That intensity — Rabil refers to himself as “cutthroat determined” — has informed his approach to lacrosse and is guiding his new effort to help young people with learning differences thrive through athletics, and to raise public awareness about the need for early diagnosis and intervention.

“I want kids with learning differences to know that they can do great things,” said Rabil, who lives in Baltimore. “It may sound like a cliche, but I don’t look at my condition as a disability, but as something that made me work hard to get where I wanted to go.”

Learning disabilities are caused by differences in brain structure. Estimates vary on the percentage of Americans with a disability; government agencies cite 10 to 15 percent. The most common disability is dyslexia, an inherited disorder in which the brain does not properly recognize and process symbols, making it difficult to read and write. Those with auditory processing disorder can hear, but their brains do not properly process some sounds.

These disorders have nothing to do with a child’s vision or intelligence. there is no cure, but there are successful treatments. Katherine Schantz, principal of the private Lab School in Northwest Washington, one of the nation’s premier schools for children with learning disabilities, said that modern brain research can show how a brain has changed after specific interventions, helping target them to individuals.

Rabil, whose new foundation is starting a lacrosse program at the Lab School, knows he is one of the lucky ones. his sister, who attended Lab, has dyslexia, and his brother has auditory processing disorder. he received his diagnosis when he was young enough to avail himself of tutors, note-takers and other accommodations as he went through school, graduating from private DeMatha Catholic High School in Hyattsville. An invaluable tool that helped him at Hopkins, he said, was the Kurzwell 3000, a program that scans a document, displays it and reads it aloud while highlighting the image of the print as it is being read.

Because the key to helping people learn to live and thrive with dyslexia is early detection and intervention — along with strong family support — Rabil plans to advocate with lawmakers in Maryland for universal dyslexia screening among school children. he is starting a lacrosse program at Lab and plans to raise funds for an annual scholarship there.

Philip Schultz wasn’t as lucky as Rabil. Schultz, of New York, did not learn he had dyslexia until he was in his 50s and his son, then in second grade, received a diagnosis.

As he heard the doctor describe his son’s symptoms, it sounded like his own life story. he remembers being put with other kids who had trouble learning at “the dummy table.” Held back twice and kicked out once for fighting with bullies, Schultz says he was “a big disappointment” to his parents.

But he persevered, becoming a writer who won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize in poetry. He’s authored eight books, the latest a memoir called “My Dyslexia.” his work ethic echoes Rabil’s: he writes slowly, and rewrites over and over and over.

Rabil and Schultz visited the Lab School last week as two of five honorees at the annual gala. Schultz, founder and director of the Writers Studio, a private school for fiction and poetry writing based in New York City, was most struck by the environment at the Lab School, where every student can understand what the rest are going through.

“I wonder what that would have been like, to have that kind of support, and what a difference it would have made,” he said.

TB patients had very pale skin, red rimmed eyes, and coughed up blood.

mostly it was 2 things, sleep paralysis on sudden waking and the observation of continued hair and nail growth after death.
Sleep paralysis is when one wakes suddenly and the brain chemistry has not switched from sleep to waking and the persons body is still paralyzed by REM sleep, this was often accompanied by the feeling of something or someone pushing, lying or sitting on the chest, it is often called "the old Hag", the vampire idea came from folks brains trying frantically to "make sense" of the situation so often bizarre perceptions and dream fragments were confabulated to become an Incubus or Succubus.
The hair and nail growth is true, metabolism does not stop abruptly at death, so there is hair and nail growth for up to 2 weeks.

No,it started with Vlad the Impaler in Romania for what he did to his enemies in battle.his army put them on stakes and you could watch them slide down on them.Tons of blood were shed from his battles back in the 1400's.he built a castle so large that it was impossible to distroy.one woman 150 years before Bram Stoker wrote his novel,a woman who's name I can't remember her name,took her ideas from Vlad,and came out with,Varnnie the Vampire in your weekly Penny dreadful news paper.and then came Bram.

I think also misunderstood conditions(at the time) such as Albinism and Haemophilia added weight to such stories

I am tired all the time. I can sleep at anytime for as long as you will let me. I am even tired when I have had 10 hours of sleep! I heard about chronic fatigue syndrome but I dont know if thats what it is.
I am a 24 year old female without children.

