(Truth Theory) A study has revealed that better employee productivity would occur if people over 40 years old were able to work three days (25 hours) a week. According to the paper which is in the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, doing more than three days a week once you reach 40 years old can damage your ability to think.
The research was conducted using the data of more than 3,000 men and 3,500 women (aged over 40) who completed the national Household Income Labour Dynamics in Australia survey. The research took people’s economic and subjective well-being, family structures and employment into account.
The participants were asked to read words aloud, match letters and numbers under pressure and to recite lists of numbers backwards. The results indicated that participants who worked 25 hours a week tended to achieve the highest scores.
Colin Mckenzie is a Professor of Economics at Keio University. He took part in the research and said that working long hours was more damaging to brain function than not working at all. Given the fact that the retirement age has gone up in many countries, Mckenzie suggests that these new findings should be taken into consideration. He stated that “many countries are going to raise their retirement ages by delaying the age at which people are eligible to start receiving pension benefits.
This means that more people continue to work in the later stages of their life. He added, “the degree of intellectual stimulation may depend on working hours. Work can be a double-edged sword, in that it can stimulate brain activity, but at the same time long working hours can cause fatigue and stress, which potentially damage cognitive functions.”
Critics of the research include Geraint Johnes, Professor of Economics at Lancaster University Management School. He said: “The research looks only at over-40s, and so cannot make the claim that over-40s are different from any other workers.
It is also important to note that results may vary between countries, depending on how much holiday people can take each year. Therefore, it is hard to control for factors such as the type of work and hours worked (which could bias a study such as this).
Josh del Sol investigates some of the many problems associated with smart meters, including the devastating health effects following the installation of it.
The InPower team is allowing a full and FREE viewing of Episode #1. Sign up to watch Episode #2 for free by CLICKING HERE and show your support by purchasing their 2-DVD combo by CLICKING HERE (use coupon code MERC30 to save 30%).
Story at-a-glance
The smart grid is part of a clandestine surveillance network that violates privacy rights. Following the installation of smart meters, many also report devastating health problems, and there have been numerous fires and explosions
“InPower Episode #1: A Mass Action of Liability” reveals a new method of how you can take back your power, “balance the scales” and prevent or reverse the installation of a smart meter in your home
Phase 1 involved 200 homeowners in three cities. Having achieved strong results, phase 2 is a call to mass action, with the goal of stopping the smart meter agenda and ensuring safe, noninvasive technology
Last month I published an article discussing the documentary “Take Back Your Power,” directed by Josh del Sol Beaulieu, in which he investigated some of the many problems associated with smart meters — including the devastating health effects they’re having on some people, and how these meters are part of a much larger covert surveillance system designed to spy on and track users, and to profit from the sale of user data.
“InPower Episode 1: A Mass Action of Liability” is the follow-up to that film, released August 26. In this film, del Sol Beaulieu reveals how people are using commerce to leverage their power against politicians and corporations to ensure the right and ability to refuse smart meters.
As revealed in “Take Back Your Power,” many feel powerless in the face of government and large corporations that seem to dictate the rules without regard for an individual’s safety. But there are a wide variety of actions you can take to protect yourself and your family. This strategy, used in three communities in the United States and Canada, has already produced results indicative of a huge potential.
Smart Meters Linked to Chronic Health Problems
I’ve warned about the hazards of microwave radiation from cellphones, routers, portable phones, smart meters and other wireless technology for decades. Now, armed with the mechanism of harm presented by Martin Pall, Ph.D., in a series of papers1,2,3,4 I’m more convinced than ever that excessive exposure to electromagnetic fields (EMFs) are a significant health hazard that needs to be addressed — especially if you struggle with heart, brain or reproductive issues.
In a nutshell, nonionizing microwave exposures are a major source of mitochondrial dysfunction, and we’ve now come to appreciate that this is at the heart of virtually all chronic disease. It’s no wonder, really, that so many are reporting serious health problems after having a smart meter installed in their home.
What Pall discovered is that microwaves emitted from devices such as cellphones, Wi-Fi routers, computers and tablets — when not in airplane mode — increase intracellular calcium through voltage gated calcium channels (VGCCs), and the tissues with the highest density of VGCCs are your brain, the pacemaker in your heart and male testes.
Once these VGCCs are stimulated they trigger the release of neurotransmitters, neuroendocrine hormones and highly damaging reactive oxygen species (ROS) that significantly raise your risk for health problems such as anxiety, depression, Alzheimer’s, brain cancer, arrhythmias and infertility, just to name a few. Anyone struggling with any of these conditions would be wise to take EMF exposure very seriously, and take steps to limit exposure to wireless technology.
