Love hurts, and that is not just a saying for the

broken hearted. Heartbreak is a very strange distress. It is exquisitely painful, and yet we cannot
find an injury on our body. New research finds
that when you reminisce about the one that got a
way, the brain
actually triggers sensations that you also feel in
times of "real" physical pain, making heartbreak
truly, physically painful to add to the emotional
distress
it
sometimes
causes.
Heartbreak is like one big emotional
pain but it also seems to spark off hundreds of
other emotions. We hate the feeling of heartbreak, and yet we find ourselves compelled to go
over and over memories, ideas or fantasies
which make the feeling worse. Edward E. Smith,
director of cognitiveneuroscience at Columbia
University
explains:
"This tells us how serious rejection can be
sometimes. When people are saying 'I really feel in
pain about this breakup,' you don't want to trivialize it and dismiss it by saying 'It's all in your mind.'
Our ultimate goal is to see what kind of therapeutic approach might be useful in relieving the pain
of rejection. From everyday experience, rejection
seems to be one of the most painful things we
experience. It seems the feelings of rejection can
be sustained even longer than being angry."
Forty people analyzed from New York City
and all of whom felt "intensely rejected," took
part in the study. While participants were told to
look at photos, including photos of their friends
(they were directed to think positive thoughts
about them), and photos of their exes (they were
directed to think about their breakup), their
brains were scanned for changes in activity. The
participants also underwent brain scans as they
felt pain on their forearms similar to the feeling
of holding a hot cup of coffee in comparison.
Several of the same areas of the brain became
active when the participants felt either physical
pain or emotional pain.

.
The research shows that rejection appears to
be in a class by itself in terms of its similarity to
physical pain. Future research could examine how
emotional pain due to rejection affects how people
feel
physical
pain.
Here are some tips that may help you get
over the pain:
Breathe. All you can do is survive this first and difficult day. Take one day at a time. Give yourself permission to mourn. Call in sick at work, sleep all day,
eat too much ice cream, sob.
Congratulate yourself for being human: It is
only when you open your self to love that your
heart can break. Develop and repeat a
helpful mantra to get you through the initial shock
and pain, such as
"This too shall pass" or "I will survive."
Reach out to a close friend or
family member. It helps to share
your thoughts with others. Watch
a movie to distract yourself.
Choose a comedy that has cheered you
up in the past. Or watch a movie that's
guaranteed to make you sob--it may
surprise you how good that feels.
Surround yourself with friends. This may mean
reaching out to people you fell out of touch with
during the relationship. Make lists to help you regain
your confidence and identity: a list of your friends, of
things you like, of what you want to accomplish in
the next decade. Spoil yourself: Get a new hairstyle,
have a spa day or go shopping. Resist the urge to call
your ex.
Remember that healing is a process that takes
time. Expect waves of sadness, anger, guilt or fear
even after you think you are over it. Give your heart
time to heal.
Compartmentalize the experience in your
memory: "My heart was broken once. It really hurt
and I'm glad it's over."
As one popular quote goes, "Love is like falling
down... in the end you're left hurt, scarred, and with
a memory of it forever."

Biology gives
you a brain.
Life turns it
into a mind.
Jeffrey Eugenides

Whats inside:

Take power naps to boost

your creativity p.2

The Brain: a Secret

History p.3

Human
big

brains

are

The average adult brain

weighs just under 3 pounds
(between 1.3 and 1.4 kilograms). Some neurosurgeons
describe the texture of a living brain as that of toothpaste,
but according to neurosurgeon Katrina Firlik, a better
analogy can be found in the
local health-food store.

...But they're getting

smaller
Don't get too cocky about your
soda-bottle-sized brain. Humans 5,000 years ago had
brains that were even larger.Researchers don't know
why brains might be shrinking,
but some theorize that they're
evolving to be more efficient.
Others think our skulls are
getting smaller because our
diets include more easily
chewable foods and so large,
strong jaws are no longer required.Whatever
the
reason, brain size doesn't directly
correlate with intellect, so
there's no evidence that ancient man was brainier than

Wrinkles
smart

make

us

What's the secret to our species' smarts? The answer may

be wrinkles. The surface of the
human brain is convoluted by
deep fissures, smaller grooves
called sulci, and ridges called
gyri. This surface is called the
cerebral cortex and is home to

about 100 billion neurons, or

nerve cells.
The folded, meandering surface
allows the brain to pack in more
surface area and thus, more
processing power into the
limited confines of the skull.
Our primate relativesshow varying degrees of convolution in
their brains, as do other intelligent creatures like elephants. In
fact, research done by Emory
University neuroscientist Lori
Marino has found that dolphins
have even more pronounced
brain wrinkles than humans.
Others:
How much does human
brain think? 70,000 is the number of thoughts that it is estimated the human brain produces
on an average day.
More electrical impulses are
generated in one day by a single human brain than by all the
telephones in the world.Results
from cognitive tests show 30%
of 80-year-olds perform as well
as young adults.
After age 30, the brain
shrinks a quarter of a percent
(0.25%) in mass each year.
The energy used by the
brain is enough to light a 25
watt bulb.