Im actually a suffer awaiting treatment. Its a lot more serious than you think. if you really had it and needed treatment you would probably not be online seeking medical advice.

Check this out, I found this tidbit while studying a specific part of the brain anatomy:

"Lesions in the reticular formation have been found in the brains of people who have post-polio syndrome, and some imaging studies have shown abnormal activity in the area in people with chronic fatigue syndrome, indicating a high likelihood that damage to the reticular formation is responsible for the fatigue experienced with these syndromes."

I found this on wikipedia in an article about the reticular formation which is a major area of concern in people with depression, CFS, etc.

I had a severe concussion 3 years ago in college and never quite recovered and I started to have many many problems, serious ones. I've felt extremely stigmatized because CFS is so poorly understood and is considered a very debilitating disease. Some people are misdiagnosed and some really do have it. I've been to the best hospitals in the East Coast, many many specialists, and its still been quite tough getting answers.

If you needed treatment you would probably have major trouble sleeping, mental confusion, major anxiety and depression, muscle twitching, etc. Theres a laundry list of symptoms, some I don't even want to think about. Your social life would be not existant. You would not be smiling, scared maybe.

Anyways, if indeed you did do some damage to that particular part of the brain causing the extreme fatigue, anti-depressants should help greatly. SSRI's (prozac, zoloft) may not be enough though. there are two causes for depression/CFS, if SSRI's don't wont than a MAOI should do it.

I would suggest looking into Depression, Serotonin, Reticular Formation, and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome on Wikipedia (a credible source). this is three years of research summed into one response. but, like I said if you really suffered from CFS, you would probably be very very ill physically and mentally.

Dr. Xiang Gao, a Harvard Medical School research scientist, released data this week suggesting that the use of ibuprofen may be associated with a decreased risk of Parkinson's disease. The data were highlighted in the current issue of Neurology.

What is Parkinson's disease?

Parkinson's disease is a progressive neurological disorder which affects the motor functions of the body. according to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, there are four primary symptoms, and these include:

* Tremor of the hands, face, jaw, arms or legs

* Rigid or stiff extremities and torso

* slow movements (also called bradykinesia)

* Lack of balance and coordination of movements

What are the risk factors for Parkinson's disease?

Parkinson's disease affects persons over the age of 50 in most instances, and the risk increases the older one is. Men develop the disease more often than women, and the risk increases for those with close relatives who have Parkinson's disease. The Mayo Clinic reports that those who work continually with pesticides and herbicides are also more prone to this disease.

What causes Parkinson's disease?

According to the Parkinson's Disease Foundation, close to a million people in the United States have Parkinson's disease. although the cause is unknown, research has uncovered changes in the brains of those with the disease. When a specific group of dopamine-producing brain cells die, the symptoms of Parkinson's disease occur. Dopamine is the neurotransmitter which sends messages to the areas of the brain which control movement and coordination. With less dopamine, the speed of the messages is much slower, causing the symptoms described above.

Another change in the brain is damage to the sympathetic nerve endings that release the chemical messenger, norepinephrine, which affects blood pressure. When examined during autopsy, these brains also show the presence of unusual clumps of protein called Lewy bodies, and their function is unclear.

What medications are available for Parkinson's disease?

Physicians prescribe medications to those diagnosed with Parkinson's disease to help alleviate the symptoms, as none of the medications cure Parkinson's disease. There are various classes of drugs used, and these include Carbidopa/Levodopa therapy, Dopamine Agonists, Anticholinergics, MAO-B Inhibitors, and COMT Inhibitors.

Although it was discovered 40 years ago, levodopa remains the most effective medication for Parkinson's disease, with 70 percent to 80 percent of patients taking this medication. Physicians prescribe it in combination with another drug, carbidopa, and the resultant medication is called Sinemet. Levodopa actually is a naturally occurring substance in the body and once it enters the brain can convert into dopamine by an enzyme. it is combined with carbidopa, to prevent the levodopa from converting too soon to dopamine, prior to entering the brain.