Simple measures include eliminating Wi-Fi in your home or at least turning it off at night. It is also helpful to keep your phone in airplane mode most of the time. This will radically increase your battery life and keep you safe.
My phone is in airplane mode nearly the entire day as I discovered that it provided high levels of radiation up to 30 feet away, even though it was not on a call — especially when the signal strength is only one or two “bars.” Obviously keep your phone in airplane mode when you are carrying it on your body. I actually take another step and put my phone in a Faraday bag.
When it comes to smart meters, many find they’re not given a choice in the matter. As shown in “Take Back Your Power,” utility company employees have literally broken into homes to forcibly install the meters. So, what can you do? That’s the focus of the InPower Movement, a new Indiegogo-funded project from Beaulieu and his team.
The Power of Liability
According to Beaulieu, social justice can be obtained by exercising the power within the body of rules and principles codified in modern commerce, which is a descendant of what’s known as “Law Merchant.” This can offer a highly effective lawful strategy to prevent and reverse the installation of a smart meter in your home and community.
It involves holding corporate executives and government agents financially accountable for their decisions. Cal Washington, co-founder of the InPower Movement, is an “empowerment advocate” who has spent several years fighting for justice for people who have been abused by corruption within the justice system.
Is it possible to hold corporate individuals accountable for their actions? Yes, it is, “and this has the potential to change everything,” del Sol Beaulieu notes, within his Episode 1. “The next 40 minutes is an overview of how this works.” Washington summarizes the Notice of Liability action he’s developed, which del Sol Beaulieu is sharing with the world through their film and website, as follows:
“It’s basically a counter-offer [to the] contract that is being implemented to put a device on everybody’s house. They’ve got us into a tacit agreement. This [Notice of Liability document] clarifies and expresses the counter-offer in such a way that those who don’t want the meter can say ‘I don’t want a meter,’ and if [the power company] does put a meter on the house it’s going to cost [them] X amount of dollars per day … in order for you to carry out this contract.”
In other words, you are currently in a contract with your power company. By changing your analog meter to a smart meter, they are changing the contract and you have to agree to this change in terms. However, codified in commerce there’s something known as tacit agreement — an agreement that is implied or understood without being directly expressed. Unless you object, you have tacitly agreed to this change in terms. As noted by Washington, “If you don’t say no, you’ve said yes.”
By understanding that the installation of smart meters is a commercial contract issued to you by your utility company, you level the playing field. All you’re doing is entering into a contract negotiation. “All the tricks they use against you, we use against them,” Washington says.
Notice of Liability
According to Washington, anyone can issue a Notice of Liability at any time, whether you still have an analog meter or have already received a smart meter and/or have tacitly agreed to the new meter. The “Notice of Liability” generally applies worldwide, as it is based on the system of commerce that governs corporate commerce everywhere. This is a system that virtually none of the general public is aware of, “and now you can actually use it,” Washington says. “You’re now playing the proper game in the proper court.”
Importantly, the Notice of Liability lays accountability at the feet of an individual. Corporate employees and agents can no longer hide behind their corporate post where they have no personal accountability. This includes government employees as well, because the U.S. government is actually run as and functions as a corporation. As noted in the film, the U.S. code defines the United States as a federal corporation, and Canada is listed as a company located in Washington D.C. on the U.S. securities and exchange.
Understanding Corporate Jurisdiction
In the film, Washington explains a key misunderstanding relating to jurisdiction. To explain the crux of the problem, he offers the following analogy: You’re hired as an employee in the auto department at Walmart. When hired, you agree to a basic contract that stipulates that you will work a certain number of hours for a certain pay. One day, your manager asks you to come in to work at 2 a.m. — a time when the store is closed.
While the auto department manager has jurisdiction over you, he’s under the jurisdiction of the store manager. Hence, you can file a complaint with the store manager, notifying her that what you’re being asked to do goes against company policy.
Walmart, in turn, has to obey the rules of the city in which it is located. In this example, the store is in Detroit, and must therefore follow employment rules and regulations of the city. Detroit, in turn, is under the jurisdiction of Michigan, and all businesses in Detroit must obey state laws. Next you have the United States, and this is what most people don’t know — the United States is functioning as a corporation UNDER the jurisdiction of The United States of America, the country. While they sound the same, they are not identical.