Take power
naps to boost
your creativity
A new study has shed light on
the neurological underpinnings
of the "power nap," a short nap
during the middle of the day
that refreshes the mind and
often helps illuminate the solution
to
thorny
problems.
The study was conducted by
researchers from the Center for
Functional and Molecular Imaging at Georgetown University,
and its findings were presented
at the Neuroscience 2012 conference in New Orleans. The
researchers monitored the brain activity of 15
napping adults using a

Napping at work. It is believe that short time nap can

improve performance

technique called near-infrared

spectroscopy.
This entailed placing electrode-like optical fibers known
as "optodes" on the participants' scalps. The optodes
fired infrared radiation through
each patient's scalp and skull
and into the brain, then measured how much of that radiation
bounced
back.
This allowed the researchers
to compare the amount of
blood flow to the various regions of the brain, which in
turn provided them with an
estimate of relative brain activity
in
each
area.
The researchers found that
during naps, the brain's right
hemisphere was incredibly
active and was also transmitting information regularly to the
left hemisphere. The left hemisphere, in contrast, was fairly
inactive.
"The right side of the brain was
better integrated," researcher
Andrei Medvedev said.
The power of napping...
These findings came as a surprise because in general, the
brain's left hemisphere tends
to be more active than the
right hemisphere in people
who are right-handed. Fully 95
percent of the general population (as well as 13 out of 15
study participants) are righthanded.
"Emerging scientific evidence
suggests that naps -- even very
short ones -- significantly enhance cognitive function," said
Jonathan Friedman, director of
the Texas Brain and Spine Institute. "Increasing understanding
of how sleep improves brain
function may someday allow us

.to harness this effect, and the

current study may open one of
many doors in this regard."
The new findings suggest
that perhaps naps help the
brain to solve problems by enhancing
creative
thinking.
Medvedev suggests that nap
time might be an important opportunity for the brain's right
hemisphere to engage in certain key "housecleaning" tasks,
such as memory consolidation.
This hypothesis is consistent with the most recent
theories of sleep, according to
neurologist Suresh Kotagal of
the Mayo Clinic, who was not
involved
in
the
study.
"We are exposed to certain
pieces of information, but if we
get to sleep on it, the sleep
seems to facilitate the transfer
of information from the shortterm memory bank into the
more
permanent
memory
bank,"
Kotagal
said.
Prior studies have shown
more directly that naps improve
memory function, at least in part
because they free up space in
the short-term memory by processing and "clearing out" the
events of the day. It seems that
the brain can only process so
many experiences at once without a break for sleep. Naps may
also help reduce blood pressure.
Emerging research on the
power of naps supports new
ideas that are challenging the
old assumption that an unbroken eight-hour stretch of
nighttime sleep is the healthiest
human pattern. Instead, many
scientists are now suggesting
that the most natural human
pattern involves a shorter sleep
at night combined with a midday nap.
(Yvett
Cleofe)

Understanding Memory
Memories are created, stored and recalled by
the brain but beyond that, our understanding of human
memory is a not terribly clear. We do know that certain
structures in the brain are critical for forming new memories. The hippocampus, for example, is essential to the
formation of new memories and for placing memories
into long term storage. Humans have a one hippocampus each side of the brain, roughly half way between the
temple and the ear. Only one hippocampus needs to be
functional for human memory. If both are damaged, say
through surgery or stroke, the person can no longer
from new memories lasting longer than a few minutes.
The structures that participate in memory formation beyond the hippocampus are less well understood. Apparently human memories are not simply
stored in discrete regions of the brain such that a small
stroke could wipe out second grade. Rather the anatomical organization of much more complex than that. While
the hippocampus is critical for creating human memory,
once a memory is created its storage location can only
be inferred.
Brain teasers can and do help keep the mind
stay sharp. Like the muscles in your body, your mind
strengthens with daily stimulation and can atrophy if neglected and not used. This is why it is important to use
the mind and continually challenge it. Being involved in
leisure activities that help stimulate your brain can help
you live a longer and happier life. Studies have shown
that time spent stimulating the brain can help prevent
dementia and Alzheimer's disease.(Jenie Lyn Acabal)

The Brain: a Secret History - presenter Michael Mosely

with a preserved brain

PPUKM succeeds in performing

brain surgery while patient is awake
KUALA LUMPUR : A team of neurosurgeons from Universiti
Kebangsaan Malaysia Medical Centre (UKMMC) created a
new success story when they performed a brain surgery while
the patient is wide awake.
UKMMC in a statement here today said, what more
amazing was the fact that the patient had fully recovered and
currently in a very healthy condition.
The unique neurosurgical procedure, dubbed 'Awake Craniotomy', was performed last Feb 8 and was led by neurosurgeon
Assoc Prof Dr Ramesh Kumar.
He was assisted by three other neurosurgeons, Dr Toh
Charng Jeng, Dr Sanmugarajah Paramasvaran and Dr Ainul
Jaafar, as well as anesthetist Dr Esa Kamuruzzaman.
The procedure was done to remove tumors located
in or around the eloquent areas, namely the motor, sensory or
speech controlling areas of the brain, while causing minimum
or no injury to the surrounding normal brain tissues.