Margie Miklas is a critical-care nurse with more than 30 years experience. She currently works in south Florida in a cardiovascular ICU with a specialty certification in cardiac surgery.

THURSDAY, Feb. 17 (HealthDay News) — People with multiple sclerosis may have more problems remembering, learning and processing information in warm weather than in cooler months, a small study suggests.

Researchers at the Kessler Foundation in West Orange, N.J., found that patients with MS performed 70 percent better on tests involving thinking, or cognitive functioning, on cooler days than they did at warmer times of the year.

"These findings are important because in many cases, cognitive changes take a greater psychological toll on MS patients than changes in motor symptoms do," said the study's lead author, Victoria Leavitt, a neuropsychologist and post-doctoral fellow at the Kessler Foundation Research Center.

"People who have MS often leave the workforce before their motor symptoms emerge, and the reason they'll often give is fatigue," said Leavitt. "but it's possible that it may be related to these changes in cognition, which are requiring them to use their brains in a different way."

The findings, released Feb. 17, are scheduled to be presented in April at the American Academy of Neurology annual meeting in Honolulu.

For the study, 40 people with MS and 40 without the nervous system disease took the same cognitive tests at different times throughout the calendar year. The researchers recorded the temperature on each day that the patients were tested. while the MS patients performed better on these tests on cooler days, there was no difference in the test results of the healthy controls.

The reason why temperature changes might affect MS patients' thinking isn't known, but Leavitt said one possible explanation is that the underlying mechanisms that regulate the body's reaction to heat may work less effectively in people with MS.

Leavitt said her work was a direct result of a 2010 study by scientists at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, which showed that brain lesion activity in MS patients was two to three times higher during the months of March through August, compared with other times of the year. That paper was published last August in the journal Neurology.

Another MS researcher called Leavitt's study "an important follow-up" to the paper by Brigham and Women's researchers.

"It's a fairly recognized phenomenon that MS patients complain of increased symptoms in the summer months, but this is the first time that someone has really looked at cognitive functioning related to temperature," said Dr. Jonathan L. Carter, associate professor of neurology at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine in Scottsdale, Ariz.

The next steps, said Carter, "may be to find out if these changes are related to new disease activity or just worsening deficits related to the existing lesions, and also look at whether existing drug therapies might help with this temperature-related cognitive impairment."

"one really important bottom-line implication of our findings is for researchers who are performing drug trials," Leavitt added. "they need to consider this temperature effect when they're doing baseline cognitive testing. The results could be very different if you take your baseline in June versus December," she said.

Depending on the results of future research, it's also conceivable that the findings could influence life decisions made by people with MS, the researchers say.

Experts note that research presented at meetings has not been subjected to the same type of rigorous scrutiny given to research published in peer-reviewed medical journals.

More information

For more about multiple sclerosis, visit the American Academy of Family Physicians.

Gradual hearing loss is a common symptom of aging, but in some people it may also be an early sign of Alzheimer’s disease. STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• in some people, gradual hearing loss may also be an early sign of types of dementia
• "we listen with our ears but hear with our brains," a source says
• 30 million Americans have impaired hearing; dementia predicted for 1 in 30 by 2050

(Health.com) — Gradual hearing loss is a common symptom of aging, but in some people it may also be an early sign of Alzheimer’s disease or other types of dementia, a new study suggests.

The risk of dementia appears to rise as hearing declines. Older people with mild hearing impairment — those who have difficulty following a conversation in a crowded restaurant, say — were nearly twice as likely as those with normal hearing to develop dementia, the study found. Severe hearing loss nearly quintupled the risk of dementia.

Health.com: 25 signs and symptoms of Alzheimer’s Disease

It’s unclear why the loss of hearing and mental function might go hand in hand. Brain abnormalities may contribute independently to both conditions, but it’s also possible that hearing problems can help bring on dementia, the researchers say. Hearing loss may lead to social isolation (which itself has been linked to dementia), for instance, or it may interfere with the brain’s division of labor.