Courts operate under the corporation of the United States. In other words, according to Washington, the court system can be likened to a corporation within a corporation. Importantly, Americans believe they’re under the jurisdiction of the country called the United States of America, but in reality, you’re operating your day-to-day life under the jurisdiction of a corporation called the United States (or U.S.), and you’ve tacitly agreed to this, whether you realize it or not.
Lastly, the corporate United States is under the jurisdiction of Law Merchant, which governs commercial law, which in turn is under the jurisdiction of Common Law — which is where you find the Constitution of the United States of America (the republic). Both the United States of America and Canada were founded on the Common Law — the highest laws of the land — and still operate under their jurisdiction, “but you have to know how to invoke them,” Washington says.
There will no doubt be some who are resistant to what Washington and InPower are revealing. But I find it highly interesting that even before addressing the smart meter problem, he produces evidence of an extraordinary long list of people in high-level positions resigning from office, shortly after he sent them certain documentation.
Invocation of Personal Liability Is a Powerful Tool
The above example illustrates corporate jurisdiction. Even if a company allows their employees to work around the clock, they cannot force you to do so if it violates the laws of the city, state or the corporation of the U.S. In this case, the notice of liability action takes advantage of the fact that the corporation of the U.S. is under the jurisdiction of merchant and common law. Hence, by invoking these laws you supersede all others.
How does this make government officials personally liable, though? Government officials swear an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States of America. Their oath is a contract. So, if they do not honor your constitutional rights, then they are not protected by their position within the corporation of the United States — they are personally liable because they’ve overstepped their role, just like the Walmart auto department manager did in the hypothetical illustration.
He did not have jurisdiction to tell you to clock in for work at 2 a.m., and a government official does not have the authority or jurisdiction to negate or violate the Constitution, merchant or common law. The only way they can practically get away with it is by your tacit agreement — you must actually waive your rights. The notice of liability that Washington created explicitly invokes your rights.
Phase 1 Results
Phase 1 of the InPower project involved three “seed” groups with a total of 200 participants who sent out liability notices. Similar to Washington’s previous experiences, a number of officials who received liability notices resigned from their posts. del Sol Beaulieu clarifies that, “while there’s no saying for certain what factors are involved in each resignation,” respondents are indeed resigning.
For example, on January 30, 2015, Brett Hodson, CEO of Corix Group, which installs smart meters, received more than 100 notices from residents in Kelowna, BC, Canada. On February 4, he received a separate Notice of Default from Washington. Hodson announced his resignation that same day.
Kelowna was one of the three seed groups. Groups in Seattle and Detroit also launched Notice of Liability actions. In Seattle, after receiving 21 Notices of Liability, three of the nine City Council members announced they would not seek reelection, including one who resigned before the end of her term.
“In Detroit, it is all-out war,” del Sol Beaulieu says. “The utility DTE has cut electricity to several homeowners who have refused smart meters.” However, after receiving 21 default notices (a later stage of the liability action), the Michigan attorney general suddenly began calling for free opt-out. Four of the eight officers in the Michigan Public Service Commission who are being held liable appear to have resigned — though it is yet unconfirmed by the utility.
Phase 2 Plan of Action and Summary
While del Sol Beaulieu states the focus of Phase 1 was to prove that the concept works, Phase 2 is a call to mass action across North America and Canada, with the goal of stopping the smart meter agenda completely and reversing back to safe, noninvasive technology. In summary, the Notice of Liability is part of a contractual negotiation process between you and your utility company. A contract has four basic components:
1. An offer. In this case, your utility may mail you a notice or post a notice on its website, telling you they are upgrading your meter. Unless you say no, you’re saying yes (tacit acceptance)
2. Negotiation/meeting of the minds. Whenever you present a contract to someone, they have the right and ability to negotiate the terms. (On a side note, to be valid, a contract must include full disclosure of relevant facts and terms, or else the contract is null and void. One could argue that since utility companies are not providing full disclosures about the potential health effects of the meters, they’ve voided the contract)
3. Unconditional acceptance. In this case, by sending out a notice of liability, you are issuing a counter-offer to their initial offer. You’re giving conditional acceptance, and to be valid, a contract must be unconditional. This means your conditions must either be met or removed.
As above, consent to conditions can be gained tacitly. This means if they do not reply to your notice of liability, and ratify the contract by installing the meter, they’ve accepted your terms — including the financial liability spelled out in your counter-offer.
