscience into more personal psychosocial side of the brain. It seems I am becoming a something of a regular contributor there, which is both flattering and humbling. Many thanks.

Also this weekend is time for the semiannual conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, something of a spiritual feast for myself as we Mormons get to hear from those we hold to be living prophets and apostles proclaim God’s message to us today. Any interested are welcome to listen in. I have also found it is sometimes interesting to get other’s reactions at the LDS Bloggernaccle various open threads found here, here, here, and here.

Here is the remaining best of the web in what has been a very, very interesting week, especially for you, the reader.

April fools, Grand Rounds, Encephalon, Giblets and assorted fun

   For All folks who care to know the week in medicine and healthcare blogging, The very long April 1st edition of Grand Rounds is out starting at GruntDoc and taking one wild, winding, twisting, turning ride through several blogs, strangeness, mutants, and valley girls until it reaches Emergiblog, capped off by the 11th hour submission by yours truly, many thanks for slipping me in, courageously killing the theme and the fun to let others learn about a touching and all too serious subject. 

    In Brain and neuroscience news, afficiandos will be excited to learn that Paris Hilton is hosting Encephalon at Of Two Minds and its totally “Hot.”   There is also some prurient airing of ScienceBlogs dirty laundry as Adventures in Ethics and Science angrily calls it quits.  I am still wondering if there is a little repressed venting going on, April first aside.  I guess we will have to hold our breath to see if she is still there tomorrow.

     Around the LDS bloggernacle, By Common Consent has a very special guest post appearance by Lars glenson, (or is it Glen Larsen, or perhaps the dearly missed Languatron) for all the mad Battlestar Galactica ranting you could ever need or want for your April 1st perusing pleasure, and  the Snarkernacle has announced open nomination for categories in the Giblets in parody of the ongoing Niblet award voting. 

Also I hereby declare today MSB day in honor the best medicine, neuroscience, lds, mormon, spirituality, disability advocacy blog in the universe.  Please celebrate by stroking my ego ad nauseum in the comments.  Its a highly specialized market, but those who really, really need to find their mormon brain, medicine, spiritual, disability, philosophy fix, where else you gonna go.  Your long and tireless search is over. 

All Fool’s Day indeed, enjoy.   

Placebos and the mind-body connection

One thing that consistently amazes me about the human mind is its intricate relationship to our health and well being. In anxiety, your muscles remain constantly tense and flexed, burning your energy supply, leaving you exhausted. Panic attacks can feel identical to heart attacks, as your body is flooded with stress hormones.

Every specialty has their own somatoform disorder. These are real physical symptoms that occur as a result of an outside stressor. They can include headache, irritable bowel syndrome, wheezing and trouble breathing, nonepileptic seizures, paralysis, chest pain, rashes or a host of other symptoms. Despite the tendency to claim, “It’s all in your head,”all of these conditions are very real and lead to the consumption of a lot of physician’s time.
Unfortunately because they are intricately related to the mind, they tend to be written off by doctors. We tend to see conditions as either physical or mental when the truth with any disease is that there are always strong components of both.

So where does this prejudice stem from? Oddly enough, I think it is rooted in our scientifically useful proof of the mind body connection, the placebo.

Points of interest 3/29

Welcome one and all readers of my blog. I am having a bit of writing block right now, but hey, it seems failures are as important as successes. In my surfing, here are some of the many successes I have come across.

Good Friday carnivalia

The every other week Brain blogging carnival is up.  Check it out for a great collection of posts “related to the brain and mind that go beyond the basic sciences into a more human and multidimensional perspective.”  Right up my alley.  Many thanks for including a couple of my posts.

Also, medicine aficionado’s may check out this week’s edition of Grand Rounds at Polite Dissent, a rather novel medical comic book blog.

Points of interest 3/1

My, my my what a week. My reader is getting bloated, I need to figure out a way to decompress. The internet is just too darn big. I think I need to take up meditation and perhaps do an every other weekly summary, except there is an entire load of good stuff to summarize. Perhaps waiting would only make it worse. Without further ado, especially for you, the reader-

Points of interest 2/23

It is time time again for my weekly roundup of stuff I wish I wrote, found wandering the ethernet. I have discovered the wonder that is google reader. Now every time I run into a great post, mind, body, or soul, you can can view it on my sidebar (nuggets from all over) should you should you feel inclined. It even has its own RSS feed if you want to go nuts in the Doc’s stuff he wish he wrote fanclub, or if spirituality, or neuroscience, or medicine happen to be your thing too. Knock yourself out. I will continue to recognize and summarize my absolute favorites each week for your viewing/reading pleasure. Enjoy!

The soul- an embodied mind and spirit

Joseph Smith taught that

A very material difference [exists] between the body and the spirit; the body is supposed to be organized matter, and the spirit, by many, is thought to be immaterial, without substance. With this latter statement we should beg leave to differ, and state the spirit is a substance; that it is material, but that it is more pure, elastic and refined matter than the body; that it existed before the body, can exist in the body; and will exist separate from the body, when the body will be mouldering in the dust; and will in the resurrection, be again united with it

Teaching of the Prophet Joseph Smith. p207

As you may have guessed by now, one of my pastimes is comtemplating what exactly the spirit is, and what its relationship is with the mind and body.   It is an endlessly fascinating subject for me.  The idea of spirit as matter makes sense to me.