"The brain might have to reallocate resources to help with hearing at the expense of cognition," says the lead researcher, Frank R. Lin, M.D., an ear surgeon at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. That may explain in part why straining to hear conversations over background noise in a loud restaurant can be mentally exhausting for anyone, hard of hearing or not, he adds.

2010: Mental stimulation and dementia 2010: Vitamin D and dementia

The findings suggest that poor hearing is a "harbinger of impending dementia," says George Gates, M.D., a hearing expert at the University of Washington in Seattle, who was not involved in the new study but whose own research has demonstrated a link between the two conditions.

"we listen with our ears but hear with our brains," Gates says. "it is simply not possible to separate audition and cognition."

Health.com: 9 foods that may help save your memory

In the study, which appears in the Archives of Neurology, Lin and his colleagues followed more than 600 dementia-free adults between the ages of 36 and 90 for an average of 12 years. A little less than 30 percent of the study participants had some hearing loss at the start of the study.

Overall, 9 percent of the participants went on to develop Alzheimer’s disease or another form of dementia. Mild, moderate, and severe hearing loss were associated with a two-fold, three-fold, and five-fold higher risk of later dementia, respectively, in comparison to normal hearing.

People with moderate hearing loss generally struggle to communicate even in quiet settings, and those with severe hearing loss are near deaf.

Lin says that hearing loss has an enormous impact on the lives of his patients and their family members. "Yet because it is such a slow and insidious process, it is often left ignored and untreated."

Whether hearing aids or other treatments (such as cochlear implants) can help stave off dementia is the "50 billion dollar question," Lin adds. thirty million Americans currently have impaired hearing and 1 in 30 are predicted to suffer from dementia by 2050, so if those treatments prove to be helpful, their impact would be felt widely.

Health.com: Aging workforce means dementia on the job could rise

There is no cure for dementia, and there are no surefire ways of preventing it. Gates isn’t optimistic that restoring hearing can affect the course of dementia. However, if treatments and prevention strategies for dementia do become available in the future, he says, hearing loss could play an important role in early detection.

Lin and his colleagues have begun researching the effect of hearing aids on the risk of dementia. "whether or not it can help dementia, we don’t know yet," he says. "But in the meantime, there’s no reason not to take your hearing loss seriously and pursue some type of treatment."

Copyright Health Magazine 2010

By Madonna BehenHealthDay Reporter Latest Neurology News

THURSDAY, Feb. 17 (HealthDay News) — People with multiple sclerosis may have more problems remembering, learning and processing information in warm weather than in cooler months, a small study suggests.

Researchers at the Kessler Foundation in West Orange, N.J., found that patients with MS performed 70 percent better on tests involving thinking, or cognitive functioning, on cooler days than they did at warmer times of the year.

“These findings are important because in many cases, cognitive changes take a greater psychological toll on MS patients than changes in motor symptoms do,” said the study’s lead author, Victoria Leavitt, a neuropsychologist and post-doctoral fellow at the Kessler Foundation Research Center.

“People who have MS often leave the workforce before their motor symptoms emerge, and the reason they’ll often give is fatigue,” said Leavitt. “But it’s possible that it may be related to these changes in cognition, which are requiring them to use their brains in a different way.”

The findings, released Feb. 17, are scheduled to be presented in April at the American Academy of Neurology annual meeting in Honolulu.

For the study, 40 people with MS and 40 without the nervous system disease took the same cognitive tests at different times throughout the calendar year. the researchers recorded the temperature on each day that the patients were tested. while the MS patients performed better on these tests on cooler days, there was no difference in the test results of the healthy controls.

The reason why temperature changes might affect MS patients’ thinking isn’t known, but Leavitt said one possible explanation is that the underlying mechanisms that regulate the body’s reaction to heat may work less effectively in people with MS.

Leavitt said her work was a direct result of a 2010 study by scientists at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, which showed that brain lesion activity in MS patients was two to three times higher during the months of March through August, compared with other times of the year. that paper was published last August in the journal Neurology.

Another MS researcher called Leavitt’s study “an important follow-up” to the paper by Brigham and Women’s researchers.