For example, your notice may state that “If you put a meter on my house, I shall charge you $10,000 per week.” If they install a smart meter, or fail to remove the smart meter, your terms are deemed accepted, and the individual to whom you sent the notice is personally liable for this financial obligation. Within your legal rights are the use of liens, collection agencies and more.
They cannot fight you in court, because your notice restricts the jurisdiction — it’s part of the negotiation process of a personal agreement or contract between you and the individual. It’s no different than purchasing their house. Since they put the offer out, they cannot back out of the deal — your notice is part of the negotiation and these are your terms to their contract
4. Money exchange or performance ratifies the contract. “Performance” is the action of doing something based on the contract, which in this case is the installation or non-removal of the smart meter. By performing the act, the contract — entered into with your conditional acceptance — goes into effect and the individual is financially liable per your counter-offer
Join the InPower Movement
I am extremely excited about this project as it can serve as a template for not only removing smart meters, but wireless technology in schools. It is important to understand that children are at much higher risk of EMF damage. As noted in the InPower trailer,5 this strategy may also be used to stop deployment of 5G, forced vaccinations and other problems of “profits before people.”
On a call with del Sol Beaulieu and Washington last week, they explained to me how this process differs from others because it comprehensively lays the groundwork for the actual enforcement of the liability. “This isn’t the only possible solution,” del Sol Beaulieu said. “But we feel strongly about addressing the problem at its root, which is how money has corrupted social governance.”
“Those who get it, get it — and they will be enough,” Washington said. “There’s a certain percentage of people who have been waiting for this, and who can see through propaganda — for example from the utilities and lawyers, who will try to convince you that using commerce is bunk, even though it’s THEIR system.”
“This is about correcting the system which has become extremely out of balance. It’s to the point where the imbalance will threaten life as we know it, if allowed to continue. We can actually help to restore balance, and make big changes, when enough people catch onto this.”
To learn more and participate, go to InPowerMovement.com and sign up free. Once you’re signed up, you’ll receive Episode 2, which has step-by-step instructions on how to proceed, and additional support.
Shocking Admission Reveals How Smart Meters Are Used for Clandestine Surveillance
Last but not least, even if you do not believe smart meters have any ill health effects, I urge you to join the movement to eliminate them, if for no other reason than to block the global rollout of these clandestine surveillance devices. There can be little doubt that they are infringing on personal privacy, and indeed were designed with that in mind.
Rights advocate Jerry Day came across the following video, which del Sol Beaulieu calls “the most startling admission I have seen regarding in-home surveillance as the real focus of smart meters.” The video is a marketing video for Onzo, a large data aggregator that works with over 100 utilities globally. In this video, they explain what your power usage data is really used for:
“We then use this characterized profile to give the utility… the ability to monetize their customer data by providing a direct link to appropriate third-party organizations based on the customer’s identified character.”
In 2015, the director of grants and research at the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners also stated that, “I think the data [harvested by ‘smart’ meters] is going to be worth a lot more than the commodity that’s being consumed to generate the data.”6
About the Directors
I believe in bringing quality to my readers, which is why I wanted to share some information about the directors, Josh del Sol Beaulieu and Cal Washington, from the InPower Docuseries and movement. We sat down with del Sol Beaulieu and Washington to learn a little more about what goes in to making these films. Thank you both for sharing with us.
What was your inspiration for launching the InPower Movement?
Washington: Through a long process of learning the hard way, I had managed to go from a life tormented by the “system” to total freedom, and was left alone to live my life, which I was doing. Josh knew of my journey, and asked if anything I had learned could be used to stop the “smart” meter implementation. Based on my experiences over a 10- to 12-year period, we then put together the liability action, used it in three different cities, and got some results.
We have since become inspired to make it as simple as possible for people to do together. So our Phase 2 plan is to offer a website with semiautomated document completion, print and video resources, and a hub to create a community experience.
del Sol Beaulieu: Seeing how so many well-intentioned people trying to preserve their rights and keep their families safe were getting just steamrolled by their utilities. I wanted to provide another option to restore accountability within the utilities and commissions — a process to which I am fully committed.
And I believe that it’s going to happen, as more people get connected with tools like what Cal’s bringing forward, because relatively it’s really only a few people who want a lawless corporatocracy.
What was your favorite part of creating this video series and solution?
Washington: I would have to say watching eyes light up when something was said. I saw many people have epiphanies and heads nodding, when things were explained from a different point of view. “It all makes sense now,” was a comment I heard a lot.
del Sol Beaulieu: Watching how people respond at live presentations and group meetings. I believe at our core we all recognize truth. And for better or worse, we are actually now forced to go deeper in order to access a tangible solution.
