Nightmares and suicides: what mechanisms trigger these processes in the brain

Who is responsible for suicide, why do people have nightmares and can blood be replaced with ice cold? This publication found out "Present Tense".

Фото: Depositphotos

Suicidal Brain Sites

Scientists at Yale and Cambridge universities have been able to detect differences in some parts of the brain that may be associated with suicidal behavior. A new study provides an opportunity to predict which people are at risk for suicidal tendencies.

According to the World Health Organization, more than 800 thousand people die from suicide every year. This is the second leading cause of death among 15-29 year olds.

The study of all available visualizations of the brain involved more than 12 thousand people. Compare:

• patients with mental illness who have attempted suicide;
• with mental illness, but without suicidal behavior;
• healthy people.

As a result of the research, it was found that the frontal region that regulates emotions, and the areas involved in decision-making and controlling behavior, are associated with suicidal thoughts. It is changes in these brain structures that increase the risk of suicide.

Now scientists are looking for treatment methods that can change the structure of detected neural connections and thereby reduce the risk of suicide.

Nightmares

A team of neuroscientists from Switzerland and the USA tried to unravel the mystery of nightmares. According to them, dreams are part of the emotional processing system for adverse life events. What bothers people during the day can bother them at night. However, bad dreams allow us to safely “act out” potentially dangerous situations before they happen in real life.

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18 volunteers participated in the experiment; the bioelectrical activity of the brain was recorded during sleep. During the night they were awakened several times to ask them a series of questions about whether they had dreams and what they were like. Participants in the experiment also kept a “dream diary.”

The participants' responses were compared with electroencephalogram data and found that the insula and anterior cingulate cortex were particularly active during nightmares. During the day, the insula is involved in identifying and evaluating emotional reactions, while the cingulate cortex acts as the handbrake in our mind and is responsible for preparing the body's physical response to perceived threats.

During the second part of the experiment, participants were shown a series of disturbing images and MRI recorded changes in the brain.

Scientists noted that the images caused a lesser reaction in two areas of the brain precisely in those participants in the experiment who reported a large number of scary dreams. Scientists hope that the results of the experiment will help create methods for treating anxiety conditions in patients.

Freeze to save

American surgeons were able to replace the blood with an ice-cold solution for a seriously wounded patient in order to save his life.

The idea that the human body's basic functions could be put on "pause" while medical emergencies were carried out seemed like a fantasy until recently, but doctors are now making progress with actually freezing and reviving people.

Samuel Tisherman, professor at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, led the team, which placed a patient with massive blood loss in suspended animation.

All our cells function thanks to oxygen. With its help, the energy that is needed for the normal functioning of the cell is generated. The longer the cells in the body do without oxygen, the more damage they suffer.

The main goal of the study is to reduce brain damage. When the heart stops and the blood stops circulating, the brain quickly loses oxygen, experiencing irreparable damage for five minutes.

Scientists suggest that by slowing down cellular metabolism, they can stretch these five minutes to an hour or more. This will enable doctors to take control of the bleeding.

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The procedure - it takes 15 minutes - involves replacing all the patient’s blood with an ice-cold saline solution that quickly cools - to minus 10 degrees - vital organs, in particular the brain and heart. In this state, the work of the heart and brain is suspended. There is no blood, breathing, or brain activity in the body, the patient is clinically dead, but his cells can still live for several hours.

As a result, doctors will have up to two hours to deal with bleeding. After the operation, a blood transfusion takes place and the patient’s cardiac activity resumes.

Transplant Cream Slows Aging

Researchers at Drexel University College of Medicine believe they have found a drug that can become a source of youth and slow down skin aging.

This is rapamycin, which has so far been used for patients undergoing organ transplants, to combat rare lung diseases, and also as an anti-cancer agent.

Under the supervision of doctors, 13 forty-year-old participants used a cream with rapamycin for 8 months. At the end of this small experiment, the amount of collagen in the tissues of the skin of the participants' hands increased, as scientists have found, and the level of protein, which is associated with the appearance of wrinkles and aging of skin cells called p16, has significantly decreased.

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