The Brain: a Secret

History
Michael Mosely's
new BBC Four series explores the controversial
history of researching the
mind. Here are five of the
most ethically dubious
brain experiments, as
featured on the show.
Presenter Dr Michael Mosley makes disturbing revelations about
how far scientists were
prepared to go with their
theories and experiments
in his new BBC series.
Experiments on
the human mind have led
to profound insights into
how our brain works - but
have also involved great
cruelty and posed some
terrible ethical dilemmas.
Mosely
meets
survivors - both participants and scientists - of
some of the key historical
experiments, many of
which were captured on
film.

Federal cuts could

cause brain drain
BOSTON (AP) -- University
officials say they're worried
research funding cuts could
lead young scientists away from
discovery.
Brain drain is a growing
concern among schools across
the country that are waiting to
see how automatic federal
budget cuts affect research
budgets.
Some fret that students will be
discouraged by funding challenges and pursue careers
abroad or switch fields.
Scott Zeger of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore
says scientists already sacrifice
lab time to seek grants, and
budget cuts only make that
trend more dramatic.
At Washington University
School of Medicine in St. Louis,
two genetic researchers recently decided to relocate their labs
to the United Kingdom amid a
climate of funding losses.
But Paul Lahti, a University of
Massachusetts-Amherst chemistry professor, says it's the job
of senior faculty to keep students encouraged because
they're the future of science.

Snapshots explore Einsteins

unusual brain
Albert Einstein is considered
to be one of the most intelligent people that ever lived,

so researchers are naturally

curious about what made his
brain tick.
Photographs taken shortly
after his death, but never before analysed in detail, have
now revealed that Einsteins
brain had several unusual
features, providing tantalizing
clues about the neural basis
of his extraordinary mental

abilities.While doing Einstein's

autopsy,
the
pathologist Thomas Harvey
removed the physicist's brain
and preserved it in formalin.
He then took dozens of black
and white photographs of it
before it was cut up into 240
blocks. He then took
tissue samples from
each block, mounted
them onto microscope
slides and distributed
the slides to some of
the worlds best neuropathologists.
The autopsy revealed
that Einsteins brain
was smaller than average and subsequent analyses
showed all the changes that
normally occur with ageing.
Nothing more was analysed,
however. Harvey stored the
brain fragments in a formalinfilled jar in a cider box kept
under a beer cooler in his office. Decades later, several
researchers asked Harvey for
some samples, and noticed
some unusual

BSCHEMISTRY 1-2 Printing

News Writer : Jenie Lyn Acabal
Editor: Yvett Cleofe
Lay-out Artist: Xena de Tomas
Dr. Lourdes Valerio Alvarez
Adviser
Address: Sta. Mesa Manila
E-mail: asapfacts@yahoo.com
Telephone: 654-6092
We give you science on hand
features
when
analysing
them.
A study done in 1985
showed that two parts of his
brain contained an unusually
large number of non-neuronal
cells called glia for every neuron. And one published more
than a decade later showed

that the parietal lobe lacks a

furrow and a structure called
the operculum. The missing
furrow may have enhanced the
connections in this region,
which is thought to be involved
in visuo-spatial functions and
mathematical skills such as
arithmetic.

To test your mental acuity, answer the following questions (no peeking at the answers!):
1. Johnnys mother had three children. The first child was named
April. The second child was named May. What was the third childs name?
2. A clerk at a butcher shop stands five feet ten inches tall and wears size 13 sneakers. What does he weigh?
3. Before Mt. Everest was discovered, what was the highest mountain in the world?
4. How much dirt is there in a hole that measures two feet by three feet by four feet?
5. What word in the English language is always spelled incorrectly?
6. Billie was born on December 28th, yet her birthday always falls in the summer. How is this possible?
7. In British Columbia you cannot take a picture of a man with a wooden leg. Why not?
8. If you were running a race and you passed the person in 2nd place, what place would you be in now?
9. Which is correct to say, The yolk of the egg is white or The yolk of the egg are white?
10. A farmer has five haystacks in one field and four haystacks in another. How many haystacks would he have if he
combined them all in one field? haystacks in another. How many haystacks would he have if he combined them all
Answers
1. Johnny.
2. Meat.
3. Mt. Everest. It just wasnt discovered yet.
4. There is no dirt in a hole.
5. Incorrectly (except when it is spelled incorrectly).
6. Billie lives in the southern hemisphere.

7. You cant take a picture with a wooden leg. You need a

camera (or iPad or cell phone) to take a picture.
8. You would be in 2nd place. You passed the person in second place, not first.
9. Neither. Egg yolks are yellow.
10. One. If he combines all his haystacks, they all become one
big stack.