I really enjoyed the process of people walking through these shifts in groups, because as we take a stand it brings out the best in us. When I did the first liability action document with a group in Seattle, it felt like a new energy was created amongst us.
Where do the proceeds of your Indiegogo campaign and DVD go?
del Sol Beaulieu: Expanding the InPower Movement, and making it super easy for people to participate in community. Phase 2 will simplify, add support and expand the Liability Action with a feature-rich community website which makes it easy to do and manage your own process.
That’s what is needed for the numbers; and the numbers will drive the major change. We’ve had amazing support so far on our IndieGogo campaign, though we’ve got a ways to go with two weeks left.
We want to continue our plan to give free as many resources as we possibly can, because we feel this solution needs to go viral. If you’re inspired by our mission, come stand with us as a founder!
A sensational discovery has been made by experts as scientists have found that the human brain is home to structures and shapes that have up to 11 dimensions. Neuroscientists welcome the discovery saying: “We found a world that we had never imagined.”
Mathematical methods of algebraic topology have helped researchers find structures and multidimensional geometric spaces in brain networks.
According to experts, a new study has proven that the human brain is home to structures and shapes that have up to 11 dimensions.
Conceptual illustration of brain networks (l) and topology (r), courtesy of Blue Brain Project.
Human brains are estimated to be home to a staggering 86 billion neurons, with several connections from each cell webbing in every possible direction, forming a super-vast cellular network that SOMEHOW makes us capable of thought and consciousness, reports Science Alert.
An international group of scientists gathered around the Blue Brain project has obtained results never before seen in the world of neuroscience, according to the study published in the journal Frontiers in Computational Neuroscience.
This team managed to find structures in the brain that present a multidimensional universe, uncovering the first geometric design of neural connections and how they respond to stimuli.
Scientists made use of in-depth computer modeling techniques to understand how exactly human brain cells are able to organize themselves in order to carry out complex tasks.
Researchers used mathematical models of algebraic topology to describe structures and multidimensional geometric spaces in brain networks.
In the study, it is denoted that structures are formed at the same time that they are interlaced in a “union” that generates a precise geometric structure.
Henry Markram a neuroscientist and director of Blue Brain Project in Lausanne, Switzerland said:
“We found a world that we had never imagined. There are tens of millions of these objects even in a small speck of the brain, up through seven dimensions. In some networks, we even found structures with up to 11 dimensions.”
As noted by experts, every neuron inside of our brain is able to interconnect to a neighboring one, in a specific way to form an object with complex connections. Interestingly, the more neurons join in with the clique, the more dimensions are thus added to the object.
After scientists added stimulus into the virtual brain tissue, they discovered that cliques of progressively HIGHER dimensions assembled. They found that in between these cliques were holes or cavities.
Ran Levi from Aberdeen University, who worked on the paper, told WIRED:
“The appearance of high-dimensional cavities when the brain is processing information means that the neurons in the network react to stimuli in an extremely organized manner.”
“It is as if the brain reacts to a stimulus by building then razing a tower of multi-dimensional blocks, starting with rods (1D), then planks (2D), then cubes (3D), and then more complex geometries with 4D, 5D, etc. The progression of activity through the brain resembles a multi-dimensional sandcastle that materializes out of the sand and then disintegrates.”
While shapes that are three-dimensional have height, width and depth, the objects discovered by experts in the new study don’t exist in more than those three dimensions in the real world, but mathematicians used to describe them can have 5, 6 7 or up to 11 dimensions.
Professor Cees van Leeuwen, from KU Leuven, Belgium, told Wired:
“Outside of physics, high-dimensional spaces are frequently used to describe complex data structures or conditions of systems, for instance, the state of a dynamical system in state space.”
“The space is simply the union of all the degrees of freedom the system has, and its state describes the values these degrees of freedom are actually assuming.”
The research is published in Frontiers in Computational Neuroscience.
Summary: Researchers examine sign language iconicity to gain insight into how we are able to detect meaning from music.
Source: NYU.
How do we detect the meaning of music? We may gain some insights by looking at an unlikely source, sign language, a newly released linguistic analysis concludes.
“Musicians and music lovers intuitively know that music can convey information about an extra-musical reality,” explains author Philippe Schlenker, a senior researcher at Institut Jean-Nicod within France’s National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) and a Global Distinguished Professor at New York University. “Music does so by way of abstract musical animations that are reminiscent of iconic, or pictorial-like, components of meaning that are common in sign language, but rare in spoken language.”