“It’s a fairly recognized phenomenon that MS patients complain of increased symptoms in the summer months, but this is the first time that someone has really looked at cognitive functioning related to temperature,” said Dr. Jonathan L. Carter, associate professor of neurology at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine in Scottsdale, Ariz.

The next steps, said Carter, “may be to find out if these changes are related to new disease activity or just worsening deficits related to the existing lesions, and also look at whether existing drug therapies might help with this temperature-related cognitive impairment.”

“One really important bottom-line implication of our findings is for researchers who are performing drug trials,” Leavitt added. “They need to consider this temperature effect when they’re doing baseline cognitive testing. the results could be very different if you take your baseline in June versus December,” she said.

Depending on the results of future research, it’s also conceivable that the findings could influence life decisions made by people with MS, the researchers say.

Experts note that research presented at meetings has not been subjected to the same type of rigorous scrutiny given to research published in peer-reviewed medical journals.

Copyright © 2011 HealthDay. all rights reserved.

SOURCES: Victoria Leavitt, Ph.D., post-doctoral fellow, Neuropsychology and Neuroscience Laboratory, Kessler Foundation Research Center, West Orange, N.J.; Jonathan L. Carter, M.D., associate professor, neurology, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, Scottsdale, Ariz.; American Academy of Neurology, news release, Feb. 17, 2011

Modern medicine has not been able to find an actual cause for migraine headaches.. For many years it was believed that migraines were vascular or blood vessel dilation headaches. the theory was that blood vessels were suddenly dilated around the head causing severe pain. Currently, it is believed that migraines result from some type of disturbance in the central nervous system. This disturbance causes a series of chemical changes in the brain, which results in dilation of blood vessels, pain and other symptoms. since migraine involves much more than pain, the other symptoms seem to be directly related to the brain. Studies have shown that the brains of people who suffer from migraines are more excitable and behave differently than the brains of those who don’t have migraines the visual and sound receptors of the brain appear to be much more excitable in migraine patients. it is felt that inflammation of the covering of the brain or blood vessels is the cause of the throbbing pain. the nerve endings in migraine sufferers have been shown to release inflammatory proteins around the blood vessels and covering of the brain, thus causing pain.

A study by a German researcher named Dr. Hans-Christop Diener of migraines in men took place in 1995. they used a PET scanner to determine what was happening in the brain during their headaches. the PET scans showed an area in the lower part of the brain (the brainstem) where the nerve cells were activated at the start of a migraine, stayed activated throughout the headache, and shut off at the end of the headache. Dr. Diener developed the term “migraine generator” for this area because he believed it to be the part of the brain where the migraine begins. the migraine generator connects to nerve fibers leading to the covering of the brain known as the meninges. these fibers connect to other fibers that surround and stimulate the blood vessels of the meniges ( lining around the brain). This results in dilation of the vessels and the nerves release inflammatory chemicals around the vessels. the dilation combined with the inflammatory chemicals result in the pain of migraine. the system that connects the migraine generator, the blood vessels of the meninges, and the nerves is called the Trigeminovascular system. the Trigeminal nerve is the cranial nerve that plays a major role in this system. it has been shown that stimulating this nerve can help relax the muscles that cause the actual pressure and tension of the headache.

Migraine headaches are probably the most well known type of severe headache. they can occur at any age, but are generally more common in women than in men. Women usually experience migraine between age 40 and 45 whereas men start at a younger age of 30 to 40. there are a variety of different types of migraines. the International Headache society recognizes two major categories of migraine: migraine with aura, which are those that include some type of visual disturbance (previously known as “Classic” migraine and migraine without aura (previously known as “common” migraine.)

Migraine without Aura-As mentioned, this was previously known as a “common” migraine. these headaches usually last from 4 hours to 3 days. Symptoms usually include some or all of the following: unilateral headache, pulsating pain, moderate to severe pain that interferes with the person’s ability to function normally, the pain is made worse by any type of physical activity, there is usually nausea and/or vomiting, and the patient will often have light and/or sound sensitivity. Sinus problems and congestion are common complaints with many migraine sufferers. Yet, when examined, there is usually not any sign of an inflammatory problem or infection in the sinus. Many sufferers also complain of upper back and neck stiffness.