Schlenker acknowledges that spoken language also deploys iconic meanings–for example, saying that a lecture was ‘loooong’ gives a very different impression from just saying that it was ‘long.’ However, these meanings are relatively marginal in the spoken word; by contrast, he observes, they are pervasive in sign languages, which have the same general grammatical and logical rules as do spoken languages, but also far richer iconic rules.
Drawing inspiration from sign language iconicity, Schlenker proposes that the diverse inferences drawn on musical sources are combined by way of abstract iconic rules. Here, music can mimic a reality, creating a “fictional source” for what is perceived to be real. As an example, he points to composer Camille Saint Saëns’s “The Carnival of the Animals” (1886), which aims to capture the physical movement of tortoises.
“When Saint Saëns wanted to evoke tortoises in ‘The Carnival of Animals,’ he not only used a radically slowed-down version of a high-energy dance, the Can-Can,” Schlenker notes. “He also introduced a dissonance to suggest that the hapless animals were tripping, an effect obtained due to the sheer instability of the jarring chord.”
In his work, Schlenker broadly considers how we understand music–and, in doing so, how we derive meaning through the fictional sources that it creates.
“We draw all sorts of inferences about fictional sources of the music when we are listening,” he explains. “Lower pitch is, for instance, associated with larger sound sources, a standard biological code in nature. So, a double bass will more easily evoke an elephant than a flute would. Or, if the music slows down or becomes softer, we naturally infer that a piece’s fictional source is losing energy, just as we would in our daily, real-world experiences. Similarly, a higher pitch may signify greater energy–a physical code–or greater arousal, which is a biological code.”
Drawing inspiration from sign language iconicity, Schlenker proposes that the diverse inferences drawn on musical sources are combined by way of abstract iconic rules. Here, music can mimic a reality, creating a “fictional source” for what is perceived to be real. NeuroscienceNews.com image is credited to Neuroscience News.
Fictional sources may be animate or inanimate, Schlenker adds, and their behavior may be indicative of emotions, which play a prominent role in musical meaning.
“More generally, it is no accident that one often signals the end of a classical piece by simultaneously playing more slowly, more softly, and with a musical movement toward more consonant chords,” he says. “These are natural ways to indicate that the fictional source is gradually losing energy and reaching greater repose.”
In his research, Schlenker worked with composer Arthur Bonetto to create minimal modifications of well-known music snippets to understand the source of the meaning effects they produce. This analytical method of ‘minimal pairs,’ borrowed from linguistics and experimental psychology, Schlenker posits, could be applied to larger musical excerpts in the future.
About this neuroscience research article
Funding: Yuanyuan Liu, Xuhua Wang, Wenlei Li contributed equally to this work. Supporters of the study include grants from Craig Neilsen Foundation, NINDS, Wings for Life, Hong Kong Spinal Cord Injury Fund and Dr. Miriam and Sheldon G. Adelson Medical Research Foundation. IDDRC and viral cores used for this study were supported by NIH grants P30 HD018655 and P30EY012196.
Source: James Devitt – NYU Image Source: NeuroscienceNews.com image is credited to Neuroscience News. Original Research: The analysis, “Outline of Music Semantics,” appears in the journal Music Perception and is available, with sound examples.
It’s the most damning evidence against the American football establishment to date.
A new study has found that 110 of 111 deceased former National Football League (NFL) players had evidence of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), or permanent brain damage as a result of repeated blunt force injuries to the head. Such injuries can result in behavioral changes or cognitive decline, like memory loss or dementia.
The study, by a team of researchers led by Boston University and the Veteran’s Association in Boston, was published July 25 in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The researchers were looking at the association of CTE in football players in general, and were funded in part by both the Concussion Legacy Foundation and the NFL itself. More broadly, they found that 177 of 202 deceased players who played at any level (including college and semi-professional) for an average 15 years (ranging from roughly 10 to 20 years) also had evidence of CTE.
Researchers conducted the study in two parts. First, a team of neuroscientists interviewed family members about the football players’ health and behavior. They asked for evidence of any kind of substance abuse, Parkinson’s disease, PTSD, sleep disorders, and even chronic headaches. Next, a separate team blinded to the interview results performed examinations on the late players’ brains and looked for evidence researchers previously decided were indicative of CTE—things like the lesions or patterns of tangled or darkened fibers in the brain.
A new study using university students reveals those with high psychopathic traits showed a significantly reduces response time when being prompted to lie following training than those low levels of the traits. Researchers say their findings provide evidence that those with higher psychopathic traits may be better at learning to lie.
Summary: A new study using university students reveals those with high psychopathic traits showed a significantly reduces response time when being prompted to lie following training than those low levels of the traits. Researchers say their findings provide evidence that those with higher psychopathic traits may be better at learning to lie.
Source: Biomed Central.
Individuals with high levels of psychopathic traits are better at learning to lie than individuals who show few psychopathic traits, according to a study published in the open access journal Translational Psychiatry. The findings indicate that people with high psychopathic traits may not have a ‘natural’ capacity to lie better, but rather are better at learning how to lie, according to the researchers.
Dr. Tatia Lee and Dr. Robin Shao of the State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and the Laboratory of Neuropsychology at The University of Hong Kong found that after practicing a task that involved giving a series of truthful or untruthful responses about whether or not they recognized people in a collection of photographs, individuals with high levels of psychopathic traits were able to lie much more quickly than before practice. By contrast, individuals with low levels of psychopathic traits showed no improvement in their lying speed.
Dr Tatia Lee, the corresponding authors said: “The stark contrast between individuals with high and low levels of psychopathic traits in lying performance following two training sessions is remarkable, given that there were no significant differences in lying performance between the two groups prior to training.”
Dr Shao added: “High psychopathy is characterized by untruthfulness and manipulativeness but the evidence so far was not clear on whether high-psychopathic individuals in the general population tend to lie more or better than others. Our findings provide evidence that people with high psychopathic traits might just be better at learning how to lie.”
To find out if individuals with high levels of psychopathic traits were better at learning how to lie than others, the researchers recruited 52 students from The University of Hong Kong – 23 who showed low levels of psychopathic traits and 29 who showed high levels of psychopathic traits based on a questionnaire that can be used to assess psychopathy in a non-clinical setting.
Students in both groups were shown a series of photographs of familiar and unfamiliar faces. They received a cue to give either an honest or a dishonest response when asked whether they knew the person in the photograph or not. The researchers measured the students’ reaction times for each response and observed their brain activity using functional magnetic resonance imaging methodology (fMRI). Participants then completed a two-session training exercise before repeating the task.
The researchers found that following the training exercise, individuals with high levels of psychopathic traits had significantly shorter response times when being prompted to lie than during the initial task. Individuals with low levels of psychopathic traits showed no changes in response time. The difference may be due to how the brains of individuals with high and low levels of psychopathic traits process lies.
The researchers found that following the training exercise, individuals with high levels of psychopathic traits had significantly shorter response times when being prompted to lie than during the initial task. Individuals with low levels of psychopathic traits showed no changes in response time. The difference may be due to how the brains of individuals with high and low levels of psychopathic traits process lies. NeuroscienceNews.com image is for illustrative purposes only.
Dr Lee said: “During lying, the ‘true’ information needs to be suppressed and reversed. Thus, lying requires a series of processes in the brain including attention, working memory, inhibitory control and conflict resolution which we found to be reduced in individuals with high levels of psychopathic traits. By contrast, in individuals with low levels of psychopathic traits this lie-related brain activity increased. The additional ‘effort’ it took their brains to process untruthful responses may be one of the reasons why they didn’t improve their lying speed.”
The researchers caution that as all participants in this study were university students, further research is needed to be able to generalize the findings to individuals with high levels of psychopathic traits in other populations.
About this neuroscience research article
Source: Matthew Lam – Biomed Central Image Source: NeuroscienceNews.com image is in the public domain. Original Research: Full open access research for “Are individuals with higher psychopathic traits better learners at lying? Behavioural and neural evidence” by R Shao and T M C Lee in Translational Psychiatry. Published online July 25 2017 doi:10.1038/tp.2017.147
Mothers who eat high fat diets during pregnancy could be elevating the risk of future depression and anxiety symptoms for their children, a new study in Frontiers in Endocrinology reports. High fat diets may impair the development of the central serotonin system, researchers discovered. Further studies noted that introducing a healthy diet to the offspring at an early age did not reverse the effect.
Summary: Mothers who eat high fat diets during pregnancy could be elevating the risk of future depression and anxiety symptoms for their children, a new study in Frontiers in Endocrinology reports. High fat diets may impair the development of the central serotonin system, researchers discovered. Further studies noted that introducing a healthy diet to the offspring at an early age did not reverse the effect.