Migraine with Aura is the name given to what was previously known as Classic migraine.. This is applied to a migraine where a physical warning sign of some type occurs before the headache. the aura is usually visual and occurs 5 to 20 minutes before the actual headache, and can last up to 60 minutes.some times the aura will last thru the entire headache. the most common aura symptoms range from visual floaters to moving figures, blind spots, distorted objects and even hallucinations. We know from electrical activity studies that migraine aura is caused by an increase in electrical activity that moves across the brain’s surface, which is followed by a loss of electrical activity. During this period there is increased blood flow followed by decreased blood flow, which is not the result of vessel Contraction. This results in the visual aura. Migraine treatment has to address this electrical activity change.

There is another type of migraine with Aura known as Basilar migraine. with this type of headache, the aura before the head ache may include double vision, temporary blindness, vertigo, ringing in the ears, and even fainting. Although the symptoms are extremely scary to the individual, it is not worse than a regular migraine. This type of migraine is seen most often in teenage girls. though it can occur at any age.

Filed under: Health N Beauty

If you’ve been wondering if your child might have dyslexia, you might have turned to the web to look for a list of dyslexia symptoms. Not long into your search, you begin to feel confused: every website lists a different set of dyslexia symptoms. Why can’t the collective “they” on the worldwide web get their act together? Why does the list of symptoms differ from one site to the next?

The fact is that dyslexia cannot be defined according to a set list of symptoms, since every case is unique. some cases may be so mild there are almost no discernible symptoms while other cases are so severe that the manifestations of the condition are devastating. In addition to the level of severity of the condition, dyslexia is often accompanied by other learning difficulties such as ADD or ADHD.

Brain Differences

It is also important to consider the fact that dyslexia is caused by a physiological impairment of the brain. there are actual physical differences in the brains of dyslexics which can be seen in imaging studies. these deficits are not “standardized.” Dyslexia, in this light, is almost a catch-all term encompassing many difficulties and levels of difficulties, according to the individual.

MRI scans of dyslexic brain vs. non-dyslexic brain

Functional Brain Mapping

Still, early diagnosis is crucial for a number of reasons. for one thing, it is important to make a child’s educator aware that the child has an actual deficit. This is important even from a psychological standpoint: children with dyslexia should be met with understanding and a helpful attitude by their educators. without a firm diagnosis, it’s possible an educator might adopt the attitude that your child “just isn’t trying hard enough.” Such an attitude may have an adverse effect on your child’s self-esteem, compounding his problems even further.
Youth Factor

Also, youth is an important factor in ameliorating reading difficulties and other issues relating to literacy skills and math. the earlier we discover the nature of the problem, the sooner we can get the child the help he needs to cope and improve. the brain is capable of making changes throughout the entire lifespan, but certain types of brain changes—specific characteristics of neuroplasticity—are more available at a younger age.

Genetic Predisposition

Despite the impossibility of building a cut and dried list of dyslexia symptoms, a parent may notice some differences in his child that lead him to suspect dyslexia. if you think your child might have dyslexia, have him tested when he turns five. This is even more important for children who have dyslexia or ADD/ADHD in their families, since there may be a genetic factor predisposing a child to these learning difficulties.

This article has been copied with kind permission from cognibeat.com and can be found here

When I see the symptoms they create in zombie movies, are somewhat identical to the symptoms to rabies. If there were a world wide rabies virus among humans and animals, would that be considered a zombie apocalypse?

That all depends on what your definition of a zombie is. there is a definition that refers to a zombie as a mindless human being. Now, mind you this is physically impossible, but for amusement purposes lets say it is. there are many that can be referred to as "mindless" as far as some of the things that people do. Others always seem to get themselves into situations that are mindless to begin with. Now, give these mindless zombies rabies and now we run into another problem. Rabies effects the brain and causes inflammation resulting in encephalitis. since our zombies don't have minds or brains then I guess your apocalypse can't get to second chapter. Good try though. Good luck and God Bless

You would not be called a zombie if you had Rabies!! Why would you be called that? That would be scary, but it wouldn't be considered a Zombie Apocalypse, I don't think! I guess we just have to wait and see! xD