Source: Oregon Health and Science University.
OHSU researchers first to document causal relationship in study of nonhuman primates.
A high-fat diet not only creates health problems for expectant mothers, but new research in an animal model suggests it alters the development of the brain and endocrine system of their offspring and has a long-term impact on offspring behavior. The new study links an unhealthy diet during pregnancy to mental health disorders such as anxiety and depression in children.
“Given the high level of dietary fat consumption and maternal obesity in developed nations, these findings have important implications for the mental health of future generations,” the researchers report.
The research was published today in the journal Frontiers in Endocrinology.
The study, led by Elinor Sullivan, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the Division of Neuroscience at Oregon National Primate Research Center at OHSU, tested the effect of a maternal high-fat diet on nonhuman primates, tightly controlling their diet in a way that would be impossible in a human population. The study revealed behavioral changes in the offspring associated with impaired development of the central serotonin system in the brain. Further, it showed that introducing a healthy diet to the offspring at an early age failed to reverse the effect.
Previous observational studies in people correlated maternal obesity with a range of mental health and neurodevelopmental disorders in children. The new research demonstrates for the first time that a high-fat diet, increasingly common in the developed world, caused long-lasting mental health ramifications for the offspring of non-human primates.
In the United States, 64 percent of women of reproductive age are overweight and 35 percent are obese. The new study suggests that the U.S. obesity epidemic may be imposing transgenerational effects.
“It’s not about blaming the mother,” said Sullivan, senior author on the study. “It’s about educating pregnant women about the potential risks of a high-fat diet in pregnancy and empowering them and their families to make healthy choices by providing support. We also need to craft public policies that promote healthy lifestyles and diets.”
Researchers grouped a total of 65 female Japanese macaques into two groups, one given a high-fat diet and one a control diet during pregnancy. They subsequently measured and compared anxiety-like behavior among 135 offspring and found that both males and females exposed to a high-fat diet during pregnancy exhibited greater incidence of anxiety compared with those in the control group. The scientists also examined physiological differences between the two groups, finding that exposure to a high-fat diet during gestation and early in development impaired the development of neurons containing serotonin, a neurotransmitter that’s critical in developing brains.
The new findings suggest that diet is at least as important as genetic predisposition to neurodevelopmental disorders such as anxiety or depression, said an OHSU pediatric psychiatrist who was not involved in the research.
In the United States, 64 percent of women of reproductive age are overweight and 35 percent are obese. The new study suggests that the U.S. obesity epidemic may be imposing transgenerational effects. NeuroscienceNews.com image is for illustrative purposes only.
“I think it’s quite dramatic,” said Joel Nigg, Ph.D., professor of psychiatry, pediatrics, and behavioral neuroscience in the OHSU School of Medicine. “A lot of people are going to be astonished to see that the maternal diet has this big of an effect on the behavior of the offspring. We’ve always looked at the link between obesity and physical diseases like heart disease, but this is really the clearest demonstration that it’s also affecting the brain.”
Sullivan and research assistant and first author Jacqueline Thompson said they believe the findings provide evidence that mobilizing public resources to provide healthy food and pre- and post-natal care to families of all socioeconomic classes could reduce mental health disorders in future generations.
“My hope is that increased public awareness about the origins of neuropsychiatric disorders can improve our identification and management of these conditions, both at an individual and societal level,” Thompson said.
About this neuroscience research article
Funding: This study was supported by grant Ro1MH107508R01 from the National Institute of Mental Health, the Murdock Charitable Trust, Murdock College Research Program for Life Science, grant number 2011273:HVP, Oregon Clinical and Translational Research Institute grant number UL1TR000128 from the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences at the National Institutes of Health. Grant number P51 OD011092 supported operation of ONPRC and the Imaging and Morphology Core and Endocrine Technologies Support Core.
Source: Erik Robinson – Oregon Health and Science University Image Source: NeuroscienceNews.com image is in the public domain. Original Research: Full open access research for “Exposure to a High-Fat Diet during Early Development Programs Behavior and Impairs the Central Serotonergic System in Juvenile Non-Human Primates” by Jacqueline R. Thompson, Jeanette C. Valleau, Ashley N. Barling, Juliana G. Franco, Madison DeCapo, Jennifer L. Bagley and Elinor L. Sullivan in Frontiers in Endocrinology. Published online July 21 2017 doi:10.3389/fendo.2017.00164
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